May 14, 1903] 



NATURE 



27 



From 1871-1890, the total amount of benefactions 

 for education of the l^ind with which this article is 

 concerned, was, the annual reports of the U.S. Bureau 

 of Education show, 16,285,000/., so that for the years 

 1871-1901, the grand total of forty millions sterling 

 was raised by private effort for American university 

 education. 



The question naturally presents itself : What has 

 been done by private effort in this country to assist 

 university education during the same period? Com- 

 pared with American munificence, the amounts given 

 and bequeathed here are very small. Take in the first 

 place the university colleges, which are largely to be 

 regarded as a growth of the years under consideration. 

 The financial statements contained in the " Reports 

 from Universitv Colleges, 1901," published by the 

 Board of Education, reveal the fact that, including the 

 400,000/. raised for the University of Birmingham, the 

 1m ncfactions to the fifteen university colleges in Great 

 Britain amounted during 1870-1900 to a little more 

 than three millions. In the absence of systematic re- 

 ports during the same period of the financial resources 

 of the older universities of the United Kingdom, it is 

 difficult to estimate the amount of benefactions received 

 by them during the same thirty years. The parlia- 

 mentary returns which have been published since 1898, 

 showing the revenue of Scottish universities, suggest 

 that their benefactions in the same time, excluding 



Table IV. — Classification of Colleges and Universities for Men 

 and for both Sexes, according to Amount of Endowment Fund. 



Mr. Carnegie's splendid gift, may be put at something 

 under half a million, so that for the whole of the United 

 Kingdom the total amount of endowment from private 

 sources raised in these years may, without any risk of 

 under-estimation, be said to be considerably less than 

 five millions. 



To give some idea of the result of the broad-minded 

 policy of the legislatures of the several States and of 

 the treatment which higher education has received at 

 the hands of American statesmen and men of wealth, 

 the following short summaries have been drawn up, 

 with the assistance of the Report of the Commissioner 

 of Education of the United States Bureau at Washing- 

 ton, published in 1901, for the year 1899-1900. The 

 first (Table iv.) shows the number of colleges having 

 endowments of certain specified amounts. The second 

 summary (Table v.) shows the total property of all 

 American university colleges, tabulated under the 

 headings of fellowships and scholarships ; values of 

 libraries, apparatus, grounds and buildings ; and of 

 their productive funds. The next (Table vi.) shows 

 the amounts of income of these colleges, and the last 

 (Table vii.) gives the total number of professors, in- 

 structors and students in colleges of university standing. 



It is interesting in this connection to compare the 

 number of students taking university courses in this 

 country with those in Germany and the United States. 

 With this object in view. Table viii. has been pre- 



Table vii. — Professors, Instructors and Students in 

 Universities and Colleges of United States. 



Total number of students in 

 universities and colleges ... 



61,800 



35,300 



NO. 1750, VOL. 68] 



1 Excluding duplicates. 



