December 19, 1907 J 



N.-J TURE 



153 



line at one hundred thousand pounds. But does he not 

 sec that the welfare of England and her people depends 

 above all things on their personal character and qualities 

 twenty years hence, on the kind of men and women that 

 she is turning year by year into citizens and mothers? " 



Mr. Asquith we suspect knows more of these 

 matters than the writer in the Morning Post thinUs. 

 The Chancellor of the Exchequer, in speaking- at 

 the London Chamber of Commerce in November of 

 last year ' said : — 



" The strain of foreign competition presses upon us in 

 every walk of business and every market in the world, 

 and, whatever are the contributory causes of the pressure 

 which we all in a greater or less degree experience, there 

 is not a man acquainted with the facts who will not agree 

 ihat in the case, at any rate, of some of our most formid- 

 able competitors — for instance, Germany and the United 

 States — one of the great sources from which they have 

 derived exceptional strength in their commercial and in- 

 dustrial struggle with us has been the superior development 

 of their technical and educational system." 



But it may, after all, be that Mr. Asquith is 

 unacquainted with the methods adopted by the 

 German Government, to take one instance, to secure 

 this superior development. German universities are 

 considered by our statesmen as a quantite negligeahlc ; 

 all their attention is directed to the German ironclads. 

 This is not so in Germany, as witness the increased 

 endowment in fifteen years of some German universi- 

 ties taken at random : — 



State Funds. 



Berlin 



Bonn ... 

 Breslau ... 

 Gottingen 

 Greifswald 



Halle 



Kiel 



Kbnigsberg 



The same g-rowth of enthusiasm for higher educa- 

 tion which is characteristic of German statesmanship 

 is met with throughout the more densely populated 

 eastern United States. When a comparison is instituted 

 between the income of universities and colleges in the 

 .States in the vear iSqq-iqoo and the income in 1004-5 

 (the latest vear for which detailed official statistics 

 have been published), that is fifteen years later, an 

 enormous increase is found to have taken place. In 

 the earlier year the total income of these institutions 

 of higher instruction was 2,399,000/., while in 1904-5 

 the amount had grown to 7, no, 000/. But large 

 though these sums are, they take no account of the 

 generous benefactions of .American men of wealth 

 referred to later. From this source the universities 

 and colleges received in 1899-1900 2,399,000/., while 

 fifteen years later the amount given for the spread 

 and development of higher learning reached the mag- 

 nificent sum of 3,335,800/. Harvard University alone 

 received during the later year 466,000/., Yale bene- 

 fited to the extent of 279,000/., and Columbia was en- 

 riched by 236,000/. Figures such as these serve better 

 than anv words to exhibit the comparative insigni- 

 ficance of the 122,000/. which, as we shall show, repre- 

 sents the total State endowments of English universi- 

 ties. 



But British statesmen cannot be held responsible 

 for the unpopularity of universities and colleges as the 

 object in this country of the bequests and gifts of 

 wealthy men and women. In the following table, 

 therefore, benefactions are excluded, and the growth 

 in the income of the universities of five important 

 eastern States in America is given, as typical of the 



1 Nature, December 6, igo6 (vot Ixxv., p. 141). 



NO. 1990, VOL. yy] 



advance made in the eastern half of the United States 

 in the provision for higher instruction during the 

 fifteen years under consideration. 



Total Iiuoiuc, Exclticling Benefactions. 



1899-1900 19-4-1905 

 i £ 



Massachusetts ... 521,800 ... 614,000 



New York ... ... 705,700 ... 981,300 



Pennsylvania ... ... 390,100 ... 534,400 



Ohio ... ... ... 266,600 ... 387,000 



Illinois 388,800 ... 585,800 



The decision of Mr. .Asquith to reduce the grant 

 of Manchester University from 12,000/. to 10,000/. a 

 year, we presume, is based on the stern argument 

 that as little money as possible should be spent on 

 the higher education ; even although it is the true 

 source of national development; it is a question, not 

 of national, but of party politics. 



In the case of party politics, of course, economy 

 may be thrown to the winds. Mr. Haldane, when 

 he opened the new college at Reading,' told us : — ■ 

 " The present Government proposes to spend an extra 

 1,000,000/. a year on elementary instruction, and' 

 the late Ministry spent more than that sum addi- 

 tionally for the same purpose, hut these payments 

 arose out of coi7trover.<;ies which had little to do 



WITH EDUC.WION. " 



Dealing with the modest contribution of the British 

 Government to the universities and colleges of 

 England, the estimates show us that in 1903 the- 

 endowment of universities amounted to 14,800/., 

 which we find increased in 1907 to 22,000/. In 1903 

 the grant to English colleges stood at 26,000/. This. 

 has now been increased to 100,000/., we believe in 

 consequence of the strong representation made by 

 the British Association deputation in 1904. It is 

 seen that at present the total State endowinent of 

 the English universities — 22,000/4- 100,000/. = 122,000/. 

 — is some 40,000/. short of the German State endow- 

 ment of one university alone, that of Berlin. 



We are told that to provide the " superior development 

 of our technical and educational system," which even 

 Mr. .\squith acknowledges is necessary to meet " the 

 commercial and industrial struggle," we must trust 

 to private endowment. Cambridge has recently asked 

 for a private endowment to provide funds which the 

 university wants at once. At the rate at which this 

 private endowment has been coming in during the 

 last few years, ninety years will elapse before all 

 these funds are in hand. This is a fair sample 

 of what private endowment does for university educa- 

 tion in England, while the competing universities 

 and colleges of the United States last year received 

 nearly 5,000,000/. from this source,^ every penny of 

 which tended to reduce fees and extend the benefits of 

 university instruction to a greater number of students, 

 the peace army of a nation. 



In addition to this it is important to remember that 

 American experience all goes to show that the best 

 results are obtained when universities are chiefly de- 

 pendent on the State and not upon private generosity. 

 It has been pointed out recently in the LTnited States 

 (Naiure, vol. Ixxvii., p. 93) that as a result of the 

 gifts of millions of dollars from great American finan- 

 ciers, the universities are in danger of being reckoned 

 the purchased servants of a narrow caste. _ It is being 

 urged there, as we have urged here, that it is the duty 

 of "the State to provide higher education for the people ; 

 and there is every indication that .American authorities 

 may be trusted to maintain the efficiency of their uni- 

 versities and colleges. 



The increase in the efficiency of colleges and universi- 



• Nature, November i, 1906 (vol. Ixxv., p. jz). 

 2 /tiii., JaiTjary 3, 1907 (vol. Ixxv., p 137). 



