NATURE 



[July io, 1913 



nearly 130,000/. a year in furtherance of a definite 

 end. Here it is the provision or supplementing 

 of pensions for the teachers of institutions of 

 university rank. The trustees' report is as inter- 

 esting- and informing- as ever. The glimpses one 

 g-ets into the heart of higher education in the 

 States offer some comfort to the Englishman who 

 is inclined to lament what he may call the 

 mediaevalism of our ancient universities. After all, 

 there is in the States the Brown University, the 

 governing body of which must contain a majority 

 of Baptists; the same denomination also controls 

 the destinies of the great University of Chicago, 

 the president and two thirds of the trustees of 

 which must conform. Neither of these institu- 

 tions can share in the benefits of the Carnegie 

 fund because of their religious restrictions, but, as 

 a result of the existence of that fund, Brown is 

 saving 1,000,000 dollars and Chicago 2,000,000 

 dollars, each for its own pension purposes. 



The report contains a survey of State and muni- 

 cipal schemes for teachers' pensions, which is par- 

 ticularly interesting to us at the present moment. 

 In many, if not in most, States, the "flat-rate" 

 system has been adopted. A pension of 400 dollars 

 after thirty to forty years' service is the normal 

 arrange/nent. New York is more liberal. It pro- 

 vides pensions equal to one-half the retiring salary 

 after thirty years' service. No pension is to be 

 less than 600 dollars, and none more than 1500 

 dollars. The upper and lower limits in Boston 

 are 600 and 312 dollars respectively, the basis of 

 calculation within those limits being one-third the 

 annual salary. Philadelphia gives from 400 to 

 800 dollars on the half-salary basis. Many cities 

 and States have, however, not yet made provision 

 of this kind for the staffs of their public schools, 

 but the movement is progressing, thanks to the 

 example of the Carnegie foundation. 



The influence of the foundation has been par- 

 ticularly beneficent in the vexed question of college 

 or university entrance requirements. "The 

 border-line between secondary school and college 

 resembles nothing so much as a species of border 

 warfare," but colleges are steadily changing their 

 standards of admission by requiring the completion 

 of a satisfactory four-year course instead of a cer- 

 tificate of having completed so many "units '" of 

 stud)' — a system not unlike that which encouraged 

 elementary-school teachers to pile up as many 

 South Kensington science certificates as possible, 

 in order to increase their chances of promotion. 



Nothing illustrates more effectively the good 

 which this annual survey of higher education in 

 the States is exerting than the chapters on "Ad- 

 vertising as a Factor in Education," "Education 

 and Politics," and "Sham Universities." Readers 

 of American journals know something of the first, 

 but probably they have not realised the full extent 

 of the evil. The examples pilloried in this 

 chapter come as a violent shock to our sense of 

 academic decorum. The trustees think the use of 

 pictorial and coloured circulars by universities and 

 colleges is distinctly limited, and they see objec- 

 tions to the practice of printing academic bio- 

 NO. 2280. VOL. 91I 



graphies of professors in the college prospectus, 

 but Reed College at Portland, Oregon, exceeds 

 all bounds by including in these biographies 

 "editorships of college annuals, class votes on 

 popularity, degrees that are expected, academic 

 biographies of professors' wives, the number of 

 their children, and finally portraits " of the staff. 

 Even this gross breach of academic decency is 

 beaten by McMinnville College, which advertises 

 a " hand-picked " faculty producing " a product 

 second to none in America." But Muskingham 

 College, Ohio, bears the palm in this type of vul- 

 garity. Its alumni include "the most beloved 

 Bible' teacher in America." It represents itself 

 as at the geographical centre of the Church 

 (Presbyterian), and prints "a rude cartoon of an 

 old shoe filled and overflowing with riotous 

 students, while a figure in academic costume 

 chases others away with a bundle of sticks." 

 Below the cartoon are verses of which this is a 

 specimen : — 

 There is a college president, like the woman in the 



shoe, 

 Who has so many children that he doesn't know what 



to do. 

 He tries to treat them fairly, and give them each 



some room, 

 But the college grows so grandly, like a town site 



on the boom, 

 That unless her friends soon rally and provide another 



shoe, 

 He must sav to all new-comers: "Get out of here! 



Skiddoo"! " 



Abuses of this kind obviously do much to dis- 

 credit all that is really good in the higher educa- 

 tion of the States. 



The Educational Bureau at Washington is also 

 waking up to some well-known evils. The Com- 

 missioner has been looking into the question of 

 universities and colleges which confer degrees. 

 He finds only fifty-nine the degrees of which are 

 wholly satisfactory, and 161 where they are ap- 

 proximately so, but the report under review tells 

 us that these are less than a fourth of the institu- 

 tions in the country which call themselves univer- 

 sities and colleges, all of which grant degrees. 



The trustees of this foundation deserve the 

 thanks of the American community for the 

 courageous way in which they are discharging 

 their great trust. J. A. Gref^:. 



NOTES. 

 As announced already, the dedication of a window 

 in memory of Lord Kelvin will take place in West- 

 minster Abbey on Tuesday, July 15, at 3 p.m. The 

 window, which is the result of action taken by 

 engineers in the British Dominions and the United 

 States, has been placed in the north aisle of the 

 nave, in close proximity to the one erected in 1909 

 by civil engineers to the memory of Sir Benjamin 

 Baker; and it has been designed and made by the 

 same artist, Mr. J. N. Comper. A special service, 

 with music, is being arranged by the Abbey authori- 

 ties, and Mr. R. Elliott-Cooper, president of the Insti- 

 tution of Civil Engineers, will make the formal pre- 



