fi 
4 
if 
L.—EDUCATIONAL SCIENCE. 253 
of promise from a university. But a proper system of national and local 
scholarships (which should include maintenance, where it is necessary, as 
well as fees) will prevent any such exclusion. Granted, therefore, such a 
system of scholarships, there seems to be every reason for maintaining 
university fees which provide from ;%; to 2 of the income of a university. 
They help to give the university self-respect and independence : they may 
help to give the same qualities to students. 
The second source of income, which takes the form of private benefac- 
tion, has its fine and attractive side. When one listens, in the bidding 
prayers of the old English universities, to the names of the benefactors of 
dead and bygone centuries, one cannot but be proud of a great tradition 
long and truly maintained. And again, when one thinks of the paucity of 
private benefaction to universities in England to-day, and contrasts the 
abounding munificence of many cheerful givers in the United States, one 
cannot but feel abashed. Yet there is some reason for feeling that, in 
modern democratic communities, there is a limit to the extent to which 
private benefaction can safely endow universities. Universities are 
great public institutions. They belong to the general commonwealth. 
They cannot be proprietary. They cannot be sectarian. They must 
be above even the suspicion of belonging to one or other side in our social 
cleavage. They belong to both. A university which relies to any great, 
extent on private benefaction may tend, however unconsciously, to teach 
and to preach acceptable things; and that is the greatest offence which 
it can commit against the spirit of truth. To take benefaction if it comes, 
but not to go out to seek it ; to look even a gift-horse in the mouth with a 
modest and discreet inquiry ; to be sure that no endowment contravenes 
by one jot or tittle freedom of inquiry or freedom of expression—these are 
the natural policies of a university which respects its own genius of academic 
freedom. I would not exaggerate the dangers of private benefaction to 
universities. Often and often it is the fruit of plain and unconditioned 
generosity. But I would not be blind to the possible dangers. And it 
is always possible that private benefactions may have their tacit implica- 
tions—a form of capitalism ; a particular kind of nationalism ; some brand 
of confessionalism—which may make them enemies of academic freedom. 
I come, in conclusion, to the third source of university revenue, which 
is that of public assistance from the local or national authority. If our 
universities are truly great public institutions, subject (as they are in 
England) to visitation by the State and to reformation by the State, they 
must be a charge on the public revenues for that part of their expenditure 
which they cannot earn by fees from their students or receive in gifts from 
private endowments. In our English system the aid given to education 
from public funds (whether the education be elementary, or secondary, 
or university) is always two-fold. Part comes from the local authority— 
the county or borough council: part comes from the national exchequer. 
The two co-operate : they bargain, and often dispute, about their respec- 
tive shares. Sometimes education suffers from their disputes; but in 
_ many ways (and not least in universities) it gains from the presence and 
: 
y 
& 
‘3 
_ 
* 
wad 
joint action of the two authorities. The national authority may stimulate 
a local authority to increase its contribution ; the local authority may 
attach conditions to its contributions which keep the national authority 
within due limits of action. There is a certain gain in the system of check 
