OCTOBKB 22, l!)09| 



SCIENCE 



565 



course, names the trustees; and subsequent 

 vacancies in the board are filled by cooptation. 

 This is a new species of corporation; but the 

 two or three already organized hold large 

 funds, which are likely to be greatly aug- 

 mented in the future. And there is no limit to 

 the number of such corporations, except the 

 limit to the number of persons who possess 

 wealth and desire to distribute it in this fash- 

 ion. 



I can not but think that these corporations 

 create a new and dangerous situation for the 

 independent and privately endowed universi- 

 ties. Just in proportion as these are supported 

 by those benevolent corporations is their 

 center of gravity thrown outside themselves. 

 It is no longer a case of a rich man giving his 

 money, going his way (eventually dying), and 

 leaving the university free to manage its own 

 affairs. The purse strings are now controlled 

 by an immortal power, which makes it its 

 business to investigate and supervise, and 

 which lays down conditions that the univer- 

 sity must accept if it is to receive grants of 

 money. An irresponsible, self -perpetuating 

 board, whose business is to dispense money, 

 necessarily tends to look at every question 

 from the pecuniary point of view ; it wants its 

 money's worth; it demands immediate and 

 tangible results. Will not its large powers 

 and enormous influence in relation to the in- 

 stitutions dependent upon it tend to develop in 

 it an attitude of patronage and a habit of 

 meddling? The very ambition of such a cor- 

 poration to reform educational abuses is itself 

 a source of danger. Men are not constituted 

 educational reformers by having millions to 

 spend. And, indeed, an irresponsible, self-per- 

 petuating board of this sort may become a 

 real menace to the best interests of the higher 

 education. In the fancied interests of capital, 

 or religion, or of education itself, it may 

 galvanize the intellectual life of the institu- 

 tion it undertakes to foster. 



A board of this kind should be answerable 

 to the public, like the regents of a state uni- 

 versity. Or, better still, let the millionaire 

 trust the boards of trustees of colleges and 

 universities and give them outright the capital 

 he intends to devote to educational purposes. 



I believe that in all cases this plan would be 

 best for education and best for the public in- 

 terest. I make no exception of the Carnegie 

 Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, 

 to which Mr. Carnegie has given such large 

 endowment for the pensioning of professors in 

 the colleges, technical schools and universi- 

 ties of the United States and Canada. And I 

 certainly speak with no prejudice, as I regard 

 that endovTment as the best thing any bene- 

 factor has ever done for higher education in 

 America, and I have myself the honor of being 

 one of the trustees. But I look with concern 

 and anxiety on the influence of such corpora- 

 tions on the free and independent life of our 

 institutions of learning aiid research. — Pres- 

 ident Jacob G. Schurman, of Cornell Univer- 

 sity, in an address before the National Asso- 

 ciation of State Universities. 



SGIENTIFW BOOKS 

 The Absorption Spectra of Solutions. By 



Harry C. Jones and John A. Anderson. 



Publication No. 110, Carnegie Institution, 



Washington, D. C. 1909.' 



This investigation of absorption spectra 

 represents another chapter in that study of 

 solutions, to which Professor Jones and his 

 coworkers have so indefatigably applied them- 

 selves. Here, as before, the guiding idea has 

 been to obtain evidence for or against the 

 existence of hydrates, or more generally, of 

 solvates in solution. 



To investigate a system in this way, that is, 

 by observing the effect produced by the system 

 upon light which has passed through it, has 

 one decided advantage. It does not in any 

 way disturb the state of the system. When we 

 shall understand more thorouglily the mech- 

 anism of this absorption, such a method may 

 become not only a very rapid, but also a very 

 accurate and elegant means of analysis. Even 

 in our present deep ignorance in regard to this 

 phenomenon it can often furnish us important 

 information, as the authors of the monograph 

 under discussion have amply demonstrated. 



' A somewhat abridged account of this investi- 

 gation has appeared in the March and April num- 

 bers of the American Chemical Journal of this 

 year (1909). 



