550 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXVII. No. 954 



reason for all five of these changes of heart is 

 to be sought in the foundation's financial situ- 

 ation. The actuarial calculations upon which 

 the trustees based their original plans have 

 proved far too sanguine. The first report esti- 

 mated that the average pension under the 

 rules then in force would be less than $1,450. 

 The present general average is $1,677 ; of 

 those in accepted institutions, about $1,780. 

 If it were not for the obligations assumed 

 towards persons not in accepted institutions, 

 even with this increase the pensions paid to 

 the present number of professors or widows of 

 professors in such institutions would leave a 

 surplus out of the annual income of about 

 $200,000; as it is, there is an accumulation in 

 the past year of some $42,000. The present 

 close approach of the foundation's expendi- 

 ture to its income is thus chiefly due to the 

 policy of making special grants, hereafter to 

 be abandoned. But even with this charge in 

 process of elimination, the time when claims 

 for pensions, valid under the present rules, 

 will far exceed income is clearly in sight. It 

 was expected in 1906 that an income of $500,- 

 000 would maintain an adequate pension sys- 

 tem for between 100 and 120 colleges — as 

 many as were thought likely to come upon the 

 accepted list. At present the providing of 

 pensions — with the service-pension abolished 

 — for 72 institutions only, requires an ex- 

 penditure of $478,440 ; and it is estimated that 

 " at the end of a generation," if the existing 

 rules should remain unchanged, the claims to 

 pensions coming from these institutions alone 

 — assuming their faculties to remain station- 

 ary in number and the average age of retire- 

 ment to he sixty-nine — ^would call for annual 

 payments of $1,375,000. The foundation's 

 total income, "when the whole of the gifts al- 

 ready made to it by the founder are paid in, 

 will amount to approximately $800,000." ° 

 Consequently, if the endowment is not in- 

 creased, the rules for the granting of pensions 

 will inevitably have to be so modified as to re- 

 duce greatly the average amount allowed, or 

 the number of valid claims, or both. 



In so far, then, as the changes of policy now 



» Hid., p. 92. 



suggested are designed to meet this future 

 contingency, they may claim the justification 

 of necessity. In attempting to provide pen- 

 sions, upon the excellent principles originally 

 proposed, for so large a number of institutions, 

 the foundation was attempting a thing im- 

 possible with the funds at its disposal. That 

 its impossibility was not foreseen at the out- 

 set by the ofiicials of the foundation is amaz- 

 ing. It is true, as President Pritchett con- 

 stantly remarks, that no complete data bear- 

 ing upon exactly the foundation's problem 

 were available in 1906. But most of the re- 

 cently gathered facts with regard to the num- 

 ber, rate of increase of number and of 

 salaries, and age-distribution, of teachers 

 in accepted institutions, upon which facts 

 the present calculations are based, could 

 equally well have been obtained six years 

 earlier; and their indispensableness was then 

 equally obvious. The report of Messrs. 

 Pritchett and Vanderlip" upon which the orig- 

 inal estimates appear to have been largely 

 based, actually contained no reference to the 

 all-important factor of age-distribution in the 

 case of men not yet of pensionable age. It 

 implied, for example, that the number of pro- 

 fessors over 65 in 1905 would approximately 

 indicate the number of the same class in sub- 

 sequent years. It would be hard to imagine 

 an actuarial error more glaring or more easily 

 avoidable. This error, and the insufficiency of 

 the foundation's endowment for its announced 

 intentions, were clearly pointed out by Pro- 

 fessor Cattell in Science four years ago. 



If, then, the foundation (or its president) 

 has within six years abandoned most of its 

 original ideals, and if the university teachers 

 of America have generally lost confidence in 

 the stability of the foundation's policy and 

 the trustworthiness of its promises, this disap- 

 pointing outcome is the natural consequence 

 of the initial adoption of a program mani- 

 festly impossible with the available endow- 

 ment. The mistake in that program did not 

 consist in its essential principles; it consisted 

 in making the rules completely retroactive; in 

 authorizing special grants; and above all in 



" First report, pp. 10-16. 



