538 



SCIENCE 



[X. S. Vol. XXXI. No. 797 



Professor Samuel C. Prescott has been 

 appointed acting head of the department of 

 biology of the Massachusetts Institute of 

 Technology, during- the absence in Europe of 

 Professor W. T. Sedgwick. 



Dr. E. H. Cameron, instructor in psychol- 

 ogy in Yale University, has been advanced to 

 the grade of assistant professor. In that in- 

 stitution Dr. F. S. Breed, now engaged in 

 graduate work in comparative psychology at 

 Harvard University, has been appointed in- 

 structor in psychology. 



Mr. Alan S. Hawksworth has been ap- 

 pointed professor of higher mathematics in 

 the University of Pittsburgh. 



At Haverford College Professor A. H. Wil- 

 son, of the Alabama Polytechnic Institute, 

 has been appointed to the position of associ- 

 ate professor of mathematics in place of Pro- 

 fessor Jackson, who returns to England. 



Willis T. Pope, professor of botany in the 

 College of Hawaii, has been appointed by the 

 governor, superintendent of public instruction 

 for Hawaii. Vaughan MacCaughey (Cor- 

 nell, '08), has been appointed to fill the 

 vacancy in the college. 



DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE 



SOME ADDITIONAL CONSIDERATIONS AS TO THE 

 CARNEGIE FOUNDATION 



To THE Editor of Science: Several contri- 

 butors to your journal have recently dis- 

 cussed the change of policy announced by the 

 Carnegie Foundation; two considerations, 

 however, have not been mentioned either here 

 or elsewhere to my knowledge. 



First, the obligations on the part of the 

 foundation toward those formerly denomina- 

 tional colleges which have in the last four 

 years secured changes in their charters sever- 

 ing their relations with the parent denomina- 

 tion. The reports of the foundation have 

 mentioned several of these institutions, and 

 others have come within my notice. In all 

 these cases, the foundation held out to these 

 institutions the promise of certain benefits if 

 they would sacrifice the historic association 

 with the people who founded the school. 

 These benefits were essentially two, — the 

 privilege to professors of retiring after twenty- 



five years of service, and of retiring on a some- 

 what higher pension at the age of sixty-five. 

 Now, in the present situation, these colleges 

 find themselves left with only a small frac- 

 tion of the benefit anticipated, for nobody will 

 deny that the service pension was a much 

 greater inducement than the age pension. 

 And the most disquieting thing about it is 

 that this great foundation in no way inti- 

 mates a consciousness of having treated any- 

 body unjustly. 



Second, as to the state universities. If the 

 service pension be discontinued, has the foun- 

 dation anything to oflfer to the professor in 

 such an institution? Is there a state univer- 

 sity in the land where a professor sixty-five 

 years of age with a fifteen-year (and gener- 

 ally a thirty-year) record in the institution 

 behind him is in danger of losing his posi- 

 tion? I think not. On the contrary, my im- 

 pression is that the old professors are univer- 

 sally held in such respect, and their lives are 

 so interwoven with the history of the school, 

 that no one thinks of dismissing them in their 

 old age. Possibly in some small and poor 

 private colleges of the country the condition 

 of the exchequer may make it hard to do 

 justice to old professors, but no state univer- 

 sity can afford to deal otherwise than gener- 

 ously with such cases. But what will the 

 foundation do for them when they reach the 

 age of sixty-five ? It will " automatically, 

 and as a matter of right, and not as a charity," 

 reduce their salaries about fifty per cent. ! As 

 an offset to this, there is the possibility of a 

 disability pension, and the probability of a 

 pension to the widow of a professor. It 

 would take considerable actuarial ability to 

 figure out whether the professor and his wife 

 are ahead or behind when both sides are con- 

 sidered. It is easy to see that the foundation 

 has virtually made a contribution to the treas- 

 ury of the university, but has it on the whole 

 done anything to compensate the professor for 

 the privations of a life time of poorly paid 

 service, as so generously desired by Mr. Car- 

 negie when he made his first gift to the foun- 

 dation? J. M. Aldrich 



University of Idaho, 

 March 30, 1910 



