680 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXII. No. 828 



date to whicli the census refers. Thus since 

 January 1, Harvard has lost two of its great- 

 est men, while the losses of Columbia occurred 

 earlier and certain important positions were 

 vacant at that time. It is, however, a fact 

 not without significance that Columbia and 

 California, in which faculty control is re- 

 garded by the administration as less important 

 than executive eiSciency, have suffered the 

 most serious losses, whereas Harvard and 

 Yale, where the methods of appointment and 

 promotion are more democratic, show most 

 gratifying advances. Tale has disproved the 

 assertion that a faculty is not able to select 

 its own members. The Smithsonian Institu- 

 tion and the government bureaus, which are 

 somewhat autocratically controlled, show seri- 

 ous losses, but these shoidd be in part at least 

 attributed to the inadequate salaries. The 

 gain of 50 per cent, in the Bureau of Stand- 

 ards shows that losses are not inevitable. 



Wisconsin and Illinois are the state univer- 

 sities which have made the most notable prog- 

 ress. Wisconsin has moved ahead of Mich- 

 igan and is nearly equal to the Johns Hopkins 

 and Cornell. The gain of almost 200 per 

 cent, at Illinois is in the main due to the 

 departments of chemistry and mathematics, 

 to the heads of which the university was so 

 wise as to call men of high scientific standing. 

 Michigan has a gain of 3.5, Missouri of two 

 and Indiana of one. Minnesota and Kansas 

 are exactly stationary. Ohio has a loss of 

 one, Iowa and Texas of two and California 

 of 8.5. 



The Johns Hopkins has gained three men, 

 which is satisfactory in view of its limited 

 endowment and the high standards it has al- 

 ways maintained. The Massachusetts Insti- 

 tute of Technology has gained 5.5, Cornell 

 1.5, Pennsylvania 1, Princeton 2 and Stan- 

 ford 5. We may hope for a considerable fur- 

 ther advance at Princeton in the near future. 

 It wiU be noted that in general the larger in- 

 stitutions have gained, and this relative gain 

 represents a greater absolute gain as the 

 standard of the thousand becomes continually 

 higher with the increase of the numbers of 

 scientific men. 



Among universities with which fewer sci- 

 entific men are connected. Western Reserve 

 has gained four men and Brown, Missouri 

 and Tulane have each gained 2, whereas Ne- 

 braska has lost 3 and Wesleyan, Syracuse, 

 Northwestern, Cincinnati and Texas have 

 each lost two. Bryn Mawr, Vassar and Wel- 

 lesley have gained and Smith has lost. Small 

 changes of this character are not necessarily 

 significant, as they may be accounted for by 

 the chance error of arrangement or the 

 chance date to which the data refer. Still 

 in each ease the change is probably a real on^ 

 and of importance when considered in rela- 

 tion to the total number of professors in the 

 institution. The gain of a scientific man of 

 standing is worth more to an institution than 

 a building costing $100,000. 



Table X. gives also the ratio of the number 

 of scientific men of the thousand in each in- 

 stitution to the total number of instructors, 

 to the total number of students, to the value 

 of the buildings and grounds and to the in- 

 come for current expenses, the figures being 

 based on the report of the commissioner of 

 education for 1909." The institutions vary 



"Unfortunately the fig-ures in the report do not 

 seem to be uniformly accurate. For example, the 

 value of the buildings of Columbia University are 

 reported by the commissioner of education at 

 $2,238,800, and those of the U. S. Military Acad- 

 emy at $20,000,000, whereas the buildings on the 

 Columbia campus have apparently cost much more 

 tnan those at West Point. The treasurer gives 

 the assessed value of the Columbia buildings 

 (apart from Barnard College, Teachers College 

 and the College of Pharmacy) as over $6,000,000. 

 The commissioner of education reports the total 

 receipts of Columbia University, exclusive of gifts 

 for endowment, to have been $5,.572,943, whereas 

 the treasurer reports for the same year an income 

 for the Columbia College corporation of $1,614,- 

 166. The correct figures have been substituted in 

 the case of Columbia, but it is to be feared that 

 other figures in the report are misleading. The 

 writer considered using the figures collected by 

 the Carnegie Foundation, but these also seem to 

 be difficult to interpret. Thus Illinois is said to 

 have an annual income (for running expenses) of 

 •$1,200,000 and to spend $491,675 on salaries of 



