March 22, 1889.] 



SCIENCE. 



221 



establishment as there is in a street or a city bearing a great man's 

 name, like Washington Place or Baltimore. 



This is an era of educational endowment upon a generous scale. 

 The most recent published report of Col. Dawson, the commis- 

 sioner of education, shows that the sum total of noteworthy educa- 

 tional gifts during the year 1886-87 was nearly five million dollars. 

 More than two-thirds of the entire amount was distributed among 

 nine institutions, four of them collegiate, one academic, three pro- 

 fessional, and one technical. The institution most highly favored 

 was Harvard University, which received from individual sources 

 nearly a million dollars. From one man came a legacy of $630,- 

 000. Our nearer neighbor, Haverford College, supported by the 

 Society of Friends, received $700,000 in one bequest. Of the 209 

 gifts recorded by the commissioner of education, 25 represent $50,- 

 000 or more, 72 were sums between $5,000 and $49,000, and 1 1 2 were 

 sums less than $5,000. The most striking fact in all this record of 

 philanthropy is that such a large proportion of the entire amount, 

 fully two-thirds, was given to higher education. The year 1888 is 

 richer than 1887 in individual bounty to institutions of learning. 

 Nearly ten millions were given by three persons for the encourage- 

 ment of manual training, etc., but there are rumors of 'even larger 

 benefactions for university endowment. The collective returns for 

 1888 are not yet published, but it is certaiit that the past year will 

 surpass any hitherto recorded in the annals of American educa- 

 tion. 



Whatever forms modern philanthropy may take, one thing is 

 certain, universities are not likely to be forgotten. While the Johns 

 Hopkins University undoubtedly has most to expect from private 

 philanthropy, like that which has already built up the city, it is not 

 beyond the bounds of possibility to hope that the State of Mary- 

 land may some day extend to our institution what George Wash- 

 ington modestly called a " favoring hand." At present this State, 

 by the exercise of its taxing power, takes from the Johns Hopkins 

 the sum of nearly $11,000, and fro.m the Johns Hopkins Hospital 

 the sum of $33,000, a year. From our original patrimony Baltimore 

 County took a collateral inheritance tax of $36,000. 



The exemption of college property, even the property of pro- 

 fessors, from taxation was well-nigh the universal custom in the 

 English colonies of North America. To this day, Maryland ex- 

 empts from taxation all buildings, furniture, equipments, and libra- 

 ries of incorporated educational or literary institutions, with the 

 land appertaining to them ; in other words, all unproductive prop- 

 erty actually in use for educational purposes. This principle of 

 exempting the property of institutions of learning is so thoroughly 

 embedded in the constitutional, statutory, and customary law of al- 

 most every State in the American Union, that such exemption may 

 be recognized, like the principles of Roman law, as sovereign com- 

 mon sense. But some American States go much further, and 

 exempt the productive property of colleges and universities, their 

 savings and investments, the income of which is applied to edu- 

 cational objects. The personal property and real estate belong- 

 ing to educational institutions are exempt from taxation in each 

 of the following States : Maine, Vermont, Rhode Island, Virginia, 

 Kentucky, Kansas, and Nebraska, and probably in others whose 

 statutory laws permit exemption but whose customs and policy 

 vary. 



Exemption from taxation is a manifest duty which the State of 

 Maryland owes to an institution which is now using all the income 

 from its productive capital, as well as its buildings, books, and ap- 

 paratus, for the higher education of Maryland youth. Indeed, one 

 might go further, and say that the Johns Hopkins is doing for 

 Maryland what most States endeavor to secure by large annual 

 appropriations. This institution is to-day discharging the func- 

 tions of a State university, and is paying for the privilege of pro- 

 viding what is usually regarded as the duty of the State to provide. 

 The encouragement of higher education by government aid, 

 in one form or another, has been a recognized principle of public 

 policy in every enlightened State, whether ancient or modern. 

 Older than the recognition of popular education as a public duty 

 was the endowment of colleges and universities at public expense 

 for the education of men who were to serve Church or State. It 

 is a mistake to think that the foundation of institutions by princes 

 or prelates was a purely private matter. The money or the land 



always came from the people in one form or another, and the bene- 

 fit of endowment returned to the people sooner or later. Popular 

 education is the historic outgrowth of the higher education in every 

 civilized country, and those countries which have done most for 

 universities have the best schools for the people. It is an error to 

 suppose that endowment of the higher learning is confined to Ro- 

 man and German emperors, French and English kings. Crowned 

 and uncrowned republics have pursued the same public policy. 

 Indeed, the liberality of government towards art and science al- 

 ways increases with the progress of liberal ideas, even in monarchi- 

 cal countries like Germany ,where, since the introduction of parlia- 

 mentary government, appropriations for university education have 

 greatly increased. The total cost of maintaining the Prussian uni- 

 versities, as shown by the reports of our commissioner of educa- 

 tion, is about two million dollars a year. Only about nine per cent 

 of this enormous outlay is met by tuition-fees. The State con- 

 tributes all the rest in endowments and appropriations. Prussia 

 now gives to her universities more than twice as much as she did 

 before the Franco-Prussian war, as shown by the report of our 

 commissioner at the Paris Exposition in 1867. In that year France 

 gave her faculties of higher instruction only $765,764. After the 

 overthrow of the second empire, popular appropriations for higher 

 education greatly increased. The budget for 1888 shows that 

 France now appropriates for college and university faculties $2,- 

 330,000 a year, more than three times the amount granted under 

 Louis Napoleon. The little republic of Switzerland, with a popu- 

 lation of only three millions, supports four state universities, hav- 

 ing altogether more than three hundred instructors. Its cantons, 

 corresponding upon a small scale to our States, expend over $300,- 

 000 a year upon the higher education. The Federal Government 

 of Switzerland appropriated, in 1887, $1 15,000 to the polytechnicum, 

 and $56,000 in subsidies to cantonal schools, industrial and agri- 

 cultural, besides bestowing regularly $10,000 a year for the encour- 

 agement of Swiss art. The aggregate revenues of the colleges of 

 Oxford, based upon innumerable historic endowments, public and 

 private, now amount to fully two million dollars a year. The in- 

 come of the Cambridge College endowments amounts to quite as 

 much. But all this, it may be said, represents the policy of foreign 

 lands. Let us look at home, and see what is done in our own 

 American commonwealths. 



Maryland began her educational history by paying a tobaeco-tax 

 for the support of William and Mary College. This colonial gen- 

 erosity to another State has an historic parallel in the appropriation 

 of a township of land by Vermont for the encouragement of Dart- 

 mouth College in the State of New Hampshire, and in the corn 

 that was sent from New Haven to the support of young Harvard. 

 In colonial days Maryland had her county schools, some of them 

 classical, like King William's School at Annapolis. All were 

 founded by authority of the Colonial Government, and supported 

 by aid from the public treasury. The principle of State aid to 

 higher education runs throughout the entire history of both State 

 and Colony. 



The present generation has not been so generous to the cause of 

 higher education as were the fathers of the State ; but nevertheless 

 Maryland, in her entire history, has appropriated something over 

 $650,000 for what may be strictly called college education, not 

 counting $60,000 given to the State Agricultural College, nor $40,- 

 000 proceeding from State lotteries. While this collective bounty 

 is small, it is money given by voluntary taxation, and not taken 

 from institutions of learning. Most of the amount was raised in 

 times when the State was poor or heavily in debt, and when public 

 money came with difficulty. Moreover, this financial generosity of 

 Maryland establishes the principle for which we are contending ; 

 namely, that this State, like all other enlightened States in the 

 world, has recognized the duty of support to higher and unsecta- 

 rian institutions of learning. She has at different times appropri- 

 ated $650,000 to colleges and the University of Maryland from her 

 public treasury. 



Let us now inquire what other States in the American Union 

 have done for higher education, always recognizing of course great 

 inequality in State population and in the taxable basis. 



Virginia, whose earliest educational foundations Maryland helped 

 to lay by her tobacco-tax, has expended upon colleges and univer- 



