EDITORIAL COMMENT. 
In order that our summaries may correspond, so far as possible, 
to the calendar year, * The Quarterly Records of Gifts, Appointments, 
Retirements, and Deaths” will hereafter appear in the numbers for 
February, May, August, and November. Under the heading ** Educa- 
tional Gifts " we have included all donations from private individuals 
for distinctively educational purposes, so far as they have come to 
our notice. We have included, therefore, not only gifts to schools 
and colleges, but those to libraries and museums, since in many cases 
itis otherwise impossible to draw a sharp line. We have not included 
in our summaries appropriations by the national, state, or local gov- 
ernments for educational purposes, nor have we included the formal 
transfer by Mrs. Stanford to the Leland Stanford Junior Univer- 
sity of securities and other property, with an estimated value of 
$30,000,000, the largest single gift for educational purposes in the 
history of the world. Yet, omitting these, the gifts for the year 
190r, as catalogued in our pages, foot up the enormous sum of 
$43,233,035. These recent educational gifts, increasing in amount 
as the years go by, are of immense importance in any estimate of 
the future of education in America, and in the opinions of some are 
not an unmixed blessing. Certainly, so far as the financial basis is 
concerned, the United States will soon stand ahead of any country in 
the world, but the question cannot help suggesting itself, Will it 
advance as rapidly and to such prominence in intellectual matters as 
it does in the material side of education? 
While speaking of our Record it may not be out of place to say 
that since the American Naturalist came into the hands of the 
present management its notices of appointments, resignations, and 
deaths has been the most complete published. In these years 1717 
personal notes have appeared under these three headings. 
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