The American College

ABOUT five years ago Andrew Carnegie felt that he might die poorer if he could enable a large number of other men to die richer; and who more worthy than the college professor? Out of this grew the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, whose avowed objects are—

"To provide retiring pensions, without regard to race, sex, creed or color, for the teachers of universities, colleges and technical schools in the United States, the Dominion of Canada and Newfoundland, who, by reason of long, and meritorious service, or by reason of disability or other sufficient reason, shall be deemed entitled to the assistance and aid of this corporation. * * In general, to do and perform all things necessary to encourage, uphold and dignify the profession of teaching and the cause of higher education within the three countries named."

There were thus two distinct aims set forth in this charter-one to aid individual teachers, the other to advance the great "cause of higher education." Admittedly and avowedly, Mr. Carnegie's thoughts were chiefly fixed on the individual instructor and were admirably expressed in the letter which accompanied his first gift of $10,000,000.

"I have reached the conclusion that the least rewarded of all professions is that of the teacher in our higher educational institutions. New York City generously, and very wisely, provides retiring pensions for teachers in her public schools and also for her policemen. Very few of our colleges are able to do so. The consequences are grievous. Able men hesitate to adopt teaching as a career, and many old professors, whose places should be occupied by younger men, can not be retired. I hope this Fund may do much for the cause of higher education and remove a source of deep and constant anxiety to the poorest paid and yet one of the highest of all professions."

As his right-hand man in administering this unique and generous gift, Mr. Carnegie selected Henry S. Pritchett, born in Fayette, Mo., and grad

uated from Pritchett College, Glasgow, Mo. After graduation Mr. Pritchett had also become successively a distinguished astronomer, the Superintendent of the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey, and the President of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Mr. Carnegie's chief object was to make easy the latter years of men who had done their best work in life. Dr. Pritchett saw clearly how the power to do this in the colleges and universities carried also the power to lift the institutions themselves to higher levels, and to make more effective the active years of the great number of teachers who had their best work still ahead of them. Twenty-five years of active labor as an astronomer, scientist, public official and executive of a leading technical school have intensified Dr. Pritchett's native instinct to get at the real facts rather than to accept the highly colored statements of interested parties. Such an education and experience are quite opposed to the sentimentality, falsely called loyalty, with which her sons have so often endeavored to hide the faults of dear old Alma Mater.

Dr. Pritchett foresaw the power of such a fund to aid the cause of general education and that this power might be used not alone or chiefly to give stimulus to teachers, but rather, and far greater, to give stimulus to the institutions themselves. He saw, with scientific clearness, that the second aim of the Foundation might become more important than its first, and the means of making the first aim more mighty than if it stood alone; that the charitable side of the work might lose its unpleasant features in the vastly greater power for good which its sentimental value gave it; for the motives of such a Foundation can not well be called in question while it is doing its noble work for well known and beloved professors.

Mr. Carnegie's first contribution to the Foundation was $10,000,000, but the teachers of state institutions were not included among those to be pensioned. Within the past year, Mr. Carnegie has added another $5,000,000, and included the state institutions. The fund, with accumulations, now amounts to about $16,000,000.

Under the first object of its charter, that of pensions, the Carnegie Foundation has granted retiring allowances to 285 professors or officers and to 45 widows of professors or officers, involving an expenditure of about $850,ooo. Under the second object of its charter the Foundation has put new life and aspiration into 850 institutions of higher education with an admitted wealth of $600,000,000. Unfortunately the general public, including most college alumni, still look upon the Carnegie Foundation as chiefly a charitable institution for pensioning college professors, and are ignorant of, and hence are unable to understand and appreciate sympathetically, its far more important and formative work in the field of general education.

From the very beginning the Foundation has been unwilling to deal in glittering generalities or take things for granted. Nobody else has asked the

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The American College, Volumen1