The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1896-04-09
GREATER COLUMBIA
Fair Buildings to Arise on the Heights
OF BlOOmingdale.
GREAT URBAN UNIVERSITY
How the Modern College Relies
Upon Rich Citizens for
Splendid Advances In
the Future.

a. Bachener)
New York, March 3o.-we are stand
ing on the highest point of Blooming
dale Heights. facing one of the fairest
prospects in the new world.
Away to the left, beyond the silver
streak which one could scarce believe
to be a mighty river a mile and half
wide, tower the Palisades. Away to
the right beyond a narrower silver
streak. which marks the Harlem's ebb
and flow, stretch the plains of West
chester county, Long Island and
Connecticut In the foreground
rises to the left the cathedral
of st. John, the Divine. the
finest fame in all America. To the
right is St. Luke's hospital. of which
the pleasing tale is told that IL was
built for 81, given by a poor woman in
grateful appreciation of the care
which she had received in a city hos
pital, this forming the nucleus around
which the thousands of the rich gath
cred to forward so excellent a work.
In the immediate foreground-not so
high as the heaven piercing spires of
the cathedral yet far broader than the
mighty block of st. Luke's-there Is a
grayish white granite mass of build
ings which seem from this distance al
most without break of green spaces
and airy arcades. Just in the middle
of the splendid pile rises from the lofty
white wall a pure round dome. IL is
the dome of the library of Columbia
college, a building capable of holding
100000 volumes, second only to the
congressional library in Washington,
and as big as two of the famed Bod
leian at oxford, containing besides
many of the offices of a great modern
university with S. 900, 900, $4,000, 900. or
$1,000. 900 invested in the site and build
ings. with $4,000. 900 or s40,0O0,OOO OF en-
dowments. with facilities and throng-
ing students of law. medicine and ped
agogy. of engineering and applied
sciences, of political sciences and of the
more human" arts pursued in col
lege proper.
But we must not anticipate. as they
say i'm the stories.
This is a pen picture. not of the Co
lumbia college of to-day, but of the
Greater Columbia college as IL will be
five years from now, If the brave and
hopeful plans of it's friends and trus-
tees are carried out. For the present,
the walls of two or three only of the
buildings are rising, while the cellars
for one or two more are being dug;
but on the second day of next month
the grounds will be solemnly dedicated
TO American learning. at the same time
that the corner stones are laid of the
beautiful library which is being built
with President Seth Lows splendid
gift OF s1.O0O.00O. and of the science
building endowed with Frederick Scher-
merhorn's gift of $500. 600.
The old idea of university was a
carefully guarded suburb of some tiny
town, within whose grass grown quad
ranges, walled away from the hurry
of the world, sage theologians paced i'm
their long black gowns The modern
ideal university is a many-sided insti-
tuition planted upon the edge of some
W nd
vantage in the way of hospitals, engi-
neering works, railroads, law Offices,
courts. art exhibitions and other adju-
wants of learning and culture. The day
of Jean and oxford is passing-at least
so say the advocates of the modern
and the day is coming of the big city
university, In Berlin. London, New
York and Chicago.
IL is upon this theory that Columbia
college, which five years ago, In spite
OF its generous endowments was one
of the second class institutions of
learning in this country, is now to take
a secure place In the first rank under
the presidency of Seth Low, who has
been twice mayor of Brooklyn and
more than once mentioned as a candi-
date for governor and even for presi-
dent. In these five years the endow-
ment of Columbia college has increased
more than 100000. Its income from
100000 a year. What the total amount
of it's endowment may be IL is difficult
TO tell, as so much of II is I'm lands and
buildings of varying value; but the site
which will be dedicated next month.
and the new buildings which are
planned to rise thereon will cost from
81, 1000 900 to 100000 without trench
ing upon the endowment i'm any way
Inded the general funds OF the college
are expected to double even while the
fair walls of the new white city of
learning on the brown rock-ribbed hill
are rising.
President Low has shown how this
may be done, and other wealthy citi-
zens have taken the hint. Besides the
Schermerhorn building already pro-
vided for. the closer association of the
medical school Columbia has brought
to IL 100000 from the Vanderbilts and
Sloans, and the erection of the Sloan
maternity hospital which is practi-
cally an appendage of Columbia uni
versity.
IL any wealthy citizen of New York
wishes to build a gymnasium or an
academic theater. or school or a
chapel or a dining hall, or anything of
that kind, at a cost of from 5000 600 10
$500. 900. he is quite at liberty to do So
Meanwhile the funds of he college will
be used strictly for its educational
purposes-and In providing for instruc-
ton Columbia deals with instructors
with no niggardly hand. Realizing the
cost of living in a great city and in
such style as BELTS the man of culture
and refined taste. the salaries of Col
umbia's professors are perhaps the
highest in the country.
Columbia is not worrying at all about
money. but is going straight ahead
with the confidence that now as in the
past whatever is needed will be pro.
vided.
In the development OF the Greater
Columbia. President Low and the trus
tees first obtained the finest site I'm the
city of New York. eighteen undivided
acres, high on the breezy rocky hill ter
miles from the trade center of the city
Here a space twice as big as Madison
Square has been bought. Columbia hai
a pull with the legislature, and has Sc
cured an act forever guarding this sit