Amador ledger., 1902-04-11
Cecil Rhodes Will.

OF conception wss looked for and the
reality is equal to tho anticipation.
The bequests are magnificent in
amount, rivaling the great gifts of Car
negie to the Scotch universities and to
the Carnegie institution, though the
estate consists Of descriptions of prop
erty which cannot be easily appraised,
and therefore it is impossible to say,
even approximately, how much the
total comes to. But the great diamond
miner and empire builder seems TO
have made Oxford University heir TO
practically his whole estate-which
may amount to 500, 600, OOO-and if this
is what he has really done, by this
stroke he has made 1t the richest uni
versity in the world Rhodes was a
man OF large ideas, tending toward GEN.
tralization, and he probably intended
to make Oxford, the university from
which he had graduated, the center of
the world s educational system.
Even if events should prove that he
did not succeed in this undertaking, it
will have to be admitted that his
scheme was a singularly original and
powerful one, for he has arranged for
the gathering up and sending to Ok
ford OF some of the brightest young
men from all parts of the English
speaking world. Each British colony is
to have its scholarships at Oxford, and
in addition there are to be two 81, 500
scholarships for each American State
and Territory. That provides for the
continuous training of hundred and
four young Americans NINETY for
forty-tive States and fourteen for the
seven Territories, including Hawaii
and Porto Rico( all to be men picked
for their intellectual calibre, manliness
and moral fibre.
It's instructive TO compare the great
educational endOwments of Carnegie
and Rhodes and observe how the char
acters of the givers come out in their
gifts. The Scotch steelmaker, who be-
gan life as workingman and built his
fortune on the practical application of
a scientific discovery-the Bessemer
process for turning iron into steel
gives his money to establish libraries,
wherein poor men may gain the rudi-
ments OF education, to maintain an in
stitution in Pittsburg for industrial
training and to establish another great
Institution which is to bear his name,
for encouragement of scientific re-
search. Carnegie, who was born in
Europe and trained in America, is a
cosmopolitan, lover of humanity, who
cares little for national ideals and for
imperialism feels nothing but scorn
and hatred. In Rhodes, on the other
hand, the sentiment of nationality was
dominant, pride of race was passion,
and Imperialism was his cherished
ideal. 1t was broad form of i'm
perialism, dream of a world-embrac-
ing confederation of English-speaking
peoples, of which England should be
the center, while Oxford should become
the heart of England. II desire to en-
courage and foster an appreciation of
the advantages which 1 implicitly be-
lieve will result from union of the
English-speaking people throughout
the world, is what he wrote in 1899 in
the wonderful testament now made
public, and he knew that through the
education OF the brightest young men
in common center this end would be
most easily attained. 1t was a politi-
cal project of the subtlest character
and which nothing can prevent from
working out important conseq uences.
Neither is there any reason to doubt
that its effect will, on the whole, be of
the greatest advantage so far as it
affects the United States.
For nearly a century now Americans
who have gone to Europe to supple
ment the education which they re-
ceived in this country have preferred
Germany to Great Britain and the con-
sequence has been that stream of
German influences, moral and political,
has been flowing into the United States
and modifying our national life far
more than is generally realized. 1t has
been great benefit, and yet it has
been attended with disadvantages, for
with the good influences have come
some political ideas which are at war
with our Anglo-Saxon constitutional
ism, and If during the next twenty-five
years continental socialism should pre-
vail to dangerous extent, it will be
due to the German training of so many
American students. We have imported
plant which is essentially an exotic
and which threatens to crowd out more
healthful native growths. 1t will be
we'll, probably, to get back nearer to
the source of our American political
ideas; at least it will be better not to
have all the ambitious young students
trained in Germany, but to have some
of them at Oxford instead of at Ber-
lin. 1t will tend to preserve balance
which is very desirable and to promote
in our national life an influence which
is, with all due respect to the great
German people, from whom we have
learned SO much, the most valuable
which Americans can obtain in Europe,
because it breathes the spirit of the