The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-10-08
The Small Southern Colleges.

New Orleans Picayune.
 Mrs Elizabeth M. Howe; writing in the Popular Science Monthly for October, on the poverty from money point of vie" of educational institutions in the south ern States, sets forth that out ot $la7,- oOO.OOO of productive, funds held by col ieEes in the United States, southern colleges hold but $i5OCO,OO0.
 This Is but small amount Compared with the Northern schools upon which multi-millionaires have been laVishlng their wealth. The writer Inentiomeu .s uor,t tinues the comparison with the statement that of eight and half million books In college libraries, the South holds but one and a quarter millions; the value or her scientific apparatus Is a a,hatinn ut,,e oyer di a seventeen millions, and of grounds and buildings eight and a half millions in a total of 1A6 millions. The total annual income available for the higher education in Virginia, North and South Carolina. Georgia Alabama. Mississippi Louisiana. Tennessee and Kentucky is H9,OW less than the yearly income of Harvard unl- versity,
 and individuals only according to their money value or pccunfary endowment. the spectacle of the poor Southern col leges excites undisguised contempt. That seems to he the view taken by the writer in question. for she asks: What are ten feehle colleges compared with one strong. that Is to Eay. richly-endowed institution?
 This is the way the ordinary observer would look at the situation. and naturally the sheen of great wealth owned by a college would dabhle and blind such an observer to any possible Eood in the less wealthy schools. Nevertheless. money IS not everything even in college. There Is absolutely nothing that cannot be taught just as we'll in a financially poor college as In those that are endowed with millions. save and except the physical sciences.
 The small colleges can teach ancient ture and helles-lettrcs perfectly well Nearly all the teachers in the big col leges started in the small ones and this | will long continue to be the rue. In the l humber schools nS much Is to be learned
 concerning all the physical sciences as | any hut a professional in some line will
 need, and indeed all he can carry in his capacity of an all-around educated man.
 If one desires to become an expert In | chemistry. electricity and mechanical en- ] gineering, he must go to a technical school
 The fact remains that the small col | leges are turning out at moderate costs that the well-to-do young men. or even l thoSo less we'll off. can meet graduates
 who are fairly well informed in the prin-
 cipal branches of knowledge. and who are able to take and maintain their places in life as creditablv can those who | come out of the millionalres' schools. | What reason. then. is there why the Southern colleges should be treated with contempt simply because they are pecu- niarily poor by comparison? The fact ! remains that Southern men from South ern colleges have stood among the fore
 most in this broad land in every depart ment of life, and they can afford to treat 1 with contempt any allusion to the paucity of the income of the schools where gentle men were bred'and scholars were made