The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1907-08-07
THE COLLEGE IDEAL.


education must take care not to mis-
themselves by existing by
the favor of the very rich. He says
that there are universities and coll
leges which are running the risk, by
the acceptance of immense gifts, Of
being considered the servants of the
narrow caste.
There is no doubt that the influence
of immense gifts to universities and
colleges by men who have made their
money in the unpopular trusts has for
some time bothered university and col
lege managements. They have never
lost sight Of the need they have for
constantly increasing sums Of money
and they have been bothered by the
failure of rich graduates to bear their
share of the burden, but there has re-
manned at the same time the never to
DO eluded fact that a danger attaches
itself to what have come to be known
as tainted gifts. Some time ago when
the proposition was Under discussion to
increase the tuition fees at Yale promi-
nent professor remarked that in order
t. do exact justice a certain percentage
should be charged a thousand year
and the rest q nominal fee. That adj
mission in itself more than answered
thu famboyant invitation extended by
Senator Brandegee to the possessors
of tainted money to bring it to Yale,
where 1t could be purified So that
when Chancellor McCracken sounds
note of warning based on the danger
which turks in the acceptance by in
stitutions OF education Of gifts which
bring them under the suspicion Of
being the especial wards Of the rich
who lack college education 1t has
real ring, as Of established truth.
This whole matter of giving to uni
verslties and colleges has Its strange
and mysterious side. Take Yale Uni
versity as an example of IL. 1t has
graduated since the immense family
fortune was a thing of commences
hundreds Of rich men, sons of rich
men who have themselves increased
their fortunes II Is no exaggeration
to say that among the Yale brother
hood itself 1t would be an easy matter
to find enough men able to give and
give literally to establish an endow-
ment which would forever place the in
stiution beyond the fear of financial
restrictions provided ordinary care was
practlced In the management Of the
university. If, however, one could get
at the books under the charge of the
treasurer one would find that the num-
Der of rich Yale men who have con-
trlbuted largely or In accordance with
their means to the Stokes en-
dowment fund could be count
ed on the fingers of the two hands, The
same investigation would show that
the heavy gifts have come from men
who hold no college degree and have
no conception of the intellectual labor
necessary to Its requirement.
These considerations cannot be
overlooked by the men responsible for
the care and maintenance OF our
American seats of learning They are
to that extent driven to accept the
Brandegee attitude and in return for
the acceptance of immense sums of
money from tainted sources promise
to purify them. The Rockefeller gift
of an unconditional million to Yale
University was the means of so cas-
ing the financial situation there as to
make the future more secure from
the point of view of enabling its man
agement to hold It's own among the
major seats of learning In the coun-
try, but 1t goes without saying that
had that million come from a Yale
family, or had 1t represented, as the
bi-centennial buildings represent, the
gifts of hundreds Of graduates and
earnest friends the satisfaction would
have been the greater There is
something definitely dlscouraging in
the dependence of universities and
colleges upon the very rich, them
selves not university or college men.
1t does, as Chancellor McCracken
says, tend to make them in the popu-
lar imagination 1.-The purchased SER
wants of narrow caste" More than
that it casts upon the educational
principle a suspicion as to its demo-
crazy which can only work disaster 1t
resolves the problem down to the
sources of strength, not the strength
ITSELF and If the universities and col
leges are not to give them the atten-
ton they deserve they cannot COM
plain If they are taken less seriously
than they should be for their own SUI
premacy.
Along with this problem goes the
problem of the rich undergraduate