The Breckenridge news. (Cloverport, Ky.) 1876-1955, 1919-10-22

NhoitoIai from the Boston News burcau)
A prominent banker remarked in
| conversation a day or two ago: 81
read that an Oxford don has created
stir by promulgating bolshevism.
The wonder to me is that a good
many American college teachers have
not soured into olsheviki-simply
And they are not the only victims;
because of their impossibly low paw
the whole future of education is
thereby menaced, and hence the flu
ture of the country"
And hence, to avert such pressing
danger, the alumni of Harvard are
now being canvassed to subscribe a
budget of $15,25O,O 00-perhaps SEQ.
coo, OOO-to insure the future of their
university. and at the same time to
pay debt of gratitude both for what
they themselves got and for the mar
gin by which they were not charged
full cost price for it.
Likewise the graduates of Tech"
are intent on gathering in $1,OoOOOO,
to which General du Pont has already
pledged a half million. Williams,
Bryn Mawr, Andover and Exter
are getting campaigns started or
completed. All told, more than
score OF leading colleges are similarly
engaged, and appropriations for state
universities are being augmented.
Harvard by some has been thought
rich institution, with more than
$40, 100000 capital investment. But
the bald fact is that, in relation to her
needs and opportunities, she is dis
tressfully poor. She faces such OPP
portunities for vastly expanded SER
vice in her professional schools and
other technical equipment beyond the
valiant service they have done during
and before the war Her sorest prob
lem, however, is in human rather than
material terms. And the human
days of the definition of college as
Mark Hopkins at one end of log
and the student at the other end.
Teaching has always been sacrihci-
ally under paid-in an abnegation OF
much more material reward to be
had outside college walls. Meanwhile,
commodity index numbers and wage
demands and awards have made vivid
ly clear the change in living condi
tons the past few years. But the
stricking fact is that Harvard has not
been able to raise its teachers salar
les since 1906. Price induces showing
doubling since 1910; many wage
rates, for both skilled and unskilled
labor, have roughly kept pace. But
the college instructors haven't got a
compensating cent more. Today 80
per cent of them can't decently live
on their stipends. Hence the pro-
gram to raise their remuneration so
per cent
Today a Harvard instructor gets |
81 .OCO to $500; an assistant profess |
sor S22. 500 to $4,000; professor $4,- |
900 to $500. This means privation |
and "potboiling" 1t means by con-
trast, as pithily expressed by Presi- |
dent Lowell, that I'VE are paying |
more to men who mind the train than |
to those who train the mind 1t
means also deprivation for the COM
munity of the fruits that might have
ripened from research. The late Pro-
lessor Sabine said that with $4,000 a
year he could find a way TO reduce |
greatly the noise of subway, elevated
and street cars. But the money was
not at his command.
President Hibben of Princeton has
told of professors having $11 month
left for food clothing. books, and
recreation for each of household.
and being compelled to do covertly
part of the family washing.
Thomas w. Lamont, discussing
Harvard's need in relation to the
needs of the country and world, says:
America must help, with her men,
and more particularly with her minds.
There are tasks for every educated
man in the world, and more. Our
American colleges have given us
great leaders in the past This great
stream must not cease to flow"
And the same truth applies at the
bottom of the education ladder. The
this Fall has had to face a
de6cite of approaching 10000 plain.
garden variety of school teachers. In
Boston and elsewhere, their strong
case for economic justice, with the
danger involved to the public school
system, is being vigorously set forth.
So, too, with the churches. Follow
ing the Episcopal lead, the Baptist
are after $6,O00,OO0 to cure shock
ing niggardliness. Ministers are EMIT
led to joke half in earnest about
their right TO Strike"
erson, are treasures of SOIL under the
OF what avail, to paraphrase EN-
soil, and in structures above the SOIL
il human intelligence is to lessen.
MRS. MINNIE GILLAND