The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1926-12-01
UNIVERSITY FUND
DECREASES AS
SCHOOL GROWS
PRESIDENT COLEMAN STATES
APPROPRIATIONS ARE LESS
PER STUDENT THAN BEFORE
THE WAR.

DeSplCe lCS tremendous grown ana
the fact that it takes $1.58 cents to-
day to buy what $1.O0 bought in 1913
IA, the University of Minnesota is
today receiving but 1925 per student
from the Legislature as against $3.50
per student II years ago.
This is one of many important facts
relative to university support that are
brought out in an open letter to the
people of Minnesota by President L.
D. Coffman of the University. In it
he says: "There are more students per
teacher and more young, inexperienc-
ed teachers in the University of Min
nesota today than ever before in its
history. For the state to fail to make
appropriations in proportion to the in
crease of the student body is the most
expensive economy that can be prac-
ticed."
Accompanying figures show that
the university in 1924 had Abs
students of college rank and 1892
students in all activities, which num-
bers had grown in 1920 to 9,027
and 1926, and again in 1925-'26 to
14,41O and 23,618. Minnesota high
schools which graduate 4,845 young
people in the year 913, turned out
1850 prospective college students in
June, 1925.
"How we'll are We doing the job OF
educating the students on our camp
u.s." President Coffman asked in his
letter in the October number of
Minnesota Chats" That is a hard
question to answer Certainly there
is no lack of effort on the part of the
more than seven hundred teachers who
are giving their lives to the task. On
the other hand, there are many prob
lens which perplex US. Doubts force
themselves upon US when we contem-
plate certain conditions, over which
We have little or no control. Three
of the most vexing questions are
these:
1. Poor housing conditions. There
were more than $4,000 students on
the campus last year-more than all
the people of Faribault or Virginia.
Except for one girls dormitory hous-
ing fewer than 800 girls, and a few
cooperative cottages, all the stu
dents live in homes off the Univers-
ity campus. These 10000 students are
young, virile, and eager to taste all
of life's experiences. Many there are
who do not make the best use of their
precious years at college because they
WELD to the more immediate pulls
which a better home environment
might enable them to resist. oxford
and Cambridge, Yale, Princeton and
Pennsylvania have depended upon
dormitory life to help them enable
their students to see life steadily and
see it whole. College life cannot be
most helpful unless the home condi-
lions in which the students live min
lister to the same ideals as do their
studies, their sports, and their de-
batting. The state is throwing money
away if, as sometimes happens, the
instruction which it pays for its null
fled by living conditions that make
for failure.
So The difficulty of building up
a strong faculty: While no teacher
worthy of the name is interested only
in his salary, it is true, nevertheless,
that in the long run, other things be-
ing equal, the best teachers will be at
tracted to that institution which pays
the best salaries. The institutions
with which Minnesota is in most con-
slant competition in her efforts to Sc
cure and hold strong faculty members
are the universities of Iowa, W1scon-
sin, Illinois, Michigan and Ohio. A
detailed study of the salaries being
paid to the faculty in these lnstltu-
lions reveals that our salary scale is
less than any of theirs except one.
The key to the success of any educa-
tional institution is the teacher. We
can neither get nor keep the best
teachers without a higher salary
scale.
"3. The relatively diminished state
appropriations for the support OF the
University: In 1884 dollar would
buy what it takes a dollar and sixty
cents to buy today, yet the legislature
appropriated more dollars in 1913-'l4
for each student then registered IN
the University than the last legisla-
ture appropriated for each student
now registered in the University.
The University gets only S3.25 today
where it got $3.50 per students in