Colleges in America

by John Marshall Barker

No college of a high grade can exist without a generous endowment or aid from some source. Education in the colleges and universities throughout the world is given almost as a gratuity. It is maintained principally through the benefactions of wealthy men who erect buildings, found professorships and establish libraries for the use of others.

The resources of American colleges surpass those of any other country in the world. In 1890, the value of grounds, buildings and apparatus for 378 colleges in the United States was $77,894,729, and the productive fund of 315 colleges aggregated $74,090,415. In Germany, the twenty-two universities are national property, and are supported out of the national treasury at a large annual expense. The annual incomes of Oxford and Cambridge in England aggregate more than $3,500,000.

Many of the American colleges have wealthy foundations. Harvard College has in grounds, buildings and productive endowment the sum of $12,000,000, with an income in 1892 of $978,881.92. Columbia College claims $13,000,000, with an annual income of $629,000. The estimated value of the funds of Cornell College is $9,000,000, with an annual income of more than $400,000, and Johns Hopkins University has $5,000,000 endowment. In 1892, Yale College had $4,019,000, with an annual income of $520,246. The Northwestern University has nearly $3,000,000 endowment and an annual income of $225,000. Boston University has more than $1,500,000 endowment and an annual income of $160,000. Chicago University is one of our youngest universities, and yet it has in property and endowment $7,500,000. These are only a small portion of the 415 colleges and universities in this country whose aggregate wealth and income are a source of satisfaction to all the friends of higher education.

The munificence of the wealthy men of this nation in behalf of higher education has excited the surprise and admiration of the old world. Within the last quarter of a century nearly seventy-five million dollars has been given for this cause. We recall with satisfaction some of these distinguished donors: George Peabody left $6,000,000 of his estate to the cause of education; Isaac Rich, $1,000,000 to Boston University; Johns Hopkins, $3,140,000 to found a university in Baltimore which bears his name; Asa Packard gave $3,000,000 to Lehigh University; D. B. Fayerweather left a bequest of nearly $3,000,000 to various colleges; Cornelius Vanderbilt gave $1,000,000 to the Vanderbilt University; John C. Green gave $1,500,000 to Princeton College; Amasa Stone, $600,000 to Adelbert College; George I. Seney, $450,000 to Wesleyan University; Matthew Vassar, $800,000 to Vassar College for women; John D. Rockefeller's gifts to the Chicago University aggregate $4,500,000, and Leland Stanford's estate will yield from $12,000,000 to $15,000,000 for the university that bears his name on the Pacific Coast. These men and a host of others will be remembered through succeeding generations for their generous liberality. The wisdom of these noble benefactions commends itself to the enlightened judgment of all good citizens. We believe, with President Schurman, that "the heart behind American wealth is at the bottom generous and discerning, and so long as money can foster intelligence, that heart will not suffer our civilization to become a prey to ignorance, brutishness and stupid materialism. No one knows better than the millionaire that man lives not by bread alone." The colleges are not founded to make money but to benefit the public by training and fitting men for the highest service. The majority of the students in American colleges are of limited means. If it were possible to sustain a first-class college by means of the income from students, the tuition would be so high as to limit the great advantage of a higher education to a few children of rich men. The annual cost of each undergraduate to the University at Oxford is $700, at Cambridge $600, and at Harvard $300. If the actual expenses of running a college of high grade were divided proportionately among the students, they would have to pay three or four times the amount they now do for tuition. It is important that these educational advantages and incentives come within the reach of the humblest youth of the Republic, in order that they may be productive of the noblest manhood and womanhood.

Time and experience confirm the claim that the wisest and most permanent use of money is to help endow a college. Large wealth imposes obligations to make the best and most permanent use of it. Every man of means ought to be a patron of learning, because it yields the most satisfactory returns. "What better gift can we offer the Republic," says Cicero, "than to teach and instruct the youth." Wendell Phillips says that "education is the only interest worthy deep, controlling anxiety of thoughtful men," and President Gilman makes an equally forcible statement when he says that "to be concerned in the establishment of a university is one of the noblest and most important tasks ever imposed on a community or on a set of men."

Many of our denominational colleges are parsimoniously sustained. If their constituency, both rich and poor, would become imbued with the spirit of the Colonial fathers, and arouse themselves to give liberally, their power and influence would be multiplied a hundred fold. "Let it not be forgotten," says President Thwing, "that if the college and university have large need of the wealth of the community, this wealth has yet a larger need of the college and university. Without the aid of the higher education in the past, much of the wealth could not have been created; and without the higher education of the present, wealth would now become sordid; gold-dust is no less dust because it is golden. The rich man needs the college as his beneficiary to help him to be a noble man quite as much as the college needs his benefactions to help it make noble men. A college in poverty can make men; a rich man (or a poor man, indeed,) cannot hoard in meanness without degradation of manhood." The colleges are the agencies to help call out the constructive talent of the nation. They open the pathway of opportunity to every young man and woman who desires to do the most for himself and humanity. Each one may link himself through his means and prayers to these powerful agencies for good.

IV.
THE FUNCTIONS OF THE AMERICAN COLLEGE—A SYMMETRICAL DEVELOPMENT.

The function of the American college is to train and develop all the human powers and faculties and help the student to attain a complete individuality. The broadest educational theory estimates the worth of all the human powers and has the highest notion of personality, the development of which demands the impact of physical, intellectual, moral, and religious forces. A rounded human development provides for the fullest and freest exercise of all the powers of being. "Culture," says Matthew Arnold, "is a harmonious expansion of all the powers which make the beauty and worth of human nature, and is not consistent with the over-development of any one power at the expense of the rest."

Man is a unit, but inasmuch as God has endowed him with various capacities, his highest glory should be to develop them. The only limit to the college student is his native abilities and aptitudes, modified by the parental training, various social influences, and the preliminary discipline in the public schools. The college that receives the students, with their different aims and predilections and acquirements, and leads them to appreciate the greater possibilities of their natures, and arouses and encourages them to strive for their fullest development, is worthy of confidence and support.