The new medical schools, opened by the King in March, 1904, are but a portion of the original plan; and, until the remaining laboratories can be erected (at a probable cost of about £12,000), the various departments must necessarily be cramped. Many more teachers in special subjects are wanted, and the need of a professorship, or at least a readership, in hygiene is pressing. A new lecture-room is wanted in the department of human anatomy, which at present shares a room with physiology. A considerable sum is also needed for instruments, fittings, attendants, and libraries.
The school of engineering needs provision in metallurgy, mining subjects, and naval architecture; of the latter, in the greatest shipbuilding country of the world, but two chairs—one at Glasgow, and one at Newcastle-on-Tyne—exist. New workshops and engine-rooms are also greatly needed. The present workshops date from 1878, and are far too small for the demands on them. The provision of a sum of money which can be expended by the professor on the encouragement of research is much needed.
The department of agriculture is fairly well staffed, but at present is obliged to carry on its indoor work in four rooms in the basement of the chemical laboratory. The amount of research carried on by the staff has fully justified them in establishing the Journal of Agricultural Science, which appeared for the first time in 1904. This is the only periodical in the country devoted entirely to scientific agriculture. A laboratory for agriculture is a most pressing necessity; a site is available, but at present there is not sufficient money for the building, which, including provision for maintenance, would cost £20,000. The Drapers’ Company has generously promised a conditional £5,000 towards this sum, and some £12,000 has been collected from other sources.
Besides numerous smaller needs, there are two of primary importance which have not yet been mentioned. The first is that for the provision of examination rooms. The University examinations are at present held in the Guildhall, the Corn Exchange, and other hired rooms, often badly lighted, badly heated, and badly ventilated, and in no case well adapted to the purpose of conducting examinations. The hiring and arranging of the rooms costs the University at least £450 a year.
The other great need is some adequate provision for that priceless national treasure, the University library. Mr. J. W. Clark has himself inaugurated an appeal on its behalf. The list of donors which he is already able to print is headed by His Majesty the King; and a sum of over £18,000 has already been collected. This sum includes a donation of £5,000 from the Goldsmiths’ Company, and £2,700 assigned by Lord Rayleigh from the Nobel prize; to the remainder, resident masters of arts have largely contributed. When it has been shown by their contributions how keenly the residents feel on the subject of the library, it is hoped that some generous measure of help may be forthcoming from hands more able to give it. The library is the mainspring of University activity; and its well-being and good organization are important to all departments alike. Every member of the Senate, and every other person entitled to use the library, have access to the shelves; and no serious student, whether a member of the University or not, is refused.
But, in its restricted area, the library cannot expand further; and the result is congestion and inevitable disorder. The furniture and fitting up of the rooms recently rendered available for the library will cost some £15,000. Towards this expenditure the Financial Board has been able to grant only £5,000, spread over three years. The cost of furnishing a reading and reference-room is estimated at from £800 to £1,000. Further, an increase of the staff is urgently needed. The library grows at the rate of about 11,000 books per annum; and there are considerable arrears of cataloguing to be overtaken. The magnificent gift of Lord Acton’s library, for which the University is indebted to Mr. Carnegie and Mr. John Morley, has involved considerable outlay. The number of volumes presented is about 59,000; the binding, cataloguing, printing of titles, and the provision of bookcases will cost about £8,000, to which the University has contributed £6,900. Gifts such as these are of priceless value to Cambridge; but they entail heavy expenditure. Additional assistants, moreover, are needed to look after them; and every new room added to the library increases the cost of maintenance. Altogether, it is estimated that a sum of £21,200 is required for present use; and that £3,800 a year is required for additions to the staff, the purchase and binding of books, and for the additional expense entailed by the Acton library. This annual income, if capitalized, represents a sum of £126,700.
Modern education is a costly thing; and when, in 1904, the heads of departments in the University made an estimate of the outlay necessary to place their several provinces in a state of efficiency, their deliberate and responsible calculations showed that a sum of £270,000 was required for building and equipment, and an additional annual income of £38,000 for the increase of salaries on the very moderate scale suggested, and for maintenance; in all, say a capital sum of a million and a half. Even this estimate takes no account of the desirability of providing pensions for professors who have reached the age of seventy. As the published list of benefactions shows, Cambridge has reason to be grateful to her recent benefactors. But to raise an endowment comparable to that of £1,400,000 which the Johns Hopkins University received from private munificence seems in this country to be hardly within the bounds of possibility.
Had an appeal such as that issued by Cambridge been made in the United States, there is little doubt that it would have met with a prompt response. There is in Montreal a University, officered largely by Cambridge men, and equipped with a princely magnificence of which Cambridge dares not even dream. Dr. Ewing’s comment is pertinent. ‘It is good,’ said he, ‘to see the colonial daughter sitting down to so lavish a table; but is it well that the alma mater at home should be left looking wistfully at the crumbs?’ Nearer home, Mr. Carnegie has shown what a large-minded liberality can do for the Scottish Universities. A great benefactor who would free the University of Cambridge from a sordid struggle, in which every pound spent on development has to be laboriously begged, would earn an enduring fame in the annals of British education. It has been the earnest desire of the authors of this paper to show that the University is not unworthy of such generosity; that she has displayed great courage and great self-denial in facing modern conditions; and that her reputed wealth is a fiction, while her poverty is a grim fact.
INDEX
[A], [B], [C], [D], [E], [F], [G], [H], [I], [J], [K], [L], [M], [N], [O], [P], [Q], [R], [S], [T], [U], [V], [W], [Y], [Z]