Since the institution of the benefit fund several members of the teaching staff of the Faculty of Arts have received annual pensions from that fund, but the income of the fund has, except for a very short time, considerably exceeded the expenditure. Unexpended income has been capitalized from time to time and the fund has grown to about $220,000. At the present time, two pensions, amounting together to $3,500 per annum, are paid from the income of this fund.

Owing to the reservation attached to the gift, and to the fact that at no time have the beneficiaries been so numerous as to exhaust the income of the fund, the Board of Governors have never formulated any scheme under which the benefit fund is to be operated. They have discussed the matter more than once, but, in the absence of any pressing necessity to deal with it, it has always remained in abeyance until a retirement has occurred, when the Board has dealt with the case upon its merits.

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO

In the earlier history of the university retiring allowances were occasionally granted, but in 1891 the authorities decided against the continuance of this provision.

As a substitute there was created in 1891 what is called "The Retirement Fund," a fund established by deducting each month from the salaries of members of the faculty a certain percentage, which increases with the salary according to a fixed scale.

The interest credited to this Fund is six per cent per annum, compounded half yearly. "The Retirement Fund" has been in operation fifteen years, and the amounts to the credit of members of the faculty vary from a few hundred dollars to seven thousand dollars. The largest amounts would, however, purchase annuities of not more than three or four hundred dollars. The plan amounts to little more than a compulsory saving system.

In the recent act entitled "Act respecting the University of Toronto and University College," the following special clause is inserted in regard to superannuations and retirements:

The Board shall have power "to make regulations respecting and to provide for the retirement and superannuation of any of the persons mentioned in sub-section 2 (the teaching staff), or the payment of a gratuity to any of them upon retirement, and to provide for any superannuation or retiring allowance or gratuity which shall be paid out of a fund which may be created for that purpose, either with moneys of the Board or by contributions thereto from the persons aforesaid or partly by both."

THE SCALE OF PENSIONS IN FOREIGN INSTITUTIONS

The nature of the protection afforded by the foreign system of teachers' pensions cannot be correctly estimated without taking into account the social and industrial conditions under which the life goes on. Thus, a professor in a German university receives, as a rule, a smaller salary than the American professor; but he receives with that salary, generally, a certain allowance for house rent, and his appointment carries with it a provision which ensures him a support for the whole of his life, and ensures at the same time a protection for his widow and orphans. Furthermore, his life is in a social régime

under which his expenditures are not so large as those of his American colleague. The nature of the provisions for a professor in Germany may be judged from the following résumé from the Regulations.

In Berlin a full professor begins with a salary of $1,200 a year, increased in six service periods of four years each by $100. This salary This salary seems a small one, but it must be remembered that such a professor receives in addition fees from his students and some provision for house rent. Professors themselves have no pensions, but are paid their full salary so long as they live. Should a professor become incapacitated by illness or old age for the duties of his place he asks to be relieved, and his lectures are then given by some one else, but he retains his salary. The widow of such a professor receives a pension of a little over $400; an orphan child will receive, if the mother is also dead, $180, and, in case the mother is not dead, $120. Each additional child receives $120 or $75, according as the child is a "whole orphan " or a "half orphan."

In the other States of Germany, in Austria and in Holland, and in France, the provisions are somewhat similar. The professor receives in nearly all cases a pension of full salary, and his widow and orphans receive an amount which is a fairly fixed proportion of his salary. In a word, the effect of all such pension systems is to provide for the man who gains a fixed place in the higher institutions of learning two things: first, a stable place for himself, with an income up to the end of his life, and, second, protection for his widow and orphans. These two provisions go far toward counterbalancing in the eyes of most men the small amount of the salary of the teacher, as compared with the larger rewards won by the lawyer, the physician and the business man; and in dealing with professors in European institutions it has been found that in almost all cases they cannot be tempted to leave a system in which this security is found to accept much larger salary in other employment, or in institutions where no pension system exists.

CONSIDERATIONS OF GENERAL POLICY

It seems desirable that there should be presented in this first report of the progress of the Foundation some general statement of the ends which the trustees have sought to accomplish in carrying out the work under the general rules which were adopted.

From the beginning the trustees and the Executive Committee have sought to deal with this great responsibility from the standpoint of strengthening the profession of the teacher; and the questions which naturally first presented themselves were the following:

(1) What is the value of a retiring allowance system to a teacher in the higher institutions of learning?

(2) How may this fund be so used as to promote that value and at the same time to strengthen the general interests of education?

In answer to these two questions it may be said that the chief value of the retiring allowance to the teacher consists in removing the disquieting uncertainty which goes with a small income, thus leaving him free to devote himself heartily to the work of teaching. There are few situations in life more full of discomfort and of anxiety than that of the man who sees old age or illness approach, with but slender means to support himself and his family. The teacher is, furthermore, by the very nature of his occu

pation and of his environment called upon to maintain a social standard very high in comparison with his pay. It has become increasingly evident of late years that the calling of the teacher, involving as it does this small salary and an uncomfortable risk in old age, was appealing in diminishing degree to that body of men whom any profession seeks to attract. It is true that the real teacher finds in the joy of teaching his chief reward. The same thing is true of the highest class of men in any profession; but it is also true that as the rewards and the honors of a profession increase it will become more attractive to men of ability, strength and initiative. In other words, the chief value of the establishment of a system of retiring allowances to the teacher in the higher institutions consists in the lifting of this uncertainty regarding old age or disability, in the consequent lightening of the load of anxiety, and in the increasing attractiveness of the professor's life to an ambitious and intelligent man. All this tends to social dignity and stability.

With regard to the second question, it is evident to the trustees that, to better the profession of the teacher and to attract into it increasing numbers of strong men, it is necessary that the retiring allowance should come as a matter of right, not as a charity. No ambitious and independent professor wishes to find himself in the position of accepting a charity or a favor, and the retiring allowance system simply as a charity has little to commend it. It would unquestionably relieve here and there distress of a most pathetic sort, but, like all other ill-considered charity, it would work harm in other directions. It is essential, in the opinion of the Trustees, that the fund shall be so administered as to appeal to the professors in American and Canadian colleges from the standpoint of a right, not from that of charity, to the end that the teacher shall receive his retiring allowance on exactly the same basis as that upon which he receives his active salary, as a part of his academic compensation.

It is upon these two fundamental principles that the trustees and the Executive Committee have sought to build; and their whole effort has had for its aim the establishment in America, using that term in the widest sense, of the principle of the retiring allowance in institutions of higher learning, upon such a basis that it may come to the professor as a right, not a charity.

When one comes to work out the details of such a plan, taking into account the conditions imposed by the Founder as expressed in the charter of the Foundation, it seems clear that it is desirable to confer such retiring allowances, so far as is possible, through the institutions themselves: in other words, to recognize institutions as promptly as may be and, once having recognized them, to confer retiring allowances upon their professors through them in accordance with a fixed set of rules and upon a fixed plan. If the colleges and universities of the United States, Canada and Newfoundland were com- ¡ parable in academic grade, if they stood free of State and denominational control, this would be a comparatively simple matter. As it is one finds in the seven hundred colleges scattered over the North American continent every possible grade of academic development and every possible degree of State and denominational control; and it is the difficulties which lie in this situation which have made it, in the judgment of the Executive Committee, absolutely necessary to proceed slowly in the recognition of institutions. No institution will suffer any loss by waiting a few months, or even a few years, for admission to the "accepted list "; and it can be readily understood by all that such

recognition should be manifested only so soon as it is clearly and justly due. In the rules established by the Trustees, therefore, the questions of educational standard, and of denominational or State control, have been provisionally dealt with, and along the following lines:

EDUCATIONAL STANDARD

The terms college and university have, as yet, no fixed meaning on this continent. It is not uncommon to find flourishing high schools which bear one or the other of these titles. To recognize institutions of learning without some regard to this fact would be to throw away whatsoever opportunity the Foundation has for the exertion of educational influence.

The trustees have, therefore, adopted for the present an arbitrary definition of what constitutes a college, one framed very closely after that adopted in the revised ordinances of the State of New York. This definition is expressed in the rules of the Foundation as follows:

"An institution to be ranked as a college, must have at least six (6) professors giving their entire time to college and university work, a course of four full years in liberal arts and sciences, and should require for admission, not less than the usual four years of academic or high school preparation, or its equivalent, in addition to the preacademic or grammar school studies."

In order to judge what constitutes "four years of academic or high-school preparation" the officers of the Foundation have made use of a plan commonly adopted by college entrance examination boards. By this plan college entrance requirements are designated in terms of units, a unit being a course of five periods weekly throughout an academic year of the preparatory school. For the purposes of the Foundation the units in each branch of academic study have also been quantitatively defined, the aim being to assign values to the subjects in accordance with the time usually required to prepare adequately upon them for college entrance. Thus, plane geometry, which is usually studied five periods weekly throughout an academic year of the preparatory school, is estimated as one unit. In other words, the value of the unit is based upon the actual amount of work required and not upon the time specified for the preparation of the work.

A difficulty, however, arises in estimating by this method the entrance requirements of the various colleges and universities. The large majority of institutions accept the certificates of "approved" preparatory schools and academies. In the courses of these "approved" schools it frequently happens that there is a marked discrepancy between the amount of work required and the time specified for the preparation of the work, when judged by the definitions of the units as adopted by the officers of the Foundation. For example, plane geometry may be accepted as an entrance requirement by an institution, although that subject has been studied in the preparatory school for only two periods weekly throughout an academic year. In such cases the officers of the Foundation will credit the institution with plane geometry solely upon the basis of the time given to the preparation of the subject. Thus, plane geometry, studied two periods weekly throughout an academic year, would be counted as two-fifths of a unit and not as one unit. Or, if the time

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given to the preparation of the academic course is generally below the standard, the officers of the Foundation reserve the right to consider such work as altogether unsatisfactory unless adequate explanation is offered.

Fourteen units constitute the minimum amount of preparation which may be interpreted as "four years of academic or high-school preparation." The definitions of the units, given in the following pages, are in close accordance with the requirements of the College Entrance Examination Board.1

ENGLISH

The unit in English is based upon the requirements of the College Entrance Examination Board.

a. READING AND PRACTICE-one and one-half units.

Preparation for this part of the work should include the ability of writing a paragraph or two on each of several topics, to be chosen by the candidate from a considerable number-perhaps ten or fifteen-set before him in the examination paper. The treatment of these topics is designed to show the candidate's power of clear and accurate expression, and will call for only a general knowledge of the substance of the books. In every case knowledge of the book will be regarded as less important than the ability to write good English. It is important that the candidate shall have been instructed in the fundamental elements of rhetoric. In 1906, 1907, and 1908 the books prescribed for this part of the preparation are as follows:

Shakspere's The Merchant of Venice and Macbeth: The Sir Roger de Coverley Papers in the Spectator; Irving's Life of Goldsmith; Coleridge's The Ancient Mariner; Scott's Ivanhoe and The Lady of the Lake; Tennyson's Gareth and Lynette, Lancelot and Elaine, and The Passing of Arthur; Lowell's The Vision of Sir Launfal; George Eliot's Silas Marner.

b. STUDY AND PRACTICE-one and one-half units.

Preparation for this part of the work includes the thorough study of each of the works named below; a knowledge of the subject-matter, form, and structure. In addition, the candidate may be required to answer questions involving the essentials of English grammar, and questions on the leading facts in those periods of English literary history to which the prescribed works belong. The books set for this part of the work will be for 1906, 1907, and 1908 as follows:

For further information in regard to text-books, suitable reading matter for language study, detailed outlines of science courses, and lists of laboratory experiments, reference is made to the requirements of this board. A copy of the pamphlet containing the information will be sent free to any teacher upon request. Address: College Entrance Examination Board, Post Office Substation 84, New York, N. Y.