• Including payments of students for board.

1745 137 340

7,442,000 925,000 100-168 3,500

1351

878
+17 20

Forest
School 65
59 +17

• Also $5.00 a year for a sitting in one of the village churches-$500.00 a

* $1650.00 for men, $900.00 for women.

year for tuition, room, board and laundry.

STUDENT REGISTRATION

CLASSICAL COURSE

LATIN-SCIENTIFIC COURSE

SCIENTIFIC COURSE

ENGINEERING COURSE

SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE

SCHOOL OF AGRICULTURE

THEOLOGICAL SCHOOL

GENERAL DISCUSSION OF APPLICATIONS FOR RETIRING AL

LOWANCES, WITH LIST OF PROFESSORS TO WHOM ALLOW-
ANCES HAVE BEEN GRANTED SINCE FIRST REPORT

At the end of the second year of the Foundation's activities, September 30, 1907, the total number of those receiving retiring allowances is one hundred and forty-eight, one hundred and thirty-three of these being professors and officers, and fifteen widows of professors. The tables published on pages 30-33 show the distribution of the allowances between the institutions on the accepted list and the institutions not on that list. They show in addition the basis on which the allowances were granted, together with the average length of service, the average age at retirement, and the average amount of the allowance to each of these two classes of professors.

These tables show that since the inauguration of the Foundation to September 30, 1907, grants have been made to one hundred and sixty-six persons, involving an annual budget of $234,660. Of this amount $146,150 was devoted to retiring allowances in accepted institutions and $88,510 to retiring allowances made to individuals. Of the one hundred and sixty-six persons to whom retiring allowances had been granted, eighteen had died prior to October 1, 1907, so that at that date one hundred and forty-eight persons were receiving allowances at a total expenditure of $202,145 per year, of which $124,990 was expended in accepted institutions and $77,155 in payments to individuals. These are distributed among eighty-four institutions. Up to October 1, 1907, fourteen colleges, universities and technical schools on the accepted list had not presented any professor for retirement.*

In the group of retirements on the basis of age there is an interesting comparison. The retiring allowances granted on this basis to professors not in accepted institutions before October 1, 1906, number eighteen; since then the number of allowances of the same group granted in institutions not on the accepted list has been only eight. This indicates that the number of aged professors whom on account of their distinguished merit alone the trustees would be inclined to add to the holders of allowances, is a class rapidly

*These institutions are: Case School of Applied Science, Clark University, Clarkson Memorial School of Technology, Colorado College, Dickinson College, George Washington University, Middlebury College, University of Pennsylvania, University of Rochester, Wabash College, Wellesley College, Williams College, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, and the Western University of Pennsylvania.

diminishing. Indeed, the total number of allowances granted for whatever reason, to professors not in accepted institutions, shows a tendency to diminish. Only twenty-seven such allowances were granted during the last year as against thirty-seven during the first year of the Foundation.

One reason for this diminution is the policy adopted by the executive committee in regard to state institutions. About forty applications from state universities and colleges were received during the year, a number which would probably have been larger if the discussion in regard to the admission of these institutions to the benefits of the Foundation had not been so widely known. The executive committee considered these applications with great care, and determined that in view of the decision of the trustees of the Foundation at the last annual meeting, it would grant retiring allowances to professors in state universities only where the services rendered had been of great distinction. Since that decision was made five retiring allowances of this class have been voted.

There are on the files of the Foundation about five hundred applications upon which no favorable action could be taken. A brief survey of their nature may be of interest.

Some few of these applications are from ministers; some from missionaries, and some from editorial writers on large daily newspapers. The greater number, however, are from teachers ranging from the primary grades up through the high schools and the colleges, all of which are worthy of careful consideration. The rural school teachers constitute a large proportion of these applicants. These teachers, hard-working and poorly paid, appeal not only for themselves, but for the cause of rural education. President Charles William Dabney of the University of Cincinnati, in writing on behalf of one of these old teachers, speaks of their cause in general as follows:

"I know that some cities have established pension systems for their teachers, but I do not at present recall any adequate system of pensioning rural school teachers. The salaries of these worthy people who are, as we know, the real builders of the American republic, are pitifully small, with the result that the majority of those who take up the profession drop it very soon. It is true, however, that many good people fall in love with the work and devote their lives to it, with the result that they are left to suffer in old age."

Many of the applications from these teachers make a most pathetic appeal. For example, one teacher writes that she began her work at the age of fifteen; she is now seventy and, without other means of support, ekes out a livelihood by teaching during the spring and summer of each year. A more pitiful case is that of a man who, after fifty years of service, became blind at eighty, and, having no one to care for him, was obliged to enter the county poor house. Another extraordinary case is that of James W. Johnson, of Franklin, West Virginia. He was born blind and has taught all his life in the same county at a salary of not more than forty dollars a month. In his old age, with a wife depending upon him, he is about to lose his position on account