THE CARNEGIE TRUST.

The following tables show the apportionment of the grants from the Carnegie trust to the four universities of Scotland, as proposed by the secretary of the Carnegie trustees, July 26, 1902:

GLASGOW UNIVERSITY.

[Annual grant of £11,000 for 5 years, making total grant of £55,000.]

Buildings and permanent equipment....

1. (4) Natural philosophy.

(b) Physiology, materia medica, forensic medicine, etc. 2. Chemistry, or geology (equipment), if any remainder.

Teaching..

1. Endowment of chair of geology.

(Capital sum of £7,500.)

2. For some other endowment approved by the committee.

Library..

Total

ABERDEEN UNIVERSITY.

[Annual grant of £9,000 for 5 years, making total grant of £15,600.]

Buildings and permanent equipment..

Apparatus.

Teaching.

[Annual grant of £8,500 for 5 years, making total grant of £42,500.]

Buildings and permanent equipment....

2. Physics (St. Andrews). (Capital sum of £2,000.)

1. Chemistry (St. Andrews), including endowment for upkeep, etc. (Capital sum of £5,000.)

3. Extension, etc. (Dundee). (Capital sum of £8,000.)

Teaching.

EDINBURGH UNIVERSITY,

[Annual grant of £11,500 for 5 years, making total grant of £57,500.]

For endowment of modern languages, or some other purpose approved by the committee.

2,500

12,500

Library..

1,000

Total

11.500

5,000 57,500

The royal commission on the state of university education in Ireland, appointed in 1901, has just issued its report, which is received too late for extended consideration in this place. The representative character of the commission, the thoroughness of its investigations, and the comprehensive scope and judicial tone of its report excite the hope that its recommendation will lead to a satisfactory settlement of the serious problem which has engaged its attention.

An interesting event in the year's history of Trinity College, Dublin, was the opening ceremony of the memorial building, the gift of old graduates in commemoration of the tercentenary feast of 1892.

The following statements with regard to private bequests for higher education in Great Britain during the period 1871-1890 and the comparative statistics of university students in Great Britain, Germany, and the United States are cited from a recent article in Nature:

The question naturally presents itself, What has been done by private effort in this country to assist university education during the same period (1871-1890)? Compared with American munificence, the amounts given and bequeathed here are very small. Take, in the first place, the university colleges, which are largely to be regarded as a growth of the years under consideration. The financial statements contained in the Reports from University Colleges, 1901, published by the board of education, reveal the fact that, including the £400,000 raised for the University of Birmingham, the benefactions to the fifteen university colleges in Great Britain amounted during 1870-1900 to a little more than three millions ($15,000,000). In the absence of systematic reports during the same period of the financial resources of the older universities of the United Kingdom, it is difficult to estimate the amount of benefactions received by them during the same thirty years. The parliamentary returns which have been published since 1898, showing the revenue of Scottish universities, suggest that their benefactions in the same time, excluding Mr. Carnegie's splendid gift, may be put at something under half a million, so that for the whole of the United Kingdom the total amount of endowment from private sources raised in these years may, without any risk of underestimation, be said to be considerably less than five millions ($25,000,000). * * *

It is interesting in this connection to compare the number of students taking university courses in this country with those in Germany and the United States.. With this object in view the following table has been prepared, but it should be pointed out that the number of students in our university colleges includes all above the age of 16, which is probably much lower than the age of the students included in the totals for other countries. It is well to remember, too, that the number of American university students is probably too high for a fair comparison with those of Germany. Many university students in the United States are really students in the higher branches of technology, and would in Germany study in technical high schools, the students of which are not included in Germany's total in the table. To make the comparisons as simple as possible, the number of university students per ten thousand of population has been calculated.

Number of university students per 10,000 of population (1900).

Neglecting the income accruing from the State land grants, the legislatures of individual States and the United States Government together supplied about £900,000 for university education during 1899-1900, while the article in Nature for March 12, 1903, shows that the total State aid to universities and colleges in the United Kingdom at present amounts only to £155,600, a

a From article entitled "The university and the modern state," Nature, May 14, 1903, p. 27.

CHAPTER XXVI.

CORRESPONDENCE SCHOOLS."

Instruction by correspondence is, in the very nature of things, as old as written communication, for any person who would give advice and instruction to another in conversation naturally does the same thing by correspondence during absence. Such instruction was the beginning of correspondence schools, just as the teaching of a child at its mother's knee was the beginning of all education; it needed but to be systematized and extended from informal paternal admonition to organized teaching by those whose special function it came to be.

To cite instances in history of noteworthy letters whose sole object was instruction would be an endless task. Some of them, however, may be mentioned as being of special interest and of historical significance. The letters of Cicero to his son Marcus (De Officiis), and to his brother Quintus (Ad Quintum Fratrem), naturally suggest themselves first. Quintus Cicero was proprætor of Asia Minor, and the letters addressed to him were, in general, newsy letters, mixed with kindly advice and admonition, but they were also full of detailed instruction as to the handling of the public affairs intrusted to Quintus through the influence of the elder Cicero. Written apparently for the perusal of a single individual, they constitute in reality a remarkable dissertation on the duties of those set in high places, and are worthy to serve to such as a guide through all the ages.

The letters to young Marcus were also written on a high moral plane, and comprise in effect an excellent treatise upon ethics. As such they were intended to be not casually read and laid aside, but earnestly studied. At the outset Cicero said:

Having resolved at this time to write to you somewhat, and a great deal in time to come, I have thought proper to set out with that subject which is best adapted to your years and my authority; for while many subjects in philosophy, of great weight and utility, have been accurately and copiously discussed by philosophers, the most extensive seems to be what they have delivered and enjoined concerning the duties of mankind; for there can be no state in life, amidst public or private affairs, abroad or at home, whether you transact anything with yourself or contract anything with another, that is without its obligations. In the due discharge of that consists all the dignity, and in its neglect all the disgrace, of life.

In the closing paragraph of the last letter (or book-there were three books) he

says:

But as, if I myself had gone to Athens (which would indeed have been the case had not my country, with loud voice, called me back from the middle of my journey), you would sometimes have listened to me also; so, since my voice has reached you

a In the Report of the Commissioner of Education for 1901, Vol. I, pp. 232-234, is given a statement regarding the general character of correspondence schools and their methods of securing students, by R. P. Rothwell, president of the United Correspondence Schools of New York. Special information regarding railway correspondence schools, with typical courses of study, by J. Shirley Eaton, statistician of the Lehigh Valley Railroad, is given in the Report of 1898-99, Vol. I, pp. 903–907. b Translation of Cyrus R. Edmonds (Bohn s Classical Library).

in these volumes, you will bestow upon them as much time as you can; and you can bestow as much as you wish. But when I shall understand that you take delight in this department of science, then will I converse with you both when present, which will be in a short time, as I expect, and while you will be far away I will talk with you, though absent.

It is evident, therefore, that in De Officiis is a genuine specimen of correspondence instruction of the highest type-so high, in fact, that those letters written by the Roman orator nearly two thousand years ago are still studied for their style and for their contents in the colleges of the world. They were truly "the noblest present ever made by a parent to a child."

Lord Chesterfield, too, was a correspondence instructor of note. His Letters to his Son are not in "pedagogical form," and as far as any necessary dependence of the substance of one upon that of another is concerned, any one of them might as well be the last of the series.

They are informal, as might be expected of the familiar letters of a parent to a child; beyond occasional advice they deal but little with formal study, and were not designed to be themselves the subject of such study, as were Cicero's letters. They were intended principally to convey directions, or suggestions, as to conduct, using the word in its lighter meaning. A tutor was employed to teach the scholastic branches, but instruction as to the behavior of a gentleman in his association with his fellows could only be given by one of particularly refined manners. It was this which Lord Chesterfield undertook to do for his son, and since the two were together but little, the instruction necessarily took the form of correspondence.

The next important writer of didactic letters who will be noticed here was Karl Philipp Moritz, a German teacher, author, and journalist. He was connected with Basedow's famous "Philanthropin," and was later a friend and protégé of Goethe. He wrote a book upon German prosody, putting it in the form of letters which were supposed to have passed between two imaginary persons, Euphem and Arist. The contents of the book indicate that this form of composition was merely a conceit of the author, and that the substance was never actually transmitted as a series of letters. But this paper would not be complete without mentioning it, because it was one of the works which suggested the idea of correspondence instruction upon an extensive scale to the Germans, who founded the first of the modern correspondence schools.

ago.

son,

For the same reason it is necessary to mention William Cobbett, who was famous as an agitator and pamphleteer in this country as well as in England a hundred years It was in 1817, during one of his sojourns in America, that Cobbett wrote to his James Paul, a series of letters which together formed a complete grammar of the English language. Just why he happened to select such a subject for these letters is interesting. He had been a plowboy in his youth, and had had little opportunity for early education. Reaching manhood he enlisted in a regiment of infantry with which he came to Halifax. Having been made regimental clerk, he felt sadly the lack of education and eagerly set about to make up the deficiency. One of the first books he secured was A Short Introduction to English Grammar, by Bishop Robert Louth, a little duodecimo book of 220 pages. With the enthusiasm of a novice he studied this until he thoroughly mastered every part of it, and even committed the entire book to memory. This gave direction to his subsequent studies and bent to his mind, and it is not surprising that, in writing to his absent son, he should take that topic which he had found so fruitful.

Having written these letters, which were really letters, though forming as a whole a remarkably clear and connected treatise upon the language, he followed his habit and published them in book form. The title-page stated that the book was "intended for the use of schools and of young persons in general, but more especially for the use of soldiers, sailors, apprentices, and plough-boys." The success of the publication

was unexpectedly great. Ten thousand copies were sold in a month, and it went through many editions. Of the two copies in the library of the Bureau of Education, one is of the original New York edition of 1818; the other also bears a New York imprint and is dated 1832.

In all the instances heretofore cited the letters were written primarily for the benefit of certain individuals, and though it is likely that the authors of some of them, especially Cicero and Cobbett, wrote with a view to publication as well as to the needs of the persons addressed, there was no idea in any case that their work would ever be "letters" to anyone else. It remained for a later time to develop a plan to give instruction in epistolary form to whosoever might demand it. That was a work for professional teachers, while those who had gone before wrote not as teachers, but as fathers. The first instance of such professional instruction was probably that of the Toussaint-Langenscheidt "school," which began its work in 1856. This institution, if such it might be called, was founded by Charles Toussaint, a Frenchman and a teacher of French in Berlin, and Gustav Langenscheidt, a German writer and member of the Society for Modern Languages in Berlin. These men were familiar with the teaching that had been done by correspondence in the ways described in the previous paragraphs, and they were familiar with language teaching in class. They simply combined the one with the other, thus giving rise to the "ToussaintLangenscheidt method," which has become famous throughout Europe. They modestly refused to claim originality for their undertaking, citing the work of Moritz, Cobbett, and others in giving instruction by letters, and stating that in their actual teaching they but followed the methods of Jacotot, Hamilton, and Robertson, adopting the best ideas of each. Nevertheless, in the details of their teaching there was much that was original in that it had never been practiced before just as they did it.

In the beginning they taught only the French language to German pupils, but English was added soon and other languages afterward. Their plan was to send to each pupil monthly a printed "letter" of about 32 pages, of which half was given to grammar, or the structure of the language taught, while the other half was given to translation and conversational exercises. For translation a portion of a story was given each month, the same story running through the entire course, thus adding an element of interest to the work of translation. For instance, in the English course a part of Dickens's Christmas Carol, "Marley's Ghost," was selected. Under each word of English was a phonetic rendering of the foreign pronunciation, and beneath that was its literal translation into German. Following this was a translation of the passage into good idiomatic German, with discussion of the idioms; and then a detailed treatment of each word in the passage quoted. The conversational exercises were similar in general plan, an imaginary conversation upon everyday topics being given, with full explanation of the use of every word and the meaning of every sentence. Constant practice in pronouncing aloud the words of the unfamiliar language was urged, and other useful suggestions were made which would naturally occur to an experienced teacher.

Having thoroughly studied his lesson, the pupil was expected to forward a written recitation to the instructors, by whom it was corrected and returned with further individual suggestions to the pupil. At the end of the course of about 18 lessons an examination was given covering the entire course, and that was followed by still further criticism and suggestion to the student.a

aThe concern which originated the Toussaint-Langenscheidt method still exists as the Langenscheidtsche Verlagsbuchhandlung. As the name indicates, the business is now "merely the publication of a series of educational works for self-instruction." The correspondence feature has been discontinued. The letters are sent periodically to patrons, as before, but each lesson paper after the first contains the solution of all the questions in the previous paper, and the student is expected to correct his own exercises according to printeȧ directions without correspondence with instructors.