CARNEGIE FOUNDATION. The Car negie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching had its inception on 16 April 1905, with a fund of $10,000,000. The act of incor poration was passed by Congress and approved by the President of the United States on 10 March 1906. The aim of this institution is the establishment of an agency to provide retiring allowances for teachers in colleges, universities and technical schools of the English-speaking countries of North America, and to serve the cause of higher education by advancing and dignifying the profession of the teacher in these higher institutions of .earning. In order to be admitted to the retiring allowance sys tem of the Foundation, the essential work of an institution must be that of higher education and of such a character that graduation from a four-year high school course, or equivalent training, constitutes a prerequisite therefor.
A technical school, to be eligible, must have entrance and graduation requirements equiva lent to those of the college, and must offer courses in pure and applied science of equiv alent grade.
Institutions which maintain a course or courses for which high-school graduation, or equivalent training, is not required for admis sion, must present to the Foundation the num ber of students and the names of the teachers in such course or courses; also, separately, the number of students of whom high-school train ing, or the equivalent, was required for admis sion, and the names of the teachers engaged exclusively in instructing the latter class of students.
No institution will be accepted which is so organized that stockholders may participate in its benefits.
Institutions of higher learning are recog nized as eligible, under the following condi tions: 1. Colleges, universities and technical schools of requisite academic grade, not owned or con trolled by a religious organization, whose char ters specifically provide that no denominational test shall be applied to trustees, officers, teach ers or students.
2. In the case of colleges, universities and technical schools, not owned or controlled by a religious organization, the trustees of such institutions are asked to certify that, notwith standing the lack of specific prohibition in the charter, i denominational test will be im posed n the choice of trustees, officers or teachers, nor in the admission of students, nor will denominational tenets or doctrines be taught to the students?) Upon the passage of such resolution by the governing bodies of such institutions, they may be recognized as entitled to the benefits of the Foundation, so far as considerations of sectarian control are concerned.
An institution not supported by taxation must have a productive endowment of not less than $200,000 over and above any indebtedness of the institution.
A tax-supported institution must be in re ceipt of an annual income of not less than $100,000.
Retiring allowances are granted in the col leges, universities and technical schools on the accepted list of the Foundation on two distinct grounds: (1) To a teacher of specified service on reaching the age of 65; (2) to a teacher after 25 or 30 years of service in case of physical disability. To these two main divisions the trustees have added many extra conditions..
At the instigation of the Carnegie Founda tion, a plan for an exchange of teachers be tween the United States and Prussia was put into effect in 1908. This plan has been in active operation ever since. During the year 1910 a sensation was created in educational circles through the rejection by the Foundation of several western colleges which did not, in the opinion of the trustees, come up to the ments set by Mr. Andrew Carnegie in his deed of trust. In the same year, Mr. Morris Llewellyn Cooke, a member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, undertook at the instigation of the Carnegie Foundation a detailed study of some of the American institu tions of learning, with a view to ascertaining whether they were being conducted in a proper manner and whether or not the large sums of money being expended by all of them were put to the best and most practical uses. In the course of his investigation Mr. Cooke examined at length the departments of physics at the uni versities of Harvard, Columbia, Toronto, Wis consin and Princeton, at Haverford and Wil liams colleges, and at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His opinion was considered of great importance, it being the first time that a practical business man had officially applied the principles of practical business to the system of education in the United States. His ver dict was that there was a very decided waste apparent at all of the institutions he visited. In his report he allowed facts to speak for themselves for the most part and rarely ut tered any direct criticism, although he did take occasion to score the life tenure of professor ships where they occurred, the committee sys tem of management and the stress laid on the importance of research work. Mr. Cooke de clared that he found researches being pursued in some of the colleges for which no possible excuse was offered, except by the man who happened to be conducting them, and he be lieved that altogether too much attention was uniformly paid to this branch of collegiate work.