The Financial Condition PRESENT NEEDS COLUMBIA COLLEG H A Statement Adopted by the Trustees of the College, . AND Ordered to be Printed, April 2, 1883. New York: PRINTED FOR THE COLLEGE. 1883. The Financial Condition PRESENT NEEDS \) V- \ Y UMBIA COLLEGE, A Statement Adopted by the Trustees of the College, AND Ordered to be Printed, April 2, 1883. New York: PRINTED FOR THE COLLEGE. 1883. ■ hi Macgowan & Slipper, Steam Printkrs, 30 Beekman Street, New York. 11V\^J YORK PUBL. HBI?l. m KXCHANQS. BE SOLUTION Adopted by the Board of Trustees of Columbia College, in Session, April 2, 1883. Resolved, That the form of Statement submitted by the Select Committee of Five appointed to consider the expediency of appealing to the public for means to give greater completeness to the scheme of instruction in the college be adopted ; and that the same be printed in pamphlet form for general distribution, and also that copies be furnished to the press. FINANCIAL CONDITION AND PRESENT NEEDS OF COLUMBIA COLLEGE. The Trustees of Columbia College have, for the past twenty or tweuty-five years, been engaged in the endeavor to give such expansion to the system of in- struction in the college, as to provide for the city of New York educational advantages equal to any to be found elsewhere. That an institution of learning of the highest grade should exist in this great city appears to them to be due no less to the dignity of the city itself than to the magnitude of the interests involved. The success of the efforts hitherto made toward the attain- ment of this end has been manifested in so large an increase in the attendance upon the various departments of the college as to have imposed upon the Trustees the necessity of incurring a burden of expense in the erection of additional buildings, such as to paralyze for the present, and probably for a long time to come, the power of further improvement. The ideal of a perfectly appointed university, which it has been their ambition and their hope to see here fulfilled, must therefore remain for an indefinite period, and perhaps perma- nently, unattained, unless the deficiency of their re- sources shall be supplied by the liberality of the public spirited citizens of New York. Under these circumstances, the Trustees feel it to be a duty, in behalf of the interests of the higher education 6 wliicli they represent in this great centre of population, to lay before the public the following full statement of th.e financial condition of the college and of its present needs. Columbia College is one of the few institutions of learning planted on this continent during the Colonial period, and it is the first of tliose establislied in the State of JSTew York. For more than -a century after its foundation its resources were extremely limited, and its financial embarrassments were often trying to a degree without a parallel in American educational history. Unlike most sister institutions of similar age, it kas received little aid from the munificence of in- dividuals ; and its benefactions from other sources have been few, and at tke time of their bestowal were of moderate value. Its present income, whick suffices to its actual operations, apart from the cost of buildings, is derived from two tracts of real estate granted, the first by tke corporation of Trinity Ckurck, as a site for tke college at its foundation in 1754, and tke otker by tke Legislature of the State in 1814, as an equivalent for a tract previously granted by tke Colonial Grovernment, bat wkick kad been subsequently lost in tke adjustment of inter-state boundaries. Tkese tracts, botk of tkem on Mankattan Island, were of inconsiderable value wken granted, being situated beyond, and one of tkem very far beyond, tke limits of tke settled part of tke island; and tkey liave only attained tkeir present importance as sources of income from tke growtk of tke city during tke past forty years. During all tkis long period but two gifts of substantial value kave been received irom private sources, one of them a bequest in 1843, from Frederick Gebha-rd, of twenty thousand dollars for the foundation of a Professorskip of German, a sum inade- quate at present to maintain tke ckair witkout aid from the general fund ; and tlie other, a bequest of con- siderable but uncertain amount, by the late Stephen Whitney Phcenix, which, with the exception of a library of nearly seven thousand choice volumes, is not likely to be available for many years to come. The actual financial condition of the college at the present time will be understood from the following detailed statement. The lands referred to above are subject to leases, for long terms, of separate lots, the bu-ildings belonging to the lessees and only the lots to the college. Besides the foregoing properties, the college holds the equitable and benefijoial title to about nine acres of land near Carmansville, and to two lots of land and a factory in One Hundred and Twenty-ninth street. There was, too, a fund arising from savings, which has now been wholly expended in buildings. The following comparison of the ordinary annual receipts and payments will exhibit the^neans of the institution to pay its annual expenses on its present scale of operations : REVENUE. Fees of Students.. $131,543 Rents of Real Estate 214,849 1336,393 EXPENDITURES. Salaries of Professors, Assistants, and other officers and servants $217,400 Repairs and alterations of buildings 3,700 Library .• 7,000 Interest (this item will be largely increased in subse- quent years) 7,000 Current expenses, including Supplies, Fellowships, Scholarships, Prizes, Furniture, etc 63,590 Surplus $37,702 This surplus, whatever it may amount to, is always applied to the cost of new buildings, to provide further 8 for whicli cost a debt of $102,000 was incurred prior to the SOih day of September last. The buildings above mentioned are part of a series, the erection of which has been determined on. It is of great importance that the projected plans for these im- provements should be executed as soon as the means of the college will allow, so as to afford the requisite accom- modation to carry out with efficiency the present scheme of instruction. It is estimated that the debt incurred for this purpose will, at the end of the present financial year, on the 30th September next, amount to $300,000, and, before the contemplated buildings shall be completed, to about $750,000. Reliance for the means to pay this debt and to defray the cost of such construction is based upon the reasonable expectation of an increase of rents. But the debt cannot be wholly paid from this source before the year 1 893, and in the meantime the power of the college. to engage in new undertakings must be very much restricted. In regard to what has been done in the past the fol- lowing brief statement is submitted. It is now about twenty-five years since the growing income of the college began to attain proportions such as to justify the Trustees in endeavoring to increase its usefulness by enlarging the scope of its educational operations. Accordingly, in 1858, they established a School of Law, the reputation of which soon became coextensive with the country^ and of which the success has been entirely without example. This was followed, in 1864, by the creation of a School of Mines, which, though at first con- fined to the object expressed in its name, has since been expanded into a School of Applied Science generally, embracing instruction not only in Mining Engineering, but also in Civil Engineering, Metallurgy, Analytical and Applied Chemistry, Practical Geology, and Archi- 9 tecture. This institution has met a great public want, and has l3een steadily growing in the public apprecia tion from the beginning. In 1880 there was instituted a School of Political Science, designed to train young men in the knowledge of constitutional, administrative and international law, and to fit them for the duties of public life. At the same time it was resolved to open a depart- ment for the advanced instruction of graduates of this and other colleges. The college has thus entered upon a field of almost limitless extent, to the satisfactory occupation of which its present resources are unequal. The Trustees are, nevertheless, constantly solicited to make provision for instruction in branches of knowledge not hitherto included within the range of their pro- gramme, but for which there is an urgent and growing demand among our people. These solicitations bring forcibly to their attention the fact that while, in what- ever has been attempted, the thoroughness with which our educational work is done is nowhere surpassed, yet there are points in which some of our sister institutions have sensibly the advantage of us. And there are also points in which all American colleges are materially behind the wants of the country. It is, indeed, in the department of superior, or what has been called supple- mentary, education that the educational system of the United States is at present most defective While the number of American colleges is quite in excess of the needs of the country, there is nowhere among us an institution which meets the wants of men who, having reached the limit of what is commonly understood by the phrase, "a liberal education," propose to devote themselves to the profound study of some special subject, and seek to be trained to methods of research in history, literature, philosophy, philology, economics, 10 matliematics, or physics. This is true to such an unfor- tunate extent that, at this time, great numbers of the graduates of American colleges feel themselves con- strained to resort to the universities of Continental Europe for that supplementary education which they cannot find at home. Of the gentlemen now engaged in giving instruction in Columbia College, no fewer than sixteen prepared themselves for their work in foreign universities, and three others, now under appointment, are at this time completing their preparation abroad. The most urgent of the educational needs of the United States at present, therefore, is that our people should emancipate themselves from this state of depend- ence upon distant lands for their highest intellectual culture. Our young men should be relieved from the necessity of resorting to foreign universities, by the erec- tion of a fully equipped university, or more than one? upon our own soil. Much has been written upon the importance of such a measure, and some efforts have been made toward its accomplishment. These efforts have been directed toward the building up, upon a few of the leading colleges of the country, already possessing financial strength suflicient to furnish a broad and firm foundation, of a complete system of university teaching. Columbia College is one of these few institutions. Its scheme of instruction already extends far beyond the limits of the traditional programme of undergraduate study, and in many directions it is already fulfilling the functions of a true university. With a generous support from the friends of intellectual progress in the city and the country, it might easily be made to do so in all directions. Nowhere upon this continent can be found a more fitting seat for a great university than is furnished by the city of New York. The physical geography of the 11 country lias made this city the great centre of popula- tion and movement. Toward this point converge the great lines of transportation which permeate the intei'ior, along which are constantly rolling in upon it the produc- tions of native industry, which find here their principal mart of exchange for those of other lands. Hither also are continually dTifting in crowds the producers them- selves, drawn from the remotest recesses of the continent to visit the great emporium of the country's commerce, and the focus of its intellectual as well as material activity. Here is heaped up the wealth which millions of hands have created, and here are illustrated the results of the highest culture the age and the race have produced. It is in great capitals like this that the noblest universities of the world have grown up. While in some of the minor towns of Germany there are at this time universities which have honorably distinguished themselves in special departments, it is in such magnificent establish- ments as the Universities of Paris, Berlin, and Vienna that the comprehensive idea of a perfectly appointed university is most fully exemplified. To transform Columbia College into such a university would now be comparatively easy. It would only be necessary to supply such deficiencies in her present scheme of instruction as those to which the attention of the Trustees has, as above stated, been of late frequently drawn, but to which their present resources are not equal. A few of these may be mentioned by way of illustration, without attempting to make the enumera- tion exhaustive. Archaeology is a subject in which the world of letters was, some forty years ago, profoundly excited by the extraordinary discoveries made of As- syrian ruins by Mr. Austin H. Layard, an interest which the more recent successes of Dr. Schliemann in the Troad and the Peloponnesus have greatly stimulated. Societies L«jfG. 12 have been formed for the promotion of archaeological discovery, and a classical school has been opened at Athens, with an American scholar at its head, for the training of archaeological investigators. No provision exists in our college for imparting instruction in this highly important department of modern inquiry. Com- parative philology is another subject which is not only interesting in itself, but is an important instrument for tracing the affinities of peoples and the affiliations of races. In the scheme of instruction of a few of our sister colleges, this subject has been included ; and one or two American philologists have already, in consequence, achieved a world-wide reputation. But this is one of the departments as to which Columbia College has still to acknowledge herself deficient. We are wanting also in a department of Oriental Literature. This is the more to be regretted, inasmuch as a chair of the Hebrew language and literature was established in the college in 1830, and was maintained for more than thirty years. In Natural History, our college is largely deficient, having no chair of Botany or Zoology, or Biology or Physiology. AVe need also to develop the department of Sanitary Engineering, which has been provided as a ' part of our instruction in the School of Mines, but not yet extended as it should be, on account of want of means. We have no chair of Physical Greography nor any School of the Fine Arts. Our system of instruction in modern languages and foreign literature has been planned after a more comprehensive and logical method than has distinguished the same department anywhere else in this country ; but the course of its development has already given rise to demands upon the resources of the institution which it is impossible adequately to meet. We are without a laboratory for physical re- search, or for organic analysis ; but these wants have 13 been prospectively provided for by tlie benefaction, above referred to, of the late Mr. Stephen Whitney Phoenix. But perhaps the most urgently pressing of the wants of our college at present, considered as a school for the train- ing of scholars or scientific inquirers to the methods and practice of original research, is a provision for an immediate and extensive increase of our working library. The total number of volumes in the library of the college is only about fifty thousand at present ; but it is a subject of gratification that about one-half of these have been selected especially with reference to the uses of investi- gators in law, in political science, in the exact sciences, and in classical and modern literature and philology. There i« need, nevertheless, that these numbers should be increased without delay, at least three or four fold. Authorities are the tools of original research. Without them there can be no progress.*^ This, however, is not all. Not only is an immediate and large increase of the library of the college to be desired ; it is of no less im- portance that there should be a fnnd for its permanent maintenance. In this respect, Columbia College is far behind a number of her sister institutions. Lehigh University, Penn., has a library endowment which yields an annual income of twenty-four thousand dol- lars. Harvard University, with nearly an equal amount derived from endowment, increases the sum annually by a considerable appropriation from the general fund. Cornell University is understood to have a library fund exceeding a million of dollars, of which seven hundred thousand has been invested at six per cent, interest, and yields an annual income of forty-two thousand dollars. Columbia College cannot maintain the footing of a properly appointed university until she has a provision for her library at least in some degree comparable to these. 14 The college is dow, unfortunately, laboring, as lias been already stated above, under the burden of a heavy debt, v^hich is likely to be materially increased before it can be diminished, and which it will require years to extinguish — perhaps ten, possibly more. Were it re- lieved from this burden, it could do something tov^^ard the supply of the existing deficiencies in its scheme of instruction ; but it could not even then provide for them all. It is the hope and belief of the Trustees that among the friends of education in this city and its vicinity there are many who are sufficiently impressed with the importance of building up here a university of the highest order, to be willing to lend their aid in accom- plishing an object so desirable. 15 For the purpose of exliibiting more specifically the particulars in which Columbia College needs to be strengthened, in order to raise it to a level of a true uni- versity, the following list has been prepared, which embraces the objects earliest requiring provision : Annual llevenue ; Endowment OBJECTS TO BE PEOVIDBD FOR. Needed. Required. Library |25,C00 $500,000 Archaeology.... 10,000 300,000 Ethnology and Anthropology 10,000 200,000 Comparative Philology 12, 500 250,000 Oriental Literature 7,500 150,000 History, Philosophy, and Art of Educa- tion— Pgedagogics 7,500 150,000 Law and Political Science 10,000 200,000 Commerce: History, Material, and Statis- tics of ....'. 7,500 150,000 Botany^.... ' 10,000 200,000 Zoology , 15,000 300,000 Physiology 10,000 200,000 Astronomy and Geodesy 10,000 200,000 Biology 12,500 250,000 Physical Geography 7,500 150,000 Modern Languages and Foreign Literature. 15. 000 300,000 Sanitary Engineering 10,000 200,000 Electrical Engineering 12,000 250,000 The Fine Arts 35,000 500,000 Totals $217,500 $4,350,000 LIBRARY OF 0J^J29 031 1