CARNEGIE'S £2,000,000 GIFT

Dunstan Times, Issue 2087, 23 July 1901, Page 3

CARNEGIE'S £2,000,000 GIFT

i The munificence of Mr Andrew Carnegie, i the American multi-millionaire, in making i a gift of £2.000,f)00 to provide free uni- | versity education to all Scottish students | able to pass the entrance examination at i the four universities in that country has, ' it need not be said, excited the widest inI terest in England as well as Scotland. The ! gift is absolutely unique, and it is the ! largest public bequest which has ever been ! made for educational purposes by any per- : son living. In Scotland the gift has created ! a somewhat curious position in an educational sense. Elementary education is free, and by Mr Carnegie's gift university education will also be free. But there is a hiatus between the two stages. Secondary education lias still to be paid for, although the fees at'most of the public schools are small when compared with the cheapest establishments for similar education in England. To free secondary education in Scotland would cost about * £90.000, and educationists of high standing are of opinion that the freeing of secondary education is the natural corollary to Mr Carnegie's gift. Whether it will be done by private subscription or by public grant is likely to form the subject of early discussion. Mr Carnegie, strangely enough, in view of the fact that he has made his money by industrial enterprise, has left the technical colleges in Scotland out of his reckoning in making his gift. In Edinburgh University circles the gift generally has been well received, although in certain quarters there is some misgiving as to how it will work out in practice. Sir William Muir, the principal of Edinburgh University, has no doubt that the gift will greatly increase the number of students, and outside lecturers would suffer in consequence. Increased university staffs would be necessary, and the secoudary education question was a. difficulty that would probably need to be solved by Government. Professor Masson, of Edinburgh, is gratified at Mr Carnegie's gift, which, he says, will " fulfil the dream of his life." The newspaper comments are somewhat guarded in tone. The Radical 'Morning Leader' says: schools everywhere, her endowed secondary schools, and her free universities. Scotland is in some ways a model which Southerners who care about the spread of education must regard with envy. Mr Carnegie ha-j merely carried the Scottish educational system a little further in its natural line of development. Scotsmen have been working for centuries to make their country the most democratic and the best educated m Europe. It is really because this gift crowns so much labor that it is so valuable." 'The Times' thinks that "the trust which Mr Carnegie proposes to establish may pav the fees of students who require such assistance, and who apply for it; and, so far, it would be very beneficial. But splendid as the promised gift may appear, it ought not to be allowed to pauperise the whole system of university education in Scotland*, where a- sturdy spirit of independence has been among the moral and intellectual characteristics of the nation. ' And the ' Telegraph,' making the gift the ba«is for its remarks on education generally, *avs that "what England needs far more than anythnig else to make good her educational* deficiencies is a. great school of national research, designed to place the spirit of science at the service, of mdustry There is perhaps no scheme in the world upon which five millions sterling might more profitably be spent than one which would enable us to produce at Home the Article winch we show the most alarming tendency to import—invention."