Of all the campaigns for endowment funds for American colleges, and they have latterly been both numerous and ambitious, none, we may suppose, makes a more sentimental appeal than that instituted by the alumni of the College of William and Mary. And a modest enough plea for financial aid it is by comparison with the missions sought for other colleges--only $1,440,000 with which to raise the salaries of its teaching staff to an equality with industrial incomes; to establish a new professorship and make necessary additions to the college buildings.

William and Mary has remained one of the "small colleges" of Webster's famous classification, with a celebrity and an influence out of proportion to its size. The oldest college in the South and next to Harvard the oldest in the country, it has a roster of graduates who of themselves make an American Hall of Fame. Washington received from William and Mary his first public office and was Chancellor of the college in 1794. It is the Alma Mater of three Presidents of the United States, Jefferson, Monroe and Tyler; of four signers of the Declaration of Independence; of four Judges of the United States Supreme Court, including John Marshall, and of innumerable Governors, Senators, Cabinet officers, Ambassadors. It educated 14 members of the Continental Congress. It established the first lay school in this country and there was organized the first chapter of the country's foremost honorary fraternity, Phi Beta Kappa.

Speaking at Harvard's commemoration in 1886 of William and Mary's prostration after the Civil War, Senator George F. Hoar said: "The stout-hearted old President still rings the morning bell and keeps the charter alive, and I want to salute him today from Harvard; and I should value it more than any public honor or private good fortune that could come to me if I might live to see that old, historic college of Virginia endowed anew with liberal aid of the sons of Harvard."

That is a sentiment for Harvard alumni, and not Harvard alumni alone, to keep in mind today when the subscription list is passed around. New York World