But buildings alone do not measure a university's strength. Mark Hopkin's proverbial log supplied the desk and chairs; it was the intellect involved that made the college. The efforts that are now being made to improve the methods of instruction in Harvard University, and to stimulate intellectual ambition in a large proportion of the undergraduates, are very costly, but the object is well worth the cost. When we ask how this is to be met, there is but one answer: unrestricted funds.

Unrestricted Funds Needed

Harvard must have unrestricted funds first to improve teachers' salaries, as Dean Moore has said, "all along the line." Harvard is again faced with the problem of underpayment and with a new moral deficit each year which is met only by the self-sacrifice and denial of the underpaid teacher. Harvard's staff of younger teachers is its great reserve. It must have at all times only the best men, regardless of the cost. The greatest emphasis must be placed on the quality of teaching and research. If this is clearly recognized, and the means are provided, Harvard's place is secure.

In 1882, when the Philosophy Department wanted Professor Josiah Royce to come to Harvard, there was no money available to bring him. So Professor Palmer, who was Chairman of the Department, took a sabbatical year and generously gave half of his own salary to pay that of Royce. In the following year William James took his sabbatical under the same conditions. And that was how the great Professor Royce was brought to Cambridge. The splendid teacher, the fine scholar, the able professor like Josiah Royce is hard to find. But Harvard must always seek to find him, and be prepared financially to attract him when it does. To do this, unrestricted money is needed.

Tutorial System Expensive

Likewise--and this is equally important--Harvard must not lose brilliant men who have elevated and strengthened its position in American education, but who may be made to feel that they can contribute as much or more to the advancement of mankind at other universities where salaries are better or where laboratory facilities are more modern and complete.

Most important of all, unrestricted funds are needed to carry on the work of the tutorial system begun in 1914 in the Division of History, Government and Economics. The tutorial system was made possible and necessary by the introduction of the general examinations. Tutorial instruction began with a staff of six tutors supervising the work of about one hundred. Within the last few years, however, the tutorial system has spread to most of the other departments in Harvard College. There are low ninety-three tutors, and the system is no longer regarded as a minor issue. It is a fixture.

Tutors advise students about their reading, discuss with them their subject as a whole and in relation to their courses and the books they have read, argue with them, stimulate them to independent thought in short, provide them with what might be termed intellectual companionship. A tutor's contact with a student extends not only beyond the special field into the general field of learning, but also beyond the intellectual level into the dimension of the human friendly relation. The tutor is closer to the student than any other member of the faculty. It is his business to be so.

For this reason alone the tutor must be not only the unusual type: he must be the very finest type of man, whose training should not be limited to Cambridge or even to this country, but should include study and observation abroad. The residential life of tutors in Cambridge should be reasonably comfortable and inviting, and all this costs money--more than the University now has.

Fund Is Perpetual

The Harvard Fund is intended to operate, not for any one day or generation, but for all time. It is entirely dissociated from any idea of a "campaign" or a "drive" and should have about it nothing that is either formidable or forbidding. Its sovereign importance is that it shall exist in perpetuity to receive annually whatever a graduate may care to give. The very idea of unrestricted funds precludes any suggestion of fixed amount: There is, and will be, no quota. If the number of men contributing is satisfactorily large, the aggregate amount contributed will undoubtedly be satisfactory also. The first consideration is that every man who can shall give something now.

Harvard's leadership must be insured. The Harvard Fund is ready to help insure it, and to divide the responsibility among 44,000 men.

It is for you alone to determine your share of this responsibility