SCHOLARSHIPS NOT CHARITIES.

THE scholarship question was ably handled, and, as a practical question interesting to our University, conclusively settled by President Eliot in his reply to "T. W. H." in the Nation of March 6th. Yet one idea has protruded itself in the discussion of this question whose influence seems to me most pernicious: I refer to the idea that these scholarships are charities and their acquisition a cause of humiliation. This notion was pressed by "T. W. H.," but I should have considered it unworthy of notice had not an editorial in the last Crimson and an article in the last Advocate indorsed this view. These papers ought to, and generally do, represent undergraduate feeling, but on this important question I believe, with all due respect to editorial opinion, that they have seriously misrepresented it, especially the feeling of those most interested; and therefore I cannot let the matter pass without a protest.

It is not for the receivers of scholarships that I speak. I have no sympathy to waste on any one of those who considers the aid given him an alms, or its acceptance a humiliation. The President's words on this subject were well chosen and directly to the point. My purpose is rather to deny that money given in scholarships is in any sense a charity, and to denounce in the strongest terms any attempt by undergraduate or outsider to arouse or increase that notion. It is a false one, wholly unworthy of the men who advance it. For what was the purpose of the founders of these scholarships? They were wealthy men interested in the cause of education, not in the education of a score or more young men in college, but in education as the power best fitted to benefit society and civilize the world. Their problem was, "How best can we aid that cause?" and their solution of the problem was the depositing of certain sums of money with our University to be used, within certain limits, as men best fitted to judge should decide. To carry out their excellent purpose the recipients of scholarships are necessary agents. The desire for an education - the first and essential condition of success in its attainment - is often present when the time and means needed are wanting to men best fitted by natural endowment to use such an acquisition to the greatest general good. To such men our donors turn, asking them to aid in extending the beneficent influences of education. "We have means," say they, "you have the natural endowments; together we can accomplish what we have most at heart, singly we must all fail." Is assistance given in this spirit and with this intent an alms? Most decidedly, No! It is rather a mutual helping toward a common end. Or, on the part of the donors, it was at most a loan, not repayable to the lenders, - they do not want it again, - but to the cause whose friends and representatives they were, whose interests they had most at heart, and which they believed they were most effectually aiding by the establishment of these scholarships.

An alms, a charity, is something given for which no return is demanded or expected. Does this definition describe the conditions under which our scholarships are given? No, their acquisition means work, hard work, both during and after college life, and their influence is to increase a man's natural desire to work by throwing upon him an obligation to do his utmost to forward the cause which he is chosen to assist. The list of those who have received scholarships is a roll of honor. The successful ones are the men who have overcome sharp competition by force of superior ability; they are men in whom have been found parts and powers worthy of recognition and encouragement, not for themselves alone, but also for the general cause of education, whose furtherance they are especially fitted and bound, directly or indirectly, to secure.

It has been a thesis which I have with the greatest gratification maintained against many ignorant or prejudiced attacks, that wealth, though an advantage, was no sure stepping-stone to favor at Harvard, and that a lack of it is no hindrance to preference and position. My observation has abundantly convinced me of this, and I always refer to it with pride. Any movement from within or without tending to disturb this natural and healthy state of things by raising the artificial cry of alms or charity, where good sense and manliness discover only labor rewarded and ability recognized, should be most unsparingly denounced.

T.