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Show EDUCATION BY TRUSTS. The donation of $32,000,000 to the cause of education ed-ucation recently made by Mr. Rockefeller .to the general education board, though princely", in amount and of vast importance to the American educational system, has in it a menace to the cause it purports to further. Philanthropy which is so ostentatiously flaunted before the public as that of Mr. Rockefeller cannot- impress the judicious that the motives promoting it are altogether ingenuous. It may gain the plaudits of the unthinking, but in its effect on the welfare of the people should the final analysis be made. Money is the life of an educational institution. Buildings cost money, and books and apparatus and instructors are a source of endless expense to colleges col-leges and universities, to defray which.' donations from wealthy men and women arc ever, welcome. However, there are conditions imposed on the general gen-eral education board in distributing the Rockefeller donation through the observance of which certain colleges will be benefited while others . equally worthy and deserving of support from therfunds of the board will be forced to work out their own destiny des-tiny under most adverse conditions. That a number num-ber will ultimately close their doors is 'inevitable. Thus the very life of the American institutions of higher education are given into the hands of the general education board which in turn-draws its. support from the "interesta" represented by the; oil king. ' .:':' - v. , .. '. .'. - . Commenting ' on the gift, - the Manufacturers4' Record says that an attempt has. been made "to bind colleges to an. agreement that if. they,; receive funds from tho general education feoard, representatives represen-tatives of that board" should have the right to inspect in-spect the books, accounts and securities of thecol-leges, thecol-leges, which is virtually an agreement. to mortgage the souls of the colleges to the trust-"- Now that the trusts control the business and finances of the country, it is not strange that they should turn their, attention, to the education of our young nifen and women in a manner which would tend toward forming public . opinion not antagonistic to their best interest. If it is true that the trusts " are thus atlpifBpJt3T4ontrol public educational endeavor, en-deavor, the gifts of such philanthropists should be. returned to the givers. The country in educational matters needs nothing more urgently than the inculcation in-culcation of. sound principles of political economy, and trust control of colleges offers no panacea for the evils already thrust upon usV ' . ' . : It is needless to say that colleges subsidized by tb.3 trusts would pander to the trusts, or a least would not be antagonistic to them and instructors would hardly be averse to spreading the . doctrine that restraint in trade is legitimate, so long, as the people stand for it.: The past year or two have been noteworthy "in revealing the ramifications 'oi the great American trusts,'and this latest a.fit-, ting climax to all the other revelations' . Let :llr. Rockefeller keep, his money;' if he cannot find more legitimate methods of disposing of it. |