1941: Carnegie Foundation For The Advancement of Teaching

The resources of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching at the close of its fiscal year 1940-41 totaled $21,056,682. Of this total $17,663,440 book value was in bonds, $2,239,814 in stocks at cost, and $1,153,427 in bank cash. Endowment funds totaled $16,691,859, of which 26.26 per cent of the investments represented United States Government bonds with a book value of $4,351,884. For the year income from securities in all funds was $721,327.

Disbursements included $1,929,443 for retiring allowances and widows' pensions. Of this amount, $1,387,632 was for 948 age allowances, $33,185 was for 33 disability allowances, $10,160 for 6 service pensions, and $498,464 for 632 widows' pensions. Individual age allowances averaged about $1,418. Of the 68 recipients of retiring allowances who died during the year 4 were over 90 years of age, one being 97, and 25 were in their eighties.

From Carnegie Corporation of New York under an arrangement in force since 1924, the Foundation during 1940-41 received and disbursed $57,600 for studies and researches conducted by various other institutions and bodies. For special educational research projects carried on by the Foundation it received $81,600 from the Corporation. In all, Carnegie Corporation has made to the Foundation 168 grants totaling $1,727,708 for 94 higher educational projects, of which 17 involving $564,743 have been pursued in the Foundation's offices, and 77 involving $1,162,965 have been under 44 other agencies. See also ADULT EDUCATION.

During the year the Foundation studied the effects of National Defense upon the colleges and universities of the United States. The reduction of college attendance by about 10 per cent over the country owing to conscription and defense work, the use of laboratories and other college equipment for government research, the drafting of teaching and administrative personnel for military and scientific service led President Walter A. Jessup to conclude: 'We must be prepared to see the American four-year college course ultimately telescoped to three years for all admitted students' and the outworn system of units and credits for graduation give way to evaluation of achievement in part by examination.

A group of 1,227 male alumni ten years out of Pennsylvania colleges were persuaded by Dr. William S. Learned to give the facts of their experience since graduation. All of these men as undergraduates had taken the Foundation's twelve-hour Pennsylvania test. Dr. Learned found no close correspondence between academic record and later achievement as expressed in salaries or advancement. College grades as now administered do not reflect the students' real power or weakness. 'It is too much to expect that the financial rewards of life will ever arrange themselves outwardly in accordance with any reasonable scale of 'just deserts.' Nevertheless, our predictions could probably come much nearer even the rough scale of values for which the world is willing to pay ... were we not only to find out what and how much knowledge the student possesses but also observe what his knowledge means to him and how skillful he is in putting it to work.'

Dr. Walter A. Jessup is president of the Foundation, and Howard J. Savage secretary and treasurer. Offices are at 522 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York.