Part 18

The corporate income of the colleges consists of (1) endowments, usually in the form of estates, which bring in £220,000 a year; (2) fees, rent of rooms, profits on kitchens, and so forth, which bring in £90,000. But the colleges are great landowners and have the outgoings of landowners. Though the expenses of the estate management are only about 7 per cent. of the revenues arising from the estates, yet £130,000 a year are spent on management, repairs, and improvements on the estates, rates and taxes, interest on loans, and the maintenance of the costly college buildings in Cambridge. Many of the latter are national monuments of surpassing interest, the proper care of which is a duty to the nation. When allowance has been made for the inevitable expenditure under these heads, there is left only £180,000 for all other purposes. The fellowships and the stipends of the heads of houses absorb £78,000; and the contributions of the colleges towards scholarships, as determined in the main by statute, and as distinct from any separate endowment, account for £32,000.

An analysis of the distribution of the fellowship money may conveniently be deferred for the moment; but it may be stated that the sum spent on scholarships finds, inside the University at least, many critics. The expenditure on scholarships is undoubtedly, however, in the main, a fulfilment of the intentions of their founders, and, if we may judge by the recent expenditure of County Councils, is in accordance with public feeling. After deduction of fellowships and scholarships, there is left of the corporate income a sum of £70,000. Of this sum, £32,000, or nearly one-half, is paid as a direct contribution to the University; but, as will be seen immediately, the colleges contribute to the University in many other ways. Of the £38,000 remaining, £4,000 goes to supplement the Tuition Fund of £52,000 received from the students as fees; the sum of £56,000 so obtained is applied to the provision of college and University lecturers. A large proportion of these fees is paid to the scientific departments of the University; and of the fees so paid the greater part is assigned as a contribution to the maintenance of the several departments, and not, directly at least, to the payment of lecturers.

Deducting the sum of £4,000, contributed by the colleges to the Tuition Fund, we have left over of the corporate income a sum of £34,000, or about £2,000 per college, available for the payment of college officers and servants, the expenses of the college libraries, printing, and other expenses. If, then, it can be shown that the £78,000 spent on the fellowships is not extravagantly allotted--and of this more below--it is clear that the colleges can contribute but little more than they do at present to the University teaching.

An idea of the serious effect of the fall of agricultural rent on the college incomes may be gathered from the fact that one of the larger colleges has in the last thirty years suffered a loss of revenue amounting to £10,000 a year.

We now turn to the question of the fellowships. The sum of £78,000 was in 1904 divided among seventeen heads of houses and about 315 ordinary fellows. Of this sum the heads of houses received among them, as far as can be ascertained, the not excessive amount of £15,000, very unequally divided. The average stipend of a fellow is thus about £200 per annum. When the last Commission sat, the maximum stipend of a fellow was fixed at £250; and it was thought that this sum would usually be reached. But, except in the case of one or two colleges, which are the fortunate possessors of town property, the maximum is now never reached; and in certain cases the value of a fellowship has fallen to less than £100 per annum. Of the 315 fellows, some 245 were in 1904 resident and some 70 non-resident. Of the residents, about 225 were holding some University or college office, educational or administrative. Of the non-residents, and of the residents who were holding no office, the greater number had earned their fellowships by holding some qualifying position, such as a lectureship for a given number of years, usually twenty. Among the non-residents, in addition to fellows who hold their fellowships as a pension, were to be found students who are prosecuting research away from Cambridge; such students are, as a rule, liable to be summoned to reside, as college exigencies may demand. Several other non-residents are fellows who have but recently received appointments away from Cambridge; their fellowships will, under the new statutes, lapse in a year or two.

The analysis shows that the number of ‘prize fellowships’ is small; and it is believed that they are steadily vanishing. To assist the reader in obtaining a general idea of what is done with the fellowships, the combined result in the case of two colleges is here given. The two colleges in question have been chosen because the writers happen to be in a position to account for the occupant of every fellowship in each college. As will be seen, the two colleges render most valuable assistance to the University; and they have practically rid themselves of the burden of prize fellowships imposed on them by the Commission of 1856. The two colleges dispose, according to the University calendar of 1905-6, of forty fellowships between them. Of these, five are pension fellowships; five are held by professors in the University, as part of their stipend; twelve are held by University lecturers, demonstrators, or other University officers; eleven are held by college officers or lecturers; five are held by research students in Cambridge; two junior fellowships are held by non-residents. One of the latter was recently appointed to a professorship in another University, and his fellowship has just lapsed; the other holds a prize fellowship. It is unlikely that, when his fellowship lapses, another prize fellow will be elected in his place. There are in residence at each of the two colleges a number of University lecturers and officers, and of college lecturers, for whom no fellowship can be found. Speaking generally of the fellowships allotted to college teaching, it may be said that, with the help of a portion of the Tuition Fund, they enable the colleges to provide the college lecturers with stipends on which an unmarried man, occupying rooms in college, may comfortably live. When we turn to the University lectureships, there is often another tale to tell.

The University income, which has to bear almost the whole cost of modern developments, is made up of the following items: matriculation, degree, examination, and other fees, £30,000; direct contributions from colleges, £32,000; income from endowments, £2,000--£64,000 in all.

In 1904 the University, in the course of its ordinary work, expended £65,300, distributed roughly as follows:

Officers, secretaries, and servants 4,100

Maintenance of business offices, registry, senate house, and schools 1,300

Rates and taxes 3,400

Obligatory payments from income 1,300

Stipends of professors 12,400

Stipends of readers, University lecturers, demonstrators, and other teachers 9,100

Maintenance and subordinate staff of scientific departments (including the botanic garden and observatory) 9,600

University library, staff, and upkeep 6,300

Examiners’ fees, etc. 5,900

Debt on buildings, sites, sinking fund, and interest on building loans 8,500

Printing and stationery 2,600

Pension funds (professors, £200; servants, £150) 350

Miscellaneous expenses 450 ------- £65,300

There are forty-four professors, very few of them receive £800 or more a year (including fellowships), while the lowest limit of a professor’s stipend, unless he holds a fellowship, is about £90 a year. The average annual income of a professor is not more than £550, and of the yearly revenue of £24,000 required to produce this average, £7,000 are paid in the shape of fellowships by the colleges, and about £4,600 from the income of special trust funds and other benefactions, one payment of £800 a year being for a term of years only. One or two professors at most receive a proportion of the fees paid for lectures and laboratories in their respective departments. There are twelve University readers (or sub-professors). The new statutes contemplated for a reader the salary of £400 a year, but, owing to the inadequacy of the University income, none receives more than £300, and in several cases only £100 is paid. There are fifty-three University lecturers whose stipends range from £200 a year to £50, and it is melancholy to note how many of these receive the lower sum, without any assistance from endowments, such as fellowships or the like. There are thirteen University teachers, almost all of them appointed by the Board for Indian Civil Service studies, and occupied, in the main, in teaching eastern dialects; and there are forty-four demonstrators, curators, and superintendents of museums, whose stipends range from £200 a year to nothing at all.

The incomes of some of these gentlemen are supplemented by fellowships, of others by a share of lecture fees; a few, too, may hold two such offices as curator and lecturer simultaneously. But, when the addition from all sources (about £8,000 from fees or special funds, and £13,000 from fellowships) has been made to the annual sum (£9,100) which the University has to give, we arrive at a total of about £30,000, giving the surprisingly low average income of £250 a year for any University teacher other than a professor. A few of the older teachers may hold some college office which adds a little to their income, but these are rare exceptions. There are no resources from which these incomes may be increased according to the service of the holder, and there is practically no provision for pension, except in the case of those teachers (less than one-half of the whole number) who hold fellowships, and may expect, after many years of service, to earn the right to retain them permanently.

In these circumstances it is not surprising that the University finds a difficulty in retaining many of its abler teachers. At the beginning of 1904 it was estimated that over two hundred professors and lecturers at other Universities (as distinct from University colleges) in the United Kingdom had been educated at Cambridge, and, though that is by no means a matter for regret, yet it is not too much to say that, in supplying this demand for teachers, the University has done a great national work for which she is poorly requited by her difficulty in retaining a sufficient staff for herself. Fortunately, when all other funds are exhausted, the fund of patriotism remains inexhaustible. It is not known how many fellows, possessed of some private means, and attached to the University through sheer love of their work, return their stipends to their colleges to be employed for the general good; such men are always anxious that their names should be concealed, but the present writers know of three in the restricted circle of their immediate personal friends. The special correspondent of the Times writes, on the occasion of the royal visit in 1904:

‘I may be permitted to say, as the result of my personal inquiries, that the amount of work done either gratuitously or for very inadequate remuneration by professors, readers, lecturers, demonstrators, and other teachers in many departments of study and instruction, really constitutes a very substantial endowment, freely contributed by men who have no worldly goods to give, but who give lavishly of their time, their energy, their intellectual capacity, their acquired knowledge, and their disinterested devotion to the advancement of learning. If this asset were evaluated in pounds, shillings, and pence, the University balance-sheet would wear a very different aspect.’

On a consideration of the analysis just made, and of the additional facts that the Reserve Fund set aside by the University for building and equipment during the years of her development is now exhausted, and that her borrowing powers have been seriously reduced, it would appear that further progress is almost entirely dependent on an increase of endowment.

A few years ago certain of the University authorities, foreseeing the approach of a financial crisis, put away their pride, and, with the countenance of the chancellor, boldly begged for help. Their appeal resulted in the collection of about £100,000, which has been expended on the erection and equipment of various buildings devoted to science, such as the museum of geology and the botany school, the University itself contributing a large proportion of the expense incurred. In the list of contributors occur the names of no fewer than 500 Cambridge men, past and present, out of a total of 620 names. This number is a sufficient retort to the suggestion which has been made that Cambridge does not help herself. It must be remembered, too, that a sum of about £14,000 a year is contributed by members of the Senate to the funds of the University and of the colleges for the privilege of continued membership, and that these fees are often paid out of very slender incomes on grounds which are, as a rule, purely patriotic.

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