Biting the Hand That Feeds.

It is only recently that large corporations have experienced the consequences of depleting the ranks of college faculties by offering lucrative positions to professors. They have found it to their advantage to make use of the high living costs and the meager professors' salaries as a means of luring valuable men away from the teaching profession. They have been only too glad of the chance to make converts to the industrial ranks at the expense of the colleges and universities.

Now they are reaping their blighted harvests. For whereas formerly the demand for highly trained young men was adequately met by the technical schools of the country, today concerns are asking for ten men and only getting five because there are not enough instructors left to teach them. They have not looked ahead but have been satisfied with the gains of the moment.

But they have learned their lesson. Large industrial corporations are beginning to realize that they are vitally dependent on the universities for their perpetuation, and they are casting about for an equitable solution of the problem. The logical solution is for them to give their financial backing to universities--to put back a portion of the financial gains into the funds of the institutions. That is exactly what is being done. Cornell has received gifts from large corporations which draw on her colleges for their men, and New York University especially is emphasizing this phase of the endowment problem in her campaign for funds. The more fully it is realized that industry cannot get along without education, the sooner will American universities regain their solid footing.--Cornell Daily Sun.