In California

At Claremont, Calif., hard by Los Angeles, another Oxford rises. Oxford, at least, is the handiest comparison, for Oxford is a group of autonomous colleges, individually staffed, housed and administered, under a university seal that indicates their federation into a community of learning in which only major facilities, basic policies and an enveloping tradition are held in common.

The California Oxford does not call itself a "university," that term having assumed a peculiar connotation in the U. S. It calls itself Claremont Colleges. Lately the Harvard Alumni Bulletin set forth the aims and status of Claremont Colleges, an educational project unique in interest and possibilities. Harvard's interest was intimate; graduates of hers have helped make Claremont history for 5 years.

This history began with the foundation of Pomona College in 1888. A local population with New England antecedents made it possible for Pomona in the midst of the booming, expanding West, with the tenth largest city in the U. S. (today) close at hand, to adopt and maintain the characteristics of a "small college," like Amherst and Williams, Knox and Antioch. Intimacy, hospitality and the individuality of teacher and taught are prime among these characteristics When popularity and population pressure increased, Pomona firmly fixed 700 as its maximum enrollment figure. Rigid selection of entrants was enforced.

But population pressure and popularity are not diminished by such measures. And the Pomonians fell to reflecting that one good creation justifies another. They pictured a group of colleges, like but distinct from Pomona, growing up together as funds became available. As the picture became a fact, they planned a general library, certain special laboratories and a central administrative body to deal with matters (for example, honors examinations) of community interest and value. They pictured a growing milieu of teachers in congenial surroundings, with wieldy groups of students and a rare chance to test and compare pedagogical theories. They saw undergraduate scholarship spurred by competition among the colleges . . . athletics at home . . . university breadth for small college thought ... a metropolis of student-villages. . . .

So Pomona's first neighbor college was founded-Scripps College for Women. This will open next autumn. Up and down the Pacific coast go praise and thanksgiving for the woman who gave the money, Miss Ellen B. Scripps of La Jolla, Calif., "most beloved woman in Southern California."

Lord Bryce wrote The Holy Roman Empire at 26, which was Ben Franklin's age when he wrote Poor Richard's Almanack. Buskin and Roosevelt were 24 when they composed, respectively, Modern Painters and The War of 1812. John Jay was Chief Justice of the U. S. Supreme Court at 44. Charles James Fox was a junior lord of admiralty, a thorn in George Ill's side, at 21. William Pitt, Britain's prime minister for 17 years, assumed office at 24, having previously served as Chancellor of the Exchequer. At 20, Alexander Hamilton was a leading authority on government; at 24, conceived the National Bank. Thomas Jefferson drafted the Declaration of Independence at 33. Robert Peel's name was great in Parliament soon after he was 21. J. T. Delane became editor of the London Times at 24.

France and Germany were mastered by Charlemagne at 30. Lord Clive conquered India at 32. Philip Sheridan was a 31-year-old general. Hannibal was but 31 at Cannae. Alexander conquered the known world at 33.

In poets, painters and musicians the thin blue flame of genius has ever flickered early. Bryant wrote Thanatopsis at 17, the age of Chatterton when he destroyed his promise by suicide, and of Mendelssohn when he composed Midsummer Night's Dream overture. Shelley's Queen Mab came at 21, Keats' Endymion at 23, 40 of Raphael's madonnas before 28, Rembrandt's Lesson in Anatomy at 26. Schubert, dead at 31, wrote over 600 songs. . . . Joan of Arc restored France at sweet 16.

But what of a woman who founds a college at the age of 89? What of a woman born under William IV who now discusses the Coolidge administration, a woman who taught school when Lincoln was a country lawyer, who helped found a newspaper in the year 1873?

Ellen Browning Scripps was seven when her father, a London bookbinder, settled at Rushville, Ill. Nearby, at Nauvoo, Joseph Smith reigned over his Mormons with a lusty lieutenant, Brigham Young. She can remember how the threat, "Mormons!" was addressed to recalcitrant children; how houses were barricaded against Mormon raids. California, where she was one day to live, was a lonely coast unknown to golddiggers.

She wanted a college education and got It, at Knox College in neighboring Galesburg. When her brother James started the Detroit News she joined him, read proof, prepared miscellany. In the '70s, Woman Suffrage and Prohibition were unheard of doctrines. She wrote, taught, thought them. Her brothers* continued building newspapers, the Cleveland Press, St. Louis Chronicle, Cincinnati Post. She became a rich woman, "with a remarkable capacity for statements and figures."

"Miss Ellen" has always regarded her wealth as "a trust for the benefit of humanity." Her personal expenditures are trifling. She gives, has made giving an art. She runs her eye down a contribution list, matches her donation with the largest there, says "Whatever you lack, come to me. . . ." When the La Jolla Women's Club was founded, she sought out women of literary tastes financially unable to join, penned them notes, "Please accept membership as a present from me. . . ."

She gave the world's largest aviary to Balboa Park, San Diego; the San Diego Community Welfare Building; the La Jolla playground (stipulating free speech thereon); the Scripps Memorial Hospital; the Scripps Biological Institute at Miramar (to further the work of Dr. W. E. Ritter, world-known marine biologist). She met an artist who was compelled to live outdoors, commissioned him to make 20 volumes of Golden State wildflower paintings. She underwrote a similar project to publish Birds of California. Yet the bulk of her giving has been indirect or anonymous.

Until she broke her hip in 1922, her habit was to sleep under the stars on a wall-less, roofless porch. She arose early, greeting milkmen and "newsies" on her morning walks. She would have no automobile until very lately, when she could not refuse her brother's gift. "Woman of character" her biographers call her, keen-minded, a voracious reader, benevolent, an alert citizen, "one to know whom is a benediction."

Of her father's 13 children (he married thrice), four were newspaper people, James E., George H., Edward W., and herself. Of these only Edward W. survives with her, having founded the Scripps-McRae syndicate of 28 newspapers. Aged 71, he is a hermit-millionaire, a sea hermit (like the late Publisher Joseph Pulitzer) sailing the seven seas on a yacht with padded decks. Again like Pulitzer, he cannot bear noise; his officers run his crew by dumb show. He smokes 50 cigars daily, sits in the saloon while two women alternately read to him. Satiated, he calls for his checkerboard. He cruises a course mapped to keep the Ohio in balmy climes. Last week he was forced to go ashore at Cape Town while the Ohio was dry-docked. Seizing rare opportunity, a correspondent wrote: "Like a crowd of ghosts the sailors lowered the landing launch. They suddenly stopped when the machinery made some squeaks. The officers rushed forward with oil cans. . . ."