It was a report to make U.S. college and university fund raisers sit up with a snap. Education Professor Clara P. McMahon of the Johns Hopkins University had done a little digging in 15th Century fund-raising tactics at Oxford, found 20th Century techniques "pale in comparison." In an article in School and Society she told how it used to be done.
In the first place, the characteristic campaign letter—to graduates, nobles, prelates and merchants—was admirably blunt. If the money was to repair a building, the writer left nothing to the imagination. "No one dares to enter the building," ran one appeal for...