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ADDRESS 
 
 DELIVERED AT THE 
 
 FOURTEENTH ANNUAL MEETING 
 
 OF THE 
 
 National Assooiation of State Universities 
 
 Held in Boston, October 8th-9th, 1909 
 
 BY JACOB GOULD SCHURMAN, PRESIDENT OF 
 THE ASSOCIATION 
 
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 ^^c,^ 
 
 A: 
 
ADDRESS 
 
 DELIVERED AT THE 
 
 Fourteenth Annual Meeting of the 
 National Association of State Universities 
 
 Held in Boston, October 8th-9th, 1909 
 
 BY JACOB GOULD SCHURMAN, PRESIDENT OF 
 THE ASSOCIATION 
 
 Some Problems of Our Universities — State and 
 
 Endowed. 
 
 The present meeting of the National Association of State 
 Universities has been convoked at this unusual time and still 
 more unusual place to enable its members to attend on the 
 same occasion the formal ceremonies of inaugurating Dr. 
 Lowell as President of Harvard University. The members of 
 the Association will, I am sure, recognize that their officers have 
 acted with propriety in paying this compliment to the pldest 
 and most famous of American universities. 
 
 The circumstances of the meeting naturally suggest a theme 
 for your President's address. This is an association of State 
 universities. Harvard is a privately endowed university, 
 independent of State control. I propose, therefore, to consider 
 some of the characteristics of state and privately endowed 
 universities respectively and also some of the more urgent 
 problems which press on them in common for solution at the 
 present time. But there is a third group of universities— the 
 denominational— about which something must be said at the 
 outset. 
 
DENOMINATIONAL UNIVERSITIES. 
 
 Denominational institutions owe their existence and in the 
 main their continued support to the enthusiasm, energy, and 
 benevolence of religious sects by which with varying degrees 
 of scholastic independence they are all in the last resort regulated 
 and controlled. But the supreme object of the denomination 
 does not coincide with the supreme object of the university, 
 whose province is knowledge and whose method is the free, 
 unfettered, and unbiased search after truth. The pursuit of 
 this method, as the history of the progress of science and 
 philosophy all too painfully demonstrates, has constantly 
 brought the university into collision with the church whenever 
 a new vista of truth was opened up or the narrow horizon of 
 human knowledge pushed back a little into the realm of the 
 unknown. As a consequence there has developed a clear 
 recognition of the fact that the university xannot, without 
 abandoning its own constitutive idea, be subject to any control 
 whatever from the side of the church. Absolute independence 
 is the supreme condition of intellectual activity. A denomina- 
 tional university, therefore, is, in a last analysis, a contra- 
 diction in terms. It could never flourish among a people like 
 the French who push all premises to their logical conclusions 
 and feel unhappy if the last obscure residuum of a complex 
 conception is not dragged out of its hiding place and exhibited 
 to the clear light of day. This is what makes government so 
 difficult in France; for government is largely a matter of 
 compromises. We Americans, on the other hand, succeed in 
 government because among other things we have a genius for 
 compromise. The same genius follows us — sometimes for 
 good, often for evil — into other domains of life; and it un- 
 doubtedly accounts for the development amongst us of denom- 
 inational universities, which early conditions in New England 
 naturally called into existence. The denomination has supreme 
 control over its university, but it has not pushed that control 
 
 Ausho? 
 
 tf^N 22 1912 
 
to the extreme limit. And the denominational university 
 has responded to this attitude of toleration by moderating its 
 zeal in the discovery or dissemination of new truths in fields 
 which had already been pre-empted by the dogmas of the 
 church. Of course, in a world of universal compensations, 
 the parties to this compromise have had to pay for it. And 
 the price paid b}^ the denominational university has been heavy 
 enough. 
 
 GOVERNMENT OF STATE UNIVERSITIES. 
 
 The state supported universities are governed by boards 
 of regents or curators or trustees, who are in some cases elected 
 by the people and in others appointed by the governor of the 
 state. I now proceed to inquire how this arrangement har- 
 monizes with the idea of a university. 
 
 No one would pretend that the governing board of a state 
 university is committed to any dogmas like the articles of faith 
 of a religious denomination. Yet there are possibilities of 
 oppression or restriction for the university which must not be 
 overlooked. The people may elect, or the governor appoint, 
 regents (or trustees) not only who belong to a particular 
 political party, but because they belong to it. They may be 
 all republicans or all democrats, or all of some other political 
 stripe. I do not know that such a thing has ever actually 
 occurred in any of the many states which now have state 
 universities and in most of them it would be impossible. But 
 I make the extreme supposition in order that we may clearly 
 realize the force of the objection I am endeavoring to describe. 
 Here then is a board of regents made up wholly of men who 
 belong to one political party and because they belong to it. 
 How will the idea of the university fare in the hands of such 
 political partisans? 
 
 Before attempting to answer that question I must crave 
 your indulgence while I describe another hypothetical situation. 
 The university is not the only public institution supported by 
 
the state. There are many others, including, for example, 
 hospitals for the sick and asylums for the insane. These 
 institutions are also controlled and administered by boards of . 
 managers, who are generally appointed by the governor of the 
 state. Let us suppose now that the same practical considera- 
 tions which led to the appointment of a republican or a 
 democratic board of regents for the state university necessi- 
 tated also the appointment of a republican or a democratic 
 board of managers for the state insane asylum. How will 
 these political partisans administer the trust and care for the 
 unfortunate wards committed to them by the sovereign power 
 of the state? 
 
 To ask such a question is to answer it. These men will 
 perform their public duties like any other American citizens 
 who might have been selected to undertake them. With one 
 exception, of which I shall have more to say in a moment, the 
 fact that the managers are all of one political party will make 
 no difference in their administration of the asylum. Whether 
 of one political party or more, or of no political party, the 
 managers in any event will desire to conduct the public business 
 committed to them with reasonable efficiency and economy. 
 And the members of the board, however constituted, would 
 always feel that this is what the public expected of them. 
 Even a board com.posed entirely of members of one political 
 party would not consciously and deliberately defy or ignore 
 that expectation. But such a board is always exposed to one 
 temptation which cannot arise in a board differently con- 
 stituted. A board wholly republican or wholly democratic 
 is pretty sure to select such officers or employees as it appoints 
 from its own political camp and perhaps on the recommenda- 
 tions of political leaders; and the favoritism which leads to 
 the appointment of such candidates is apt to protect them 
 afterwards against the just and salutary penalties that should 
 be inflicted for neglect of duty or incompetency in office. In 
 
 6 
 
this way the administration of a state asylum may be seriously 
 impaired, if the managers be entirely of one political party. 
 And to some extent, this danger is imminent when a considerable 
 majority of the managers are of the same political party. In 
 the best administered asylums the danger is avoided by having 
 all appointments in the hands of the superintendent and hold- 
 ing him responsible for the results. 
 
 DANGER OF POLITICS. 
 
 This example enables us to measure the danger to which a 
 state university may be exposed from a board of regents who 
 are political partisans. The vital point is the matter of appoint- 
 ments. If the board on its own motion makes appointments, 
 they will be made on political grounds or on other grounds 
 foreign to the life and spirit of the university, and the institution 
 might as well close its doors. It has a name to live, but it is 
 dead. On the other hand, if the board acts only on nominations 
 made by the president, and if before making nominations the 
 president (who if he thinks of anything but the merits of the 
 candidates profanes his high office) also consults and advises 
 with the dean and members of the faculty who profess cognate 
 branches of learning, then it would seem to matter little whether 
 the members of the board of regents were all men of one political 
 party or of none. The faculty is the universit)^ And if its 
 members are selected by their peers, and on the basis of ability 
 and scholarly or scientific attainment and achievement, the 
 life of the university goes on inviolate. 
 
 Or, rather, it would go on inviolate, if this governing board 
 of political partisans did not choose to interfere at another 
 point, where interference is at any rate conceivable. Here 
 the analogy with the administration of the state insane asylum 
 does not help us. For the managers of an asylum, however 
 intense their own political convictions and sentiments, cannot 
 conduct a propagandist campaign or make converts among the 
 
insane. But a board of regents composed of political partisans 
 might conceivably desire to use the university for such purposes. 
 These ends are, however, so alien to the life and objects of the 
 university that, as experience happily shows, even a partisan 
 electorate would not tolerate the spectacle of such a shameful 
 perversion of functions and aims. A board of regents which 
 attempted it would be overwhelmed with obloquy and disgrace. 
 A board of political partisans might, however, with more 
 prospect of success, interfere with the teaching of some pro- 
 fessor whose views were opposed to their own political dogmas. 
 The members of a republican board might resent free-trade 
 teachings; and a sympathetic exposition and defence of social- 
 ism might bring down upon the head of the professor the 
 objurgations of either republican or democratic regents. This 
 danger is a very real and serious one in cases in which the 
 members of the board reflect the views, sentiments, and 
 prejudices of a large majority of the people of the state. A 
 newspaper campaign is inaugurated (or, under the conditions, 
 inaugurates itself) against the "heretical" professors, and they 
 and their teachings are denounced from one end of the state 
 to the other. When the legislature meets the matter is made a 
 subject of legislative investigation. And it is inevitable that 
 the fundamental relation between the university and the state 
 should be thoroughly canvassed. At such a time legislators 
 and voters too are likely to ask whether the state should vote 
 public money, whether citizens should tax themselves to 
 support an institution which is instilling into the minds of the 
 picked young men and women of the rising generation ideas 
 and theories utterly opposed to those which they and their 
 fathers have long entertained and devoutly cherished and 
 which they believe to be essential to the sound life of the body 
 politic or even to the nobility of individual manhood. This is 
 the supreme crisis for the state university. Freedom of thought, 
 freedom of investigation, freedom of teaching, freedom of 
 
publication, — this is the soul of a university. And dictation 
 from the state is just as much tyranny as dictation from" the 
 church. Truth must judge itself; it cannot be determined by 
 counting noses. One man with God is a majority. The 
 professor must be left free to follow the dictates of reason and 
 the demonstration of evidence even though his conclusions are 
 at variance with the beliefs (or prejudices) which the mass of 
 mankind regard as fundamental truth. And if a state uni- 
 versity cannot ensure him that freedom, it is to that extent not a 
 university at all. As in the denominational university the 
 last word would be spoken not by the intellect but by some 
 power outside it — by a board of trustees, by a legislature, or 
 by a majority of the people of the state. 
 THE SUPREME TEST. 
 Like other institutions the state university is on trial. The 
 supreme test is whether the people of the state will on the one hand 
 tax themselves to support it and on the other impose upon them- 
 selves a self-denying ordinance to leave it severely alone, so that 
 it may select its own mevibers by the application of its own in- 
 tellectual standards and the members thus chosen may be absolutely 
 free to investigate, to teach, and to publish whatever they believe to 
 be the truth. If our people do not already possess this conception 
 of a university, they must be educated up to it. For a univer- 
 sity cannot flourish on any other condition. I need scarcely 
 point out that the general acceptance of this view would be 
 greatly facilitated by the constant recollection on the part of 
 the professors of the maxim that freedom implies obligation, 
 and that in this instance the obligation imposed is that of self- 
 restraint, along with the courtesy to be expected of gentlemen 
 and that tact which mitigates or avoids the asperities of 
 embarrassing circumstances. 
 
 I have spoken hitherto of denominational and state uni- 
 versities. I now turn to the endowed universities, which are 
 supported and governed independently of church and state 
 alike. 
 
 9 
 
ENDOWED UNIVERSITIES. 
 
 The advocates and supporters of this form of university 
 organization are as a rule deeply impressed with the dis- 
 advantages not only of denominational but also of state uni- 
 versities. Confining attention to the latter they would 
 emphasize the danger of "political" appointments and control, 
 the consequent abridgement of professorial liberty and the 
 lowering of the intellectual tone and vitality of the institution. 
 The analysis I have already made shows that there is much 
 exaggeration in these criticisms. And experience proves that 
 as our states outgrow the perilous period of callow youth they 
 quickly discover that their universities must be kept out of 
 the sphere of practical politics. None of the larger state 
 universities are today affected with that virus. In one or two 
 state universities there have recently been political scandals, 
 but these have been in new states which are making, as all new 
 states do, that first, and apparently inevitable, attempt to 
 treat the universities as political spoils. I venture to say, 
 however, that the way the American public has treated this 
 debauch is likely to prevent its recurrence even in those new 
 states. For the rest I am persuaded that the state universities 
 in general have little or no ground to apprehend political 
 appointments or political control. The only real danger I 
 see is the danger I have already described. Yet even this 
 danger must not be exaggerated. For there is a good deal of 
 evidence to show that the people will tax themselves to support 
 their universities, even when those universities teach doctrines 
 in economics, politics, sociology, biology, or philosophy, which 
 the people may think subversive of the dearest interests of 
 mankind, both in the life of the individual and the life of the 
 family and of society and of the state. The people are on such 
 occasions perplexed, they are dissatisfied, they are even 
 irritated; but in the end they recognize that these matters 
 must be left to the experts, and that, as truth is of God, it is 
 
 10 
 
vain on the one hand to defy it and foolish on the other to 
 fear it can be overcome with error. 
 
 It cannot be denied, however, that a university with a 
 private endowment is in this respect in a better position than a 
 university which Hves on annual legislative appropriations. 
 Whatever its professors teach or publish, the university has no 
 occasion to apprehend the revenge of an outraged public in 
 the form of diminished revenues. Its funds are invested, and 
 the rate of interest is not affected by the discoveries or publica- 
 tions of its professors. Be their views in economics or 
 philosophy orthodox or heretical, the returns from investments 
 in stocks, bonds, or mortgages are neither augmented nor 
 diminished. And the advantage of owning funds, which by 
 prudent investment produce an annual revenue that may be 
 assuredly counted on in any contingency, is one that cannot 
 easily be exaggerated. There is a feeling of absolute security 
 which I suppose can scarcely ever exist in a state university 
 though there is an approximation to it in the case of state 
 universities when a legislative appropriation has been long 
 established or when under the state constitution the university 
 receives a fixed proportion of the revenues of the state. 
 
 INFLUENCE OF DONORS. 
 Is an endowed university, however, under any less temptation 
 to truckle to public opinion than a state university? It is 
 true that an endowed university has its annual income assured 
 for the present, while a state university might have its income 
 reduced by an irate legislature backed by an outraged public 
 opinion. But universities are constantly growing, and they 
 need more material support. The independent university 
 must trust to the benevolence of men and women of means and 
 philanthropic impulses. If the managers of state universities 
 must take account of the sentiments of legislators and voters, 
 are not the trustees of endowed universities under temptation 
 to consult the feelings and prejudices of millionaires and 
 
 11 
 
philanthropists? Is not the situation really identical for both 
 classes of universities? They need and must have financial 
 support from outside sources ; yet neither directly nor indirectly 
 must these holders of the purse strings influence the work and 
 life, the teaching and investigation of those specialists who are 
 set apart for the discovery and communication of truth. From 
 one point of view indeed it might be said that the case was a 
 little worse for the endowed universities. They depend on 
 the charity of a certain small class of the community — the rich 
 and generous. But the state universities are supported from 
 the contributions made to the public treasury by all the citizens 
 and residents of the state. From this difference has arisen the 
 suspicion in certain quarters — especially I think among the 
 laboring classes — that the privately endowed universities are 
 the creatures and organs of capital. The aspersion is as cruel 
 as it is unjust. Nothing could be more unfortunate for an 
 institution consecrated to knowledge and truth than the 
 suspicion that its work was not wholly disinterested, its in- 
 vestigations not absolutely unbiased, its teachings not purely 
 the rational extraction of fact and evidence. Yet baseless as 
 this accusation must in the main be pronounced to be, an 
 appearance of subservience to capitalistic interests can always 
 be plausibly made out against universities which derive from 
 that source the means for their material support or expansion. 
 Because the privately endowed universities live on the gifts 
 which the rich or well-to-do bestow upon them, it is easy for 
 the unreflecting and especially for the prejudiced to charge 
 that they serve their benefactors even at the expense of truth 
 and honesty. The one conclusive reply is an appeal to facts, 
 an appeal to the history of endowed colleges and universities 
 which have been in existence for generations and centuries. 
 Whatever possibilities of danger may lie in their organization 
 and especially in their mode of support, that history conclusively 
 demonstrates that the privately endowed university has not 
 
 12 
 
bartered the holy spirit of truth for gifts and legacies of money. 
 They have not fought against the tyranny of church and state 
 to sell themseles in slavery to Mammon. 
 
 I have, however, already indicated the danger to which the 
 privately endowed universities are exposed. As the state 
 universities are tempted to concihate public opinion, which 
 controls legislative appropriations so the privately endowed 
 universities, which are ambitious to expand and develop, are 
 tempted to attract the favorable attention of the wealthy 
 classes to whom they look for endowment. In both cases the 
 end may be accomplished by means which are honorable and 
 dignified. But in both cases also there are possibiHties of an 
 opposite kind. To the best of my knowledge and beHef , however, 
 the presidents and responsible managers of our best known 
 endowed universities (and it is these only I am now considering) 
 seek support for their institutions by striving to m^ake them 
 efficient and realizing the intellectual leadership which is their 
 true vocation. No other course is open to honorable and self- 
 respecting gentlemen and scholars. And such a course — the 
 true course for every university to follow — may appeal to men 
 of wealth who are seeking philanthropic investments for 
 capital more effectively than impassioned defenses of corpora- 
 tions or fierce attacks on radicals or any other blatant champion- 
 ship of vested interests and the rights of property. Rich men 
 know that a university is an organ of the intellectual life. And 
 most of those who use their money for educational purposes 
 are large-minded enough to support universities which are 
 devotedly fulfilling that function, whether they like or dislike 
 the teachings of this, that, or the other individual professor. 
 
 The direct influence of benefactors on the administration and 
 control of our universities has not been large. They have as a 
 rule made their gifts and gone their way, leaving the administra- 
 tion of their funds in the hands of the institution. This fact 
 should be carefulh' considered by those critics who assert that 
 
 13 
 
the privately endowed universities are controlled by capital. 
 The one conspicuous exception to this rule is the practice of 
 founders of colleges and universities. They are apt to regard 
 the institutions they have established as their own personal 
 property. And during their life- time, as very recent examples 
 remind us, these institutions may lack the freedom and 
 independence which are essential to the life of a genuine uni- 
 versity. Going back a generation I may say that no university 
 founder ever interfered less with the institution he established 
 than Ezra Cornell. Yet Gold win Smith, who came to the new 
 university, fresh from Oxford, was moved to observe that the 
 proper place for college founders was in marble efhgy in the 
 college chapel! 
 
 CORPORATIONS AS ALMONERS. 
 
 Benefactors die; universities abide. At least that has been 
 the case in the past. But in this age of organization, benefac- 
 tors have learned to perpetuate themselves as corporations. 
 And we now have institutions chartered by acts of congress to 
 disburse for educational purposes the charities of millionaires. 
 The rich philanthropist, who objectifies himself in such a 
 benevolent corporation, of course names the trustees; and 
 subsequent vacancies in the board are filled by co-optation. 
 This is a new species of corporation; but the two or three 
 already organized hold large funds, which are likely to be 
 greatly augmented in the future. And there is no limit to the 
 number of such corporations except the limit to the number 
 of persons who possess wealth and desire to distribute it in this 
 fashion. 
 
 A corporation of this kind is a distributing agency for wealth 
 set apart for educational purposes. It can make investigations 
 into applications which the rich philanthropist has not the 
 time even to read. It can consider the circumstances of 
 institutions and determine which in the public interest should 
 be fostered and which should be left to languish and die among 
 
 14 
 
the throng that has been created by the vanity of individuals 
 or the ambition and rivalry of religious sects or civil com- 
 munities. It can also raise the tone of education in an institu- 
 tion by making its gifts dependent on the attainment of certain 
 standards. It may make appropriations for research or 
 provide salaries for the support of professors of extraordinary 
 ability either as investigators or as teachers. It may provide 
 pensions for professors who are old or disabled. It may found 
 scholarships for the education of talented youths who are to 
 become teachers in the secondary schools. It may do anything 
 and everything that tends to create an efficient system of state 
 or national education. 
 
 It is a large field which is open to these corporate organiza- 
 tions of educational beneficence. Where the public schools 
 are concerned, the trustees of the corporation undoubtedly 
 work in harmony with (and perhaps under the supervision of) the 
 educational authorities of the state. As to the state universities 
 I believe these corporations have had no relation with them 
 except that the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of 
 Teaching has admitted them to the benefits of its professorial 
 pension fund. The work and influence of these benevolent 
 organizations essentially exhausts itself on the privately 
 endowed and the denominational colleges and universities. 
 
 DANGER TO UNIVERSITY INDEPENDENCE. 
 I cannot but think that they create a new and dangerous 
 situation for the independent and privately endowed uni- 
 versities. Just in proportion as these are supported by those 
 benevolent corporations is their centre of gravity thrown outside 
 themselves. It is no longer the case of a rich man giving his 
 money, going his way (eventually dying), and leaving the 
 university free to manage its own affairs. The purse strings 
 are now controlled by an immortal power, which makes it its 
 business to investigate and supervise and which lays down 
 conditions that the university must accept if it is to receive 
 
 15 
 
grants of money. An irresponsible, self-perpetuating board, 
 whose business is to dispense money, necessarily tends to look 
 at every question from the pecuniary point of view; it wants 
 its money's worth ; it demands immediate and tangible results. 
 Will not its large powers and enormous influence in relation to 
 the institutions dependent upon it tend to develop in it an 
 attitude of patronage and. a habit of meddling? The very 
 ambition of such a corporation to reform educational abuses 
 is itself a source of danger. Men are not constituted educational 
 reformers by having millions to spend. And, indeed, an 
 irresponsible, self -perpetuating board of this sort may become 
 a real menace to the best interests of the higher education. 
 In the fancied interests of capital, of religion, or of education 
 itself, it may galvanize the intellectual life of the institution it 
 undertakes to foster. A board of this kind should be answer- 
 able to the public, like the regents of a state university. Or, 
 better still, let the millionaire trust the boards of trustees of 
 colleges and universities and give them outright the capital he 
 intends to devote to educational purposes. I believe that in 
 all cases this plan would be best for education and best for the 
 public interest. I make no exception even of the Carnegie 
 Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching to which Mr. 
 Carnegie has given such large endowment for the pensioning of 
 professors in the colleges, technical schools, and universities of 
 the United States and Canada. And I certainly speak with no 
 prejudice as I regard that endowment as the best thing any 
 benefactor has ever done for higher education in America, 
 and I have myself the honor of being one of the trustees. But 
 I look with concern and anxiety on the influence of such corpora- 
 tions on the free and independent life of our institutions of 
 learning and research. 
 
 GOVERNMENT OF ENDOWED UNIVERSITIES. 
 Privately endowed universities are governed by boards of 
 trustees who as a rule elect their own members. Some of them 
 
 16 
 
make provision also for alumni representation on the board. 
 In the main, however, they are self-perpetuating corporations. 
 A board so constituted tends to develop a uniform complexion. 
 It is composed of the same type of men, selected from the same 
 class of society, having the same intellectual outlook and 
 interests. They will be lawyers, or doctors, or educated men of 
 business. No farmer, no labor man will have a seat on the 
 board, though the farm and the factory have scientific interests 
 and there are farmers and wage-earners who are wise councilors 
 and prudent administrators. In comparison with the governing 
 board of a state university, the governing board of an endowed 
 university^ may be described as lacking comprehensiveness of 
 outlook and interest. The one board represents the people 
 of the state, and takes account of the intellectual life and the 
 scientific problems of all the people ; the other at best represents 
 a portion of the people and a section of their intellectual 
 interests. This is not saying that the governing board of an 
 endowed university may not have as able and devoted members 
 as the regents of a state university. They may be more able 
 and more devoted. But the governing board of the state 
 university has the great advantage of representing the people 
 of the state, whose diversified, intellectual interests it appre- 
 ciates and serves, while the governing board of the endowed 
 university has no such representative character or comprehen- 
 sive function. 
 
 Apart from this limitation, however, the trustees of the 
 endowed university, who are selected by co-optation or by vote 
 of the alumni, ordinarily make excellent public servants. The 
 mode of selection tends to secure picked men. And as they 
 are generally re-elected on the expiration of their term of 
 office, they become the depositories of a valuable experience 
 and the exponents of a practical wisdom begotten of such 
 experience. Those of them who are elected by the alumni are 
 apt to have also a special understanding of the educational 
 
 17 
 
and scientific work of the university. Altogether I should say 
 that so long as we have endowed universities of the character 
 of our oldest seats of learning, so long will they be governed by 
 boards whose members are chosen by co-optation or by vote 
 of the alumni. 
 
 CORNELL UNIVERSITY BOARD. 
 
 Hitherto we have had no university governed by a board 
 whose membership was determined by all three methods of 
 selection — by state appointment, by the vote of the alumni, 
 and by the choice of the board itself. Last winter, however, 
 the legislature of the State of New York amended the charter 
 of Cornell University, with the full approval of the board of 
 trustees, so as to provide for such a constitution of the board. 
 Cornell University was, I believe, the first university in America 
 to give representation to the alumni on the board of trustees. 
 Hitherto of six trustees elected annually for a term of five 
 years two have been elected by the alumni and four by the 
 board. The act just referred to, while leaving the governor and 
 other high state officers trustees of the university ex-ofjicio, 
 provides that one of the trustees hitherto elected annually by 
 the board shall hereafter be appointed by the governor of the 
 state with the advice and consent of the senate. The next 
 step may be to have two of the six trustees appointed annually 
 by the governor with the advice and consent of the senate, 
 leaving two to be elected by the board and two, as now, to be 
 chosen by the alumni; and eventually the State might claim 
 even a still larger measure of control. In the meantime, 
 however, there will be opportunity to see how the scheme 
 works. It is certainly an interesting departure, and, as I think, 
 a very hopeful one. And it responds to the actual situation at 
 Cornell University. For the State of New York, which less 
 than twenty years ago had never given a cent to Cornell Uni- 
 versity, now makes large and increasing appropriation for the 
 
 18 
 
maintenance of its educational work; and with this State 
 participation in the support of the University should go State 
 participation in its administration and control. 
 
 UNIVERSITY SERVICE TO STATE. 
 
 A university which has an organic connection with the state 
 possesses not only the advantage of state support. It has the 
 privilege and the duty of serving the state. Of course its 
 service is rigidly limited to the educational, scholarly, and 
 scientific interests of the state. But in these days those 
 interests are very extensive and very diversified. One of the 
 most important is the provision of teachers for the high schools 
 and normal schools of the state. This function is likely to 
 increase in importance with every passing year. Our secondary 
 and elementary schools are inferior to similar schools in France 
 and Germany. To make them more thorough and efficient we 
 need better teachers. There is no other remedy. And better 
 teachers will be demanded, just as soon as communities discover 
 that this is the only way to reform. These teachers must for 
 the high schools be furnished by the universities. And a state 
 university, which is the crown and climax of the educational 
 system of the state, has in these circumstances a unique 
 opportunity and privilege which any privately endowed 
 university must envy. Even the privately endowed univer- 
 sity, however, may share in this splendid work. And it is its 
 misfortune — I will not say its fault — if among its graduates 
 there is not a considerable number who intend to devote them- 
 selves to the teaching profession. Certainly there is an obliga- 
 tion incumbent on the state universities to educate teachers for 
 the schools and to create and intensify enthusiasm for the 
 teaching profession. From the point of view of the public, 
 this is quite as important as graduating lawyers, physicians, 
 or clergymen. 
 
 But a state university will not content itself with any object 
 short of the entirety of educational, scholarly, and scientific 
 
 19 
 
interests of the state. It has in this respect an advantage over 
 the privately endowed university — an advantage reflected in 
 the constitution of the governing board, to which I have already 
 referred. The scope of the privately endowed university is 
 narrower, its programme less diversified, than that of the 
 state university. It is in the state universities that the scientific 
 and intellectual interests of the community are reflected in 
 their entirety. As these universities are dependent on the 
 people as a whole for their support they are sensitive to the 
 intellectual needs of the people wherever and whenever they 
 arise. There is no work, no calling, no human activity too 
 humble for their consideration, if only science or knowledge 
 can be of use in it. On the other hand as the people support 
 the university no section of the community will tolerate the 
 neglect of its peculiar problems. Hence it is that the state 
 universities have such a multiplicity of departments and 
 comprehensiveness of curriculum. Their province is the 
 totality of human knowledge and its application to the life 
 and work and vocations of mankind. Agriculture is cultivated 
 side by side with law and the mechanic arts with medicine. 
 The action and reaction of a university and the people of the 
 state upon each other is mutually advantageous. Of course 
 the people are aided and elevated by knowledge. But it is 
 also an advantage to the university to be kept in close touch 
 with concrete scientific problems and with knowledge that is 
 useful; the university is thereby saved from scholasticism and 
 barrenness. It may be said that this work is utilitarian. But 
 if so, it is utilitarianism which is characterized by intellectual 
 service to mankind. A more serious objection would be that 
 this activity of the university in practical spheres might atrophy 
 the wings of reason and keep it from soaring into the heights 
 of speculation. That, however, is an indictment which De 
 Tocqueville brought against American democracy before the 
 state university came into existence. And it should be noticed 
 
 20 
 
that the activity which the state universities exhibit in practical 
 affairs, like farming and engineering, is itself a theoretical and 
 rational activity. And I see no reason why facts concerning 
 crops, stock, railways, and factories should not be as stimulating 
 to pure reason as any other groups of facts. Certainly Darwin, 
 the greatest scientific speculator since Newton, took as the 
 starting-point of his theories the data gathered by gardeners 
 and stock-breeders. 
 
 STATE UNIVERSITIES AND DEMOCRACY. 
 
 The attitude of our people towards their state universities 
 is a sublime and encouraging spectacle. It is, however, as wise 
 and far-sighted as it is touching and impressive. For the Hfe 
 of states, like the life of individuals, is dependent on foresight, 
 and foresight is the counterpart of that exact and systematic 
 knowledge which we call Science, of which the university is the 
 organ and work-shop. The best guides and the chief helpers 
 of the community are not the poHticians and financiers, who 
 fill the public eye, but the scholars and the scientists. The 
 universities are to a nation what eyes are to an animal. And 
 since in our Republic the federal government has nothing to 
 do with education it devolves on the states to supply the univer- 
 sities. Their origin and support can no longer in the United 
 States be left to the caprice and uncertainty of private 
 generosity, helpful as that generosity may be. Education 
 from the elementary school to the university is the concern of 
 the state. The majority of our states have recognized this 
 obHgation and provided state universities. The West has led, 
 but the East is following. And before many years a state 
 without a state university will be an anomaly in our Union. 
 For the rest I assert|most emphatically that a state university 
 is an indispensable organ of genuine democracy. 
 
 I turn now from the organization and control of universities 
 to their members and functions. 
 
 21 
 
WORK OF AMERICAN PROFESSORS. 
 
 The professors in American universities have a pedagogical 
 function to discharge which in Europe falls to the teachers in 
 the gymnasium or the lycee. This is not their only function, 
 but it is an addition to their other duties, which resemble those 
 of German or French university professors. The difference 
 is due to the inferiority of our high schools when compared with 
 the secondary schools of the most advanced countries in 
 Europe. In the latter the period of drill on the part of the 
 teacher and of assimilative intellectual reaction and discipline 
 on the part of the scholar are completed before the boys pass 
 their leaving examinations and qualify for admission to the 
 university. With us in the United States boys do not reach 
 this stage much before the close of the second year in the uni- 
 versity. The work, therefore, of the professors of the liberal 
 arts and sciences in our universities is during the freshman and 
 sophomore years essentially the drill-work of the German 
 gymnasium. I have said this is what the work is; it would be 
 more correct to say this is what the work ought to he. For many 
 of our professors, who have been trained in German universities, 
 fail to recognize the actual condition of affairs at home, and 
 lecture to callow and untrained freshmen, or even introduce 
 them into methods of original research, as though they already 
 possessed a knowledge to which they are strangers or a mental 
 discipline which they have had no opportunity of acquiring. 
 I consider it a matter of cardinal importance in the higher 
 education of the United States that this National Association 
 of State Universities has drawn a sharp distinction between 
 the work of the freshman and sophomore years and the sub- 
 sequent work of our university students. 
 
 BETTER TEACHING DEMANDED. 
 Two other steps, however, remain to be taken in the interests 
 of higher education. First the individual universities of this 
 
 22 
 
Association must see that their freshmen and sophomores are 
 thoroughly drilled — drilled as they were in former days by 
 those inexorable teachers of mathematics and Latin or Greek. 
 This is the remedy for the atrocious intellectual slovenliness, 
 inaccuracy, and vagueness which today characterize pupils 
 in all American schools, colleges, and universities. As in so 
 many other cases reform must begin from above; it is for the 
 universities to react on the high schools and normal schools 
 and through them on the elementary schools. And it is in 
 the freshman and sophomore years that the university has the 
 opportunity and the duty of performing this high task and 
 setting the shining example. Especially is the obUgation in- 
 cumbent on the universities embraced in this Association which 
 has already formally recognized that the work of the first two 
 years differs in aini and method from that of the subsequent 
 years of the student's course, being a continuation of the drill 
 work of the preparatory school with a beginning if possible of 
 the freely determined activity of the scholar and investigator. 
 
 CURRICULUM FOR UNDER-CLASSMEN. 
 The second task to which not only the individual univer- 
 sities but especially this National Association of State Univer- 
 sities must address themselves is the establishment of a 
 curriculum for freshmen and sophomores in place of the old 
 New England curriculum which has gone and the no-curriculum 
 of the elective system which experience has proved a worse 
 substitute. I regard this matter as one of the most urgent 
 problems now before our universities. It cannot be settled for 
 the Nation by any one institution, but it can, I believe, be 
 settled by this Association representing the universities of the 
 several states. What we do in this matter, if we can reach a 
 unanimous conclusion, would, I have little doubt, be adopted 
 by the Nation. And think what vast interests are involved. 
 It is nothing less than the displacement of the chaos which now 
 reigns supreme, not only in our universities and colleges, but 
 
 23 
 
in our high schools and academies by a curriculum of study 
 based on sound pedagogical principles and adapted to the 
 spirit and needs of twentieth century civilization. I admit 
 that tne task is one of colossal difficulty. But that is no reason 
 why it should not be undertaken. Difficulties exist to try the 
 spirit of men. 
 
 The general indifference of the faculties of our universities 
 to this problem is due, I believe, to that exclusive absorption 
 in departmental interests which the elective system has de- 
 veloped amongst us. The professor tends to look at all 
 educational questions from the point of view of his own subject, 
 his own classes, his own laboratory or seminary. A visitor 
 from Mars investigating our universities might suspect that 
 students existed for the sake of the professor's specialty. What 
 studies are best for the student and at what age, are themes 
 seldom discussed and rarely thought of. Yet, in spite of 
 research and in spite of service to the community, it is still 
 true that universities exist for the sake of students. And the 
 time has come for a reaction in favor of the student's interests. 
 We must face and settle the question what subjects should be 
 studied by freshmen and sophomores who according to the 
 formal declaration of this Association cannot, like upperclass- 
 men and graduates, be left free to elect their own courses and to 
 engage in specialization or investigation. 
 
 SUBJECTS SUGGESTED. 
 
 If the problem were once seriously faced, it might turn out 
 that there would be much more probability of agreement than 
 could haxe existed some years ago, prior to experience with 
 the elective system. Some things have in the meantime 
 settled themselves. Greek, for instance, will never again 
 be prescribed in American universities ; for general educational 
 purposes (while its incomparable literature will always have 
 audience fit though few) it has gone the way of Hebrew, which 
 like Greek, was once prescribed for the A. B. degree. In a 
 
 24 
 
generation, a century, or a millenium, Latin may follow it; 
 but at present Latin is a potent and widely diffused factor in 
 our civilization. It is an accident that two foreign languages 
 have so long been prescribed for educated men. Shall we in 
 the future have only one? I suppose most persons would say 
 at least one foreign language was necessary, holding with 
 Goethe that the man who knows only his own language does 
 not know even that. Shall the foreign language be Latin, or 
 German, or French, or Spanish? In Europe practical 
 necessities — trade, travel, intercourse, etc. — foster the ac- 
 quisition of foreign languages. These considerations would 
 with us give the preference to German and Spanish. Yet our 
 graduates, who are to become scholars and scientists, will 
 continue to need German and French as the tools of their 
 vocation. 
 
 Probably every one will assent to the proposition that the 
 English language and literature and our own national history 
 should be the centre of humanistic studies of the high school 
 and that they should be continued in the freshman and sopho- 
 more years of the university. Nor would there perhaps be 
 much difference of opinion about the place to be occupied by 
 mathematics. The war against science is over ; and the value 
 of science as educational material is fully recognized, even 
 though few educators, if any, would, like Herbert Spencer, 
 make it the be-all and end-all of education. 
 
 But if courses in Enghsh language and Hterature, in history 
 and pontics, in Latin or German or both, in mathematics and 
 physical science, were laid out for freshmen and sophomores, 
 and taught by methods of instruction adapted to freshmen and 
 sophomores and by professors distinguished for pedagogical 
 skill and thoroughness and possessed of personalities with a 
 contagious power of sympathy, friendship, and inspiration, — 
 what a reform would be effected in our higher education and 
 how quickly it would spread through all grades of our institu- 
 tions of learning ! 
 
 25 
 
TEACHERS AND INVESTIGATORS. 
 
 The all-essential factor in this reform is the teacher. Our 
 universities, and especially the state universities, have in 
 recent years been over-run with students; and the problem of 
 providing for their instruction has not yet been satisfactorily 
 solved. The embarrassment is felt most in the underclasses, 
 in which the augmentation of members is especially marked. 
 Generally, this increasing demand for instruction has been 
 met by dividing the classes into sections and assigning the 
 sections to tutors or instructors. Thus it results that young 
 students who need the best teaching an institution can command 
 are turned over to inexperienced young men, fresh from the 
 laboratory and seminary, interested in research, and begrudging 
 the time taken from it by what they feel the drudgery of 
 teaching and drilling pupils ignorant of the very elements of 
 the subject in which they themselves live and move and have 
 their being. Now this situation illustrates the need of two 
 classes of university professors, — the one preeminent as 
 teachers the other as investigators, though of course the teachers 
 should not neglect scholarship and research nor the investigators 
 be exempt from the duty, of teaching. So long as our American 
 universities retain the work now done in the freshman and 
 sophomore years — and I see very little prospect of our public 
 high schools being able to undertake it — so long must they 
 have in their faculties professors who are teachers, drillmasters, 
 and inspirers of youth as well as professors who are investigators 
 and enlargers of knowledge. It is no use shutting our eyes to 
 actual facts because we wish them otherwise. The German 
 university professor is not the intellectual guide needed by our 
 freshmen and sophomores; it is rather the teacher in the 
 German Gynmasium. And it is the duty of our universities, 
 and especially of the state universities which have differentiated 
 so markedly the work of the freshman and sophomore years and 
 the later years of the course, to provide their underclassmen 
 
 26 
 
with the kind of teachers they actually need. And we must 
 see to it that in dignity, in emolument, and in public esteem 
 the cultured and inspiring teacher of underclassmen shall 
 enjoy equal standing with the specialist and investigator whose 
 dearest ambition is, not so much the training of youth, as the 
 enlargement of knowledge. 
 
 The other reform needed in the faculties of our universities 
 has to do with research and investigation. My complaint is 
 that we do not today sufficiently differentiate the functions 
 which our universities are discharging. We are apparently 
 willing that everybody should do everything. But the ideal 
 surely is that the work to be done should be done by those who 
 are competent to do it, and on the other hand that each should' 
 do the work for which he is peculiarly fitted. Our universities 
 are devoted to teaching and to investigation. These functions 
 will not be properly discharged if the man whom nature ordained 
 for the high function of teaching is kept in the laboratory or 
 the man who has a thirst for new knowledge and might create 
 it is exhausted in the classroom. I have already said that our 
 underclassmen are entitled to better teachers. Teaching is 
 the primary and fundamental function of the university; and 
 the good teacher is second to no other member of the faculty. 
 But research has in modern times come to be an important 
 function of the university, and it becomes more important 
 with every passing year. The scientist and scholar who 
 explore for us the secrets of nature or the history of mankind 
 have come to be recognized as the chief benefactors of our race. 
 Human life is a struggle and a process of adaptation ; we succeed 
 in living in proportion as we know ourselves and the environ- 
 ment that conditions us. The light to our feet and the lamp 
 to our path is that exact and systematized knowledge we call 
 science, by the aid of which we recall the past, predict the 
 future, and make ourselves at home with the forces of the 
 universe. 
 
 27 
 
APPEAL FOR RESEARCH PROFESSORS. 
 
 Research is a highly speciaHzed function. It is not the 
 calUng of every university professor, though experience in 
 interrogating nature even when she makes no reply may be a 
 good discipline for every educated man. But research as a 
 vocation is the privilege of the few who are specially qualified 
 for that creative function. In an ideally organized university 
 a profesor thus endowed by nature would be set apart to his 
 high calling. The experience of European universities seems 
 to show, however, that it helps, rather than hinders, the in- 
 vestigator, if he also does some teaching. I cite the cases of 
 Kelvin, of Helmholtz, of Pasteur. The trouble with us in 
 America is that we overwhelm the investigator with teaching. 
 His energies are exhausted in the classroom; and when he 
 escapes to his laboratory no inspiration comes to his wearied 
 faculties. We are ready, especially in the state universities, 
 to build him laboratories and to buy him apparatus, and even 
 to furnish him with assistance. We have yet to learn that 
 research demands the man himself, in all the freshness and 
 plenitude of his energies. And the next step in the develop- 
 ment of our universities will be the establishment of research 
 professorships, in connection with which teaching will be a 
 subordinate and ancillary function. Such chairs already 
 exist in some of our agricultural departments and in one at 
 least of our medical schools. They will eventually be established 
 in all the great fields of scientific inquiry. And when they 
 come it will be for us to see that none shall occupy them but 
 professors having the genuine afflatus of scientific discovery— 
 knight-errants of the holy spirit of truth. A score of such 
 professorships in each of a dozen of the strongest universities 
 in the United States would do more than any other reform 
 whatever to put American universities on the same plane as 
 those of Germany. But 250 research professors at a salary of 
 $8,000 would call for only $2,000,000 a year, and if to that be 
 
 28 
 
added another $2,000,000 for assistants and facilities for 
 research, the total would not exceed $4,000,000 a year. This 
 is a small sum for a nation so rich as ours to spend on any 
 special object and a mere bagatelle for it to invest in the develop- 
 ment of brains and the discovery of knowledge which have 
 always constituted true national greatness and which nowadays 
 also infallibly produce national prosperity and efficiency. 
 In the name of science and in the name of statesmanship I 
 appeal to our millionaires and to our legislatures to inaugurate 
 this sublime and fruitful work of scientific research on a scale 
 worthy of our great and rich republic. We hear it stated with 
 somewhat tiresome monotony that the United States has at 
 last become a "world-power." Well, as Bacon said, knowledge 
 is power. And the only genuine way to become a world-power 
 is to rival the foremost nations of the world in the discovery of 
 new knowledge. This the United States cannot do till its 
 universities become active centres of original investigation like 
 the universities of Germany. And for this development of 
 our universities professorships devoted to research — and a 
 goodly number of them — are the indispensable condition. 
 
 FREE TUITION FOR STUDENTS. 
 I come now to the students of our universities. Their num- 
 bers in recent years have been greatly increased. In part this 
 is due to the general diffusion of prosperity throughout the 
 country, which has provided funds available for the higher 
 education of young men and women, and in part to the in- 
 expensiveness of education at the state universities, in which 
 no charge is made for tuition. I believe that in a democracy 
 the highest education like the lowest should be accessible to 
 all classes of the people, without money and without price. 
 The laws governing the bequest and inheritance of property 
 inevitably tend to create an aristocracy of wealth. It is all 
 the more imperative, therefore, that we should fight every 
 policy and arrangement which tends to develop an aristocracy 
 
 29 
 
of intellect supported by, and allied with, that aristocracy of 
 wealth. But every dollar charged for higher education makes 
 for the development and consideration of such an alliance. It 
 is not free choice, it is the necessity laid upon them, which has 
 led the privately endowed universities to make a charge for 
 tuition (apart altogether from laboratory and other fees) of 
 from $100 to $250 a year. These universities must have 
 funds to do their work, and if gifts and legacies are wanting 
 there is no other source of revenue but receipts from students. 
 I recognize the necessity. But it is none the less deplorable 
 and calamitous. For these high fees are barriers which the 
 privately endowed universities set up against students who 
 have little or no means to spend on education. By this policy 
 those universities tend to limit their services to certain classes 
 of the community — to the rich, prosperous, or well-to-do. 
 They establish an artificial selection of students by standards 
 which are neither educational nor intellectual, but purely 
 pecuniary. 
 * Of course the tendency I am describing may to some extent 
 be overcome by loan-funds, scholarships, and the like. But 
 the amount of this aid for students is quite limited; and if 
 it is given the student feels himself an object of charity, while 
 if it is lent he has the obligation to repay it at a later time. 
 Altogether it is a very inadequate and very unsatisfactory 
 substitute for the free tuition which prevails at the state 
 universities. Of course it will be said by the prosperous 
 optimist that if a young man wants a college education he 
 should pay for it and if he is of the "right stuff" he will not 
 fail in his ambition. But the first contention is undermined 
 by the practice of our elementary and high schools which give 
 free education; and it is not possible in this respect to draw a 
 line between them and the universities. And as to the 
 possibility of poor youth of ability and ambition earning money 
 to pay tuition fees it would be more correct to say that while 
 
 30 
 
some can and will others cannot and for all it substantially 
 increases the difficulty of obtaining a higher education. 
 
 But this is not a matter of mere individual gain or loss. It 
 is an issue of vast social and national significance. Society 
 is profoundly concerned in the education and training of its 
 most highly endowed members. The progress of our nation 
 depends upon the educated brains of individuals. We must 
 discover our most richly gifted youth and give them all the 
 training our universities can offer. To this end we should 
 make their access to the universities as easy as possible. The 
 state universities smooth their way; the high charges for 
 tuition are so many barriers about the privately endowed 
 universities. The state universities are, therefore, not merely 
 more democratic than the privately endowed universities, they 
 will also prove more fruitful agencies for maintaining the 
 intellectual vitality and promoting the intellectual progress of 
 the American people. 
 
 HIGH STANDARDS AND HARD WORK. 
 
 The privilege of free tuition which the tax-payers bestow 
 upon students in the state universities imposes a corresponding 
 obligation upon the students and upon the universities. The 
 purpose of this provision is the higher education of the best 
 minds of the rising generation. The university is not intended 
 for persons deficient in brains nor yet for persons who, though 
 well endowed mentally, refuse to devote themselves to study. 
 The university is a place of study for capable and diligent 
 students. And the authorities of a state university, for which 
 the public tax themselves to maintain free tuition, are under 
 "special obligation to realize this ideal. Laxness in the enforce- 
 ment of intellectual and scholastic standards in a state univer- 
 sity is especially unpardonable. Even when the tax-payers 
 themselves think of numbers rather than of standards, the 
 faculty of the university must not be seduced from the plain 
 
 31 
 
path of duty by that delusion. And students, who are the 
 objects of so much pubHc sacrifice, are under special obligation 
 to do their duty, to make the most of the high privilege con- 
 ferred upon them, and to fit themselves to become intellectual 
 guides and leaders of the community. 
 
 I believe that the hardest working students in America are 
 today found in the universities embraced in this Association. 
 The prestige of our venerable endowed universities attracts 
 to them, not only workers, but idlers — the youth sent by 
 ambitious parents for social purposes rather than for study or 
 education. This influx of young men, who are averse to 
 intellectual work and contemptuous of the scholarly life, creates 
 special problems for the universities which they frequent. 
 Whether the state universities will in the future attract a similar 
 class of students I do not venture to predict. Today they 
 certainly do not. Of course the prestige of the old universities 
 enures to the advantage of the state universities. But the 
 migration of the drones is not the only reason why their students 
 are hard workers. These young men and women come from 
 homes in the country and in small villages where the higher 
 education is greatly appreciated, partly no doubt because of 
 its rarity. Then the university offers them the sort of education 
 they want for their work in life, so that their interests are 
 enlisted at the outset. Every calling which has an intellectual 
 or scientific basis is represented in the faculty of the university. 
 It is a great democratic nursery of future farmers, mechanics, 
 engineers, doctors, lawyers, teachers, clergymen, writers, 
 scholars, and scientists. And, speaking generally, each student 
 devotes himself to his own field of work with the zeal and 
 earnestness which are to characterize him in his subsequent 
 vocation. 
 
 OUTSIDE DISTRACTIONS. 
 
 There is, however, one qualification to be made to this general 
 statement. If our state universities are attended by serious- 
 
 32 
 
minded, hard-workiiig students, it must be admitted that for 
 the sake of the so-called "student activities" they will at 
 special seasons sacrifice the studies of the curriculum almost as 
 readily, if not as generally, as the students of the famous old 
 endowed universities. These extra-curriculum activities have 
 become in the last decade or two a serious menace to the real 
 functions of our universities, state and endov/ed alike. In 
 themselves considered these so-called "student activities" are 
 proper and it may be even laudable. They embrace football, 
 baseball, rowing, and track athletics, besides basketball, tennis, 
 golf, cross-country running, fencing, and other minor sports. 
 But the students' extraneous activities are not limited to 
 athletics; they extend beyond the physical nature of man; 
 they are exerted in journahsm and music and the dram.a, in 
 pontics and morals and rehgion, in receptions and dances and 
 celebrations and other social functions innumerable. For all 
 these objects, as varied as the interests of hum.an life, there 
 are organizations to be formed and maintained, meetings 
 to be held, business to be conducted, service often heavy and 
 long-continued to be performed by adepts, and exhibitions to 
 be given not only at home but in other places often hundreds 
 of miles away. 
 
 I need not point out, though the fact escapes general attention 
 save in the case of football, that these outside activities absorb 
 the time and interests of the students who participate in them 
 to the detriment of that intellectual training and education 
 for the sake of which they presumably came to the university. 
 It is no relief to the situation to point out that such students 
 derive a valuable experience from these non-academic pursuits. 
 Undoubtedly they do. But the university does not exist for 
 the sake of the "side-shows" that can be grouped about its 
 hospitable campus. They are mere phenomena or even epi- 
 phenomena that play about that vital and essential reality 
 which we call the university. To substitute them for it is 
 to glorify the shadow as the substance. 
 
 33 
 
The university is an institution for the training of mind 
 through intellectual discipline by competent masters. If the 
 university does not serve this function I see little use in pre- 
 serving the institution. As a mere centre and occasion of non- 
 academic "student activities," it would exhibit a monstrous 
 perversion of ends, to say nothing of monumental folly and 
 wastefulness. The work to which the university is called is 
 the highest and noblest known to modern civilization. Optimi 
 corruptio pessima. We must hold our universities up to their 
 high ideal. And the task, once the danger that threatens them 
 is fully realized, is not so difficult as it appears. All that is 
 needed is the establishment of high educational standards and 
 the enforcement of these requirements on all classes of students. 
 lyCt the youth by all means have his physical and social recrea- 
 tion; for physical and social recreation is essential to his well- 
 being and to freshness and vigor of mind ; but let him practice 
 the Hellenic precept of moderation, and let him subordinate 
 everything else to that intellectual discipline and education 
 for the sake of which the true student comes to the university 
 and for the sake of which alone the university exists. 
 
 THE STUDENT HERO. 
 Is our ideal then of the student to be that entity whom his 
 comrades, with significant and tell-tale opprobrium, designate 
 the "grind" or even the "greasy grind"? This question is a 
 real challenge to the faculties of our universities. The students 
 make a hero of the man who excels in non-academic "student 
 activities," especially in athletics. Who is our hero? Have 
 we none? Or does it seem a matter of no' moment? Shall the 
 athlete, or the singer, or the player be thrust into the place of 
 honor by his admiring fellow-students while their teachers 
 maintain an approving silence? Has not the time come to 
 proclaim that the able and hard-working student — he is the hero 
 of the university. For a hundred gifted youth who strenuously 
 devote themselves to their studies our universities might well 
 
 34 
 
spare a thousand mediocre men, good fellows though the)^ be, 
 to whom study is a weariness of the flesh and distinction in 
 "student activities" the be-all and end-all of the college course. 
 I believe the time is ripe for a formal recognition of high 
 scholarship on the part of our faculties. At Oxford and 
 Cambridge students are divided into "pass" and "honor" men, 
 the former numbered by thousands, the latter by hundreds. And 
 in Germany a radical distinction is made between the pass 
 degree and the degree magna cuin laude or summa cum laude, 
 the latter of which is obtained by only a small number of 
 graduates. To these distinguished graduates the best things 
 are open both in Germany and in Britain. With us in the 
 United States, speaking generally, all degrees of the same 
 denomination conferred by a university have the same value. 
 The result is that our degrees are held in Httle esteem by the 
 public. Could we not reinstate them in public estimation and 
 at the same time invest our real scholars with appropriate 
 honors by making some such distinction between our students 
 as that connoted by "pass" and "honor" men in the old 
 universities of England? And would not this change lead to 
 a further differentiation in the work of our faculties, which 
 today is one of the greatest needs of our universities? 
 Qualitative differences exist between students; let them be 
 frankly recognized, and the work adjusted accordingly — 
 and the honors, too. 
 
 LIBERAL CULTURE. 
 So far I have treated the university as a single unit. "What 
 I have been saying appHes to the institution as a whole, though 
 some remarks may be more applicable to one division of it 
 than to others. I desire at this point, however, to separate 
 for special consideration the college of liberal arts. The 
 successful work of the professional, technical, and vocational 
 schools in our best universities is now universally recognized. 
 But the indictment is brought against those same universities, 
 
 35 
 
and especially the state universities, that they have not been 
 successful organs of liberal culture. This is the end to which 
 the old-fashioned New England college directed its energies. 
 The means it employed was the use of a restricted circle of 
 studies which, it is claimed, were without practical bearing, 
 which neither fitted young men to earn their livelihood or to 
 practice a profession. These studies were called "liberal," 
 to mark them off from practical or useful subjects. And the 
 capable student who pursued them assiduously reached that 
 intangible but real goal known as liberal culture. In the 
 best sense of the term, he was a liberally educated man. He 
 was steeped in the best thought and culture of his time; and 
 not only was his reason trained, but his imagination had been 
 quickened and his taste elevated and refined. 
 
 The disciplines which produced this result were the Greek 
 and Latin languages and literatures, mathematics, physics, 
 rhetoric, logic, and philosophy. There may have been some 
 other minor subjects, but these were the staple of that old 
 curriculum. As will be seen it consisted of literature, science, 
 and philosophy. The emphasis was laid on literature, the 
 lightest stress was put on science. 
 
 Now in connection with that programme and its results two 
 observations must be made. In the first place the college 
 course, in spite of all that has been said regarding its practical 
 uselessness, was an excellent preparation for the two great 
 learned professions of the day — namely, the professions of 
 theology and law, in which literary, rhetorical, and argumenta- 
 tive training was then of fundamental importance; and the 
 student who had completed the course could earn a livelihood 
 by teaching school while he prepared himself, wholly or in 
 part, to enter one of those professions. Again, if the curriculum 
 of a modern college of liberal arts does not give to literature 
 the preponderance which it held in the older scheme of studies, 
 it nevertheless gives ample place to other important humanistic 
 
 36 
 
studies, such as history, economics, and politics. And it 
 provides more generously for physical science, which by its 
 insistence on fact and verified theory has created for our 
 generation a new type of intellectual civiHzation. 
 
 CHANGES IN THE COLLEGE. 
 
 Let us frankly admit that the college of liberal arts, whether 
 as a division in the university or a separate organization, has 
 been undergoing modification. It has been adjusting itself to 
 modern civilization. If it lays less stress than formerly on a 
 knowledge of the languages of ancient peoples — Hebrew, 
 Greek, and even lyatin — it lays far more stress on a knowledge 
 of their history, institutions, ideas, and economical and political 
 conditions and development. It recognizes, too, that the life 
 and work of mankind did not cease to be interesting or in- 
 structive with the decline and fall of the Roman Empire. 
 And especially does it find in our own national history and 
 institutions and in the literature of our mother tongue 
 educational material of the highest value, for which it may 
 cite the warrant of the ancient Greeks, our exemplars of liberal 
 culture, who knew no language, literature, and history but 
 their own and even contemned everything foreign as barbarian. 
 And then, as I have already intimated, a college of liberal arts 
 would today be exceedingly illiberal which did not give its 
 students some training in the methods and results of physical 
 science, which, apart from its own specific achievements, has 
 so profoundly modified our views, if not of man's nature, at 
 any rate of his place in the universe and the course of his history 
 on this planet. Lastly, the college of liberal arts today makes 
 more of the fine arts — of music, painting, sculpture, and 
 architecture — than at any previous period of its history. 
 
 There has been in our universities, state as well as endowed, 
 a great increase in the number of liberal studies and some 
 change of emphasis in their relative importance, but they remain 
 
 37 
 
as of old, primarily, the humanities, and secondarily, the 
 sciences. And our universities, state as well as endowed, 
 recognize with the college of arts that the minds of the rising 
 generation are to be humanized (and so liberalized) by a study 
 of the humanities — the rational, spiritual, imaginative, moral, 
 political, and institutional productions and creations of the 
 human race. These embrace language, literature, art, 
 philosophy, history, economics, and politics. To these must be 
 added physical science, which is man's verified insight into 
 the nature and operations of this material universe, which is 
 the scene of his existence, the source of his physical energies, 
 and, mayhap, the living garment of the Infinite Spirit, in whom 
 he lives and moves and has his being. 
 
 THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 
 
 Is it worth while to pursue art, literature, philosophy, and 
 science for their own sake, or apart from their usefulness 
 in earning a hvelihood, making money, or rising in a profession? 
 It is not, if man is in this world merely to eat, drink, gather 
 wealth, and try to get his head above his fellows. It assuredly 
 is worth while — and this is the creed of all colleges and univer- 
 sities alike — if man is summoned to truth and beauty by voices 
 nobler and not less commanding than those which bid him 
 eat and drink and gratify his animal instincts. Disinterested 
 devotion to truth and beauty, like unselfish goodness, rests on 
 the final postulate that we are not on earth merely for the 
 sake of living, but for the sake of noble Hving. This high 
 conception of man is the meeting point of liberal culture with 
 virtue and religion. And none of them can escape the shadow 
 cast by the reaUstic aims of an age that worships money and 
 physical power as they have not been worshipped since the 
 days of the Roman Empire. All the more incumbent on our 
 universities is it to foster the intellectual life and to proclaim 
 that the things of the spirit are the real summum bonum both 
 
 38 
 
for nations and for individuals. A state university which 
 allowed its college of liberal arts to languish, which was faithless 
 to the call of liberal culture, would have destroyed the nerve 
 of its own highest life and activity, while it abandoned the 
 most precious heritage of the civilization of mankind. "The 
 love of knowledge for its own sake," says Locke, "is the prin- 
 cipal part of human perfection, and the seed-plot of all the 
 virtues." 
 
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