ADVANCED EDUCATION. THE RELATIONS OF THE NATIONAL AND STATE GOV~I ERNMIENTS TO ADVANCED EDUCATION. BY ANDREW D. ~V,HITE. A Paper read before the National Educational Association, at Detroit, Aug. 5. 1874. BOSTON: OFFICE OF O-LD AND[ 143 WASHIIING'rON STIlEET. TIIE TRAI)E SIJPI,LIED I,Y F. B. PERKINS, BUSINESS AGENT. LONDON: SAMPSON LOW & CO., 188 FLEET STREET. 1874. I II I i I I NEW, i Rev. James Martineau, L.L.D., the distin guished metaphysician and theologian, has en gaged to furnish exclusively to "OLD AND NEW" a series of papers on ,Q) t and anrmaient I tt t to + TIair SUBJECTS ARE: GOD IN NATURE. GOD IN HUMANITY, GOD IN HISTORY. THE CHURCH AND ITS PRETEN SIOUS CLAIMS. THE PROTESTANT THEORY OF AU THORI TY. THE HUMAN AND THE DIVINE EI,E MENTS IN HISTORY. THE HISTORICAL CHRIST. RELIGION; NATURAL, REVEALED AND APOCALYPTIC. THE MESSIANIC APOCALYPSE. THE PAULINE AND JOHANNINE DO(',' TRINE OF CHRIST'S PERSON. THE SENSE OF SIN AND THE DOC. TRINES OF REDEMPTION. THE SACRAMENTAL SUPERSTITION. Readers who wish, can subscribe for the whole series, sent to one address, for $4.00oo. OFFICE OF OLD AND NEW, No. 143 Washington Street, Boston. THE RELATIONS OF THE NATIONAL AND STATE G OVERNMEXTS TO ADVANCED EDUCATION. A Paper read before the National Educational Association at Detroit, Aug. 5,1874. BY ANDREW D. WHITE, PRESIDENT OF CORNELL UNIVERSITY. Reprinted from the October Number of Old and New. [This address, which was read at Detroit, attracted the attention and cordial thanks of the large assembly there of gentlemen connected with public education. The body of men who are engaged inll State universities, in normal schools, and other institutions supported by States, is now considerable. These men do not care to. be set aside by an epigram, as being the mere tools of political parties, and as of no account except as political makle-weights. They were, therefore, especially glad to hear a defence of public education in the higher walks of education. On the other hand, the address, even as partially reported, has been challenged almost, of course, by the sectarian journals. For these reasons we are glad to publish, for consideration now and for preservation, from the author's manuscript, a much fuller report than any which has yet appeared. The demand for it among all persons interested in the subject is so large, that this special edition is reprinted in pamphlet form.- EDS. OLD AND NEW.] aroused the world's wonder by its political and social triumphs. Next I namne the United States, where, in sight of all mankind, popular education is lifting a nation above ~ all the efforts of demagogues in the field, in the senate-house, and in the press. In one thing these two nations have adopted the same policy, and obtained the same results. Each has made abundant provision for primary and secondary education in public schools, ~A~io-,G all the modern -nations, two stand pre-eminent for faithli in public education, and for energy in providing Of these, I name first th e German nation. In the midst of great calamities and trials, and long years of hard work, and under administrations economical to parsimony, she has developed a system, whidh, for half a century, has won the admiration of the world by its intellectual triumphs, and which, in the past ten years, has I@ y S... ~~~~~~i) ij &ef- LC I r/, it. The National and State Governmzents and both have found in this a source university lecture-rooms, on the oppoof triumphs both in peace and war, site side of the street, professors putwhich have placed them in the fore- ting forth ideas fatal to absolute monmost rank among modern nations. archy. Bu, in the other half of the sys- Bear in mind, too, that this is not tem, — in provision for advanced edu- the result of centuries of world,- a cation, in high scientific and industrial result impossible in a new country. schools and universities,- they have Though some of the German unifollowed courses directly opposite, and versities are on very old foundations, with directly opposite results. they have been remodelled to suit Germany has carried out her fun- modern needs, and are in reality new: damentalprinciplelogically. Having the greatest of all, the University of started with the idea that the people Berlin, is younger than the majority of a nation should provide for the of our American colleges which have education of the nation, it has stopped most reputation; and the greatest of at no imaginary line: it has provided her institutions for advanced instrucfor the education of the whole peo- tion in the applied sciences have ple, - for the young, in primary and grown up within twenty years. secondary schools; for those more The result has been great, politically, advanced, in technical schools and intellectually, and morally. These universities. The resultis nowbefore universities, supported by the whole the world. people, and for the whole people, Forth from these institutions have stand far above any others in the come a majority of the greatest world. leaders of modern thought and prac- The United States, agreeing with tice,- not only great theologians Germany in the general line of her and lawyers and physicians and his- public school policy and primary edutorians, and general scholars, but cation, has pursued an entirely differgreat engineers, physicists, chemists, ent path in regard to university policy and naturalists, -strong in develop- and advanced education. ing the material resources of the While making primary and secondnation. Nor have they done less for ary education a matter of National and liberty than for civilization. State concern, it has left its advanced In a State whose central adminis- education, in tihe main, to various tration is thoroughly orthodox, and religious sects. It has allowed an exercises strong political control, these utterly illogical imaginary line to be universities are strongholds of free- drawn, below which the State prodom in politics and religion.'In the vides for education gl adly and fully, halls of the University of Berlin, above which she turns the whole within a stone's-throw of the palace matter over to the sectarian spirit of of the rigidly orthodox Frederick the country. While the united States William IV., might be heard during has pushed the roots of its public his entire reign the free utterances of school system down into the needs and men opposed to every religious or feelings of the whole people, and thus political doctrine which the king obtained a deep rich soil, which has thought essential. From the palace given sturdy growth, it has pushed window, where the Emperor William. the roots of advanced education down loves to stand} can be seen in the into the multitude of scattered sects, 4,6 and Advanced Education. rooms. These men of ours would, under a better system, develop admirably the intellectual treasures of our people and the material resources of our country; but cramped by want of books, want of apparatus, want of every thing, needed in advanced instruction, cramped(, above all, by the spirit of the sectarian college system, very many of them have been paralyzedl. I know whereof I speak. Within the last twenty years I have seen much of these institutions, and within the last seven years I have made it - duty to watch them closely; and I freely confess thlat my observations have saddened me. Go from one great State to another, in every one y ou shall find that this unfortunate system has produced the same miserable results, -in the vast majority of our States not a single college or university worthy of the name; only a multitude of little sectarian schools withl pompous names and poor equipments, each doing its best to prevent the establishment of any institution broader and better. The traveller arriving in our great cities generally lands in a railwvay station costing more than all the university edifices of the State; and he sleeps in a hotel in which there is embarked more capital than in the entire university endowment for mil lions of people. He visits asylums forlunatics, idiots, deaf, dumb, and blind, nay, even for thee pauper and criminal, and hle finds them palaces: hlie visits the college buildings for young men of sound mind and earnest purpose, the dearest treasures of the State, and he generally findls them in vile barracks. He inspects those asylums for men and women who are never more to be useful, and finds them provided with most perfect sys and has obtained a soil wretchedly thin, andl a growth miserably scant. For the first result of this policy as to advaniced education was, tlhat, as sects multiplied, the so-called colleges and universities multiplied. Now,. while the main condition of primary education is diffusion of resources, the main condition of adlvancel education is concentration of resources. England sees this, and has but four universities; imperial Prussia sees it, and lhas eighIt; the United States has not see n it, -nd the last Report of the Bureau of Education shows that we havre over three hundred and sixty instith tions bearing the iani e me of ppcollege' alid " university." The most evident result has been the impoverishment of the whole system. Witl very fewexceptions, these colleges and universities are without any thing approaching complete faculties, without libraries giving any idea of the present condition of knowledge, without illustrative collections for study, without laboratories for experimenit, with next to no modern apparatus and instruments. This is true of the whole country; but it is more sadly true of those States outside of the original tlhirteen. The next striking result I~as been a lasting inljury to those engaged in the worlk of advanced instruction. I\any noble men stand in the faculties of those colleges and universities, - men who would (lo honor to any institution of advanced learning in the world. After much intercourse with university professors of various nations, I feel assured that I have never seen cny who surpass in natural strength and earnestness very manty in our own country; and I have heard this remarked more than once by thoughtful American fellow-students, while sit ting in foreign university lecture 477 The National and State Governments tems of ventilation: he visits the dormitories, recitation and lecture roomins, where live and move the young men who are to make or mar the State, and he finds them with systems of heating which vitiate the air, and with no ventilation. Examining o still further, he finds that the inmates of the asylums have good food well prepared; he finds the inmates of colleges generally supplied with poor food badly prepared; he finds young men of sedentary and scholarly pursuits living in faimilies where vinegar and grease are combined by the worst cookery in the world to form a diet which would destroy the stomachs of wood-choppers. Insufficient as intellectual training at most of these places is, the phlysical training is much worse, for it tends to make the great body of students sickly and weak and morbid, rather than strong pioneers of good thoughts, and sturdy bulwarks against political folly. And, finally, there has come by the prevailing system a cramping of the intellectual development more unfortunate than that produced by poverty; for, as these institutions drew their nutrimenlt mainly from sectarian effort, the controlling idea became sect growth, and not individual growth. As a result, each young man heard only professors of his own sect, or those affiliated with it. His pllilosophy, his history, hlis literature, was cast in the sect mould. The main result was. not so much to educate the young man's mind as to warp it. This was all the more natural because the various sects sometimes found their colleges convenient asylums for their unsatisfactory pastors, and their professorships comfortable shelves for men not successful in their pulpits. This was rendered all tIle more easy by the current superstition, that muddiness betokens depth, and that, if a clergyminaii be a dull preacher, he is prob ably a p rofound scholar. The result of this was, that the really strong men holding professorsllips were sometimes hampered by incompetent men, whose main function was to hear young men "parrot" text-books by rote in the recitation-room,'and tic denounce " science, falsely so called " in the chapel, varying these avocations by going around the country, denouncing every attempt at a better system as godless, and passing around the contribution-boxes in belhalf of the bad system they represented. Suchi is the main outline of the development of the American system of college instruction; and, if its result is in the main unsatisfactory, its present condition is mortifying. This system of advanced education is now an old one. The time has arrived when it may be fully and fairly judged. It is not a new or young plant, as many fondly suppose: it has been developing more than two hundred years. By this time, if'ever, we may expect a great, strong growth, a luxuriance in bloom and fruitage. But what do we see? Let me sum up.with a few facts universally acknowledged. As to universities, our prevailing sect-,system has failed in two hundred and fifty years to develop one which ranks with institutions bearing that name in the other great civilized nations, some of them of far more recent creation than our own. The University of Berlin is younger than a multitflide of our American colleges: it was brought up to its highest pinnacle by a nation crushed by military disaster and by financial burdens; yet no one will claim that we have all institution to compare with it. As to schools of mechanical and 478 arid di'aniced Education. civil engineering, we are developing some which are doin,g excellent wvork; but we have not as yet one which will take rank with the multitude of such schools on the continent. To say nothing of such institutions as the French'cole Polytechnlique, we have no advanced schools to compare Nwith recent creations at Stuttgart, Carlsruhe, and Zurich. As to laboratories, all these years of work in America, mainly shaped by the prevailing system, have failed to give us one to compare for a moment with several recently erected at Leipsic, Berlin, Heidelberg, Munich, and elsewhere, by government aid. As to museums of the mechanic arts, all our collections combined would be as the small dust in the balance, when compared to the Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers. As to art collections bearing on the various industries, if we were to add together all that our American system has accumulated, and multiply the sum by thousands, we should have nothing to approach the schools recently created by the English Government at South Kensington. As to various branches of instruction, we have many men in all departments equal to the best in Europe; but, for want of a university system to give scope to their ambition, they have almost entirely lacked opportunity. American students have been forced to pursue their most advanc e d studies abroad. Even as to that which is nea rest us, -no full professorship of American history exists in our land. To study this history, young men have gone to sit at the feet of Laboulaye at Paris, Neumann at Berlin, and Kingsley ad English Cambridge. It is in view of such a meagre growth in over two hundred years, under the prevailing system, that I present the following} as the f und amental proposition of this paper - AThe main provision for advance d education in the Un ited State s must be made by the people at large, actin,, through their National and State legislatures, to endow and ma,intaini institutions for the higher instruction, fully equipped, and free from sectarian control. And. first, I argue that the past tistory andwpresent condition of the higher education in the United States arouse a strongpresumption in favor of making it a matter of p]gblic civil action, rather than leaving it to thle prevailing system of private sectarian action. The history already given certainly arouses a presumption against the existing system; but that presumption is greatly strengthened by noticing what has been done, under the beginning of the plan I now advocate,- the plan under which the citizens of the various States of the United States have taken advanced education into their control. Look briefly over this history of a better effort. The first good attempt to give to this country a true university, as distinguished from the American deterioration of the English college, was made by State action in the creation of the University of Virginia. The prevailing sectarian system profited not at all by this example. The great universities of Germany grew into their modern state, nurseries of the love of learning and the love of freedom; but the sectarian college system of America went on multiplying the usual poor imitations of English colleges, when public civil action was again resorted to, and gave the beginning of another university: the combined bounty of the National and State Government, wisely admint 479 The National a)lzd Stale Governments istered, gave to the country the University of Michigan. As to scientific and technological instruction, our country waited for years after such advanced instruction was given in Europe: but there came only scattered and feeble efforts; and the first great and comprehensive system which gave a college for applied science to every State in the Union was established by the congressional act of 1862, supplemented by the various acts of the State legislatures. As to the illustration of natural science, the one collection in the United States that has acknowledged rank throughout the world is the one fostered by the wise and careful bounty of the State of Massachusetts at Cambridge. And as to education in morals, that very education of what is best in man, which is claimed as the especial raison d'gtre of the prevailing sectarian system, the only institution which is generally recognized as strong enough to impress upon its whole teaching a sense of duty sufficienitly deep to hold its own ag ainst the immoral tides of these times, the only one, which, when graduates of all other institutions fail, is, by common consent, appealed to, to give managers to our railways who will not plunder, investigators of our mines who will not lie, negotiators with our Indians who will not cheat, is the Government College at West Point. But I argue next, that carefeel public provision by the people for their own system of advanced instruction is the only republican and the only democratic method. While I hail with joy stupplementary private gifts when not used as fetters, I maintain that there can be no system more unrepublican than that by which a nation or a state, in consideration of a few hundreds of thousands of dollars, delivers over its system of advanced instr uction to be controlled and limited by the dogmas and wllimseys of living donors or dead testators. In more than one nation, dead hands, stretching out from graves closed generat ions gon e, have lain with a deadly chill upon institutions for advanced instruction during centuries. Maore than one institut ion in ou r own country has felt this grip and chill. The progress of civilization in the Old World since the French Revolution of 1789 has tended more and more to the buildingup of its education in accordance with the needs of living men rather than the anticipations of dead men. My position is simply, that, if we ought to govern ourselves in any thing, we ought to govern ourselves in this; and that if, in matters of far less importance,'we will not allow our rights, duties, and wants to be decided upon by this or that living man, we certainly ought not, in a matter of such vast importance as the higher education of our children, to allow our rights, duties, and wants to be decided upon by this or that (lead man. Again: I argue that public provision, that is the decision and provision by each generation as to its own advanced education, is alone worthy of over dignity as citizens. WVhat would be thought of a State which refused to build its State-house from its State treasury, and on the ostensible ground that private giving is good for the donor, and honorable to the State, begged, individuals to build it? Slould we not have a result exactly typical of what is exlibited in the prevailing sy,stem for advanced instruction? We should probably, if fortunate enough to get 480 and Advanced Ediacation. any thing at all, find, after a century, an edifice perfectly typical of what has been given us under our similar system in advanced education,- a Roman tower of brick here; i a Gothic spire of stone there; a Greek pediment of wood here; a Renaissance cupola of iron there; a Doric column of porphyry next a Corinthian column of sandstone; no fitting approaches, because no one had given any thing so humble; halls too small, and doorways too narrow, and windows askew in accordance with this or that dead man's whimsey. But this is the least. Suppose that we really get our building thus constructed, what would be thought of the policy which should leave the State building thus erected to be controlled forever, as to its occupancy and use, by living and dead donors, ancient and modern, and by their medley of ideas, religious and secular, forcible and feeble, crude and thoughtful, shrewd and absurd? And, if this system is incompatible with State and National dignity as regards a mere pile of stone and mortar, how much more so, when there is con cerned the building of an edifice made of the best brains and hearts of living men, and the control of a great system of advanced education, in all its branches, for the entire nation, for all generations! Again: I argue that by public pro Iistion can private gifts be best stim utl(atedl. We have had in our country many noble examples of munificence to ward institutions for advanced in-s struction; but no one thing seems to hleave stimulated them so much as the public endowments, which have aroused discussion, and afforded ob jects to which citizens of all creeds could contribute as a patriotic duty. 31 Take, as an example, the congressional grant of 1862, to national colleges, for scientific and industrial inst ruction. The recent reports of th e United States Commissioner of Education show that gifts ha ve been aggregated abou t t hese n uclei to the amount of over eight million dollars. Let ma refer to an example within the Stat~ of New York. The national grant was concentrated upon one institution the Cornell University. This encouraged thoughtful and liberal men to hope that something worthy of the State might be built upon that foundation; and the result is, that in eight years there have been added to that original endowment private gifts to the value of over a million, five hundred thousand dollars; and, so far as I can learn, none of these gifts would have been made but for the nucleus afforded by the national grant. I argue next, that by liberalpublic grants alone can our private endowments be wisely directed or economi cally aggregated. No one conversant with the history of advanced instruction in this coun try can have failed to note the inef fably absurd way in which large gifts for advanced instruction have been frittered away under the prevailing system. There is hardly a State in the Union where the sums, large and small, that have been scattered among a multitude of petty sectarian institutions called colleges and uni versities, would not have produced one institution of great public value;, had these gifts been directed to one object, and aggregated about one nucleus. Compare two Western States lying near each other, —Ohio and M~ichi gan. The State of Ohio has had every advantage over its northern 481 The National and Stale Governments neighbor as to population, soil, wealth, communication with the seaboard, and priority of complete occupation; but, as regards advanced education, it stumbled into the policy of scattered denominational colleges supported by sectarian beggary. The State of Michigan took its national grant, developed uponI that a State University; and from time to time its State legislature has added judiciously to it. Now look at the results. The great State of Ohio has within its borders not one college or university well equipped in any respect, - not one which rises above the third or fourth class. On the other hand, the State of Michigan has a noble university of the very first rank, with over a thousand students; and, what is of vast importance, the presence of such an institution has strengthened the whole system of public instruction throughout the State. No State has a more admirable series of primary schools and high schools; and her normal school ranks among the best, and so does her agricultural college. The system has been pronounced by thoughtful men from other States the best in the Union; and the whole secret of its excellence is, that, by wise and liberal legislation, stimulus and direction were given to private endowment. The difference between the two States I have named is, that in MAichigan a public endowment gave statestmanlike direction to private endowment; while in Ohio all was frittered away and scattered between the clamors and intrigues of sects and localities. So much for the direction of endowments: look now at their aggregation. Take the facts as they stand: I will mention cases well known. A weak denominational college in one of our States has received from a friend a g rea t t elescope worthy of the greatest institution in the wor ld; b ut hardly any one ele e has given the institutio n any thing: there is no gift of a well equi)ped observatory, or provision for an observer; a nd the teles cope mighti as well be in Japan. On the other hand, another denomi national college has received the gift of a splendid observatory; but no one has added a gift of money for a tele scope and other instruments. So the prevailing system gives you at one college a useless telescope, and at another a useless observatory. I know of another denominational institution which has received a splen did geological collection; but as it has no provision for a geological laboratory, or for a geological professor, the col lection, for all scientific purposes, is a mere illusion. I know another denominational institution, which received from a deinominational friend a splendid herbariurn; but from the day it was received it has never been used, for tile reason that no other member of the denomination has provided a professorship of botany. I know another institution of this kind, which has received an excellent collection ain mineralogy; but all appeals from the denomination to wlicli it belongs have failed to secure an endowed professorship of metallurgy; and it would be money saved, had the collection never been taken out of the earth. Compare this with the example [ have just mentioned. Thei' nation gave a moderate grant for a university to the State of Miclwig,aii: the State legislature added to it judi. ciously. Thus was built up one great institution. The result is, that trom various parts of the State, and from other States, gifts have been aggro 482 and Advanced Education. gated about the nucleus thus formed. Thus was provided both a telescope and an observatory; thus has its library been enlarged; thus were developed its illustrative collections. They are a matter of State concern and State pride; and individual gifts some in from all sides more and mere to supplant public gifts. The same, in a less degree, may be seen in several other universities: the only] difficulty in these cases is, that public gifts have been too small to give the public system a fair and full t rial. into charge of the primary schools. These last, in their turn, s end u p their bBst men through interm ediate grades to the university. The result is a system of which the whole State is becoming proud, and one which puts to shame the feeble anarchy prevailing in the education of most of her sister States. If there s hould be public provision for any educationatt all, i t should be a good provision; and there can be no good provision for any part of a system of public instruction which does not develop every part fully, and all parts harmoniously. To be a good system, it must be a living system; and it cannot be a living system, unless its growth be complete. If its highest parts are left to wither, its trunk and roots will wither also. Again: I argue that the existing system of public endowments for advanced educationin matters relating to the military and naval service leads logically to public provision for advanced education in matters relating to the civil service of the nation. If the preservation of the national honor is the ground for public provision in one case, it is the ground in the other. Nay, if the preservation of the national existence is the ground in one case, it is the ground not less in the other. The number in military and naval service is less than twenty thousand: the number of those in civil service, counting National and State officials, is probably ten time&,, that number. See where the hap-hazard system, of public advanced education, doled out to a great nation by various sects, has led us. From one end of the country to the other there is not a regular permanent provision for advanced instruction in/the history of But I argue next, that our existing public school system leads logically and necessarily to the endowment of advanced instruction. For years the prevalent American practice has divorced the primary and secondary education from advanced education. Never was a system more illogical; never did a system more fully show its unreason by its results. When we attempt to divorce advanced from preliminary education, we are simply persisting in cutting the whole mass of branches and boughs and blossoms of education from the trunk; and when we succeed in rearing goodly trees by persistently sawing off all their upper growth, and leaving the bare trunk, then, and not till then, can we have goodly systems of primary and secondary public schools, while we cut off from them the whole development of higher education. Again I cite the State of Michigan. Its university, in which its whole system of public instruction culminates, has shed light and life into its high schools, and those again into the great number of secondary and primary schools. The best graduates are constantly going into the teacherships of the high schools, and their best pupils 483 The National and State Governments the United States. Look the whole number of three hundred and sixty colleges through, and you do not find, save in one or two, any regular provisionII for instruction in political economy and social science. Take the plainest results as regards social science. Every year the cost is fearfuil. Nearly forty State legislatures, and nearly forty times forty county and local boards, dealing with matters relating to pauperism, crime, lunacy, idiocy, the care of the deaf, dumb, and blind, making provision regarding them at a cost of millions upon millions, and very rarely with any fundarmental study of the complicated questions involved. Yonder is England suffering from errors in these respects made centuries ago: here are our States repeating many of the same errors. Take next the simple results as regards political science. Look at our national legislature, containing always a large number of strong men and patriotic men, but the strongest of them often given up to theories which the most careful thinking of the world, and the world's experience as recorded in history, long since exploded. But the analogy extends beyond the internal affairs of our Nation and States: it extends to our external re]ations. I do not speak of the diplomatic service, though the want of higher knowledge with reference to that has long been felt; but I allude to an analogy of an/other sort forced upon us by these times. I start again with the premises universally conceded, that public provision is necessary to fit men to take part in warfare by land and sea, to hold our country in the position she ought to occupy among modern nations. But the warfare to which men are educated at W~est Point and Annapo lis is not the only warfare between modern States. The greate st moder n warfare is rapidly becoming an industr ial wa rfare. Every gre at nation is recognizing this. But the most striking thi n g about it is a change in methods. The old system of waging war by tariffis and bounties is yielding to the system of developing national taste and, skill by technical education. That is the meansing of the gre at expositions of industry of the last twentyfive years: that is the meaning of all the great institutions which modern States are providing for higher education in the scienc es bear ing upon the various industries, -education to enable na t ions to hold their o wn among modern States, - education in c ivil, minincg, and mech anic al engineer ing; in t he a pplication of the natural and physical sciences to agriculture and manufacture; in arts of design as applied to the making of various fabrics. This warfare is real as the other. The army engaged in it is larger than in the other: it is on our side eight million strong; and the nation which leaves education regarding it to the driblets which can be wheedled out of individuals by, sectarian appeals will find that it has neglected its highest duties, and abdicated some of its noblest functions. Again: I argue that not only does a true regard for the material prosperity of the nation demand a more regular and thorough public Aovision for advanced education, but that our highest political interests demand it. From all sides come outcries against the debasement of American politics, and especially against gross material corruption.:No doubt, great part of these cries are stimulated by scandalhunters and ~nsation-monlgers; still 484 and Advanced Education. epnough remains to give much food for serious thought. Now, I assert, that, as a rule, our public men who have received an advanced education have not yielded to gross corruption. Understand the assertion. It is not that men who have not had the advantages of an advanced education yield generally to corrupt influences, -far from it; some of the noblest opponents of corruption we have had have been men debarred by early poverty from thorough education, -but what I assert is simply this: go among the men who disgrace our country by gross corruption, whether in city, state, or national councils, -and you find thle great majority of them of the class that has received just education enough to enter into the struggle for place or pelf, and not enough to appreciate higher considerations. The preliminary education which many of our strongest men have re. ceived leaves them simply beasts of prey: it has simply sharpened their claws, and whetted their tusks. But a higher education, whether in science, literature, or history, not only sharpens a man's faculties, but gives him new exemplars and ideals. His struggle for place and pelf is, as a rule, mod(lified by considerations to which a man of lower education is very often a stranger. He is lifted up to a plane from which he can look down upon success in corruption with the scorn it deserves. The letting-down in character of our National and State councils has notoriously increased, just as the predominance of men of advanced education iii those councils' has decreased. President Barnard's admirable paper, showing the relatively diminishing number of men of advanced education in our public sta tions, decade by decade, marks no less the rise, decade by decade, of material corruption. This is not mere concomitancy: there is a relation here of cause and effect. X If we are to have m or e s tatesmen of that high type which is alone worthy of a republic, we must have better provision for educating the young men of rude strength, who are taking hold of public affairs in all parts of our country, a-nd especially'ill the great States of the West. We must have an e du cation provided for, tha t shall lift them above mere mammonworship, into those realms where the great thoughts of great men give the atmosphere in which can best be cultivated a sense of duty to God and to country. To give better men to public stations, you must have provisions for instructing our strongest young men, which shall lift them above the prevalent idea of life among such multitudes of our successful men,the idea that life is a game of grasping and griping for forty years, with a whine for God's mercy at the end of it. And, finally, I insist thatit is a daty of society to itself, a duty which it cannot throw off, to see that the stock of talent and genius in each generation have chance for develop? ,eient, that it may be added to the world's stock, and aid in the world's work. Of'all State treasures, the genius and talent of citizens are the' most precious. That arch Bohemian, Sala, said that in no country is there sot much genius and talent " lying around loose" as in America. Now, it is just this genius and talent, which, as all history shows, private capacity, and the law of supply and demand, will not develop. But I am met here, first, by an undue extension of the laissez faire 485 The National anad Slte Governments remember no Spartan voice raised to repel them. But grant that the argument against public aid is good at Harvard, is it good anywhere else in this country? It certainly cannot be held good at Yale, or at Dartmouth, or at Brown, or at Rutgers, or at the University of Vermont, -institutions which received the national grant of 1862 for promoting the application of science to industry, and are mnaking a most noble return for the gift. Grant that Harvard can now (lispense with public aid (although her recent history looks so little like it), it does not at all follow that the other institutions of the country can dispense with it. Close under the shadow of the great palaces and warehouses of a metropolitan city, that institution, to the joy of us all, is the recipient of splendid gifts fromr princely merchants and scholars. But how few of our colleges have the advantage of being near so great an accumulation of capital! Nor is this all. Harvard can afford to speak complacently to her young sisters, for she is enjoying the accumulations of two hundred years. But are the Western States to wait two hundred years? Here is the whole question. The prospect held out to the younger States is, that those of their colleges which happen to be near great centres of wealth may, in a century or two, arrive at the position which Harvard has now attained. But I come to the second "art of the objection: Is it necessary that public provision be withheld in order that private persons may give, and that public spirit may thus be cultivated? Even if it be so, I fail to see force in the argument. As well might President Eliot argule against any public provision for policemen, itn argument. It is said that the best policy is to leave the building-up of such institutions entirel y to privat e h ands; that such a plan educates the people to give, makes them self-reliant. T he late st form of this argument war put for th in th e National Associatio n of Teachers la st year at Elmira, i n a speech by Pr esiden t Eliot of Harvard. N6w, I do not yet take up the question of a single national university at th e nat ion al capital; but wh en the distinguished pres ident of Harvard College condemns by implication, as in the speech to which I have referred, all public provision for advanced instruction, wh e th er by Nation or State, we all ha ve the right to st an d amazed. At its very beginning, the university over which he presides had aid from the Stat e in which it stands; and it has not been slow to accept public aid at various periods since. In these latter days, its greatest glory, its museum of natural science, is largely the result of constant application to the legislature of Massachusetts. The whole country has rejoiced that the State of Massachusetts has had the practical good sense thus to grant funds to carry on the great work of Prof. Agassiz at Harvard; and they rejoiced also when the liberality of the State stimulated a noble growth of private liberality. But this is not all. So far as the public has learned, there stands in the annals of that university no record of any rejection of favors, even from the National Government. The benefits accruing to that institution from the Coast Survey are well known; and when rich spoils came to it from the dredging expedition of "The H~assler," a national ship, I 486 and Advanced Education. ference princ:ple do not necessarily or universally extend." order that individuals may toughen their muscles in fighting ruffians; or against any public provision for prisons, in order that individuals may sharpen their minds in outwitting thieves. The history of the private gifts for education, crystallized about the various public gifts, and especially about that of 1862, shows that well-directed public bounty stimulates private bounty. It shows that Americans will give where they see something well established to whichi it seems worthl while to give. " To hinm that lrath slall be given " is the rule for advanced education. The laissezfaire argument is good against government provision for those things which private persons may be fairly expected to establish and maintain from expectation of gain; but all history shows that advanced education is not one of those things. The greatest modern apostle of the laissez faire principle, John Stuart Mill, on this and other grouniids, es pecially excludes educatioIl in all its grades from the operation of the laissez faire principle. Says Mr. Mill, And again: "In the matter of education, the in tervention of goverinment is justifiable, beeauise the case is not:ne in whichl the interest and jidgm'ent of the consumner are a sufficient security for the goodness of the commiodity." 1 But it is said that universities publicly endowed would overshadow the existing colleges. Doubtless this would be the case with many of the weakest ones in the newer States; but is that a hardship? If there is any thing in the matter of education for which Michigan and California and Wisconsin and Minnesota have reason to bless their early statesmen, it is just this creation of State universities, which have overshadowed the whole corps of little sectarian colleges and universities, or rather rendered them impossible. But while the whole brood of feeble colleges must thus be weakened, I firmly believe that the really strong colleges and universities, even those which have grown up under the old system, would be greatly strengthened thereby. This is not mere theory. Look at the history of advanced instruction during the last ten years. Several of our older institutions were, ten years ago, in a state of torpor, or of very moderate progress, to say the least. What was the beginning of a new order of things at Harvard? Notoriously the famous pamphlet of Dr. Hedge, exhibiting the system and work of the University of Michigan. From that publicly-endowed inistitution in the West came a very strong impulse to university-growth in the East. The interest i s university progress at Harvard and Yale, and Wesley-an and Amherst, and Prince "Buit there are other things of the worth of which the demand of the market is by no miieans a test, - thiings of which the utility does not consist in ministerling to inclinations, nor in serving the daily uses of life, andt the want of wl-hich is least felt where the inee(d is greatest. This is pecuiliarly trite of those things which are chiefly utsefutl a, tending to raise the character of humian beings.... It w ill continually happen on the voluntary system, that, the end not being de-sire(l, the means will not be prov-i(led at all, or that, the persons requiring imiprovemient having an imperfect or altogether erroneous (conception of what they want, the supply called forth by the demnand of the market wCill be any thing bult what is really required.... Edlcation, therefore, is one of those things which it is admissible in principle that a government sh(ould provide for the people. The case is one to which the reasons of the non-inter 487 I 31ill, Political Economy, vol. ii. book v. The National and Slate Gov,ernments ten and Union, and Lafayette and Washingtonl-Lee Colleges, has un 9uestionablly been aided by the spirit thus aroused. VWhIat is wanted in this country is examples which will st;Ltmp into the mind of our people wl)at a true university ought to be. Show an example of this sort to the friends of the really strong old col le(,es, so that they can really under stand it, and they will give liberally to build up their older colleges as nobly as any new ones. Let any State develop its university never so highl, the alumni of Harvard and Yale, and Columbia and Brown, and Princeton and Union and Rutgers, and others of liklie vigor, will not let their own colleges be behinidhand. Still another arg,umnent in opposi tion runs as follows: "No institutionl can be Christian, unless there be some denominational dogma as its basis; a. publicly-endowed institution cannot accept any denominational basis: therefore it will be infidel and(] athleistic;" or, to put it in shlorter form, "a college miust be sectarian to be Chiristian." To say nothing of other difficulties, one fatal difficulty with this argument is, that it proves too much. As Bishop AIcQuaid of Rochester recently urgedl with great cogency, this argument, if good for any thing against institutions of advanced instruction, is far stronger against our whole common-school systemn. The simplest view of the subject shows us that there is far more reason for requiring sectarian schools for children, who cannot provide for their own religious wants, and wihoe are at the most tender and impressible period, than for young men, whose fundamental ideas are already formed, to a great extent, and who have free access to multitudes of devoted clergymen, and to the Christian associa tions and churches, and to the other good appliances accessible in a Chris tian country. But it is said, "Your leg,islatures and p ubli c a uthorities will manage suclhi trusts badly, and appoint uAfit persons to professorships." Some will do so at first; most will -not. Save in one or two cases, no such charge can be made in the whole his tory of State management of over forty State universities and colleges, and a still greater number of normal schools. Nor can this charge be made against the management by the United States of the national academies at West Point and Annapolis, or of the Smith sonian Institution, under the very eaves of the national Capitol. Favoritismi and mismanagement are likely to be far greater in the close corporations of denominational col leges, each too weak to live without propitiating the "'leading men of the denomination." But it is said, " The denomina tional colleges have given to the country many strong men." True; but what does this prove? Extend the argument a little. A simple printing-office education has given to the country many strong men,- such men as Franklinil and Greeley; but does it follow that-we should have no other agency for developing the latent talent and genius of the country? The colleges have developed much talent for the pulpit, bar, and forum; but we need yet stronger agencies for developing yet more; and the proof is to be found in Dr. BarnarA's statistics, which show the declining number, proportionately, of college-bred men in all our public positions, executive, legislative, and judicial. B~esides thlis, our needs are vastly increased and extended. Our modern civilization demnands now what verye 488 and Advanced Ediecatio?,. few of our colleges anid universities are prcpare(d to give,- thorough train ing in civil, mechanical, and mining engineering, iii architecture, in chem istry applied to agriculture and man ufactures, in all those sciences and arts which are building modern civili zation. The little college with four or five professors is no longer enough. To meet this modern need, we want institutions most thoroughly and largely equipped with laboratories, libraries, museums, experimental grounds, observatories, and the like, which demand great concentration of means in a few places. But it is said, " Institutions for advanced instruction are for the wealthy, for rich men's sons, and not for the poor." Nothing could be more wide of the fact. The rich man is indeed vastly interested indirectly; for thorough provision for advanced education will raise up a thoughtful class of men, who are the natural enemies of all the wild theories which tend to desolate society, or disturb public prosperity; but, if any person more than another is fully and directly interested, it is the poo r 4ntn. Th e r ich ma n can send his son to another State or to another c o untry; the poor man cannot. Trhe doctrine I advocate is the only one wlic, ic in many pa rts of our country, can insure a worthy education to th e solins of poor men. The whole experi ence o f the world sllows, that from the ranks of poverty comes by far the greatest part of the genius and talent and energy of the world. In the great majority of our States, this great class, disciplined by poverty, have no chance for any advancedI education in applied science, in civil engineering, in mechanical engineering, in minilng engineering, and kindred departments, and very little chance in any other, unless there be public endowments for a dvanced instruction. And now what should our practical poli cy be in carrying out-th e gen eral principle I'have advocated? Let us see if we cannot get out of the realm of theory into the realm of practice. And first, as to practic al dealings with te qo te wstion, in tme newer Stat es. Now, there is one very fortu na te thing in the swhole m a tter; and that is, as regards public provision for education in the new States, there is tlrea(ly a National and State policy, b a sed o n the right principle, and tending to the right direction. It has not been carried out with sufficient liberality or continuity; still it has always been in one direction, and that is, I th]ink, the right direction. In accordance with this policy, the Congress of the United States gave the newer States, First, a grant of land to serve as a nucleus fund for primary and second ary instruction. Second, Congress gave the States a grant to serve as a nucleus fund for university instruction. Third, Congress has given to the new States, as well as to the old, a grant to serve as a nucleus fund for instruction, especially in sciences bearing on the great industries. This National and State policy, thus in harmony, has begun to be supplemented by an individual policy. Alrea,dy individuals are beginning to aggregate gifts about the funds thus provided by the Nation and the State. Here, then, is a policy distinct and consistent. So far as it has been carried out, it has woiked well. The only difficulty is, that it leas been earried out too slowly and timidly: what I advocate is, that it be carried -01 489 The National and State Governments out firmly and logically. I would have Congress strengthen the foun dations it has laid in the States, thoughtfully and liberally, in view of the vast populations that are to reside in those States, and in view of the absolute necessity of liavinig trong( centres of enlightenment in those vast populations. Next, as to State policy. I would have it go in the same direction as heretofore, but with a liberality and steadiness showing far more fore sight. I would have each of those States build up higher upon the foutn dations laid by national grants their public institutions for advanced in struction as distinguished from pri vate sectarian institutions. I would leave each State build up the on e institution under its control, rather than the twenty under the control of conferences and dioceses and synods and councils and consistories and presbyteries, and denominational associations of various sects. I would have Michigan develop more completely her excellent normal school at Ypsilanti, and her agricultural college at Lansing, and add a department of technology, and a mining school, to her noble university at Ann Arbor. I would have Illinois strengthen her admirable industrial university at Champaign; and Arkansas, hers at Lafayette. I would have Mlissouri strengthen her State university at Columbia, and her miiiing sclhool at Rolla; and Iowa strengthen her State college at Ames; and Mininesota, her State university at St. Anthony; and( California go on, as she recently has done so liberally, and strengthen her university at Berkeley; and Kentucky, hers at Ashland; and so with the rest. Tga is is a polic y w hich may be groaned over or sighed at by those whose whole system of public action consists, not in promoting a practica ble plan, but in groaning over and scolding at every thing supposed to contravene ultra doctrines of non interference and the ultra laissez faire phrases; but it is a policy already adopted, and is the only one whic h can give advance d edu cat ion to our great new States. Let me sum up the whole case based on facts presented in public reports, which I ask you as tlhought ful men to ponder. Remember, tlhen, that in not one of our States, outside the original thirteen, has there yet been established by private enter prise or sectarian zeal a college or university with