532 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



THE CAENEGIE INSTITUTION AND THE NATIONAL 



TJNIVEBSITY. 



By Professor JAMES HOWARD GORE, 



COLUMBIAN UNIVERSITY. 



THE recent gift of Mr. Carnegie for the founding 'in the city of 

 Washington, in the spirit of Washington, an institution which, 

 with the cooperation of institutions now or hereafter established, there 

 or elsewhere, shall, in the broadest and most liberal manner, encourage 

 investigation, research and discovery, encourage the application of 

 knowledge to the improvement of mankind; provide such buildings, 

 laboratories, books and apparatus as may be needed, and afford instruc- 

 tion of an advanced character to students whenever and wherever 

 found, inside or outside of schools, properly qualified to profit thereby' 

 has awakened unprecedented interest in the educational world. 



There has been no lack of persons ready to criticize the purpose of 

 the institution and the methods by which the avowed purpose is to be 

 carried out. And this criticism has not always been favorable. 



That it should be located in Washington, is acceptable to all; that 

 the 'spirit of Washington' should be observed in formulating the lines 

 of activity meets with universal approval. But there are many who 

 feel competent to expound the 'spirit of Washington' and stand ready 

 to measure the new institution by the standard derived from their 

 interpretation of this spirit. 



Those who have dreamed of a national university, who have looked 

 upon education as a function of the general government and saw in 

 such a university the culmination of a general educational system 

 ignoring the anomalous condition of state supervision of the schools 

 up to the state university and in some instances only including the 

 state university, with a higher institution over and above all such 

 persons declared that the directing forces of the Carnegie Institution 

 have not caught the 'spirit of Washington.' 



The workers for a national university have appealed to our patri- 

 otic affection for Washington by quoting from his will these words : 



I proceed after this recital, for the more correct understanding of the case, 

 to declare; that, as it has always been a source of serious regret with me, to 

 see the youth of these United States sent to foreign countries for the purpose 

 of an education, often before their minds are formed, or they had imbibed any 

 adequate ideas of the happiness of their own; contracting too frequently, not 

 only habits of dissipation and extravagance, but principles unfriendly to re- 



