536 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



'spirit of Washington/ moved forward a hundred years, would call 

 for an international or world university. 



Suppose Mr. Carnegie had responded to the invitation to found a 

 national university and had given ten million dollars for that purpose, 

 in what respect could it have been greater than the institutions now 

 in existence? 



The assets of a university are : ( 1 ) the endowment and educational 

 plant per se, (2) the faculty, (3) the felicity of its situation. 



The entire Carnegie bequest would be exhausted before Harvard 

 or Columbia could be reached, and the University of Pennsylvania 

 would be barely passed. It is thus apparent that even when supple- 

 mented by the opportunities for study which Washington affords, the 

 advantages in a material way would not exceed existing institutions 

 by an amount sufficient to overcome sentimental or other reasons that 

 attract students elsewhere. 



A superior faculty can be secured, in general, only by offering sal- 

 aries in excess of those now paid, and if the new faculty is to be 

 greater in point of numbers and superior in attainments to all other 

 faculties, the income on the entire amount given would not suffice to 

 meet this charge alone. 



Again, such men could be found, in general, only in existing 

 institutions, unless the risky experiment of taking untried persons 

 should be followed, and the withdrawal of each superior man from a 

 university would weaken it or the institution that was called upon to 

 fill the vacancy thus created. 



Washington unquestionably possesses material educational advan- 

 tages, but the institutions already located there are living up to them 

 at least in as complete a degree as could be reached by a new institu- 

 tion, unless it should become merely a competitor. To be more than 

 a rival, it would require an endowment sufficiently great to procure an 

 equipment and faculty surpassing those now in existence. 



The advocates of a national university declare that it should not 

 be a rival to existing institutions, and Mr. Carnegie asserts that the 

 aim of his institution is 'To increase the efficiency of the universities 

 and other institutions of learning throughout the country, by utiliz- 

 ing and adding to their existing facilities, and by aiding teachers in 

 the various institutions for experimental and other work, in these in- 

 stitutions as far as may be advisable. ' The purpose of one is to destroy 

 existing institutions the intention of the other is to build them up. 



Assuming that the plan of operation of the Carnegie Institution to 

 be along the lines announced in the daily press, it is easy to see that 

 the work of no institution will be duplicated but supplemented, that 

 students will be sent to the universities rather than drawn from them, 



