TEE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE. 



285 



matter of fact -e than fifty years 



old. J 11 1838 an acl was passed by the 

 territorial legislature establishing the 



University of the Territory of Wiscon- 

 sin. Practically nothing was done un- 

 til the state was organized in 1848, 

 when the university was established by 

 the constitution. In 1866 the univer- 

 sity was reorganized by act of the 

 legislature, which also provided for 

 uniting with the university the (nil,-,. 

 of Agriculture, endowed with the pro- 

 ceeds of the agricultural college grant 

 given by the United States in 1862. In 

 1SG7 the first annual appropriation 

 (about $7,000) was made by the state. 

 This appropriation has been gradually 

 increased to about $300,000. The state 

 has also provided a great group of 

 fifteen or twenty buildings which are 

 beautifully placed on the shore of Lake 

 Mendota. The library building, used 

 also by the State Historical Society and 

 erected at a cost of over .$600,000, is 

 the finest academic building of the kind 

 except that of Columbia. The stu- 

 dents number over 3,000, about as many 

 as Yale, Oxford or Leipzig. 



Over this great university one of its 

 own graduates and professors will 

 henceforth preside. Dr. Charles Rich- 

 ard Van Hise was born in Wisconsin in 

 1857 and has been connected with the 

 university since he entered as a stu- 

 dent nearly thirty years ago. He is 

 one of the most eminant American 

 geologists, in charge of the pre-Cam- 

 brian and metamorphic geology for the 

 U. S. Geological Survey and a member 

 of the National Academy of Sciences. 

 Some years since when Columbia and 

 Pennsylvania elected business men to 

 the presidency, it looked as though 

 scholarship might be subordinated to 

 wealth and commercial success in this 

 office. But Stanford chose a zoologist, 

 Chicago a Semitic scholar, Yale an 

 economist, Princeton a historian, 

 California a student of Greek, Johns 

 Hopkins a chemist and Columbia a stu- 

 dent of education. Now Wisconsin has 

 selected a man of science, one whose in- 



terests and character are far removed 

 from politics or commercialism, an 

 ideal scholar. 



THE CHICAGO SCHOOL OF 

 EDI CATION. 

 The Emmons Blaine Hall of the 

 School of Education of the University 

 of Chicago was dedicated on May 14. 

 This was an event of importance in the 

 history of education and the extension 

 of scientific methods, for it is a step 

 toward making teaching a profession 

 and education an applied science. The 

 University of Chicago lias now estab- 

 lished a school of education ranking 

 with the professional schools of law and 

 medicine, the first school of this kind 

 being the Teachers College of Columbia 

 University. There are other schools 

 of education and nearly all the' larger 

 universities have established depart- 

 ments of education, but Columbia and 

 Chicago are the universities that are 

 leading the way. The two schools had 

 beginnings somewhat analogous. In 

 both cases independent movements for 

 manual training and the less formal 

 education of children have been subse- 

 quently taken over by the universities 

 and made into professional schools for 

 teachers with model schools for chil- 

 dren attached. Dr. Nicholas Murray 

 Butler, now president of Columbia Uni- 

 versity, was the first president and 

 practically the founder of Teachers Col- 

 lege, now the Department of Education 

 of Columbia University, and it is es- 

 pecially appropriate that he should 

 have given the oration at the dedication 

 of the Emmons Blaine Hall. Other ad- 

 dresses were made by President Harper, 

 of the University of Chicago; Dr. Jack- 

 man, dean of the College of Education; 

 Mr. Bentley, of the Chicago Institute 

 trustees; President Downing, of the 

 New York City Normal College, repre- 

 senting the normal schools of the 

 country; Mrs. Blaine, the donor of the 

 hall, and Professor Dewey, director of 

 the School of Education and head of 

 the Department of Philosophy and 



