690 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



based is obsolescent everywhere. In a free community the govern- 

 ment does not hold this parental, or patriarchal I should better say 

 godlike position. Our government is a group of servants appointed 

 to do certain difficult and important work. It is not the guardian of 

 the nation's morals ; it does not necessarily represent the best virtue 

 of the repxiblic, and is not responsible for the national character, being 

 itself one of the products of that character. The doctrine of state 

 personality and conscience, and the whole argument of the dignity 

 and moral elevation of a Christian nation's government as the basis 

 of government duties, are natural enough under grace-of-God gov- 

 ernments, but they find no ground of practical application to modern 

 republican confederations ; they have no bearing on governments con- 

 sidered as purely human agencies with defined powers and limited re- 

 sponsibilities. Moreover, for most Americans these arguments prove 

 a great deal too much ; for, if they have the least tendency to persuade 

 us that government should direct any part of secular education, with 

 how much greater force do they apply to the conduct by government 

 of the religious education of the people ! These propositions are, in- 

 deed, the main arguments for an established church. Religion is the 

 supreme human interest, government is the supreme human organiza- 

 tion ; therefore, government ought to take care for religion, and a 

 Christian government should maintain distinctively Christian religious 

 institutions. This is not theory alone ; it is the practice of all Christen- 

 dom, except in America and Switzerland. Now, we do not admit it 

 to be our duty to establish a national church. We believe not only 

 that our people are more religious than many nations which have es- 

 tablished churches, but also that they are far more religious under 

 their own voluntary system than they would be under any government 

 establishment of religion. We do not admit for a moment that estab- 

 lishment or no establishment is synonymous with national piety or 

 impiety. Now, if a beneficent Christian government may rightly 

 leave the people to provide themselves with religious institutions, 

 surely it may leave them to provide suitable universities for the edu- 

 cation of their youth. And here again the question of national uni- 

 versity or no national university is by no means synonymous with the 

 question, Shall the country have good university education or not ? 

 The only question is, Shall we have a university supported and con- 

 trolled by government, or shall we continue to rely upon universities 

 supported and controlled by other agencies ? 



There is, then, no foundation whatever for the assumption that it 

 is the duty of our government to establish a national university. I 

 venture to state one broad reason why our government should not es- 

 tablish and maintain a university. If the people of the United States 

 have any special destiny, any peculiar function in the world, it is to 

 try to work out under extraordinarily favorable circumstances the 

 problem of free institutions for a heterogeneous, rich, multitudinous 



