THE .STATE AND TTKiHER EDtTCATION. (J97' 



throue. Since the iutrodiietion of constitutional government into 

 European states, representatives of tlie peoi)le are taking the power of 

 educational endowment and subsidy into their own hands, and right 

 royally do they discharge their duty. The little Kepublic of Switzer- 

 land, with a population of only three millions, supports four state uni 

 versities, having altogether more than three hundred instructors. Its- 

 cantons, corresponding upon a small scale to our States, expend over 

 $300,000 a year upon the higher education. The federal government 

 of Switzerland appropriated, in 1887, $115,000 to the polytechnicmu 

 and $50,000 in subsidies to cantonal schools, industrial and agricultural; 

 besides bestowing regularly $10,000- a year for the encouragement of 

 Swiss art. The aggregate revenues of the colleges of Osford, based 

 upon innumerable historic endowments, public and private, now amount 

 to fully $2,000,000^ a year. The income of the Cambridge college en- 

 diowments amounts to; quite as much. But all this, it may be said,- 

 represents the policy of foreign lands. Let us look at home, and see' 

 what is done in our own American commonwealths. 



Maryland began her educational history by paying a tobacco tax foi* 

 the support of William and Mary College, in Virginia. This colonial' 

 generosity to another State has an historic parallel in the appropriation! 

 of a township of land by Vermont for the encouragement of Dartmouth' 

 College in the State of New Hampshire, and in the corn that was sent 

 fi;om Xew Haveti to the support of young Harvard. In colonial days' 

 Maryland had her county schools, some of them classical, like King- 

 William's School at Annapolis. All were founded by authority of the' 

 colonial government and supported by aid from the public treasury.. 

 The principle of state aid to higher education runs throughout the- 

 entire history of both State and colony. 



The development of Maryland colleges began on the Eastern Shore; 

 In the year 1782, representatives of Kent (Jounty i)resented a petitiom 

 to. the legislature, saying that they had a flourishing school at Ches- 

 tertown, their; couaty seat, and wished to enlarge it into a college. The- 

 general assembly not ordy authorized the establishment of W^ashingr 

 ton College, which still exists, but in consideration of the fact that? 

 Ifirge sums of nioney had been subscribed for the institution by public- 

 spirited citizens of the Eastern Shore, resolved that " such exertions for' 

 the public good merited the approbation of the legislature and oughf 

 to, receive public encouragement and assistance." These are the very 

 words of representatives of Maryland nu)re than a century ago. Their 

 deeds were even better than their words. They voted that .£1,250= a^ 

 year shoud be paid from the public treasury for the supi)ort of Wash- 

 ington College. That vote was passed just after the conclusiou of a- 

 long war with England, when the State and indeed the whole country 

 lay impoverished. Toward raising this government subsidy foi higher 

 education, the legislature granted all public receipts from marriage 

 licenses, from liquor licenses, tines for breaking the Sabbath, and alt 



