704 THE STATE AND HIGHER EDUCATION. 



the Potomac he proposed to found a National University, drawing its 

 economic Hfe from the great artery of commerce which connects the 

 Atlantic seaboard and the Great West. As early as 1770 Washington 

 described this Potomac route as " the channel of the extensive and 

 valuable trade of a rising empire." 



Was it not in some measure an historic, although an unconscious, 

 fulfillment of that old dream of Washington when, a hundred years 

 later, Johns Hopkins determined to establish upon the Maryland side of 

 the Potomac a university with an economic tributary in the Baltimore 

 and Ohio Railroad, which follows the very windings of that ancient 

 channel of commerce? Forms of endowment may change, but uni- 

 versity ideas endure. They are the common hist uic inheritance of 

 every enlightened age and of every liberal mind; but their large fulfill- 

 ment requires a breadth of foundation and a range of vision reaching be- 

 yond mere locality. Universities that deserve the name have always 

 been something more than local or provincial institutions. Since the 

 days when Roman youth frequented the schools of Grecian phiIoso[)hy, 

 since the time when ultramontranes and cismontanes congregated at 

 Bologna, since students organized by nations at Paris, Prague, and 

 Heidelberg, since northern Scots fought southern Englishmen at Oxford, 

 university life has been something even more than national. It has been 

 international and cosmopolitan. Though always locally established and 

 locally maintained, universities are beacon lights among the nations, 

 commanding wide horizons of sea and shore, catching all the winds that 

 blow and all the sun that shines, attracting, lilvc the great light -house of 

 Ptolemy Philadelphus on the island of Pharos, sailors from distant 

 lands to Alexandrine havens, or speeding the outward voyager. 



The nations of the Old World are proud of their universities and col- 

 leges. Three years ago all Germany and the learned institutions of all 

 Europe united in celebrating the five hundredth anniversary of " Alt 

 Heidelberg." Last summer at Bologna, under the auspices of the Ital- 

 ian Government and of the minister of public instruction, the whole civ- 

 ilized world was represented by academic delegates, who had come joy- 

 fully together to celebrate t^ie thousandth birthday of " the mother of 

 studies." Every country in Europe takes pride in the history of its 

 universities and of its system of public education. It is time that some- 

 thing should be done for the history of learning in these United States. 

 Dr. G. Stanley Hall, the president of Clark University, in his Bibliog- 

 raphy of Education (page 41), says: "A history of educational institu- 

 tions in this country is greatly needed. The field is very rich and almost 

 unknown. No comprehensive history exists." 



Before educational specialists can have a History of American Edu- 

 cation that is worthy of the name, there must be a vast amount of spe- 

 cial investigation. There must be many local and State contributions 

 to the subject before national generalizations of any permanent or prac- 

 tical value cau be dra\^a by educators. One might as well generalize 



