Na/ional Sciciilific and J'^hicalioiial Lislitiitions. 297 



separation will disappear, their interests will be identified, and their union cemented 

 by new and indissoluble ties. ' ' To provide for the other, the higher education should 

 be placed among the objects of public care ; "a public institution can alone supply 

 those sciences which, though rarely called for, are yet necessary to complete the 

 circle, all the parts of which contribute to the improvement of the country and 

 some of them to its preservation." A national university and a national system of 

 internal improvement were an essential part, and indeed the realization and fruit, of 

 the republican theories which I\Ir. Jefferson and his associates put in practice as their 

 ideal of government. ' 



^Nladi.son'.s Adniini.stration, \vliicli l)egaii in i8og, thotigh friendly to 

 science, was not charactei'ized l)y an}- reniarka])le advances (except that 

 the Coast vSnrvey was acttially organized for work tnider Has.sler, after 

 his rettirn from Etirope, in 1816). The war of 1812 and the unsettled 

 state of pttl)lic affairs were not propitiotis to the growth of learned 

 institutions. 



Monroe became Chief Magistrate in 181 7. He, like Madison, was a 

 friend and follower of Jefferson, and in the atmosphere of national pros- 

 perity scientific work began to prosper, and there was a great accession 

 of popt;lar interest, and State geological sttrveys began to come into 

 existence. Schoolcraft and Long led Government expeditions into the 

 West; the American Geological Society and the American Jotu'nal of 

 Science were founded. 



The city of Washington began to have intellectual interests, and 

 ptiblic-.spirited men organized the Coltnnbian Instittite and the Colum- 

 bian Universit}'. 



Monroe was not acttially acquainted with science, but was in hearty 

 sympathy with it. When he visited New York, in 1817, he visited the 

 New York Institution, and was received as an honorar}^ member of the 

 Literary and Philosophical Society, and in his reply to the address of 

 Governor Clinton, its president, he remarked that "the honor, glory, 

 and prosperit}' of the country were intimately connected witl: its literature 

 and science, and that the promotion of knowledge \vould always be an 

 object of his attention and solicitude." 



'Adams's Life of Gallatin, pp. 349, 350. Henry Adams in this admirable biog- 

 raphy has .shown that Gallatin was one of Jefferson's strongest supporters in plans 

 for the public enlightenment, and that he had an ambition of his own for the edu- 

 cation of all citizens, without distinction of classes. 



I had another favorite object in view [Gallatin writes], in which I have failed. 

 IMy wish was to devote what may remain of life to the establishment, in this immense 

 and fast-growing city [New York], of a general system of rational and practical 

 education fitted for all and gratuitously opened to all. For it appeared to me 

 impossible to preserve our democratic institutions and the right of universal suffrage 

 uidess we could rai.se the standard oi general education and the mind of the la])oring 

 classes nearer to a level with those born under more favorable circumstances. I 

 became accordingly the president of the council of a new university, originally 

 established on the mo.st liberal principles. But finding that the object was no longer 

 the same, that a certain portion of the clergy had obtained the control, and that 

 their object, though laudable, was .special and quite di.stinct from mine, I resigned 

 at the end of one j-ear rather than to struggle, probably in vain, for what was nearly 

 unattainable. Life of Gallatin, p. 648. 



