1895] Plea for a National University 



to be a phase of academic rivalry on the part of 

 Columbia, and to some extent of Harvard; it was 

 feared, perhaps, that government competition might 

 diminish the relative prestige of those distinguished 

 institutions. 



The principal argument openly advanced was 

 that a national university would surely become a 

 political football. To me, that idea seemed patently 

 absurd. An associated group of real scholars at 

 the center of legislation would no doubt affect scholars 

 politics, but the men themselves would be above 

 partisan influences, and no unworthy appointee 

 could maintain himself in such a position. No 

 other body, moreover, is so resistant to coercion or 

 contamination as a university faculty. 



The few scholars and investigators now in the 

 Washington bureaus have an authority far beyond 

 that of their official position. In the force of high 

 training and devotion to truth, we find the key to 

 the immense influence formerly exerted on our 

 government by Henry, Baird, and Goode. Of such 

 men are universities made, and until we have a 

 genuine national university devoted to the highest 

 learning and most profound investigation, we cannot 

 say that we have truly a national capital. 



Later, at a meeting of the National Education 

 Association in Los Angeles, the general objections 

 to the project were plausibly presented by Dr. 

 Nicholas Murray Butler, then professor of Phi- 

 losophy and Education at Columbia, afterward 

 (1902) president of that institution. Having been 

 previously asked to present the positive side, I 

 followed with the substance of the plea I had made 

 before the Senate Committee. 



C 539 3 



