Influential 

 advocates 



Argument 

 before the 

 Senate 



'The Days of a Man 1895 



needed to make a great university at Washington 

 is to augment and coordinate its body of scholars, 

 and place their services at the disposal of others. 

 The true function of such an institution does not 

 lie in the conduct of examinations or the granting 

 of academic degrees. It should fill with noble 

 adequacy the place which the graduate schools of 

 our present universities still only partially occupy. 

 In so doing it would furnish a stimulus to all similar 

 work throughout the land. 



As strong advocates of the movement for a 

 national university, several prominent men gave 

 invaluable aid among them Andrew D. White, 

 Gardiner G. Hubbard, Alexander Graham Bell, and 

 Robert Stein. Of White and his educational views 

 I have already written at length. Mr. Hubbard was 

 a well-known patron of science and letters, his 

 hospitable and beautiful home serving as the liter- 

 ary center of the capital. Dr. Bell, the distinguished 

 inventor, is a son-in-law of Mr. Hubbard; Dr. Stein 

 was a member of the Geological Survey and a 

 scientist of high standing in his field. 1 



In Congress, John Sherman of Ohio, one of the 

 ablest men in public life and then chairman of the 

 Senate Committee on Education, took an active 

 lead. At his request I appeared before the com- 

 mittee to present in detail the arguments for the 

 scheme and to answer various objections which 

 had been raised against it. The chief of these 

 (though one not often frankly acknowledged) seemed 



1 In view of our cooperation at that time, Dr. Stein, while engaged in 

 coordinating and mapping Arctic surveys, gave (1897) the name of Jordan 

 Island to a large three-peaked mass in Hubbard Bay on the middle of the 

 west coast of Greenland. 



n 538 n 



