392 AS UNIVERSITY PRESIDENT- VI 



The purpose of university education is totally different. 

 The interest of the Republic is, indeed, that it should 

 maintain the very highest and best provision for advanced 

 instruction, general, scientific, and technical ; and it is also 

 in the highest interest of the Republic that its fittest young 

 men and women should secure such instruction. No re- 

 public, no nation in fact, possesses any other treasure 

 comparable to its young citizens of active mind and ear- 

 nest purpose. This is felt at the present time by all the 

 great nations of the world, and consequently provision 

 is made in almost all of them for the highest education of 

 such men and women. Next to the general primary edu- 

 cation of all voters, the most important duty of our Re- 

 public is to develop the best minds it possesses for the best 

 service in all its fields of high intellectual activity. To do 

 this it must supply the best university education, and 

 must smooth the way for those to acquire it who are best 

 fitted for it, no matter how oppressive their poverty. 



Now, my first objection to gratuitous university instruc- 

 tion to all students alike is that it stands in the way of 

 this most important consummation; that it not only does 

 not accomplish the end which is desirable, but that it does 

 accomplish another which is exceedingly undesirable. 

 For the real problem to be solved is this : How shall the 

 higher education in different fields be brought within 

 reach of the young men and women best fitted to acquire 

 it, to profit by it, and to use it to best advantage? Any 

 one acquainted with American schools and universities 

 knows that the vast majority of these young people 

 best fitted to profit by higher education come from the 

 families of small means. What does gratuitous instruc- 

 tion in the university offer them? Merely a remission of 

 instruction fees, which, after all, are but a small part of 

 the necessary expenses of a university course. With many 

 of these young persons probably with most a mere re- 

 mission of instruction fees is utterly insufficient to enable 

 them to secure advanced education. I have alluded to the 

 case of President Cleveland, who, having been well fitted 



