NATURE 



25 



THURSDAY, MAY 14, 1903. 



THE UNIVERSITY AND THE MODERN 



STATE. 



III. 



I N our last article on the above subject, we attempted 

 I to show the German view of the proper position 

 the University in a modern civilised community. 



We now proceed to give, so far as a careful study of 



>iatistics can help us, a similar indication of the view 



iild in the United States; our object being to show 



real basis of the recent progress of those nations 



iiich are now outstripping us, not only in com- 

 rcial enterprises, but in other ways where brain- 



wer comes in. We are glad to know that the 

 portance of universities as well as battleships for 

 maintenance of the life of a nation is at last being 

 iccognised. 



Any consideration of what the nation has done for 

 higher education in the United States must be pre- 

 faced by a reference to two laws passed in 1787 and 

 1862 respectively. The first Act, enacted for the 

 government of the territory north of the Ohio, provided 

 that not more than two complete townships^ were to 

 be given to each State perpetually for the pur- 

 poses of a " university to be applied to the 

 intended object by the legislature of the State." 

 In 1862 an Act was passed giving to each State thirty 

 thousand acres of land for each senator and represen- 

 tative to which the State was then entitled, for the 

 purpose of founding " at least one college, where the 

 leading object shall be, without excluding other scien- 

 tific and practical studies, and including military 

 tactics, to teach such branches of learning as are re- 

 lated to agriculture and the mechanic arts, in such 

 manner as the legislatures of the States shall respec- 

 tively prescribe, in order to promote the liberal educa- 

 tion of the industrial classes in the several pursuits 

 and professions of life. "^ 



A reference to Table i. below, showing the number 

 of acres of land in each of the States, the income 

 accruing from which is available for university educa- 

 tion, demonstrates more conclusively than any words 

 could do how very fully advantage has been taken 

 throughout the United States of the legislative enact- 

 ments of 1787 and 1862. The table is due to Dr. Frank 

 W. Blackmar, and is contained in " The History of 

 Federal and State Aid to Higher Education in the 

 United States," published in Washington in 1890. 



The grant of 1862 proved insufficient, and in 1890 

 an Act for the " more complete endowment of the in- 

 ^titutions called into being or endowed by the Act of 

 1S62 " was passed. 



But these land grants do not exhaust the means 

 adopted by the State to encourage higher education 

 in the United States. In the book to which reference 

 has been made. Dr. Blackmar summarises the principal 

 ways in which the several States have aided higher 

 1 ducation. They are as follows : — 



(i) By granting charters with privileges. 



(2) By freeing officers and students of colleges and 

 universities from military duties. 



(3) By exempting the persons and properties of the 

 oftioers and students from taxation. 



(^4) By granting land endowments. 



Ill surveys of the public land of the United States, a division of territory 

 iiiles square, containing thirty-six sections. 

 - Report of the Commissioner of Education for the Year 1806-7.' 

 \ lA. li. p. 1 145. (Washington, 1898.) 



NO. 1750, VOL. 68] 



(5) By granting permanent money endowments by 

 statute law. 



(6) By making special appropriations from funds 

 raised by taxation. 



(7) By granting the benefits of lotteries. 



(8) By special gifts of buildings and sites. 

 Table I. — Land Grants and Reservations for Universities. 



The result is, as Prof. Edward Delavan .Perry, of 

 Columbia University, has said,i " At the present time, 

 in each of the twenty-nine of the States of the Union, 

 there is maintained a single ' State university ' sup- 

 ported exclusively or prevailingly from public funds, 

 and managed under the more or less direct control of 

 the legislature and administrative officers of the State. 

 These States are the following : — Alabama, California, 

 Colorado, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, 

 Louisiana, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, 

 Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, North Carolina, North 

 Dakota, Ohio, Oregon, South Carolina, South Dakota, 

 Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, Washington, West Vir- 

 ginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming. 



" The universal verdict of public opinion in the States 

 where such institutions are maintained is that they, as 

 State organisations supported directly by public tax- 

 ation from which no taxable individual is exempt, 

 should be open without distinction of sex, colour, or 

 religion to all who can profit by the instruction therein 

 given." 



The figures necessary to express how much university 

 education in the United States owes to the American 

 Government are large, and the total amount of the aid 

 is enormous. The following table, drawn up with the 

 assistance of the Report of the U.S. Commissioner of 

 Education for the year 1899- 1900, will enable the 

 reader to form some idea of the splendid resources 

 placed at the command of American universities. The 

 grand totals under each heading will be found in 

 Tables v. and vi., so arranged as to show the proportion 

 of each total available for the university education of 

 women. 



,} .^^ff'"^^- Nicholas Murray Butler's monographs on "Education in the 

 United States," vol. i. 



