18 REPORT— 1903. 



so that Britain and Britain's commerce might be guarded on the high seas 

 in any event. 



Since then we have spent 120,000,000Z. on new ships, and this year 

 we spend still more millions on still more new ships. If these prove 

 insufficient to safeguard our sea-power, there is no doubt that the nation 

 will increase them, and I have not heard that anybody has suggested an 

 appeal to private effort. 



How, then, do we stand with regard to Universities, recognising them 

 as the chief producers of brain-power and therefore the equivalents of 

 battleships in relation to sea-power ? Do their numbers come up to the 

 standard established by the Admiralty principle to which I have referred 1 

 Let us attempt to get a rough-and-ready estimate of our educational 

 position by counting Universities as the Admiralty counts battleships. 

 I say rough-and-ready, because we have other helps to greater brain- 

 power to consider besides Universities, as the Admiralty has other ships 

 to consider besides ironclads. 



In the first place, let us inquire if they are equal in number to those 

 of any two nations commercially competing with us. 



In the United Kingdom we had until quite recently thirteen.^ Of 

 these, one is only three years old as a teaching University, and another 

 is still merely an examining board. 



In Germany there are twenty-two Universities ; in France, under 

 recent legislation, fifteen ; in Italy, twenty-one. It is difficult to give the 

 number in the United States, because it is clear, from the tables given in 

 the Report of the Commissioner of Education, that some colleges are more 

 important than some Universities, and both give the degree of Ph.D. But 

 of Universities in title we have 134. Among these, there are forty-six 

 with more than fifty professors and instructors, and thirteen with more 

 than 150. I will take that figure. 



Suppose we consider the United States and Germany, our chief com- 

 mercial competitors, and apply the Admiralty principle. We should 

 require, allowing for population, eight additional Universities at the very 

 lowest estimate. 



Wc see, then, that instead of having Universities equalling in number 

 those of two of our chief competitors together, they are by no means equal 

 to those of either of them singly. 



After this statement of the fact?, anyone who has belief in the impor- 

 tance of higher education will have no difficulty in understanding the 

 origin of the present condition of British industry and its constant 

 decline, first in one direction and then in another, since the tremendous 

 efforts made in the United States and Germany began to take eflfect. 



If, indeed, there be anything wrong about the comparison, the error 

 can only arise from one of two sources — either the Admiralty is thought- 



' These are Oxford, Cambridge, Dnrliam, Victoria, Wales, Birmingham, London, 

 St. Andrews, Glasgow, Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Dublin, and Royal UniTersity. 



