January 17, 1913] 



SCIENCE 



99 



Course II. — Professor E. F. Miller, Professor 

 G. Lanza, Dean Goss, of the University of Illinois. 



Courses III. and XII. — Professor R. H. Eiehards 

 and Professor W. Lindgren. 



Course IV. — Professor F. W. Chandler and Pro- 

 fessor J. Knox Taylor. 



Courses V. and X.— Professor H. P. Talbot and 

 Professor W. H. Walker. 



Course VI. — Professor D. C. Jackson, Professor 

 Elihu Thomson, Mr. Gano Dunn. 



Courses VII. and XI.— Professor W. T. Sedg- 

 wick and Mr. Rudolph Hering. 



Courses VIII. and XIV.— Professor C. R. Cross 

 and Professor H. M. Goodwin. 



Course IX. — Professor D. R. Dewey and Pro- 

 fessor H. G. Pearson. 



Course XIII. — Professor C. II. Peabody. 



At the banquet on Saturday night President 

 Maclaurin, President A. C. Humphreys, of the 

 Stevens Institute of Technology, and Mr. John 

 V. Bouvier will be among the speakers. 



DISCUSSION AND COBBESFONDENCE 



A NATIONAL UNIVERSITY AT WASHINGTON 



Through the courtesy of President Charles 

 R. Van Hise, of the University of Wisconsin, 

 the writer is just in receipt of a reprint from 

 Science, of August 16, 1912, entitled " A 

 National University, a National Asset; an 

 Instrumentality for Advanced Eesearch," the 

 same being an address delivered by him at 

 the 1912 meeting of the National Education 

 Association. 



The paper is a clear, comprehensive and 

 practical exposition of the desirability and 

 possibility of the fullest practicable sys- 

 tematic utilization, by those having the bache- 

 lor's degree with a year's subsequent practical 

 work, of the extraordinary research facilities 

 at Washington, embracing physical science 

 and sociology (the latter including anthropol- 

 ogy, political economy, political science and 

 history), with such lectures by government 

 ofScials as will direct the work to the highest 

 efficiency. As such, the paper is a valuable 

 contribution to the subjects involved, and is so 

 excellent, as far as it goes, that the writer is 

 reluctant to say aught in criticism, and does 

 so only because the cause of education seems 

 to require it. 



The paper is not more noteworthy for what 

 it advocates than for what it might be ex- 

 pected to advocate. Its negations are quite 

 as marked as its affirmations. The first para- 

 graph is as follows : 



At the outset, the guiding principle may be 

 laid down that at Washington there is no necessity 

 for a university of a type which exists elsewhere, 

 no need of an additional university like the great 

 endowed and state universities of the country. 

 One who advocates a national university at Wash- 

 ington with the idea that it shall be a larger 

 Harvard, Tale, Columbia, Cornell or Chicago, a 

 larger Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota or 

 California, will fail in his advocacy, because he 

 can not give to Congress a sufficient reason for 

 the expenditure of public funds for another uni- 

 versity of a kind of which there is a sufficient 

 number. Not only would such an advocate be met 

 by the above fact, but by the fact that in Ger- 

 many, where universities are most highly devel- 

 oped, they are state, not national institutions. 



In the first place, the statement with respect 

 to Congress is opinion only. In the writer's 

 judgment, sufficient reasons have repeatedly 

 been given to Congress, and if Congress has 

 not been appreciative enough of the higher 

 education, the fault has been not with the 

 reasons, but with Congress. The mere fact 

 that Congress has heretofore disregarded the 

 proposals of the most distinguished committee 

 ever constituted in an educational interest 

 (although having a Senate standing commit- 

 tee on the University of the United States 

 which in recent years has made four favorable 

 reports, all but the third unanimous) is no 

 reason for not continuing the campaign until 

 Congress either recognizes the merits of the 

 case or capitulates in the spirit of the unjust 

 judge of Biblical parable. 



As for Germany, it needs but be said that, 

 if she has not yet attained the national uni- 

 versity conception, she is on the way to it, and 

 the German mind can be trusted to work out 

 the problem of university education to its 

 logical result. 



And so the question reverts to the " guiding 

 principle " of the paper. If the writer be not 

 mistaken, there were Wisconsin colleges, excel- 

 lent for their day, already existing when the 



