974 
be anything but bright and inspiring; but 
an honest examination of the circumstances 
of the state and the endowed universities 
will lead any one to rejoice in the prospects 
of both. 
The state university is endowed with the 
wealth of the state; its endowment in- 
creases with the wealth of the state, auto- 
matically and without struggle. What this 
has already meant in certain instances is 
but a small fraction of what the future has 
in store. The wealth of the richest of the 
colleges of Oxford and Cambridge is pov- 
erty in comparison with the potential 
wealth of some of our state universities: 
unless and until the descendants of the 
people which called the university into 
being recall it to a condition of penury. 
The endowments of the state universities 
yield incomes the large totals of which are 
increased at intervals by appropriations for 
such specific purposes as have won popular 
or legislative appreciation and approval or 
may capture the fancy of the self-styled 
“practical man.”’ 
The contrast of the endowed university 
with all of this seeming prosperity would 
be disheartening to its friends if they took 
no account of the influence of the endow- 
ment andincome. While the income of the 
state university may grow proportionally 
with its endowment, its officers and friends 
take nothing for granted and occupy them- 
selves in securing this happy result. On 
the other hand, once sufficiently endowed 
to be useful, the endowed university need 
not struggle for money. It will never have 
too much if it wisely spend what it has; 
and if it transmutes its gold into lives of 
exceptional usefulness, more gold will come 
to it from grateful alumni and from ad- 
miring friends who would increase its op- 
portunities for service. The endowed uni- 
versities have struggled for money as des- 
perately as those of the states, but this has 
SCIENCE 
[N.S. Vou. XXXV. No. 913 
been either because they were insufficiently 
endowed or because their administrations, 
not content with usefulness, lusted after 
bigness also. But given a sufficient endow- 
ment, so managed that its income will be 
both fair and uniform, the endowed uni- 
versity is independent as no state univer- 
sity ever is: not free from duties, but free 
from hindrances. 
What the people wants, what it pays for, 
it rightly insists upon having. The people 
goes further and says that these things all 
the citizens of the state should have. The 
people insists above all upon training for 
practical life. To the schools of law and of 
medicine, agriculture and engineering, it 
enthusiastically and optimistically adds 
courses in domestic science, poultry hus- 
bandry, cheese-making, and the rest. Has 
it occurred to the “‘practical’’ legislator or 
the “‘practical’’ voter that the establish- 
ment of courses in domestic science has 
been followed by a more acute stage of the 
servant question? Is this mere coinci- 
dence? 
The people demands of its university 
that it be in every way useful, that, where 
training is impossible, at least it should 
give information. In response to this de- 
mand come university extension (not uni- 
versity elevation), summer schools, farm- 
ers’ institutes, short courses and corre- 
spondence. The young American democ- 
racies provide not only a “‘royal road to 
learning,’’ but omnibuses traveling rapidly 
over the road with pneumatic tires—I for- 
bear to mention the temperature of the air 
which fills them. These omnibuses always. 
take in and discharge their passengers in 
haste and confusion, sometimes even in 
darkness. They must be driven by persons 
capable and sometimes desirous of taking a 
more promising company over a less com- 
monplace road, whence the views, forward 
