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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXVI. No. 920 



in the development of our educational 

 system. 



Incidentally, I may say that the House 

 of Representatives of the Illinois legisla- 

 ture has again led the way in urging upon 

 the federal government the necessity of 

 large additional grants for educational 

 purposes by sending to congress a unani- 

 mous petition, as follows : 



Whereas, The legislature of Illinois by the 

 joint resolution of February 8, 1853, was the first 

 among the American legislatures to petition the 

 congress of the United States to make a grant of 

 public land for each state in the union for the 

 liberal endowment of a system of industrial uni- 

 versities, one in each state, to promote the more 

 liberal and practical education of our industrial 

 classes and their teachers; and, 



Whereas, The congress not only made a liberal 

 grant of land in the year 1862 for this purpose, 

 but has also followed up this policy once begun by 

 still more liberal appropriations for the support of 

 higher education in agriculture and the mechanic 

 arts, resulting in the great chain of colleges for 

 agriculture and the mechanic arts to be found in 

 every state and territory in the union; and, 



Whereas, The time has now come for the adop- 

 tion of a similar policy in the field of elementary 

 and secondary education; therefore, be it 



Sesolved, By the house of representatives of the 

 state of Illinois, the senate concurring herein, 

 That the congress of the United States be respect- 

 fully petitioned to appropriate annually to each 

 state and territory in the union a sum equal to one 

 dollar per head of the population of said state or 

 territory as ascertained by the last census, for the 

 purpose of establishing, maintaining and extending 

 in the elementary and secondary schools of said 

 states and territories, while not excluding other 

 elementary and secondary subjects, such practical, 

 industrial and vocational training, including agri- 

 culture, the mechanic arts, domestic science, manual 

 training, commercial subjects and such instruction 

 in other similar subjects of practical nature as the 

 interests of the community may seem to demand; 

 and 



Besolved Further, That our senators in congress 

 be instructed and our representatives be requested 

 to use their best exertions to procure the passage 

 of a law of congress donating said sum to each 

 state and territory in the union for said purpose; 



Besolved Further, That the governor of this 

 state is hereby requested to forward a copy of the 

 foregoing resolutions to our senators and repre- 

 sentatives in congress and to the executives and 

 legislatures of each of the other states and terri- 

 tories, inviting them to cooperate with us in this 

 meritorious enterprise. 



I wish to emphasize again very strongly 

 that national aid to education, whether 

 lower or higher, does not necessarily mean 

 excessive federal centralization and con- 

 trol. The extent to which the federal gov- 

 ernment shall have control of the funds 

 which it devotes to education is a matter 

 of expediency to be settled from time to 

 time and from generation to generation, as 

 national and local needs and possibilities 

 may dictate. 



I should like to call attention to one 

 other fact, and that is that the federal gov- 

 ernment, when it wished to develop, by the 

 expenditure of a comparatively small sum 

 of money, a system of educational institu- 

 tions which should have a profound effect 

 upon the development of elementary and 

 secondary education, it chose to establish 

 colleges, not high schools ; colleges, not 

 grade schools; colleges, not kindergartens. 

 In other words, it recognized that in the 

 development of any educational system in 

 a country, progress goes often from the 

 so-called higher to the lower. You can not 

 develop a good high-school system unless 

 you have a good college system which can 

 supply the necessary teachers, the neces- 

 sary guidance, the necessary stimulation, 

 the necessary leadership. Tou can not 

 have good grade schools unless you have 

 good high schools which furnish, taken as 

 a whole, the training of the teachers em- 

 ployed in these elementary schools. The 

 converse is, of course, equally true, that 

 you can not develop your college beyond a 

 certain low level of efficiency unless the 

 high schools can be brought up to a high 

 level. Nor can you raise the level of your 



