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SCIENCE 



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



visible form the national ideal of univer- 

 sity education. 



I have long been a warm admirer of 

 President Eliot, in many respects the great- 

 est figure in American education. He was 

 kind to me personally when I was a fresh- 

 man at Harvard. He was for more than a 

 generation my guide, philosopher and 

 friend in the field of university education 

 find administration. I think it is not too 

 much to say that he revolutionized it to its 

 great betterment. 



But I know no more striking illustra- 

 tion of the fundamental weakness that doth 

 beset us all, than President Eliot's notion 

 that he could make of Harvard a national 

 university in the sense that we have been 

 using the term here. That he could make 

 a private institution, dependent for its re- 

 sources upon the liberality and self sacri- 

 fice of alumni, however generous they may 

 be, or upon the whims of rich men, how- 

 ever numerous they may be, situated upon 

 the edge of the country, even though in 

 such a glorious city as Boston, that he 

 could make an institution so located, and 

 so fathered and mothered to be that em- 

 bodiment of our national ideal of science 

 and education and art which we are looking 

 for. Other men have or have had the same 

 notion for their institutions. Idle and 

 vain hope ! Neither Harvard nor Yale nor 

 Columbia nor Princeton, nor all of them 

 taken together, great as is their function, 

 great as is their service, can hope to do this 

 particular service for this country. Nor 

 Mr. Rockefeller nor Mr. Carnegie nor both 

 of them together, though multiplied by five 

 and animated even still more fully than 

 at present by patriotic unselfishness and 

 far-sighted motives, can do this thing for 

 ■^he nation which, after all, only the nation 

 can do for itself. The state universities of 

 ^Vlichigan and "Wisconsin and Minnesota 

 and Illinois and the forty sthers — no one of 



them alone nor all of them together, great 

 as they may become — and we are all headed 

 for great things — can hope to fill this place, 

 incorporating in themselves, in such a way 

 as to satisfy the national longing, that deep- 

 felt, that unexpressed ideal of university 

 education. 



The reason is simple. No partial ex- 

 pression will satisfy this longing for whole- 

 ness. When that which is perfect shall have 

 come, that which is imperfect will unite 

 with it and help constitute its perfection — 

 private and state institution, with the na- 

 tional university — making one complete 

 system, or it will dry up and disappear. 

 When that which is complete shall have 

 appeared, that which is incomplete must 

 become a part of it or be sloughed off or 

 east into the scrap heap. No national uni- 

 versity can exist except as the creation and 

 organ of the national will, shaped and di- 

 rected by it. Supported and sustained by 

 this national will, it will be the expression 

 of you and me and all of us, we a part of 

 it and it of us. 



Such an institution would not injure, 

 but benefit every private and every state 

 university, by its superior support, by its 

 superior prestige, by its greater wealth. 

 It would strike the popular imagination of 

 this country in such a way as to give to the 

 university idea itself an enormous impetus, 

 the reflex effect of which would show itself 

 in the increasing prosperity and develop- 

 ment of every private and state institution. 



The foundation of Leland Stanford did 

 not injure the University of California, 

 but helped it immensely. The foundation 

 of the University of Chicago did not injure 

 Illinois or Northwestern or Michigan or 

 Wisconsin, but by the bold and striking, 

 way in which it raised high aloft the stand- 

 ard of science it gave an impetus to the 

 university idea which made the work of 



