NOTEMBEE 29, 1912] 



SCIENCE 



729 



College Act, which might properly be a 

 part of a national university. 



No greater boon has come to some of our 

 universities, for example, those in Wiscon- 

 sin, Illinois and Minnesota, which have se- 

 cured means for such large service, than 

 has come through college extension depart- 

 ments to serve those not resident in schools, 

 to the mature farmer, mechanic and home 

 maker. And the federal government al- 

 ready has in hand a stupendous work of 

 this kind in its bureaus of farm demon- 

 stration and farm management. A na- 

 tional university, with its regency in part 

 nominated by the great federated bodies of 

 societies representing all phases of indus- 

 try, home-making, education and art, 

 might here have its greatest function. Mr. 

 Bush-Brown's idea of a people's education 

 foundation under the auspices of such a 

 board would probably grow into a vastly 

 greater work than the service to students 

 resident in Washington. 



Such a foundation could federate with 

 all the private foundations, the national 

 and state bureaus of education, the educa- 

 tional institutions of all states and the fed- 

 erated bodies supplying members to the 

 regency for the most effective educational 

 service. Under its guidance our educa- 

 tional machine (shown by the Carnegie 

 Foundation and the General Education 

 Board to be so disjointed and poorly co- 

 ordinated) would be made vastly more 

 efficient. Private fortunes would come to 

 such a foundation, with its semipublic plan 

 of control, and at the same time congress 

 might find reason to provide liberally for 

 its needs along all lines clearly meeting 

 public demands. 



It is manifest that this subject needs 

 more discussion. The possibilities are so 

 very large that wide consideration should 

 be given that the more essential factors be 

 brought boldly to the forefront. A move 



now to establish a university will make a 

 new era in higher education. But one of 

 its chief lines of work should be to foster 

 vocational education for all the people in 

 the lower schools. The better the lower 

 schools are in giving efficiency to the pro- 

 ducing classes, the more financial support 

 and the more well-prepared students will 

 come to all universities. But that is a small 

 consideration beside the one of providing 

 vocational education just below those 

 rounds of the educational ladder from 

 which the masses actually do and will 

 leave to enter the work of producing and 

 home-making. A board of regents in large 

 part selected by and from the various 

 classes of people, and a public educational 

 foundation, supplied with means through 

 which such a regency can reach and guide 

 and build up the masses, will make not a 

 Washington institution, but a national uni- 

 versity ; not a campus college but a univer- 

 sity spread all over Uncle Sam's domain; 

 and may become a beneficent world foun- 

 dation to help take our freedom, our ideals 

 and our opportunities to all the people in 

 all the world. 



WiLLET M. Hats 



UNDEBGSADUATE SESEABCS WOBK IN 

 MEDICAL SCHOOLS 



It has undoubtedly become true that a 

 man with a real desire to gain all he can 

 from his four years in the better type of 

 American medical school can not be free 

 very long from the idea that he must know 

 something of the methods of investigation 

 in medicine, or else graduate lacking an im- 

 portant element in his training. I am not 

 referring to the man who feels he will 

 favor the world with a cure for cancer as 

 soon as his osteology course is finished, but 

 to the steady well-prepared workers who 

 make up the first third of every medical 

 class. These men find themselves launched 



