N0VBMBEE2, 1900.] 



SCIENCE. 



659 



good or ill, it may be accepted as a fact that 

 the government of this country is passing 

 rapidly into the hands of the educated 

 man. 



It is a matter of the highest practical im- 

 portance to inquire whether the man who is 

 coming into this power is worthy of it, and 

 whether the training which he has received 

 in the college or iu the technical school is 

 given with any purpose of fitting him for 

 this trust. 



Before approaching this question it may 

 be well to call to mind the attitude of the 

 government of the United States and of the 

 State governments toward higher education 

 and toward scientific investigation. 



Notwithstanding the crudeness of our 

 legislation, it is still a fact that Congress 

 and the State governments of the United 

 States have been generous in gifts to higher 

 education and to scientific work. The gifts 

 of the general government have come from 

 the sale of public lands ; to the separate 

 States has been left, heretofore, the power 

 to lay taxes for the support of institutions 

 of higher training. 



It is difiBcult to bring together the data 

 for a trustworthy statement of the value of 

 all these gifts, but they aggregate an enor- 

 mous amount. At the present time the 

 Federal government is devoting more than 

 ten millions annually to the work of the 

 scientific departments of the government. 

 At the very beginning of organized govern- 

 ment in this commonwealth the question of 

 education was one of the first with which 

 the State concerned itself. 



The principle of State aid to higher edu- 

 cation, then recognized, has been since that 

 time accepted by the general government 

 and by every State government. In New 

 England, Harvard and Yale and other 

 foundations of higher learning are now de- 

 pendent upon private endowments ; yet al- 

 most every one of these has at one time or 

 another received State aid. Harvard was 



in reality a State institution, having re- 

 ceived from John Harvard only £800 and 

 320 books. 



And while the more generous gifts to 

 New England colleges have come from pri- 

 vate sources, they have never hesitated, in 

 time of emergency, to come before the repre- 

 sentatives of the people and ask for assist- 

 ance — these petitions have never been dis- 

 regarded by the State. 



The American republic may fairly claim 

 to have adopted, and to have followed out 

 Macaulay's motto : ' The first business of 

 a State is the education of its citizens.' In 

 no land and at no time has the State re- 

 sponded so quickly and so generously to 

 the demand for higher education as in the 

 United States of America, and during the 

 last half-century. 



If this aid had been rendered by an indi- 

 vidual, if one could imagine the spirit of 

 the whole people, both State and National, 

 incarnated in a personal intelligence, which 

 should take cognizance of the obligations 

 of those whom the State had befriended, I 

 can imagine that one of the most direct 

 questions which such an intelligence would 

 address to those who direct the education 

 of the youth would be : 



' ' I, representing the whole people, have 

 given you freely of my national domain, the 

 heritage of the whole people; I have founded 

 and supported colleges and universities and 

 technical institutions. What direct return 

 has been made to me for this assistance, and 

 have those who control the training of the 

 youth kept in view their obligations to me 

 and the dignity and the needs of my ser- 

 vice?" 



The question is a perfectly legitimate and 

 a perfectly fair one. And while it is easy 

 to answer it in generalities, it is not so easy 

 to give a reply of that definite sort which 

 shall lead somewhither. The subject is too 

 large and has too many ramifications to be 

 discussed in full on this occasion. 



