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SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XVI. No. 409. 



gathered the president would deliver an 

 address on the desirability of a higher edu- 

 cation. This would be followed up by a 

 meeting in the church or churches, by an 

 address before the town schools, etc., etc. 

 Before he was through with his three days' 

 meeting the whole town was as excited on 

 the sub.ject of colleges and universities and 

 higher education as it was in the habit of 

 becoming only over politics and religion. 



This may be a somewhat crude form of 

 preaching the gospel of higher culture, 

 though it was doubtless effective. It is the 

 salvation army plan of getting into the 

 educational depths. The greater institu- 

 tions have pursued more subtle methods— 

 oftentimes with even greater effect. The 

 system of accrediting schools with the peri- 

 odical visitation by a member of a univer- 

 sity faculty ; the system of affiliating schools 

 and making them to feel themselves a part 

 of the university— thus leading many 

 youths to look toward higher schools who 

 would not otherwise have thought of it ; the 

 building ivp of great alumni associations 

 with one of their chief objects the increase 

 of attendance at alma mater; the publica- 

 tion of alumni magazines and semi-scientific 

 periodicals of various kinds; the sending 

 out of news letters to the press ; the organi- 

 zation of university extension work in all 

 its various forms; the trips of the college 

 associations like glee clubs, football elevens 

 and baseball nines, intercollegiate debates, 

 the annual tours of university presidents 

 through the country, the offering of scholar- 

 ships and fellowships, etc., etc., all con- 

 tribute to the same end of popularizing the 

 university and of accomplishing by differ- 

 ent methods and methods more consonant 

 with our American life the same end of 

 bringing large numbers of people in con- 

 tact with higher education as the compul- 

 sory methods of European countries do for 

 them. 



Some critically inclined people have 

 called this evangelistic work by the cruel 

 term of advertising, and have denounced 

 it as unAvorthy the institutions and educa- 

 tional policy of a great country, have re- 

 ferred in scathing terms to the strenuous 

 competition of our universities and colleges 

 for students. Such a conception fails to 

 grasp the vital elements in the situation. 



The whole movement has undoubtedly 

 assumed the form of a strenuous competi- 

 tion. It would, of course, be easy for such 

 a strife to degenerate and to assume a ruin- 

 ous and destructive form. 



But the actual fact is the contrary. And 

 this leads me to the further proposition in 

 regard to our American system of higher 

 education; viz: that it has been character- 

 ized during the past fifty years in all its 

 parts by an earnest desire for improvement 

 in every direction. Our institutions have 

 competed with one another in improving 

 their facilities, striving to see which one 

 could offer the best libraries, the best labo- 

 ratories, the most learned and skillful 

 teachers, the best opportunities for physical 

 culture, the best chance for an all-round, 

 well-developed manhood and womanhood. 

 And the story of advance along this line is 

 marvelous. 



They have competed with one another in 

 raising their standards of admission and 

 their requirements for graduation until 

 now many of our able educators think that 

 this progress has gone too far, that we are 

 making unreasonable requirements for ad- 

 mission to college, for graduation from col- 

 lege, for admission to graduate work and 

 for the higher degrees. 



This competition has been along the very 

 highest times. It has led, as modern com- 

 petition so often does, to various forms of 

 cooperation. Our higher schools have 

 united for common action on many things. 

 They are rendering service to the secondary 



