372 



SCIENCE 



LN. S. Vol. XXVI. No. 664 



Philadelpliia, Pittsburg, Easton, Harris- 

 burg, AVilliamsport. Johnstown and Erie. 



A school or a college is self-supporting 

 in the sense that the individual profits 

 more than his education costs ; a university 

 is self-supporting in this sense and in addi- 

 tion it is economically the most profitable 

 investment that a people can make. A 

 million dollars spent on the highest educa- 

 tion and on research add more than a mil- 

 lion dollars to the actual wealth of the 

 country. And if this research is not sup- 

 ported by public funds, it will not be un- 

 dertaken, for its main benefit is not to the 

 individual, but to the whole people. In a 

 way we are consuming the capital of our 

 country— the natural fertility of the soil, 

 the forests, the coal and iron. Coal is 

 mined in Pennsylvania to the annual value 

 of $200,000,000. We are indeed thriftless 

 if the value of the coal is not reinvested, on 

 the one hand, in foundries, railways, and 

 other material and ephemeral uses, and, on 

 the other hand, in education and research, 

 which are the most permanent of all invest- 

 ments. There are but few fathers who will 

 leave their children less educated than 

 themselves, and research and discovery are 

 endowment policies whose dividends never 

 cease. 



But while we need great universities, we 

 need equally high schools, colleges and tech- 

 nical schools. Mere size is entirely unim- 

 portant. If the spirit of scholarship and 

 research can be maintained in small insti- 

 tutions, several of them may be more useful 

 than one. amorphous university. There is 

 a certain psychological limit of size, beyond 

 which organization becomes increasingly 

 difficult. Perhaps twenty-five professors 

 and three hundred students may be taken 

 as the maximum of efficiency. The facility 

 in such an institution forms a homogeneous 

 body competent to guide the policy of the 

 institution and to select their successors. 

 Each professor is responsible for the whole 



and to the whole. He can be the friend of 

 the students whom he teaches, and each stu- 

 dent is an integral part of the institution. 



Such a college should have buildings and 

 grounds of the value of about a million 

 doUars and an income of at least $100,000. 

 The parks, libraries, museums, art galleries, 

 theaters and lecture halls are not for the 

 professors and students only, but for the 

 whole community. The work of the pro- 

 fessors and instructors is not only the teach- 

 ing of the students, but perhaps half of it, 

 more or less, in accord with the ability and 

 interests of the individual, should be for 

 the advancement and diffusion of knowl- 

 edge, for leadership in all that concerns the 

 higher life of the community. 



A college of this character can not cover 

 equally the whole field of knowledge; it 

 should be eminent in some direction. This 

 might be civil engineering. In this case 

 the best possible training would be given to 

 professional engineers, not only expert 

 knowledge and facility in their trade, but 

 broad culture and the impulse to investi- 

 gate, the tendency to treat conventions 

 lightly, the power to break new paths and 

 advance along them. Students frequent- 

 ing this college might use civil engineering 

 as a basis for law, medicine, architecture, 

 business or any work in life, a new com- 

 bination of interests leading to new ad- 

 vances and new professions. Or a college 

 might be eminent in the teaching and in 

 vestigation of the English language, as 

 Lafayette has been, and this would be the 

 center of its work and its influence. There 

 would be half a dozen great investigators 

 and teachers cooperating in all movements 

 to maintain and improve our language, its 

 grammar and dictionaries, the methods of 

 spelling and printing, studying and making 

 accessible to study its origins, its classics 

 and its contemporary tendencies. Young 

 investigators would gather here, and the 

 students from the start would base their 



