NOVEMBEE 8, 1907] 



SCIENCE 



G15 



■address to teachers and students of the 

 summer school of the New York University 

 last month, said: 



More than one university to-day is in great 

 danger of being misunderstood. A few " trust 

 magnate^ " are giving to certain universities mil- 

 lions of dollars. These universities are in danger 

 of being reckoned the purchased servants of a 

 narrow caste. The sure and efficient way to es- 

 cape this suspicion is for the universities to rid 

 themselves of idle undergraduates who make no 

 end of trouble, and to devote their money and 

 energy to giving instruction and inspiration to 

 the public teachers throughout the land. In a 

 word, let the university cease to serve so largely/ 

 the unproductive few and rather serve the pro- 

 ductive and industrious many. 



In referring as I have to the misuse of 

 moneys given to education, and in the few 

 words that I shall add in taking leave of 

 this topic, it has been far from my inten- 

 tion to imply that money is not needed in 

 educational work. It is, and vastly more 

 than has yet been given, or provided by any 

 state, might be well applied, but my desire 

 has been to emphasize the fact that large 

 real estate holdings, costly buildings and 

 even great collections in science, literature 

 and art, are merely external things which 

 may, or may not be, advantageously and 

 economically employed, and should be re- 

 garded as means and not as ends in them- 

 selves, since they may be entirely unpro- 

 ductive unless wisely used, and even their 

 possession may, by establishing false stand- 

 ards, restricting competition and in other 

 ways, work harm rather than good. In a 

 country like ours higher education should 

 be in no way dependent upon the variable 

 and perhaps ill-directed impulses of indi- 

 viduals, however generous and philan- 

 thropic they may be, but like our public 

 school system, which is our pride and great 

 privilege, makes valuable to us our political 

 rights, and is the chief conservator of our 

 national well-being, it should be, and doubt- 

 less in time will be, administered by the 



state for all the people. Following the 

 lead of western states, we shall have great 

 universities, of wider scope and greater size 

 than any now existing, where instruction 

 in all departments of learning will be given 

 to all who are competent to avail themselves 

 of the advantages offered and are desirous 

 of embracing them. Can public funds be 

 better expended than in the education of 

 the people, and if the revenue of the state 

 was largely increased by proper taxation 

 as of incomes; increased graduated inherit- 

 ance taxes, and larger taxes upon stock- 

 transfers, public franchises and many lux- 

 tiries, the cost of higher education for the 

 people would not be felt. I shall not stop 

 to answer the objections of those who en- 

 tertain the time-dishonored notion that 

 public education is a form of charity, and 

 that it is no part of the duty of the state 

 to bring higher education to the masses, 

 since the principle, well entmciated by the 

 late President Harper at one of our uni- 

 versity convocations in this city not many 

 years since, that a municipality has right 

 to teach anything in its schools that its 

 voters are willing to tax themselves to pay 

 for, is seldom any longer denied. At its 

 last session the Wisconsin legislature 

 passed a law authorizing cities in that state 

 to raise funds by tax for the establishment 

 of trade schools, and similar and even more 

 comprehensive action bids fair soon to be 

 taken in other states. If the east does not 

 follow the west in establishing, and liber- 

 ally maintaining, state universities we hare 

 reason to fear that our smaller colleges and 

 professional schools will be overshadowed 

 and ultimately extinguished by the larger 

 institutions which receive the great bene- 

 factions. Professor Lowell, of Harvard, 

 in an address delivered at Tale last April, 

 shows that "a young man can go to-day 

 more cheaply to a state university in an- 

 other state that charges a differential fee, 



