222 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. XIII. No. 320 



sity over two million dollars during her history as a State, not 

 counting the colonial bounty to William and Mary. Since the war, 

 Virginia has given her university $40,000 a year. Before the war, 

 she gave $15,000 a year. The original university establishment 

 cost the State about $400,000. The State of South Carolina was 

 Jefferson's model for generous appropriations to the cause of sound 

 learning. She has given two million and eight hundred thousand 

 dollars to that object. Georgia has given $938,000 for the same 

 purpose. Louisiana has given $794,000 from her State treasury for 

 the higher education in recent years, and, according to the testi- 

 mony of her own authorities, has distributed over two millions 

 among schools, academies, and colleges. Texas has spent upon 

 college education $382,000, and has given for higher education two 

 and one-quarter million acres of land. The educational founda- 

 tions, both academic and popular, in the Lone Star State, are among 

 the richest in America. 



Turning now to the Great West, we find that Michigan has given 

 over two million dollars to higher education. She supports a uni- 

 versity which is as conspicuous in the North-west as the University 

 of Virginia is in the South, upon one-twentieth of a mill tax on 

 every dollar of taxable property in the State. That means half a 

 cent on every hundred dollars. This university tax-rate yielded 

 last year $47,272. Wisconsin pays one-eighth of a mill tax for her 

 university, and that yields $74,000 per annum. Wisconsin has 

 given for higher education $1,200,000. Nebraska is even more 

 generous to her State university : she grants three-eighths of a mill 

 tax, yielding about $60,000 a year. The State of California grants 

 one-tenth of a mill tax, which yielded last year over $76,000. Be- 

 sides this, the University of California has a permanent State en- 

 dowment of $811,000, yielding an annual income of $52,000, making 

 a total of $128,000 which the State gives annually to its highest 

 institution of learning. Altogether California has expended upon 

 higher education two and one-half million dollars. 



It is needless to give further illustrations of State aid to Ameri- 

 can universities. These statistics have been carefully collected 

 from original documents by one of our historical students, who are 

 making important contributions to American educational history, 

 to be published by the United States Bureau of Education. The 

 principle of State aid to at least one leading university in each 

 commonwealth is established in every one of the Southern and ^ 

 Western States. In New England, Harvard and Yale and other 

 higher institutions of learning appear now to flourish upon individ- 

 ual endowments and private philanthropy ; but almost every one 

 of these collegiate institutions, at one time or another, has received 

 State aid. Harvard was really a State institution. She inherited 

 only ;£8oo and 320 books from John Harvard. The towns were 

 taxed in her interest, and every family paid its peck of corn to make, 

 as it were, hoecake for President Dunster and his faculty. Har- 

 vard College has had more than half a million dollars from the 

 treasury of Massachusetts. Yale has had about $200,000 from the 

 State of Connecticut. While undoubtedly the most generous gifts 

 have come to New England colleges from private sources, yet every 

 one of them, in time of emergency, has come boldly before repre- 

 sentatives of the people, and stated the want. They have always 

 obtained State aid when it v/as needed. Last year the Massachu- 

 setts Institute of Technology became somewhat embarrassed finan- 

 cially, and asked the Legislature for $100,000. The institution got 

 $200,000, twice what it asked for, upon conditions that were easy 

 to meet. 



Can the State of Maryland and the friends of the Johns Hopkins 

 ignore the abundant testimony in favor of the encouragement of 

 university education, not only by exemption from burdensome taxa- 

 tion, but by positive appropriations ? If occasion arises, it will be 

 proper and legitimate for the friends of this institution to go before 

 the people of Maryland and say what is needed. Private philan- 

 thropy will do all it can, but public interest demands that the State 

 should do its part by throwing off needless taxes, and settling for 

 what it has already taken away. 



Do you say that all this would lead to meddlesome interference 

 by the politicians ? That is what everybody said when a university 

 was founded by the Prussian Government in Berlin. That is the 

 stock argument against all State universities. But there stand to- 

 day Berlin and all the German universities firm and untroubled 



upon state foundations. The whole South and the entire West 

 are full of educational establishments by the State. Some of them, 

 like the Universities of Virginia, Michigan, and Wisconsin, are bea- 

 con lights of intelligent and non-partisan administration. Have 

 Washington politicians done any harm to the Smithsonian Institu- 

 tion ? On the contrary, they have indirectly increased its economic 

 power by appropriations amounting to nearly two million dollars. 

 They allow the secretary of the Smithsonian to direct the expendi- 

 ture of $220,000 a year. Congress allows the Smithsonian to be 

 managed by a board of regents composed of distinguished college 

 presidents and public men of spotless integrity. Amid all the 

 changes in the civil service, no man has ever been displaced for 

 political reasons frotn either the Smithsonian Institution or the 

 National Museum. These facts are stated upon good authority. 



What are the serious thoughts that have been emphasized in this 

 address ? 



1. The Johns Hopkins is now a truly national university upon 

 local and individual foundations. 



2. This noble institution which benefits Baltimore, Maryland, 

 and the whole country, especially the South and West, can be 

 strengthened most efficiently by further local and individual en- 

 dowments. 



3. The examples of history at home as well as abroad show that 

 States encourage universities by wise exemption from burdensome 

 taxation and by generous appropriations, if original endowments 

 and private philanthropy prove inadequate. 



4. The development of public opinion, based upon a knowledge 

 of present facts and upon existing relations of this university to 

 Baltimore and Maryland, is the best way to encourage higher edu- 

 cation in this city, in this State, and in this country. 



BOOK-REVIEWS. 



The Government of the People of the United States. By FRANCIS 

 Newton Thorpe. Philadelphia, Eldredge & Brother. 12°. 

 90 cents. 

 Works on the American system of government multiply apace; 

 and, if their quality was always good, our young people would 

 have superabundant means of information about their public duties. 

 Candor compels us to say, however, that the treatise now before us 

 is defective in some very important respects. Its chief fault is that 

 it attempts too much. It undertakes to describe not only the Fed- 

 eral Government, but also those of the States, towns, and counties, 

 and in addition to relate the history of constitutional government 

 from the landing of the Anglo-Saxons in England to the present 

 time, all in the space of little more than two hundred pages. The 

 necessary consequence is, that, in spite of condensation and brevity 

 of expression, no part of the work is thoroughly done. The least 

 satisfactory part, as might be expected, is that relating to local 

 affairs; the town and county governments differing so widely in 

 different States, that no single^ description will apply to them all. 

 For instance : Mr. Thorpe says that the school directors of the 

 town levy the school taxes, that the selectmen make the local laws 

 and ordinances, that the county has the care and support of the 

 poor, and that there is a county superintendent of schools ; but, 

 though these statements may be true of his own State of Pennsyl- 

 vania, they are wholly untrue of Massachusetts. As for the history 

 of constitutional government, which occupies the introductory part 

 of this book, that obviously requires a separate work ; and the 

 chapters here given to it are altogether inadequate. We may add 

 that the book contains a facsimile of the Declaration of Independ- 

 ence, several fancy pictures of historical events, and a gaudy 

 spread eagle for frontispiece, none of which are likely to contribute 

 much to political education. 



A Text-Book of Elementary Biology. By,R. J. Harvey GiBSON, 



London and New York, Longmans, Green, & Co. 16". 



$1.75. 



Mr. Gibson's experience as a teacher of biology has satisfied 



him, that, in order to instruct the student in this most important 



department, the beaten track miist be left, and a new departure 



taken. To properly appreciate it, and to benefit by its study, a 



student must first undergo a preliminary training in the facts and 



