38 



SGIEJ^CE. 



[Vol. VIII, No. 17$ 



having ligbted on some mathematical works in the 

 hbrary of Sidney, could find no one to interpret 

 them. The books, says his biographer, were Greek, 

 — I mean unintelligible to all the fellows." The 

 spirit of observation, experiment, and research, 

 was rarely apparent ; discipline by masters and 

 tutors took precedence of the inspiration of pro- 

 fessors. When we consider this origin, still more 

 when we recall the poverty of the colonists, and 

 still more when we think of the comprehensiveness 

 of the university ideal, even in the seventeenth 

 century, it is not strange, that, before the revolu- 

 tion, American colleges were colleges, and noth- 

 ing more. Even degrees were only conferred in 

 the faculty of arts. In 1774, when Governor 

 Hutchison was discussing colonial affairs in Lord 

 Dartmouth's office, Mr. Pownall asked if Harvard 

 was a university, and, if not, on what pretence 

 i t conferred degrees. Hutchison replied ' ' that 

 tiiey had given Masters' and Bachelors' degrees 

 from the beginning ; and that two or three years 

 ago, out of respect to a venerable old gentle- 

 man they gave him a doctor's degree, and that 

 the next year, or next but one, two or three more 

 were made Doctors. . . . After so long usage he 

 thought it would be hard to disturb the college." 



It is a significant fact that at the beginning of 

 the revolution, in 1776, George Washington was 

 made a doctor of laws at Harvard, and, at its 

 close in 1783, John Warren, a doctor of medicine. 

 From that time on, there was no hesitation in the 

 bestowal of degrees in other faculties than that of 

 arts. 



I need not rehearse the steps by which the 

 schools of medicine, law, and theology were added 

 to the college ; cautiously, indeed (as outside 

 departments, which must not be allowed to draw 

 their support from the parent trunk), and yet per- 

 manently. It is a noteworthy fact that the ex- 

 ample of Harvard and Yale in establishing theo- 

 logical schools has rarely been followed in other 

 places, even where schools of law, medicine, and 

 science have been established. It is enough to 

 add that professional education was organized 

 during the first thirty or forty years of this cen- 

 tury, in a much less orderly way than that in 

 which the colleges were instituted. 



The third period in the development of higher 

 education was the recognition of the fact, that, 

 besides the three traditional professions, a multi- 

 tude of modern vocations required a liberal train- 

 ing. In consequence of this, came scientific 

 schools, often, at first, adjacent to the classical 

 colleges, and sometimes on independent founda- 

 tions, many of these schools being aided by the 

 national provision for technical instruction and by 

 other noteworthy gifts. 



We are now fairly entered upon the fourth 

 period, when more attention than ever before will 

 certahily be given to the idea of the university, — 

 an idea long dormant but never dead. The second 

 decennium of this century was but just begun, 

 when a university was chartered in Maryland ; 

 and before it closed, the first of the western uni- 

 versities, endowed by a gift of the public lands, 

 was organized in the county and town of Athens, 

 O., precursor of the prosperous foundation in 

 Michigan, and of like institutions in other parts 

 of the old north-western territory. Early in this 

 century, Americans had frequently gone abroad 

 for medical and scientific training, but between 

 1820 and 1830 many turned their eyes to Germany 

 for historical and philological study ; and the line 

 which began with Everett, Ticknor, Bancroft, and 

 Woolsey, has been unbroken to this day. Through 

 these returning wanderers, and through the im- 

 portation from Germany, England, and Switzer- 

 land, of foreigners distinguished as professors, — 

 Lieber and Beck, Sylvester and Long, Agassiz and 

 Guyot, and their compeers, — the notion of a philo- 

 sophical department of a university, superior to a 

 college, independent of and to some extent in- 

 troductory to professional schools, has become 

 familiar. But the boldest innovation, and the most 

 influential, was the work of one whose name is 

 perpetually associated with the Declaration of 

 Independence and the Univei'sity of Virginia. It 

 was in 1826 that his plans assumed form, and in- 

 troduced to the people of this country — not with- 

 out some opposition — the free methods of con- 

 tinental universities, and especially of the Univer- 

 sity of France. 



Thus, as years have rolled on, the word 'uni- 

 versity,' at first employed with caution, has been 

 reiterated in so many connections, that it has lost 

 its distinctive significance, and a special plea must 

 be made for the restoration to its true sovereignty, 

 of the noblest term in the vocabulary of educa- 

 tion. Notions injurious and erroneous are already 

 abroad. Poor and feeble schools, sometimes in- 

 tended for the destitute, beg support on the ground 

 that they are universities. The name has been 

 given to a school of arts and trades, to a school of 

 modern languages, and to a school in which only 

 primary studies are taught. Not only so, but 

 many graduates of old and conservative institu- 

 tions, if we may judge from recent writings, are 

 at sea. There are those who think that a univer- 

 sity can be made by so christening it ; others 

 who suppose that the gift of a million is the only 

 requisite ; it is often said that the establishment of 

 four faculties constitutes a university ; there is a 

 current notion that a college without a religion is 

 a university, and another that a college without a 



