July 12, 1901.] 



SCIENCE. 



47 



State and the State educational system, 

 rests upon a false analogy. In a general 

 and popular sense there is undoubtedly an 

 American educational system, but it con- 

 sists of institutions of three different types : 



A. Those which the State establishes and 

 maintains, such as the public schools and 

 the state universities. 



B. Those which the State authorizes, 

 such as school and university corporations, 

 private or semi-public in character, which 

 gain their powers and privileges by charter, 

 and which are often exempt in whole or in 

 part from taxation, 



C. Those which the State permits, such 

 as private- venture (unincorporated) edu- 

 cational undertakings of various kinds. 



Each of these classes is in a true sense 

 national, in that it reflects and represents 

 in part the way which the American people 

 have followed in providing general edu- 

 cation. No inventory of the nation's edu- 

 cational activity is complete that does not 

 include them all. There are in existence 

 at the present time a group of truly national 

 universities, some of them of the State- 

 authorized and some of the State-supported 

 type, and in them the national ideals and 

 the national temper are as truly revealed 

 and realized as are those of Germany in 

 Berlin and in Leipzig, those of England in 

 Oxford and in Cambridge, and those of 

 France in Paris and in Montpellier. The 

 argument for a statutory national uni- 

 versity based upon the hypothesis that 

 there is now no national university in ex- 

 istence is only formally true ; in fact, it is 

 without foundation. 



2. The argument that a statutory na- 

 tional university is needed to supplement 

 the resources of existing institutions is 

 based upon a misunderstanding of the 

 facts. No one of the world's universities 

 can possibly be supreme in all departments 

 of intellectual activity ; a statutory uni- 

 versity of the United States could not be so. 



Conditions of time, place, special equip- 

 ment and of individual scholarship all tend 

 to make one university stronger in some 

 one field of investigation than in others 

 and to render it as unwise as it is impracti- 

 cable for any one university to set before 

 itself the hope of excelling in every branch 

 of scholarship. The universities of the 

 United States now offer ample opportunities 

 for the most advanced research, and these 

 opportunities in many departments are far 

 in excess of the number of students wish- 

 ing to avail of them. On the other hand, 

 a university which should aim to hold 

 mature and highly trained men indefinitely 

 in the stage of learning without either pro- 

 ducing or teaching would be a positive in- 

 jury to the national life and character. 

 The period of preparation for the active 

 duties of life is already unduly prolonged. 



3. An examination of the several pas- 

 sages in the speeches and writings of 

 "Washington that relate to a national uni- 

 versity discloses the facts that the evil 

 against which he wished a national uni- 

 versity to guard has long since ceased to 

 be possible, and that his plans and hopes 

 have been realized with a completeness of 

 which he never dreamed by the universities 

 which have grown up in the United States. 

 Washington's fear was that the youth of 

 America, being forced to obtain their higher 

 education in Europe, would not ' escape 

 the danger of contracting principles un- 

 favorable to republican government. ' Ob- 

 viously this fear has been utterly dispelled, 

 and the universities that exist are far more 

 complete and far more advanced than any- 

 thing that could have been foreseen a cen- 

 tury ago. There appears, therefore, to be 

 no force in this phase of the argument for 

 a statutory university at Washington. 



4. That there are important opportunities 

 for research of various kinds in connection 

 with the government laboratories and col- 

 lections at Washington is certain, and that 



