July 26, 1901.] 



SCIENCE. 



139 



by private benefactions. What a blessing 

 for a long time has Dr. Peabody been to 

 Harvard. Such a man ought to be at 

 every seat of higher learning. 



Moreover, w^hy should not a large State 

 university maintain a department of theol- 

 ogy, without which it is not complete and 

 which does not belong necessarily to any 

 denomination. In Germany, in spite of 

 an established church, theology is non- 

 sectarian. Men of all creeds go there for 

 training. Why should not our American 

 State universities show that ethics, religion 

 and even theology of the highest and best 

 type may be divorced entirely from de- 

 nominationalism ? 



c. Free as to tuition in all departments, 

 academic and professional. 



This proposition ought to be established 

 by the mere statement that in every com- 

 monwealth the university is the head of 

 public instruction, which is free up to the 

 higher learning and ought to be free there 

 also. The reasoning that people have in- 

 dulged in as to free tuition is very curious. 

 In early times the doctrine was preached 

 that schools should be maintained at public 

 expense, but should be limited to the ele- 

 ments of learning — reading, writing, arith- 

 metic, geography and United States his- 

 tory. A little learning the public might 

 give the individual, but no more. After 

 strenuous opposition, this doctrine was 

 established in New England, in the Middle 

 States, in the West, and finally in the 

 South. Then came the second step for- 

 ward, in which in many places high-schools 

 were smuggled in. In Kansas City, for 

 example, the first high school, now one of 

 the best in America, was for years main- 

 tained rather surreptitiously. Later the 

 people throughout the union came to the 

 belief that a chance at secondary educa- 

 tion also, without charge for tuition, was 

 due from the commonwealth to every soul 

 on its soil ; but it was still argued gener- 



ally that college or university training 

 should be paid for by the individual. Not 

 long ago, some Western States reached the 

 third stage of progressive belief that free 

 instruction should be given through the 

 college of liberal arts, but that profes- 

 sional training should be paid for. In the 

 process of evolution, however, the fourth 

 era is near at hand, in which it will be 

 recognized, I think, that the discrimina- 

 tion between academic and professional 

 instruction is wholly specious. If it be 

 granted that the State owes to every soul 

 on its soil a chance at free instruction 

 through the college of liberal arts, by 

 what legerdemain of logic can it be denied 

 in medicine or engineering? In these so- 

 called professional courses perhaps half the 

 studies are academic, and the other half are 

 applications of the academic. Is it reason- 

 able for the State to teach a man freely 

 physics, chemistry, mechanics, drawing and 

 mathematics, but refuse to teach him freely 

 their applications to engineering ? Should 

 one learn at public expense, such academic 

 subjects as physics, chemistry, neurology, 

 embryology, anatomy, histology, physiol- 

 ogy, physiological chemistry and bacte- 

 riology, but learn at personal expense their 

 applications to medicine ? All such reason- 

 ing is to my mind artificial. It is said 

 that law, medicine and engineering are 

 gainful pursuits, and, therefore, the bene- 

 ficiaries should pay for training in them. 

 The argument is not worth refuting, but, if 

 it were, it might be pointed out that bache- 

 lor of arts is a gainful degree. Moreover, 

 academic graduates are not more useful 

 to the people than are lawyers, physicians, 

 pharmacists, dentists, engineers, etc., of 

 superior quality. As soon as you admit 

 that the commonwealth must furnish its 

 people free instruction in any degree you 

 are compelled to admit that it must fur- 

 nish free instruction in every degree and in 

 every useful form. But the same argu- 



