506 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XIV. No. 353. 



ATTITUDE OF CONGRESS. 



Of the non-passage of bills I will speak 

 further on. Let us, first of all, see how far 

 this declaration concerning the attitude of 

 Congress accords with the real facts in the 

 case. 



To begin with the House, the only action 

 ever taken by that body on the subject of a 

 national university was affirmative and 

 unanimous. The National Educational 

 Association, having first by a unanimous 

 vote, at Trenton, IST. J., in 1869, declared a 

 ^ great American university to be ' a leading 

 want of American education,' and ap- 

 pointed a ' committee consisting of one 

 member from each of the States * * * to 

 take the whole matter under consideration,' 

 and to report thereon, and having twice 

 unanimously adopted the affirmative re- 

 ports of said committee (at Cleveland, in 

 1870, and at St. Louis, in 1871), then by 

 unanimous vote created a permanent com- 

 mittee to prepare and offer to Congress a 

 bill to establish a national university. 



The committee embraced, besides the 

 chairman, Ex- President Thomas Hill, of 

 Harvard ; Editor Godkin, of The Nation; 

 State Superintendent Wickersham, of Penn- 

 sylvania ; Dr. Barnas Sears, of Virginia ; 

 Col. D. F. Boyd, President of the Univer- 

 sity of Louisiana ; President Daniel Read, 

 of the University of Missouri ; Dr. W. F. 

 Phelps, President State Normal School, 

 Winona, Minnesota ; Ex- Governor A. C. 

 Gibbs, of Oregon ; Hon. ISTewton Bateman, 

 Superintendent of Public Instruction of 

 Illinois ; Superintendent Emerson E. White, 

 President-elect of the National Educational 

 Association ; General John Eaton, U. S. 

 Commissioner of Education ; Dr. Joseph 

 Henry, Secretary of the Smithsonian Insti- 

 tution and President of the National Acad- 

 emy of Sciences ; Dr. J. Lawrence Smith, 

 of Kentucky, President of the American 

 Association for the Advancement of Science; 

 and Dr. Samuel Elliot, of Connecticut, 



President of the American Social Science 

 Association. 



The bill prepared by these men was in- 

 troduced in the House during the last ses- 

 sion of the 42nd Congress and referred to 

 the Committee on Education, of which 

 Chairman Perce, of Mississippi, and Mr. 

 Hoar, of Massachusetts, were prominent 

 members, and near the end of the said 

 session was unanimously returned to the 

 House with a strong report, of which the 

 following is the closing passage : 



If, then, it be true, as the committee has briefly 

 endeavored to show, that our country is at present 

 wanting in the facilities essential to the highest cul- 

 ture in many departments of learning ; and if it be 

 true that a central university, besides meeting this 

 demand, would quicken, strengthen and systematize 

 the schools of the country from the lowest to the 

 highest ; that it would increase the amount and the 

 love of pure learning, now so little appreciated by 

 our people, and so improve the intellectual and social 

 status of the nation ; that it would tend to homo- 

 geneity of sentiment, and thus strengthen the unity 

 and patriotism of the people ; that by gathering at 

 its seat distinguished savants, not only of our own 

 but of other lauds, it would eventually make our 

 national capital the intellectual center of the world, 

 and so help the United States to rank first and high- 

 est among the enlightened nations of the earth — then 

 is it manifestly the duty of Congress to establish and 

 amply endow such a university at the earliest possi- 

 ble day. 



The committee, therefore, affirm their approval of 

 the bill, and recommend its passage by the House. 



It is believed that the success of the uni- 

 versity measure in some proper form then 

 required only that uninterrupted attention 

 which, unhappily, a change of circum- 

 stances rendered it impossible for its friends 

 to give. The opinion of the National Edu- 

 cational Association, in favor of the estab- 

 lishment of a national university, was re- 

 affirmed by unanimous vote at its annual 

 meeting, held in Detroit, on August 6, 

 1874, and, as seen by its recent declarations, 

 in the same place, has endured with the 

 years. 



2. In 1890, when Senator Geo. F. Ed- 



