October 4, 1901.] 



SCIENCE. 



511 



The following is an extract from Presi- 

 dent Welling's letter to which Dr. Walcott 

 here refers : 



''Such a university as I here prefigure 

 would come into no rivalry with any exist- 

 ing institution under the control of any 

 denomination. It would aim to be the 

 crown and culmination of our State in- 

 stitutions, borrowing graduates from them 

 and repaying its debt by contributing in 

 turn the inspiration of high educational 

 standards, and helping also in its measure 

 to train the experts, * * ^ who should else- 

 where strive to keep alive the traditions of 

 a progressive scholarship. * * * It is not 

 enough that our colleges should perpetuate 

 and transmit the existing sum of human 

 knowledge. We must have our workers on 

 the boundaries of a progressive knowledge 

 if we are to establish our hold on the direc- 

 tive forces of modern society." 



It may be added that, within a very 

 few months, Dr. Walcott, who is still a 

 member of the National University Com- 

 mittee, avowedly shared the writer's indig- 

 nation on account of delays, and expressed 

 regret that he could not contribute more to 

 the progress of the national university 

 movement. 



FAULTS OF THE ' MEMORIAL' SCHEME. 



Now, while I have neither plan nor pur- 

 pose to make war upon the ' Washington 

 Memorial Institution,' and might never 

 have said a word concerning it but for this 

 strange attempt upon the life of the na- 

 tional university movement, it seems my 

 duty, as the matter stands, to point out 

 some reasons why the said ' Memorial In- 

 stitution,' if established exactly as its 

 friends would have it, is not likely to meet 

 their expectations. I do so for the benefit 

 in particular of such of its patriotic mem- 

 bers as, being without time for a careful 

 study of the whole subject, may have 

 thought of it as a possible practical begin- 



ning of the national university in which 

 t\\&y have believed. 



In the first place it is to be regretted 

 that, as devised and constituted, it is not 

 better calculated to represent the ideas of 

 him whom it affects to honor — that it is 

 fragmentary and does not contemplate a 

 final national university. 



The friends and promoters of the na- 

 tional university movement had duly con- 

 sidered the question of making the best 

 practicable beginning they could, on the sci- 

 entific side, without waiting for direct Con- 

 gressional authority, but soon concluded 

 that it would be wiser to go forward and 

 secure the desired Congressional action. 

 The country had waited a hundred years 

 and could wait a little longer. A proper 

 charter then seemed within easy reach. A 

 liberal charter is still bound to come, and 

 at no distant day, now that the schemers 

 have boldly thrown off the mask, on the 

 one hand, and that the National Educa- 

 tional Association has again, for the fifth 

 time, by an overwhelming vote, declared 

 for a national university of the highest 

 rank. 



Secondly, Washington wanted a true 

 university, for supreme work only, and for 

 reasons first national, then universal, lo- 

 cated at the national capital, and sustain- 

 ing such relations to all other institutions 

 and educational agencies of the country and 

 to the government itself as would make it 

 in a superior sense a stimulating and guid- 

 ing, as well as elevating, force and in- 

 fluence for the universal good. 



It is also such an institution as this that 

 the truly patriotic people of the United 

 States want to-day. Nothing less will ever 

 satisfy, as the able advocacy of earnest men 

 in all the past, the persistent efforts of the 

 National University Committee, the liberal 

 action of the U. S. Senate and the recent 

 renewal of supporting declarations of the 

 country's educators plainly show. 



