October 4, 1901.] 



SCIENCE. 



513 



of the four hundred or more colleges and 

 universities of the country, by insuring 

 them equitable representation in the oppor- 

 tunities which the Government provides 

 and which the Memorial Institution pro- 

 poses to dispense? 



3. The Departments will not readily co- 

 operate with a non-Governmental agency 

 calculated to interfere with its own work. 



4. If the Memorial Institution claims to 

 provide opportunities for original research 

 and investigation, it will sadly fail, for the 

 Government does not carry on general sci- 

 entific investigations, but confines itself to 

 certain lines of work, which are not only 

 special, but routine. If the Government 

 expert himself cannot be an original, inde- 

 pendent investigator, much less can the 

 student- assistant. 



5. The Memorial Institution repudiates 

 the idea of instruction. Yet how will the 

 investigations by its student-assistants, in 

 scientific work, be carried on without in- 

 struction, and pretty systematic instruction, 

 at that, to say nothing of any work it may 

 attempt on lines not strictly scientific ? 



6. Even on the very limited lines pro- 

 posed by the Memorial Institution, more 

 money will be needed than such a concern 

 is calculated to obtain from private sources. 

 And how is the Memorial Institution to pla- 

 cate its Congressional patrons, when every 

 student-assistant, especially if he becomes 

 a Government fixture (and the Memorial 

 Institution anticipates that a majority of 

 them will remain in the Government serv- 

 ice), closes the door to just so much Con- 

 gressional patronage? 



7. What shall be said of the ethics of an 

 institution which encourages scientific work 

 by students in the Departments at "Wash- 

 ington as a means to the attainment of de- 

 grees at certain universities whose equip- 

 ments are insufficient to such degrees ? It 

 has decidedly the appearance of giving 

 credit where credit is not due, and will 



eventually discredit the institutions it 

 favors by such means. 



8. It is said that the esprit du coiys so de- 

 sirable in every student-body could not be 

 developed by Congressional action, in con- 

 nection with scientific investigations at 

 Washington, because it would be * a violent 

 departure from all precedent,' and in the 

 next breath we are told that this happy re- 

 sult has been obtained by the legislation of 

 March 3, 1901, which nominally extended 

 the utilization of the Government's scien- 

 tific equipment at Washington to all the 

 educational institutions of the country. 



9. In view of the land-grant colleges and 

 the U. S. military and naval academies, 

 what sense is there in the talk of ' a violent 

 departure from all precedent ' involved 

 in a provision for a crowning university of 

 the United States ? 



10. What argument that justifies a State 

 university would not justify a national uni- 

 versity ? 



11. Contrary to the views of the Memorial 

 Institution's advocates, no university is 

 national, whatever its ' constituency,' ' sup- 

 port,' ' policies ' and * sympathies,' which is 

 not vitally and distinctively of and by the 

 Government of the United States. 



12. People are most interested in that to 

 which they contribute, and they cannot be 

 so easily interested in a private institution 

 as in an institution to which they have in 

 some form contributed, which they may 

 justly claim to be their own, and in which 

 alone they could have a national pride. 



13. The plan of the Memorial Institution 

 necessitates practical duplication of Gov- 

 ernment experts and scientific apparatus, a 

 thing which the Government could properly 

 efiect only in the interest of an institution 

 of its own creation and in due measure sub- 

 ject to its control. 



14. If there should be a measure of com- 

 petition between a national university and 

 a few other universities, that would by no 



