CORRESPONDENCE. 
THE TRUE FUNCTION OF THE UNIVERSITY OF THE UNITED STATES. 
The following contribution to the discussion opened by Dr. Dall in the February 
American Naturalist, on the subject of a university of the United States, has 
been received from the recording secretary of the George Washington Memorial 
Association. — Ep. 
To the Editor of the American Naturalist : 
Sir, — With the growth of the graduate departments of existing 
universities of the United States, a growth which would astonish any 
one who had not been in the closest relation with one or many of 
these universities, the need which existed a few years ago for a 
national graduate university, with instruction leading to the Doctorate, 
is gradually diminishing. There is, however, left for the proposed 
University of the United States a unique field, one which the uni- 
versities of the states cannot hope to fill — that is, the encouragement 
and support of research. 
The fact may as well be faced that the general education of an 
undergraduate college course, with at the best a thesis on some 
special point, does not fit one to take up a subject for research and 
treat it broadly. The rapid progress in all branches of science 
makes it necessary that for a genuine advance into new fields of 
knowledge long and careful training in methods is necessary. The 
thesis for a Doctorate is in the majority of cases an expression of 
this careful training under the eye of a master, the subject of the 
thesis having been suggested by the master, and its progress watched 
and directed week by week ; hence with the taking of the Doctor’s 
degree, but not before, the student is well prepared to take up an 
independent piece of work. 
In the bill before the Senate Committee on the University of the 
United States is a section which should not be lost sight of or slurred 
over. It is: “The University shall have authority to establish with 
other institutions of education and learning in the United States 
such cooperative relations as shall be deemed advantageous to the 
public interest.” 
In a wide interpretation of this section is, it seems to me, the 
solution of the vexed question of the University of the United States. 
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