94 



Hitherto the National Bureau of Education has been simply 

 advisory. It has, and it was intended to have, no authority. 

 As an agency for collecting and disseminating needful informa- 

 tion, it has already done great good, and promises to be stiil 

 more useful in the future. But the aittempt to organize a 

 National University, support 5nd direct local schools, or in 

 any way interfere with State systems, would end its useful- 

 ness, if not end itself. Every true friend of this Bureau 

 should protest against any such " enlargement of the field of 

 its operations." The principle of State independence is too 

 firmly fixed in the faith of all classes to brook any federal 

 interference in school matters, even in the States or Terri- 

 tories most destitute and backward in education. In an ill- 

 conditioned community like that in New Mexico for example, 

 still Mexican in their traditions, sentiments and peoples, juxta- 

 posed, but not blended with the heterogeneous elements of a 

 swarming immigration from all parts of the country, not to say 

 of the world, American ideas and institutions are yet in their 

 rudimentary forms and earlier stages of development. Shall a 

 Federal Bureau, at once in European style, enforce there its best 

 plans of public schools, or leave them bj^ a slower, surer, and 

 more healthful process, to work out their own salvation ? As 

 the schools of every community answer to local public opin- 

 ion, their success must depend an the sympathy and apprecia- 

 tion of the people. Pablic sentiment is a growth, not the 

 creature of power made to order of any sort or size, as some 

 have talked of " fiat money." 



