system of public schools. We have, therefore, today, a well established system of public instruction for the masses of children which furnishes a good elementary education, in every state and every territory of this country, except Alaska, and there the system in a modified form has lately been put into operation by the President. The general diffusion of the elements of learning among all the people is the pride and boast of this republic. In our political system we have reached so near to universal suffrage that it has been easily apparent to all that the stability of the state absolutely demands the general intelligence of all the people. The large number of newspapers, especially the dailies, the immense circulation of the great magazines and other periodicals, together with an unprecedented quantity of books issued from the American press, especially within a few years past, are significantly indicative of the strong fact that we are emphatically a reading people. There is possibly no other nation today where the elements of an education are so generally diffused, or where all classes of the people do so much general reading.

These statements are trite and commonplace. They are disputed by none, but admitted by all. They are mentioned here for the purpose of laying a basis for several deductions later on. When we turn to the secondary and the higher education we find their history no less remarkable. Harvard College was established in 1636, William and Mary in 1693, Yale College in 1700, the College of New Jersey in 1748, the University of Pennsylvania in 1749, Columbia College in 1754, Brown University in 1765, Dartmouth College in 1770, Rutgers College in 1771, Hampden-Sidney College in 1775. Prior to the revolution, then, the thirteen infant colonies had established ten colleges. In Massachusetts alone the following, which may be termed academies, were established before 1800, and are in successful operation to this day:

The Boston Latin School, established in 1635; Elliott School, Jamaica Plain, 1691; Dummer Academy, South Byfield, 1763; Phillips Academy, Andover, 1778; Leicester Academy, Leicester, 1784; Derby Academy, Hingham, 1785; Westford Academy, Westford, 1792; Lawrence Academy, Groton, 1793; New Salem Academy, 1795; Bristol Academy, Taunton, 1796; Deerfield Academy, Deerfield, 1799.

The history of academies in this found interest to all educators.

country makes a chapter of pro

Within the last forty years in

many sections of the country, especially in New England, the academies have in very many instances given place to the public town high school. The establishment of this public high school has marked an important era in the development of the higher education. While it is true that evolution of education is necessarily from above downwards, from the college to the ancient "grammar" school, and from that to the "dame" school, yet the reflex influence is also well marked. The establishment, in Massachusetts or in Michigan, of a vigorous public high school in every considerable town largely increases the number of students in the colleges.

The foundation and growth of the colleges of America also furnish many lessons of importance to the student of education. Not merely is the foundation of the colleges in the colonial period to be noticed, but the rapid establishment of colleges and so called universities in the newer northwest reflects great credit upon the intelligence and enterprise of the pioneers. The latest report of the commissioner of education, 1886-7, names three hundred and sixty-one colleges of liberal arts, including twenty-four state universities, thirty-three schools of science endowed with the national land grant, and thirty-two not endowed with a national land grant. In addition should be mentioned seven colleges for women. This makes a total of four hundred and thirty-three collegiate institutions in this country. The number of academies and other secondary schools for both sexes given in the commissioner's report is five hundred and fifty-one, the number for boys alone two hundred and thirteen, for girls alone one hundred and seventytwo, of similar schools supported wholly by public funds, four hundred and nineteen, and institutions for the superior instruction of women, one hundred and fifty-two, making a total of fifteen hundred and seven, provided some of these are not reckoned twice. With all these various classes of institutions for the higher and secondary education-not to mention the professional schools, and their name is legion-and with our total of twelve million children, or nearly so, in schools of all grades, it might almost be said that we are a nation composed of schoolmasters, schoolma'ams and school children.

During the last twenty-five years vast strides of improvement have marked the progress and development of our schools, seminaries, and colleges throughout the country. Compulsory laws

have been enacted, the length of the school year has been increased, the qualifications of teachers have been raised, normal schools have to a marked degree elevated the character of the teachers and the teaching, methods have been decidedly improved and special attention has been given on all hands to the study of the principles of psychology and didactics.

But among all the points indicating growth, progress, development and improvement, none is more striking than the ever increasing attention paid to scientific subjects. The study of natural science, especially of physics and chemistry, has made marvellous improvement and produced astonishing results. The application of science to inventions, especially to inventions of labor-saving machines and new methods of communication and transportation is without parallel in the history of the world. The business of the United States Patent Office is simply gigantic. Possibly in no other way may the improved and increased educational facilities be more thoroughly tested or more accurately measured than by the patent office. I am not unobservant of the advance made of late in Johns Hopkins, Harvard, Yale, Cornell, Michigan, and other colleges. Indeed, the college curriculum in general has been decidedly improved and elevated, but all this does not meet the requirements of the case. Something more and higher is imperatively demanded.

Within the last twenty-five years it has become more and more apparent that the great need of this country educationally is in the way of advanced learning. Relatively, we have primary schools enough, and grammar schools enough, and possibly enough of the secondary schools, if they were only better,-and surely we have colleges and universities enough and to spare. But what means Cornell University, and Johns Hopkins University, and now what means Clark University? The establishment and the remarkable success of John Hopkins University at Baltimore are strongly indicative of the absolute necessity of pushing our American education forward in new fields, and upward to more elevated plateaus. It is a common remark and notoriously true, that in America the elements of education are more widespread than in Europe, yet the higher education of the old world is far in advance of anything to be found with us. Moreover, our situation and our circumstances are such, our necessities, our needs, our opportunities, that precisely the reverse of this ought to be true. Do not

lose sight of the fact that this is a very large country. It is energetic, enterprising, wealthy, and fast becoming populous. There is a greater demand, a stronger necessity today with us for higher knowledge, deeper insight, a more thorough study and apprehension of all branches of knowledge and learning than exists in any other nation under heaven. We could today utilize to a greater degree than any other people, profound researches in nature, in art, in the humanities. There is no department of the higher education which is not needed today by our people to be pushed to its utmost limit. In how many cases do the aimless searchings after truth among us remind one of a staunch vessel, strong and well equipped, drifting in mid ocean, without a pilot, without a chart, without a compass, even without a rudder. In natural science including all its departments, in history, in classical learning, in philology, in the useful arts and the fine arts, in law and medicine and divinity, in telegraphy, in telephony, in telephoty, in social science, especially economics and civics, in all the range of the metaphysics, and in fine, in every department of human learning, thought and investigation, there is a marked necessity for higher study and higher instruction than this country has yet produced. Pause a moment with me to observe a few of these crying necessities. With all the advance which we have made in the study of natural phenomena, there is yet no man living who understands the theory of storms; no man living who can satisfactorily explain the ocean currents; nobody has yet discovered a satisfactory explanation of the tides; no complete, rational theory of medicine exists, but we are still tied down largely to empiricism. Psychology is based on physiology, but no one yet comprehends the relations and the action of the two lobes of the brain and the two sets of nerves. No satisfactory theory is yet agreed upon with respect to bacteria and the germs of disease in general, epidemics, epizootics, and the like. No man has yet arisen who can successfully untie and untangle the knots and snarls which Adam. Smith, more than a century ago, pushed out before the learned men of the world, and over which they have ever since been quarreling. Our politicians and our statesmen are still discussing with great vigor and force the question of protection and free trade, mono- and bi-metalism, of state rights and national unity, of home. consumption and foreign commerce, national subsidies and natural currents of trade, and possibly they are now as far from an agree

ment as ever.

It is not to be expected that any one panacea can be discovered, or any one patent medicine can be compounded which will free the body politic from all these ills and all this ignorance that the nation is heir to, but the question is a fair one, and certainly one of great importance, whether it is not possible by proper means and reasonable efforts to diminish to a considerable extent the difficulties and dangers here pointed out.

The success of Johns Hopkins University has been phenomenal. It has given opportunities for a higher standard of scholarship than we before possessed. It has helped to elevate the work of all the colleges, but it has also served to show clearly the necessity of still further advances. What is needed now is an institution far beyond Johns Hopkins. The liberality of wealthy Americans has been so great as almost to make it seem that it had no limit, but it certainly is not without limit. It can hardly be expected that private munificence will be able to establish a university in this country with sufficient means to perform adequately the service required in the higher realms of learning. We are therefore shut up to the necessity of having this needed institution established by the whole people as represented by our national government. That, and that alone, will be able to accomplish this great work.

Such an institution as is needed ought to be endowed with productive funds to the extent of, at least, two hundred million dollars. This at three per cent. interest would bring an annual income of six million dollars. If the government of the United States should set apart this amount of its bonds for this specific purpose, to be kept at interest, so that there might be a reliable permanent annual income of at least six million dollars, the problem of the much needed higher development of profound learning would at once be on the way towards a solution.

The first question in the discussion of a proposition of such proportions deals with the ability and the advisability of the national government to make and endow such an establishment. There is an opinion, more or less prevalent in every community, that our national government had better not meddle with educational matters. It is true that the national government, as such, is not committed to any general system of education, because it was the policy of the framers of our constitution to leave in the hands of the states and the people of the states all rights and duties which did not seem necessary to be conferred upon the national government.