Etc. [pp. 568-575]

ETC.
ETC.
President White on Governmental Education.
President White, of Cornell University, has
just printed in two forms, slightly different
from one another, the powerful address on
Governmental Aid to'-Universities, which he
delivered last spring before the American Social Science Association in New York, and
repeated in August before the National Educational Association in Detroit. Considering how clear, bold, and vigorous a writer
he is, it is amusing to see how completely his
speech has been misrepresented. Somebody
caught up a single phrase, or inferred from
the title of his speech that he was an advocate of Doctor Hoyt's scheme for a national
university, and attacked him for this advocacy. "One voice, many echoes." Half
the newspapers in the country have taken up
the theme, and, some with praise, but most
with censure, have been discussing "President White's idea of a National University."
The text of his paper is now published,
and it appears that his only allusion to a national university is an incidental remark, so
brief that it is worth quoting. "Although,"
he says, "I am not here as the advocate of a
single national university, yet I may say that
should the National Government take a few
of the strongest in various parts of the country, and, by greater endowments still, make
them national universities; or should it create one or more new ones worthy of the nation, placing one of them at the national
capital, where the vast libraries, museums,
and laboratories of different sorts now existing may be made of use for advanced instruction, and where the university could act directly and powerfully for good in sending
graduates admirably prepared into the very
heart and centre of our national civil service,
to elevate and strengthen it-I believe, in
spite of pessimists and doctrinaires, that the
result would tell for good upon the whole
country."
This is all he says on "a national university." But although he does not advocate,
in this speech, a national university, he does
argue manfully for national and State aid to
higher institutions of learning. He claims
that it is the business of the Government to
encourage higher education as much as lower education, and he shows by numerous
well -chosen examples, the benefits which
have resulted from such public assistance.
The colors of his picture are heightened by
the shadows, and he exhibits in no very flattering aspects the feebleness of sectarian enterprises. His views are summed up in two
conclusions: first, that in the older States,
public and private aid should be concentrated upon a small number of the broadest and
strongest foundations already laid; and second, that in the newer States, State aid
should be regularly given to State institutions for the highest literary, scientific, and
industrial instruction to fully equip them, or
to keep them free from sectarian control. "I
would have Missouri," he says, "strengthen
her State University at Columbia, and her
Mining School at Rolla; and Iowa strengthen her State College at Ames; and Minnesota, her State University at St. Anthony;
and California go on, as she has recently
done so liberally, and strengthen her University at Berkeley; and Kentucky, hers at
Ashland; and so with the rest."
" Concentration of Educational Forces" is
the point at which he aims. Many of the
graduates of the strong Eastern colleges which
began in religious and denominational energy have done President White the injustice
to suppose that he was hostile to such foundations. On the contrary, he recognizes not
only the good they have done in the past,
but also what they are doing now, and he
advocates their enlargement and invigoration. In the older States, he says, build up
the old and strong colleges-Harvard, Yale,
Princeton, Columbia, Union, and the rest of
them. In the newer States he urges favor to
the universities founded by the State governments, rather than to the numerous weak and
568
[DEC.