so completely out of all these subjects that there was no money to gather the facts about yellow fever and cholera that were at the time afflicting portions of our land. A good woman, Mrs. Elizabeth Thompson, came to the relief of our far-sighted doctors and furnished a small amount of money. Sufficient data were gathered and maps were made telling in yellow and black by city squares the destructive prevalence of these plagues, to awaken the public mind to the importance of keeping them from our shores.

Congress, rising to the emergency, provided money, and scientists began the profounder investigations which the conditions suggested; but a spirit of opposition began to ask, "What has the National Government to do with affairs of this kind?" and the greater results possible in preserving public health were not reached. These researches are in abeyance until some future plague wakes us up. [Illustrating the amount of data lying about in Government records full of lessons for the benefit of the people, he mentioned the problems arising out of the relation of race to disease, and referred to the mass of facts gathered in the war, and later in Freedmen's Hospitals, bearing upon these important subjects.] We delight in believing that our Government is by the people and for the people. As has been said, no Government expends more for science; no national capital has more scientists gathered in it than Washington. I believe that a university of the highest grade here will make this money and these men vastly more effective for the Government and more efficient in promoting the welfare of the people at large. The ideas which the fathers sought to plant, that the Government is not solely for the benefit of its officers, but for the people for all the people-should be cultivated by every means within reach.

Russia is on the alert to bring to the advantage of its departments of administration every forward step in science and art, but it does not exert itself to disseminate these advantages among all its people, high and low, for their benefit. Perhaps Russia has the best pedagogical museum in the world. It is not devoted to universal education, but is maintained to promote education in the army and under the direction of the war department. Just as the French Republic was rising out of the ruins of the Empire, acknowledging to our Bureau of Education the receipt of its report, which he had sought, a great French statesman wrote: "Our reports are made for officials, and imperfections and rottenness are concealed. Your American reports are made for the people as well as officials, and facts are accurately reported.” Senator Howe, of Wisconsin, who so often urged the establishment of a national university, was accustomed to point out its advantages in elevating our civil service. It would immeasurably exalt and extend scholarship in all departments of learning. New inspiration would be applied to every field of research. Some assail certain officers of the Army and Navy for not keeping up a scholarly spirit. What would not a national university do in this behalf?

An incident in my early educational experience opened my eyes to the extent to which our national statesmen had come to divorce themselves from the consideration of principles fundamental to the people, and greatly shocked my youthful notion that the more exalted the man, the more wise would he be with regard to the profounder interests of the people. An educational question of the deepest importance engaged my attention, and I tried to gather facts and opinions bearing upon it from every quarter. Governor Seward had entered the United States Senate. I greatly admired him, and had the presumption to address him my inquiry. According to his rule to answer every letter, he replied to mine. How I was shocked. It was in effect that he was engaged in national politics and had no opinions worthy to be expressed upon the subject. We have no national system of education, and we seek none. We want the advantages of diversity. Our national existence depends upon the balancing of great forces and the harmonizing of great influences. The administration of education is wisely left to the several States, and the States are wise in still further localizing it by towns and cities; ultimately it must be an affair of the individual. The fathers disclosed their notion of the relation of the nation to education by making it the patron of learning, beginning even before the formation of the Constitu

tion in the ordinance of 1787, by both indicating the grade of instruction from the lowest to the highest round of learning in giving the sixteenth section of the public domain for the establishment of public schools and the township--always one and sometimes two or more-for the establishment of a university in each new State to complete its system of public instruction.

Washington's idea was that this vast scheme should be crowned by a still higher university at the national capital. There is a natural irrepressible conflict between slavery and education, notwithstanding the teacher in ancient times, and more recently, even, has been a slave. Slavery in our country was especially thought to be imperiled by universal instruction. As a consequence, the common school made little headway where slavery was strongest. Only one feature of Jeffersons's scheme for education in Virginia, the university, could be organized in his day. The nation having assumed the appropriate position of benefactor of education, all questions arising in Congress touching education were closely watched by the slave interest. That interest allowed the policy of national grants to go on, but the establishment of a national university, or any other act which would be likely to tone up and energize the spirit of universal education, could not be encouraged, could not be tolerated. Even the act making grants of land for colleges of agriculture and mechanic arts was vetoed by Mr. Buchanan. The new spirit, represented by Mr. Lincoln, was ready to sign the bill whose stupendous beneficence will go on increasing while the Government stands.

A few years later the organization of an office of education was urged by wise and patriotic men who felt that there was serious lack in our educational forces, that we allowed to go to waste lessons of educational experience which the nation alone could gather and disseminate. Our theory of government staked all on the virtue and intelligence of the people. There had been given for their education a domain larger than some kingdoms. The lessons derived from the administration of these gifts were most valuable. Should they not be recorded and used? The Bureau of Education was established. As Vice-President Henry Wilson observed, "The Government should do for the education of its children what it did for the cultivation of pumpkin seeds." The chief of the office was provided with a salary of $4,000 and a few clerks, and the man of all Americans most eminent in educational literature was made Commissioner. An office so beneficent in its aims, so limited in its functions, and so ably manned, it would seem should have received the Godspeed of every patriot. But there is a theory abroad that would reduce government to a shrievalty. It would allow a government to punish crime but not to prevent it; it would allow a government to make war but not to promote peace.

The original idea of a census was to count the people in order to determine their capacity for war. Our Constitution provides for a decennial census in order to secure the data necessary to fix the ratio of Congressional representation. Items touching the intelligence of the people were not included until 1840. There are those now who believe that the census tells too much about the people for the people-the Government gives too much information. Let those who want it pay for it. Of course, they would leave those who can't pay for it without it. Persons of these opinions were horrified at the little office of education. They saw in it the destruction of local systems and institutions. The nation had no business with education. It was a most dangerous centralization of power, although the proposition did not include the appointment of a teacher or the establishment of a school. The result was that Congress refused to publish the reports which the law required, took $1,000 from the Commissioner's salary, and reduced his clerks to two of the lowest grade. The story is most significant in its bearing on the proposition to establish a national university. The opposition sought to strike the office out of the appropriation bill, but General Grant said: "We have abolished slavery and made the freedmen voters; education must perform an important part in the solution of the questions arising out of the new conditions, and the office ought to be further tried." The result of its continuance is now known to the country and the world. A

simple educational exchange, focusing all educational experience without the authority to touch a single school in a single State, it has come to be declared again and again by most eminent educational authorities to be the most influential educational office in the world. Other offices may issue decrees, but this office, by its vast accumulation of data, is able to point out those averages-those uniformities-which indicate the laws of educational action. My experience of half a generation in that office, with the educational thought and experience of the country passing before me, left me in no doubt in regard to the question of establishing a national university. Its opposition will be much of the same character as that already described, but its location and functions are wholly within the constitutional powers of Congress, as affirmed by the most eminent constitutional authorities. It accords with the traditional ideas of national action in its relation to local interests. It can exercise no authority over them. Its influence must be determined by its merits. By its elevated grade of instruction it is put out of competition with all other schools of learning, but becomes an inspiration to them all. There are those who believe that all education should be under exclusive religious direction, but this is not the American theory coming down from our fathers.

We separate church and state in education as in all other matters. The American theory provides that the state must educate to make sure of that universality and that amount of education which is necessary to guarantee the intelligence of its citizens and the provision of officers capable of wisely directing its affairs. Governor Jenkins, of Georgia, in opening the constitutional convention of that State, made a strong declaration of this doctrine. But the American theory, in affirming this view of the responsibility of the state in education, does not limit itself to what can be done under its own direction; it invites the church to do all it can, and freely provides charters for institutions under religious or other private auspices. Nowhere has the church, as the organization specially intrusted with the care of the divine oracles and the enforcement of their doctrines upon the individual conscience, been more liberally treated or been more successful in establishing and maintaining institutions of learning. Private benefactions find their way in the main to institutions under private corporate direction having a religious aim. Clear it is that no other country approaches ours in the amount of gifts for the purposes of higher education. The Bureau of Education reports that those coming to its knowledge in the last two dozen years have reached the sun of $168,000,000. Religious colleges work in harmony with our State universities. The same will be true of all religious institutions and of the national university. Some have feared the injurious effect of great cities upon institutions of learning, but the benefits of such proximity have been found greatly to counterbalance all disadvantages.

There has also been great fear in many minds of the injurious effect upon seats of learning from their proximity to political capitals. This fear was especially manifested in connection with the establishment of the University of Berlin. But the benefits to the university arising from its location there have already been pointed out, as well as the advantages to the Government of the location of the university in its capital. Indeed, there is much data from other countries illustrating these advantages, leaving little ground to doubt the satisfactory results. In the establishment of great denominational universities in and about Washington the opinion of our most astute religious thinkers is made manifest. The leaders of these great interests see how they can utilize the great scientific opportunities of our national capital. I believe they will see also in due time how a great national university over and above them all will aid rather than hinder the realization of their purposes. Anyone who will carefully consult the bill before you will see how it is guarded alike against local, personal, or partisan control of every kind. The corporation is to be made up of men selected for their eminence from different States.

The administration of the Peabody Southern Educational Fund is an illustration of the wisdom with which such a board is likely to act; and in the matter of internal administration, the selection of professors, the establishment of courses of study and

research, and the regulation of discipline, the university council, made up in part of regents and in part of eminent educators representing educational institutions in different States, manifestly constitutes a body under the corporation to which these responsibilities can be most safely intrusted, and that will surely guard them against any untoward interference. That the time for this action has come is clearly indicated by the increase of the number of post-graduate students in the country, running up from a few hundred in 1870 to over 4,000 at the present day, while there are some 3,000 American students, it is believed, pursuing similar courses in European institutions. If ours is to be a leader among the nations, should we not have a university worthy not only to retain our own students of the highest aspirations, but to bring here those from other lands seeking the rarest opportunities for instruction and research? The existence of such an institution for a very limited period will, I believe, so manifest its advantages that there will be left no grounds to doubt the wisdom of its establishment.

REMARKS OF HON. GARDINER G. HUBBARD, LL. D., PRESIDENT OF THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC SOCIETY.

[Before the committee, January 24, 1896.]

MR. CHAIRMAN AND GENTLEMEN: While feeling a profound interest in the subject of a national university, so ably discussed from various standpoints this morning, owing to the limited time allotted, I shall confine my own remarks to a single phase of it, to wit, the great importance of the proposed post-graduate university as an essential part of what we are accustomed to call the American system of public education-as, indeed, the necessary climax which it has always lacked, and without which it has suffered beyond the power of calculation.

In colonial times educational opportunities were provided almost entirely by religious organizations. Much valuable work was done, and many were the youths who by means of them made themselves most useful and distinguished citizens in the various spheres of life, both public and private, as the history of our country so well illustrates. But, after all, the work done was practically limited to the few, and was marked by many errors and deficiencies. It was only they who were favored in some degree by fortune who could avail themselves of even such opportunities as were offered. The masses were unprovided for.

The dawn of the Republic brought the beginning of that better day when the great body of the people, in their organized capacity, should regard the needs of each member of society, and so devise measures for increasing the popular intelligence. It was Daniel Webster who said, “I doubt whether any one single law of any single lawgiver, ancient or modern, has produced results of more distinct, marked, and lasting character than the ordinance of 1787, wherein it set forth and declared it to be a high and binding duty of the Government to support schools and advance the means of education."

66 REVOLUTIONS NEVER GO BACKWARD."

Having slowly, from small beginnings, developed a great system of popular eḍucation-one which, whatever its imperfections, has already gained recognition every where as a great and indispensable instrumentality for that enlightenment of the whole people, upon which the welfare of the individual and the security of our free institutions must depend-there will be no return to antiquated institutions and agencies.

Vast are the sums which in the States are annually derived from investments of the proceeds of school, college, and university lands and devoted to the maintenance

of the whole series of educational agencies, from the district school to the State university, so that it becomes a question of practical importance whether anything is yet wanting to improve the instrumentalities in use and to meet those demands of our aspiring youth for that which lies beyond the ability of even the foremost of our institutions to supply.

That we have a number of universities, so called, which are excellent of their kind, are doing the best of collegiate work, and are reaching out into the vast field beyond by worthy efforts in research and investigation-all this is not enough.

We should have somewhere-and certainly there is no spot more suitable or half so well supplied with facilities for this high work as Washington-we should have in America, the best possible opportunities the whole world can afford, unless we conclude to content ourselves with ranking second among the nations in the means of education, whereas the very nature of our Government demands of us that we offer to the lover of learning and the young man of genius for research the very best facilities the world can afford.

This constitutes a reason which everyone can understand, and which strongly appeals to our national pride, why there should be planted here a great and true university, and that we begin the work of founding it now, in the centennial year since Washington, by authority, set apart grounds for its site, and gave of his own resources what in those days was a very handsome sum toward its pecuniary foundation.

Nor are the reasons which I had in mind when I rose less plain and imperative why this central university should be a national university-the University of the United States-with certain organic relations to the colleges and universities of this country, especially the State universities, even as they sustain such relations to high schools, secondary schools, and primary schools in their order below.

Forward impulses and furtherances in education proceed from above downward, not from the bottom upward. Hence a national university of post-graduate rank would not only supply better equipped men for all classes of work in the educational field below, but it would, also, by means of its high and unvarying standard, bring about a greater uniformity in all the institutions of the States, stimulating those below to aim higher, and of necessity to reach higher results. This infiuence of stimulation and coordination would be of immense value.

But there is another consideration. Such a central university, by holding aloft to the youth of the whole nation opportunities beyond those with which they have been familiar, and such as they do not find at home, would fire yet more their ambition for the highest attainments, and thus lead them in yet greater numbers than now to the local and State institutions as the only road to such superior advantages. In other words, it would touch every university, college, academy, and public school in the land, and inspire anew every youth of high aims and ambitions.

Let the Catholic Church make its university, so well begun, as great and useful as it can; and let the Baptists, Methodists, Episcopalians, and other denominations do all they can to meet the special demands of their people. And so of Harvard and Yale, and all the other of our higher institutions. We offer no hindrance. Nay, we wish them well and bid them Godspeed in all honorable endeavor. But neither these nor the others, nor all together, can meet the growing demand of the American people for a great and true university at the National Capital-one that shall be their own, even as public schools, industrial schools, and State universities are theirs; an institution wholly free from the trammels of either sectarian creed, or party creed; an institution bearing the stamp of the Government of the United States, and hence giving to the higher education a new dignity and value in the estimation of the whole people.

In fine, having the public schools of every grade, the colleges and State universities, let us have, as the next logical step, a grand university of the United States, that shall crown and complete the whole series,