CHAPTER VI

EDUCATION

The collegiate year 1900-1901 was prosperous for American education. There was a marked increase in the number of students attending the universities and colleges. The total attendance at the twelve largest universities of the United States, including summer schools and teacher's courses, was nearly thirty-five thousand. Harvard, with productive funds amounting to more than thirteen million. dollars, had more students than any other single institution-about 2,500 undergraduates, 1,780 in the advanced departments, and more than 1,400 in the women's and the summer departments.

There were several notable collegiate events during the year. Yale observed elaborately the two-hundredth anniversary of its founding; the University of Georgia celebrated its centennial, the Western Reserve University its seventy-fifth, anniversary. Doctor Daniel Coit Gilman retired from the presidency of Johns Hopkins after twenty-five years of admirable service. President Carter of Williams College retired with a record of useful activity. The organization of the Washington Memorial Institution attracted much attention during the summer months, and near the end of the year announcement was made of Andrew Carnegie's magnificent offer of ten million dollars for the establishment at Washington of a great national university, using the word in its most liberal sense.

A Great National University

By provision made on March 5, 1901, Congress extended to “scientific investigators and to duly qualified individuals, students, and graduates of institutions of learning in the several States and Territories" the privilege of using the scientific facilities connected with the Government departments and bureaus. The scientific investigations

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conducted under the auspices of the Government were much more extensive and elaborate than the general public realized. For such investigations and for the application of the results obtained, the Government, it was estimated, appropriated every year more than three million dollars. Many able men were identified with these branches of governmental work.

The policy that threw open the Government laboratories, museums, and libraries, to students was broad in its possibilities. But how was the opportunity to be extended to individuals? Some supervision, a central authority, would be essential. The advisability of Government control seemed doubtful; at least it was a question of serious debate among educators.

The governing board of the Washington Academy of Sciences had for some time been considering the feasibility of a national university. In 1900 a committee was appointed to consult with the George Washington Memorial Association, a body of women whose object was "to aid in securing in the City of Washington, D. C., the increase of opportunities for higher education, as recommended by George Washington, the first President of the United States, in his various messages to Congress." Under the auspices of these two associations the Washington Memorial Institution was incorporated on May 27, 1901. Its formal organization followed on June 3.

II

The plan for the Washington Memorial Institution included few of the ordinary administrative duties of a university. Its only building, presumably, was to be an executive center. It was to have no faculty, unless the Government scientists with whom the students were to work could be so characterized. Its objects were, first, to publish the facts. as to opportunities existing for students at Washington; second, to receive and enroll such students as should come; third. to keep records of the work of each student, and, if desired, to certify as to any student's work. In a general sense it was to serve as a sort of clearinghouse between the Government departments and bureaus and the numerous educational institutions of the country. There were to be no tuition fees; on the contrary, the students, it was understood, were to receive the usual salaries paid for work done under Government auspices. Students working for degrees were to be referred, with certifi

cates of what they had accomplished, to such colleges and universities. as they should select.

The Board of Visitors was to consist of the President of the United States, the Chief Justice, the Members of the Cabinet, the chiefs of important Government bureaus, certain other prominent officials, and President Charles W. Eliot, of Harvard University. The Board of Directors was made up of a number of well-known college and university presidents, representatives of the Government's scientific branches, and several college professors and regents. There were two women on this board-Mrs. Phoebe A. Hearst, Regent of the University of California, and Mrs. Archibald Hopkins, President of the George Washington Memorial Association. Just as Doctor D. C. Gilman retired from the presidency of Johns Hopkins he was offered the rectorship of the new institution. His great ability as an organizer was expected to serve a very useful purpose in this new field, where his duties would be less irksome than those involved in the administration of a university.

III

The absence of members of the executive committee checked the work of organization during the summer and fall. A meeting was called for December 7, but before that date came, the situation was changed by Andrew Carnegie's offer of ten million dollars for the establishment of an institution of the nature of a national university at Washington.

At the close of the year the details connected with the acceptance and administration of this great gift were still unresolved. The plan, stated as yet only in vague terms, was to place the sum in the hands of a body of trustees, to be employed for the furtherance of scientific work and possibly to supply the needs of deserving students who were engaged in original research. The operations of the Carnegie fund were to supplement, rather than compete with, the work of existing institutions of learning.

There was, however, a difficulty in the way of accepting the gift. Mr. Carnegie offered not cash, but ten million dollars' worth of bonds. of the United States Steel Corporation. It was urged in many quarters that the acceptance of Steel bonds by the Government would be an impropriety, and it was hoped that Mr. Carnegie would turn the

bonds into cash, or into United States bonds, so as to remove this cause of embarrassment. Another possible solution was to separate the fund from Government control and make its administration non-official.

About the same time that Mr. Carnegie's offer became known, Mrs. Jane L. Stanford, widow of Leland Stanford, on December 9 conveyed to the Leland Stanford, Junior, University property worth about thirty million dollars. Of this amount eighteen million dollars was in stocks and bonds, and twelve million dollars was in real estate. This was the largest single gift that had ever been made to education. The conveyance was in accord with Mrs. Stanford's well-understood plans for the further development of the university founded in memory of her dead son. She was, however, under no legal obligation thus to complete her large generosity to the institution. The University already had an endowment of sixteen million dollars.

The Yale Bicentennial

The two-hundredth anniversary of the founding of Yale University was celebrated at New Haven, Connecticut, October 20-23. Besides a throng of alumni there were present 292 delegates from 148 American and twenty-seven foreign universities and colleges. The three days were given over to oratory, pageants, and various formal. ceremonials.

In his address of welcome President Hadley laid stress on the democracy of letters. The scene in which his words were spoken lent apparent contrast to the sentiment he expressed, remarked one observer; for elaborate robes and glittering orders caught the eye. What President Hadley wished to express, however, was that these honors were open to every man who possessed the ardor and the patience of the true scholar.

President Hadley's address closed with these words: Ours be the reverence of those who have learned silence from the stars above and the graves beneath; ours the tolerance which can see a good in evil, and a hope in ill-success'; ours the earnestness which would waste no time in the discussion of differences of standpoint, but would unite us as leaders in the world's great movement toward higher standards in science and in business, in thought and in life.”

Other notable addresses were "Yale in its Relation to Law," by

Thomas Thatcher, of the New York Bar; "Yale in Letters and Science," by Doctor Daniel Coit Gilman, who had been graduated from Yale with the Class of 1852; and "Yale's Relation to the Public Service," by Justice David J. Brewer, of the Supreme Court of the United States. There were addresses, too, by Donald G. Mitchell; President Cyrus Northrop of the University of Minnesota; N. H. Welch; and there were sermons by noted clergymen. The commemorative poem was composed by Edmund Clarence Stedman.

Justice Brewer said in part: "We hear to-day many a financial and industrial leader asserting that there is no need of a college training except for the few who wish to follow a merely professional life; that the time occupied in such a training is lost to him who seeks to take part in the great industries of the day; that more wisely would it be spent in learning all the machinery and mysteries of organization and business. These assertions have a deeper significance than is ordinarily accredited to them. They are the outcry of power against equality; the challenge of the forces which seek to polish the material to those which aim at the elevation of the intellectual and spiritual. If the end of life be the mere perfection of the organization, the mere building up of colossal machines for doing work and making money, then it may be that the young man should commence as soon as possible to learn all the details of organization; all the workings of the machine. But surely the purpose of life is broader and includes the relations of the individual as well as of the organization and the machine to the larger public and to popular government.

"Here, then, is my answer to the leader of the organization. The organization may need only one trained in its workings-an always reliable cog in the machine-but the Republic needs something larger. stronger, grander-something more than a cog. It needs the educated man, and that educated man to whom organizations and individuals are simply instruments to subserve the higher interests and glory of the Republic. So it is that in these days of tremendous material activities. there is as never before the need for educational institutions filled with the spirit of devotion to the public service."

Other features of the celebration were the conferring of sixty-two honorary degrees; the rendering of an oratorio and a Greek hymn composed for the occasion by Horatio Parker; the dedication of the hand