nurture the germ from which a great university might grow, has been the aspiration of many a patriot, of many a Christian. It was a laureate of both Harvard and Yale, the sagacious Manasseh Cutler, who initiated the policy of securing in the States beyond the Alleghanies a certain portion of the public lands for the foundation of universities. Among the pioneers of California was one who went from New England "with college on the brain," and now every ship which enters the Golden Gate faces the buildings of a university which Henry Durant did much to establish.

The history of higher education as guided by the two oldest foundations in this country may be considered in four periods: in the first, extending from the earliest settlement until the Revolution, the English college idea was dominant in its simplest form; the second, following the severance of allegiance to the crown, was the time when professional schools in medicine, law, and theology were begun; the third, beginning about the middle of this century, was marked by the formation of scientific schools; and in the present period we are looking for the fulfilment of the university idea brought hither by the earliest immigrants from England.

The colonial vocabulary was modest. Whatever else it might be, "university" seemed a very great noun, to be used as guardedly as "episcopacy" or "sovereignty." In the earliest mention I remember of the cradle of Harvard, the alternative is found, "a school or colledge"; and in Connecticut "collegiate school" was in vogue for seventeen years. "We on purpose gave your academy as low a name as we could, that it might the better stand in wind and weather," said the well-known civilians who were consulted in 1701 by Pierpont and his colleagues at the mouth of the Quinnipiac. Elsewhere, under other influences, there was not the same caution-nor the same success. Several years before the settlement of Massachusetts Bay the Virginia Company determined to set apart, at Henrico, ten thousand acres of land for "a university,' including one thousand for a college "for the children of the infidels." There was another project for a university, as early as 1624, which has lately been brought to light. Dr. E. D. Neill, in "Virginia Vetusta," calls attention

to the fact that an island in the Susquehanna, which the traveler may see to the north as he crosses the railroad bridge at Havre de Grace, was conditionally given for "the foundinge and maintenance of a universitie, and such schools in Virginia as shall there be erected, and shall be called Academia Virginiensis et Oxoniensis." The death of the projector, Edward Palmer, interrupted his plans.

Mr. Dexter has established the fact that before 1647 nearly a hundred graduates of English universities had migrated to New England, three-fourths of whom were from Cambridge; and the elaborate volumes of Mullinger exhibit in great fulness the conditions of collegiate and university life as they were known to these Cambridge wanderers in the earlier half of the Seventeenth century. It is evident that the university idea was then subordinate to the collegiate; logic was riding a high horse; science and literature, as then represented by mathematics and Greek, were alike undervalued. An anecdote recorded by Mullinger reveals at a glance the situation. "Seth Ward, having lighted on some mathematical works in the library of Sidney, could find no one to interpret them. The books, says his biographer, were Greek-I mean unintelligible to all the fellows.' The spirit of observation, experiment, and research was rarely apparent; discipline by masters and tutors took precedence of the inspiration of professors.

When we consider this origin, still more when we recall the poverty of the colonists, and especially when we think of the comprehensiveness of the university ideal, even in the Seventeenth century, it is not strange that, before the Revolution, American colleges were colleges and nothing more. Even degrees were only conferred in the faculty of arts. In 1774, when Governor Hutchinson was discussing colonial affairs in Lord Dartmouth's office, Mr. Pownall asked if Harvard was a "university," and if not, on what pretense it conferred degrees. Hutchinson replied 'that they had given Masters' and Bachelors' degrees from the beginning; and that, two or three years ago, out of respect to a venerable old gentleman they gave him a Doctor's degree, and that the next year, or next but one, two or three more were made Doctors.

After

so long usage he thought it would be hard to disturb the college."

It is a significant fact that at the beginning of the Revolution, in 1776, George Washington was made a Doctor of Laws at Harvard, and at its close, in 1783, John Warren a Doctor of Medicine. From that time on there was no hesitation in the bestowal of degrees in other faculties than that of arts.

I need not rehearse the steps by which the schools of medicine, law, and theology were added to the college, cautiously, indeed (as outside departments, which must not be allowed to draw their support from the parent trunk), and yet permanently. It is a noteworthy fact that the example of Harvard and Yale in establishing theological schools has rarely been followed in other places, even where schools of law, medicine, and science have been established. It is enough to add that professional education was organized during the first thirty or forty years of this century, in a much less orderly way than that in which the colleges were instituted.

The third period in the development of higher education was the recognition of the fact that, besides the three traditional professions, a multitude of modern vocations require a liberal training. In consequence of this came scientific schools, often, at first, adjacent to the classical colleges, yet sometimes on independent foundations, many of these schools being aided by the national provision for technical instruction.

We are now fairly entered upon the fourth period, when more attention than ever before will certainly be given to the idea of the university—an idea long dormant in this country. The second decennium of this century was but just begun when a university was chartered in Maryland; and before it closed, the first of the Western universities, endowed by a gift of the public lands, was organized in the county and town of Athens, Ohio, precursor of the prosperous foundation in Michigan, and of like institutions in other parts of the old Northwestern territory. Early in this century Americans had frequently gone abroad for medical and scientific training, but between 1820 and 1830 many turned their eyes to Germany for historical and philological study; and the line which began with Everett,

Ticknor, Bancroft, and Woolsey has been unbroken to this day. Through these returning wanderers, and through the importation from Germany, England, and Switzerland of foreigners distinguished as professors,-Lieber and Beck, Sylvester and Long, Agassiz and Guyot, and their compeers, the notion of a philosophical department of a university, superior to a college, independent of and to some extent introductory to professional schools, has become familiar. But the boldest innovation, and the most influential, was the work of one whose name is perpetually associated with the Declaration of Independence and the University of Virginia. It was in 1826 that his plans assumed form and introduced to the people of this country, not without some opposition, the free methods of Continental universities, and especially of the University of France.

Thus, as years have rolled on, the word "university," at first employed with caution, has been reiterated in so many connections that it has lost its distinctive significance, and a special plea must be made for the restoration to its true sovereignty of the noblest term in the vocabulary of education. Notions injurious and erroneous are already abroad. Poor and feeble schools, sometimes intended for the destitute, beg support on the ground that they are universities. The name has been given to a school of arts and trades, to a school of modern languages, and to a school in which only primary studies are taught. Not only so, but many graduates of old and conservative institutions, if we may judge from recent writings, are at sea. There are those who think that a university can be made by so christening it; others who suppose that the gift of a million is the only requisite; it is often said that the establishment of four faculties constitute a university; there is a current notion that a college without a religion is a university, and another that a college without a curriculum is a university. I have even read in the newspapers the description of a building which "will be, when finished, the finest university in the country"; and I know of a school for girls the trustees of which not only have the power to confer all degrees, but may designate a board of lady managers possessing the same powers.

Surely it is time for the scholars of the country to take their bearings. In Cambridge, the anniversary so soon to be celebrated will not be allowed to pass without munificent contributions for most noble ends; the president of Yale College, who this day assumes his high office with the unanimous plaudits of Yalensians, is the representative of the university idea based upon academic traditions; the voice of Princeton, like a herald, has proclaimed its purposes; Cornell has succeeded in a litigation which establishes its right to a large endowment; the Secretary of the Interior has commended to Congress the importance of a national university, and a bill has been introduced looking toward such an establishment; the Roman Catholic Church, at its recent council in Baltimore, initiated measures for a university in the capital of the nation; while on the remotest borders of the land the gift of many millions is assured for promoting a new foundation. Already in the Mississippi Valley men are laboriously unfolding their lofty ideals. It is therefore a critical time. Wise plans will be like good seed; they will spring up and bear fruit a hundredfold. Bad plans will be like tares growing up with the wheat, impossible to eradicate.

It is obvious that the modes of organization will vary, so that we shall have many different types of universities. Four types have already appeared: those which proceed from the original historic colleges; those established in the name of the State; those avowedly ecclesiastical; and those which are founded by private benefactions. Each mode of organization has advantages which may be defended, each its limitations. If the older colleges suffer from traditions, the younger lack experience and historic growth. The State universities are liable to political mismanagement; ecclesiastical foundations are in danger of being narrow.

Under these circumstances, I ask you to consider the characteristics of a university, the marks by which it should be distinguished. It is needless before this audience to repeat the numerous definitions which have been framed, or to rehearse the brilliant projects which have been formed by learned, gifted men; but it will not be amiss to recall some of the noble aims which have always