ances.

There are a score or more of denominational colleges in every Western State. These were founded by the churches, in the pioneer days, as instruments for denominational upbuilding. For long years they were the only schools with any pretense to advanced grade in the West; and they are always to be regarded with sympathy and spoken of with respect. Some of them, of which Oberlin (1833), in Ohio; Illinois (Jacksonville, 1829); Knox (Galesburg, 1837), in Illinois; Beloit (1843), in Wisconsin; Iowa (Grinnell, 1847), in lowa; and Colorado (Colorado Springs, 1847), in Colorado, are perhaps the best types, have been able to adjust themselves to the new conditions which have been brought about by the filling up of the country and by the educational advance, have been content to do college work well, have gathered considerable endowments, and have become so influential and so much beloved as to be assured of strong and useful futures; and all lovers of learning rejoice with them in the fact. Some of them, with no abatement of the spirit of Christianity, have laid aside the denominational garb in order to attract the support of wider constituencies. But a larger number of the denominational colleges have been unable to cope with or adjust themselves to the educational evolution of recent decades. Some of them are doing work which, in quality and in quantity, is below the grade of good high schools. Their churches are being enjoined, as a Christian duty, to give what they are unable to give to their support, when all that these schools are doing, and much more, is being better done than they can hope to do it by the ordinary schools and the publicly supported institutions of their States. Of course it will be said that the denominations are unwilling to educate their youth except under denominational supervision; that it is a matter of faith and cannot be departed from. The merits of that subject cannot be discussed here, but it is not too much to say that the logic of events has proved that the inevitable trend of American sentiment is strongly against that position.

The logic of events is abundantly exemplified in the munificent provision for a public high school in every city, village, or sparsely settled township, and particu

university movement in the West.

There has been no movement undertaken by our democracy so significant and encouraging as that which has resulted in the great State universities of the Central and Western States. The sentiment which supports it is practically universal. No people have ever before carried forward such a movement on any similar scale. In the early days Massachusetts and Connecticut and New York and New Jersey gave substantial aid to Harvard and Yale and Columbia and Princeton, but without any idea of becoming responsible for their permanent support and management. The common thought as to the functions of government touching education would not permit more than State aid and encouragement to a university in the colonial days, or even in the earlier years of the more perfect Union." The advance of the Republic created the need and the breaking of the great West opened the way for a new educational order of things. The pioneers built for the future. They were proud to commence new movements and to lay broad foundations. They believed that government should stand for the progress as well as for the mere security of the people, and they were only too glad to struggle and sacrifice in the hope that their children would fare better than they.

Out of this came provisions for people's universities in the Constitutions of many of the new States, and an actual university supported and managed by every State west of New York and Pennsylvania. Such universities were founded in Indiana in 1820, in Michigan in 1837, in Missouri in 1840, in Iowa in 1847, in Wisconsin in 1848, in Kansas in 1866, in Illinois and California in 1868, in Minnesota and Nebraska in 1869, in Ohio in 1870, and in Colorado in 1877. And in practically every case a university has developed to a plane not reached by the oldest and strongest institutions of the country a single generation ago, and not attained by more than a bare half-dozen now.

That common methods are being followed is found in the fact that a conference of the Presidents of ten of these universities was recently held at the University of Illinois. President Adams, of Wisconsin, and Chancellor Snow, of Kansas,

accustomed to participate in such conferences, were not present because of illness and the need of rest. These twelve universities enjoyed the last year an income of $3,421,992, representing the proceeds of an invested capital of more than $80,000,000. They had 190 buildings upon their campuses. They employed 1,800 teachers, and instructed 23,000 students. They had more than 700,000 volumes in their libraries. At their recent commencements they conferred something like 3,500 degrees, the University of Michigan alone conferring more than 700. Illinois Legislature at its recent session appropriated $909,000 to the State University—a sum, as since stated by President Angell, of Michigan, larger than ever before raised by general taxation and given at one time by a State to an educational institutional.

The

which challenges thorough study are grouped in separate colleges, schools, or departments, with the necessary libraries and laboratories and farms and shops for their most practical and effective prosecution.

In all these universities there is a complete military organization in charge of a United States Army officer, and no one of them is without a military band and an orchestra, a choral society and glee clubs and quartets, an athletic field and "teams" without number, social and literary clubs, Greek letter fraternities galore, men's and women's Christian associations, and all the other acquisitions of modern university life.

The relations between the State universities and the public high schools are direct and close. The universities receive students upon examination, but they also have a system of accrediting high schools which is peculiar to the West. The uni

In some States the State universities are united with the agricultural and mechanical colleges resulting from the National Land Grant acts, while in others they are maintained separately. In either case, the common sentiment of the people supports the purpose of the universities to enter every field of scientific research and intellectual activity. Ancient and modern languages and literatures, rhetoric and oratory, history and philosophy, economics and sociology and ethics, pedagogy and psychology, music and sketching and painting, mathematics, the earth and air and water and sky and life sciences, medicine and pharmacy and dentistry, law in every phase of the science, agriculture and horticulture, the breeding of wheat and corn as well as of animals, dairying and home-making, architecture, civil engineering, electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, municipal and sanitary engineering, railway engineering, mining engineering, library science, physical training, and every other interest

courses of work and the teaching—by faculty committees, or, now, more commonly by an officer called the High School Visitor, and, upon approval, receive their graduates without examination. This aids the high school, for it is held to reflect upon one if it is not upon the accredited list of the university. The Eastern universities are inclined to scoff at this, but it will be surprising if they are not doing the same thing before many years. Of course some students get into the universities who cannot sustain themselves, or who need some "jacking up," but it is better so than it is to keep students out of college who want to go and who cannot fit into the precise grooves of an examination set by persons knowing little of their work and nothing of their resources. The remark is often passed among Western students, inspired by information gained from their friends who are or have been in Eastern institutions, that it is easy to get into and hard to get out of a Western university, while, if it is difficult to get into an Eastern university, one who does so may feel sure of getting through. This indicates a real difference of sentiment East and West. The feeling that every one shall have his chance, that the ability to do the work is the only legitimate test of the right to be in college, is stronger in the West than in the East. It may be

true that more students fail than where more precise preparation is exacted, but it is also true that native resourcefulness has broader opportunity and that the universities come into closer relations with all classes of the people.

All classes are represented in the great student bodies of the State universities, but the middle class predominates overwhelmingly. There are few representatives of very wealthy homes, yet the social gatherings draw out claw-hammer coats and party gowns in numbers already large and so steadily growing that apprehensions of the coming of the dude are beginning to show themselves. There are some who find it necessary to "work their way," and if they do it and sustain themselves in their university work they uniformly gain the respect they deserve for it. There is no discussion of the merits of co-education, and no isolated woman's college in the university group. Young men and young women work side by side in class-rooms and laboratories, they play together upon the athletic field, they attend social gatherings in company, withlittle in the way of regulations which is not self-imposed, and with the very best results. Comradeship between faculty and students is free and helpful to both. Life is free and genuine and natural and earnest, the sentiment of the campus is wholesome, the work is severe, and the semester examinations are inexorable.

Three names are by common consent deserving of first mention in connection with the upbuilding of the State university system in the Middle West. They are those of President James B. Angell, of the University of Michigan, President Charles Kendall Adams, of the University of Wisconsin, and President Cyrus Northrop, of the University of Minnesota. Under their wise administration three great universities have grown up, but their work is not limited by State boundaries, for it has made marks upon the history of the Mississippi Valley which are deep and will be lasting.

An Eastern man is likely to inquire about the part which politics plays in the administration of the State universities. It plays no part. The matter at the

Kansas Agricultural College some years ago was much magnified, but served a good purpose. There is no State college or university of any standing that is not wholly free from political or other domination, and nothing is clearer than that the people intend to have it so.

There are several universities growing up in the West on private and philanthropic foundations which are so broad and deep as to give promise that they will become great. They have already come to be well known. Among these, Western Reserve University at Cleveland, Northwestern University at Evanston, and Washington University at St. Louis are well deserving of mention. Leland Stanford Junior University, of California, rests upon foundations too heavy to be shaken by any momentary episode, and President Jordan is too stanch a man to be seriously disturbed by loose criticism based upon incomplete information. The University of Chicago is a marvelously stalwart institution, whether or not we recall that it is but ten years old. The splendid advance it has made testifies alike to the generosity of Mr. Rockefeller and his associates in giving, and to the versatility and geniality and tireless energy of President Harper. It is agreeable to note that the munificent benefactions which have made Stanford and Chicago universities possible, and the strong lead these institutions have taken, have clearly done much to incite the people of California and Illinois to increased interest and heavier investments in their own universities.

The higher institutions of learning in the West have come to know very well that the advance of each strengthens all. Relations are cordial, and all seem to be working effectually together to stimulate the secondary schools and exert a decisive and ennobling influence upon the life of the people. The age is one which will be distinguished by the diffusion of the higher learning, by its much wider applications to the daily life and institutions of the people; and it may be confidently believed that time will show abundantly that the people of the Central and Western States have borne a notable and an honorable part to that great end.