HIGHER EDUCATION AND THE

STATE.

H

1.-STATE AID TO HIGHER EDUCATION IN

EUROPE AND AMERICA.

IGHER EDUCATION has been promoted by the state from the early times until the present. The first university of the world was the Museum of Alexandria, supported from the public treasury under the Ptolemies.

The Museum of Alexandria had a great library, zoological gardens, a learned faculty and other equipments, all provided by the State. It performed an incalculable service to humanity by advancing science and preserving and handing down to succeeding generations the knowledge and culture of the past, and the fact that the university once existed is even to-day the chief glory of Alexandria.

State support of higher education became the policy of the Roman Empire. It was recognized that if the state would have leaders it must have trained men. "Throughout the length and breadth of the vast Roman Empire, whether at Rome, Lyons, or Athens in the west, or at Constantinople, Antioch or Alexandria in the east, higher education became the policy of the state; to cherish and strengthen it was felt

to be among the foremost duties of the emperors; to neglect it was to cripple the empire; for the power of Rome was founded largely on her superior civilization, won by the superior knowledge of her governors.'

In the middle ages there was, perhaps, no greater man than Charlemagne. His proudest title to distinction was his patronage of all the forms of higher education. His quick eye discovered that nothing would raise his Franks among surrounding people, nothing give them such lasting prominence and power, as superior culture. To-day, as of old, Charlemagne is honored as highly because he was the friend of Alcuin as because he was the first of medieval paladins. This work, begun by Charlemagne, is continued in France to-day. France maintains fifteen state universities at an annual expense to the government of about 15,000,000 francs. In addition to these universities, eleven other institutions receive in all about 2,000,000 francs.

By the promulgation of the law of 1835 the government of Belgium has actively developed and strengthened its institutions of higher learning. The government appropriated in 1891 to the state universities of Ghent and Liege the sum of $453,154. Each of these institutions has the four faculties of arts, science, law, and medicine.

EDUCATION IN SWEDEN.

Education in Sweden is chiefly an affair of the state. The universities of Upsala and Lund are both state institutions. Dr. Lagerstedt, in speaking of Swedish education, says:

"The universities of Europe generally are expected to fill certain requirements demanded by the state. The state requires from its officials and private citizens proposing to enter certain important vocations— that of medicine, for instance- that they give evidences of possessing

*J. Edward Simmons.

the knowledge and skill necessary to their special calling. Now, in some cases, the university teaching and the ordinary examinations have been considered as serving this additional public end. In other cases the universities have had to undertake the organization of courses of instruction required by the state for the purpose just mentioned, and the testing of proficiency therein by special examinations-civic or state examinations, as they may be called. This part of university work naturally has a less scientific character, it is more elementary, and the object of the examination is to ascertain that the students have attained certain fixed standards of knowledge rather than to ascertain the results of deep scientific study. The practical importance of this part of the universities' work may sometimes offer temptations subordinate to their strictly scientific work and make the higher examinations, the university examinations proper, by technicalities or regulation, too much like the civic or state examinations. The present regulations and arrangements of the Swedish universities seems to avoid this danger."

EDUCATION IN GERMANY.

The regular state appropriations to the German universities in 1891 and 1892 were $3,606,306. This amount is not exceptional. Liberality is a well established policy, and the appropriations have increased from year to year with the demands.

No better illustration of the advantages of higher education to the state need be given than the wonderful advances the German empire has made in the present century, and these advances are conceded to be due to the establishment and support by the state of her public education. This was shown in a marked way in the Franco-German War of 1870. To those systems of general training, of which higher education by the state is a part, is due the success of Germany in this war.

"The achievements of this war are not to be considered," says Charles Kendall Adams, "the mere result of a levy en