"an American Educational

The article that follows taken from the Forum is being quite extensively republished by the press of the country. "The University of Michigan was founded as early as 1817. The charter implied one of the broadest and most radical educational programs ever conceived. It discarded all those elements that stood in the way of making common and higher schools a unit. It adopted the idea that higher education, as mach as that of the common schools, was an affiür of the state. It enacted that the university should be sustained by taxation. A UXIFIKD SECULAR SYSTEM. It was not till 1870, however, that Michigan connected all the high-schools of the state to the university, admitting their graduates to the university exactly as secondary schools received as pupils graduates of the primaries. So it came about at last that one state had a completely unified secular system of instruction, reaching by natural gradation from the lowest schools to the university. This university was the crown and bond of all the rest. The plan adopted by Michigan has been followed by one after another of the newer formed states, until there now exist state universities from Virginia to California. They have in a few cases surpassed their example, particularly in having more completely affiliated scattered colleges as wellas common schools. IT WAS THO-MAS JEFFERSON's PLAS. The Michigan system is Jefferson's educational plan completed. It seems to have been very nearly what he hoped for when he labored to créate a uuiversity of his native state. OLD FASIIIONED CHURCH COLLEGES, ETC. In England the colleges were established by the church for the church. AVhen church power began to wane in political and educational affairs, too many oíd and rival institutions existed to allow any one of them to become the specific state institution and the head of secular education. Most of our eastern states still have colleges and universities scattered about, without relation to each other; each striving to build its own influence, more or less at its neighbor's expense. New York and other middle states each followed the New England policy. Every college arrose as the organ of some church policy, or was considered in some way as affiliated with a religious sect. But the drift for about a third of a century has been to loosen ecclesiastical influence. The problem is most difficult iü states where, ignoring existing institutions of rank, the legislatures undertook to créate universities, de novo, by edict. The result has been state universities that luive had to elbow their way with universities not of the state, but equally entitlcd to be, and in nowise likely to be hid under a legislative bushel. These are, in some cases, as honestly entitled to state patronage as the creatures of the state. AN .AFFILIATION OF ALL COLLEGES. The aifiliation of all colleges and universities that are non-sectarian, or are willing to become such, wouldbe a wiser course. In a few of the older states, however, circumstances have elevated a single college to a rank equivalent to a state institution. Yet in a few of these cases have the states adopted a college, and made it systematically a recipiënt of public taxes. THE WEALTHIEST IN NEED OP HELP. The present system leaves all our colleges in need of support. So vast are strides of education in methods that it is impossible even for the wealthiest institutious to keep pace with the advance. Meanwhile what can be said of the smaller, and in some cases older and more renowned colleges ? Simply that they exist on the generous self-sacrifice of their undergraduates and patrons. What, then, are we to do with our colleges that have been left in the rear, that can never hope to do work of this ad vaneed type ? Our youth demand an education up to the tirnes. They kuow well that in a large and well endowed institution they can secure advantages not possible in a sin all college with an income of $25,000 a year. SMALL COLLEGES WILL GROW SMALLER. The small college will grow smaller, relatively if not actuallj'. It may sustain a semblance of life. It will do so only if able and willing to reach out into that sphere of studies and research which you distinctively pass over to the universities. As a consequence there is no line of demarcation betvveen our colleges and universities. It is true only that sonie of them do more university work than others. TRANSFER FROM CHURCII TO STATE. There is but one outcome for this confusión. The transfer of our older educational system from church to state must be completed. There is no good reason why it should not be. The system existing in the newer states is rational and bas been naturally eyolved. It grades from the lowest upvvard, and points to a national university to be. Our own scattered colleges, now "undenominationalized," if not secularized, can be gathered into groups and unified. BREACH OF SPIRIT AND METIIOD. The breach of common schools and colleges or classical schools bas been not only in organic relation : but, as a consequence, there has been a breach of spirit and method. The colleges, untouched by the popular life, have remained more mediseval in temper and in curriculum. On the other hand the lower schools have suffered from the same alienation, but in another way. Secondary education has been diyerted from pointing right onward toward higher education, and rests contented with arrested developmeut. A WOXDERFUL INCREASE. The recent increase of high schools from 500 to 5,000 is only to increase a state of affairs that ought not to exist at all. The Committee ot Ten has endeavored to reach down the classic method, and interlink the college curriculum with that of high schools. But it is questionable whether the popular modern spirit of the common schools is not still more needed in the colleges. CLASSICS MUST YIlil.T). I see no way for harmony in our school system but for the classics to yield ground to the extent that, while language is pressed back somewhat upon the common schools, science is accepted more fully as the real soul of a wise culture in our colleges. Finally it will be possible to créate a national university in its most perfect sense only as we have our state systems completely graded and unified. A NATIONAL UNIVERSITY WILL DO IT. Politically, America is rnarvelously one. Federalism became possible, however, only because there was a similarity of state organizations. Education remanís largely inchoate and fragmentary because of state idiosyncrasies or neglect. To complete an American educational system will be the glory of our age. We cannot defer the work without great waste, perhaps disaster. - ia