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subjects in question were already cared for in other institutions.

It is my contention that this state of affairs is no longer tenable in the face of the present economic conditions in the United States; and there is little likelihood that the economic conditions in question will ever change for the better to a marked degree. It is my first proposal therefore that a real coöperation be instituted among our universities and colleges such as they have never had and which shall have for its object the furtherance of American higher education regarded in the large; and that this coöperation be made to result among other things in the consolidation of similar departments or of similar schools in different universities in such manner as shall conduce most fitly to effective and economical education. I do not wish to make any invidious distinctions and the examples which I have chosen to illustrate the point which I am making are chosen at random. I would ask why in all conscience the country should be asked to support so many mining engineering schools each with only a few students who are educated at very large expense? Why can't we have only eight or ten or fewer first-class mining schools in the country each having all necessary facilities and a strong faculty and supported by the resources now at the disposal of perhaps twenty or thirty such schools? These schools can be properly distributed geographically and the universities giving up mining departments will not be hurt by the renunciation since they may thus have more resources for the remaining departments which may be reinforced thereby into strong agencies receiving respect everywhere. This will tend not only to make every university particularly noted for the excellence of its teaching and research in say five or six fields, but in its general teaching it may become immeasurably more effective.

The situation in our medical schools is perhaps even more serious than that in our mining engineering and other engineering schools. The modern medical school with its hospital equipment and rigorous curricula is a highly expensive institution to conduct. Yet we have many examples of numerous rival medical colleges no one of which possesses enough income, equipment, teaching force or students to justify its independent maintenance while consolidation of two or more of them might easily make possible the proper conduct of one strong medical school which would be a credit to the profession and a blessing to the public.

Similarly I might make even a better case for the consolidation of law schools frequently existing in numbers in one and the same city, and each constantly begging for more funds for its support, yet no one of them is overburdened with numbers of students. Why not make full use of the expensive faculties we now have in our good law schools, why not make more efficient and useful their splendid and costly libraries, why not utilize to the utmost their magnificent buildings and equipment? Many of the small, inefficient law schools could be closed up and their resources combined with those of the bigger institutions with positive benefit to the schools and to the public.

Similar arguments could be made in connection with any of the professional schools or colleges of our universities. It should be noted particularly however that in the matter of schools of forestry and schools of education we have perhaps erred most grievously, because most recently, and hence when we should have known better. The demand for men in the profession of forestry is not only limited but the profession offers relatively small financial rewards. Why then we should maintain very expensive schools of forestry each with a handful of students in so many institutions of this country passes my comprehension entirely. So too the new schools.

of education furnish a good example of our constant tendency to "spread thin" instead of building deep and strong. Recently foundations have been established and others are being sought for very elaborate schools of education in the very face of admissions that the faculties in existing departments are underpaid, and of attempts to obtain large endowments for remedying that condition. How can sensible and honest people reconcile these two opposing tendencies in the same institution?

But the undesirable situation is not confined merely to schools and colleges in our universities. The smaller administrative units are in many cases subject to the treatment suggested above for colleges and schools. Such departments as those of Sanskrit, Oriental languages, Semitics, and Slavic languages might each well be limited to three or four institutions in the country where the scholarship in those fields could be concentrated and maintained at a high plane. This would mean an appreciable saving to a number of our institutions and would at the same time insure appropriate support for those departments where they do maintain. Students in any state showing special aptitude in those languages could be sent by the state from the state university to the proper institutions at smaller cost by far than that involved in the maintenance of many separate departments in all the principal universities. The theological seminaries would likewise be the gainers through such an arrangement.

It should be pointed out with all possible emphasis that not satisfied with having more departments and "schools" to support than their funds will allow, the universities keep yielding to pressure from the public to establish new "schools" and new departments. Such new burdens of course only result in aggravating an already deplorable condition. To every pressure exerted by the public to establish some new department or new "school" the university yields and thus as year follows

year it is obliged to spread more and more thinly a very nearly fixed income. The people who exert the pressure which results in this "spreading thin" process have no appreciation nor realization of the hardships to which they expose the institutions merely to gratify some influential person, or clique, or industry. Some people seem to be obsessed with the notion that everything which is learned anywhere must be represented by a department or school in the university; just why I have never been able to ascertain. Why should all forms of education be concentrated in the university? Moreover, the people who are inclined to exert most pressure to gain their object of establishing new schools or departments in the universities are the very ones who are least willing to give material assistance to those institutions. This suggests other important features of the problem of the university and the public which are not involved directly here and to which I shall address myself at another time.

It is of course obvious that under the plan proposed above many departments in our colleges and universities would have to be maintained as at present. Such subjects as those of mathematics, physics, chemistry, botany, and many others are of course indispensable to all colleges worthy of the name. They are not now properly supported, however, because of the "spreading thin" process which we have discussed. If the consolidation of colleges, schools, and departments as briefly proposed above be instituted, the funds released thereby could be made to go a long way toward furnishing the proper support for the departments remaining in each of the institutions.

I am not unaware in making this proposal that the governing authorities of the colleges and universities in this country are likely to regard the plan as impracticable and illusory. This does not deter me from making it, however, since I know but too well why they would so regard the scheme. Institutions, like the men composing

them, and for that matter like all men, are selfish. Partisan feeling and rivalries among the institutions run high for obvious reasons. It is only natural that this should be so. But I take it that one of the chief objects and missions of institutions of higher learning is to dispel so far as possible this very selfishness, narrowness, and provincialism. We of the academic spheres should be the leaders, and are expected so to be, in molding a finer spirit of coöperation, in making possible a constantly widening mental and moral horizon, in establishing the principle that every sacrifice for the common weal is well worth making. Regarded from this viewpoint there can be no insuperable obstacles to carrying into effect the plan which I propose. If we will but regard, and I plead most earnestly for such a view, the subject of American education by and large and not as standing for any creed, or sect, or class, or state, or city, we are perforce brought to admit that the principle of consolidation of schools and departments in our universities in the interests of efficient education and a better economic condition in the institutions, is perfectly sound and feasible. If we can divest ourselves of jealousies and pettiness in our relations one with another and every institution regard itself merely as one unit in a comprehensive scheme of education of the highest type for the United States, the plan proposed must appear thoroughly practicable. Everything is possible to those who will.

2. Limiting the number of students by requiring entrance examinations of all applicants. Until recent years most of the universities and colleges of this country were not overcrowded. The measurable improvement in the economic status of the laboring classes which has occurred in the last decade coupled with the comparative attractiveness of professional and technical work has impelled rapidly increasing numbers of our public school graduates to enter our institutions of

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