disappearance on the one hand of the last of the present anthropoids, and on the other of the lowest human races, and will leave man isolated and majestic, proclaiming himself with pride the king of creation.

Let us not blush then for our ancestors; we have been monkeys, as those formerly have been reptiles, fish, nay worms or crustaceans. But it was a long time ago, and we have grown ;-evolution I say has been very prodigal of its favors in the struggle for existence, she has given all the advantages to us. Our rivals of yesterday are at our mercy, we let those perish that displease us, we create new species of which we have need. We reign over the whole planet, fashioning things to our will, piercing the isthmus, exploiting the seas, searching the air, annulling distance, wringing from the earth her secular secrets. Our aspirations, our thoughts, our actions have no bounds. Everything pivots around us. What is there to desire more? That the future will perhaps reveal. Evolution has not said its last word.

THE STATE AND HIGHER EDUCATION.*

By HERBERT B. ADAMS, Pí. D.

This is an era of educational endowment upon a generous scale. A recently published report of Col. N. H. R. Dawson, Commissioner of Education, shows that the sum total of noteworthy educational gifts during the year 1886-'87, was nearly $5,000,000. More than two-thirds of the entire amount were distributed among nine institutions, four of them collegiate, one academic, three professional, and one technical. The institution most highly favored was Harvard University, which received from individual sources nearly $1,000,000. From one man came a legacy of $630,000. Haverford College, supported by the Society of Friends, received $700,000 in one bequest. Of the two hundred and nine gifts recorded by the Commissioner of Education, twenty-five represent $50,000 or more; seventy-two were sums between $5,000 and $49,000; and one hundred and twelve were sums less than $5,000. The most striking fact in all this record of philanthropy is that such a large proportion of the entire amount, fully two-thirds, was given to higher education. The year 1888 is richer than 1887 in individual bounty to institutions of learning. Nearly ten millions were given by three persons for the encouragement of manual training, but there are rumors of even larger benefactions for university endowment. The collective returns for 1888 are not yet published, but it is certain that the past year will surpass any hitherto recorded in the annals of American edu cation.

Whatever forms modern philanthropy may take, one thing is certain, universities are not likely to be forgotten. At the founding of the new Catholic University in Washington, Bishop Spalding said that a university is an institution which, better than anything else, symbolizes the aim and tendencies of modern life." Will not broad-minded people recognize the truth of this statement and strengthen existing foundations? Senator Hoar, at the laying of the corner-stone of the new Clark University, said, "The university is the bright consummate flower of democracy." Will not American patriots cultivate endowments made

* An address delivered before the Department of Superintendence of the National Educational Association, in the National Museum, Washington, D. C., March 8, 1889.

by the generosity of sons of the people? Are the noble gifts of Johns Hopkins for the advancement of learning, and the relief of suffering, likely to be forgotten by present or future generations? All history testifies to the gradual up-building of universities by individual benefactions. The development of European and American colleges is one long record of private philanthropy. Private philanthropy will do all it can, but public interest demands that the State should do its part.

The encouragement of higher education by government aid, in one form or another, has been a recognized principle of public policy in every enlightened state, whether ancient or modern. Older than the recognition of popular education as a public duty was the endowment of colleges and universities at public expense for the education of men who were to serve church or state. It is a mistake to think that the foundation of institutions by princes or prelates was a purely private matter. The money or the land always came from the people in one form or another, and the benefit of endowment returned to the people sooner or later. Popular education is the historic outgrowth of the higher education in every civilized country, and those countries which have done most for universities have the best schools for the people. It is an error to suppose that endowment of the higher learning is confined to Roman and German emperors, French and English kings. Crowned and uncrowned republics have pursued the same public policy. Indeed, the liberality of government towards art and science always increases with the progress of liberal ideas, even in monarchical countries like Germany, where, since the introduction of parliamentary government, appropriations for university education have greatly increased. The total cost of maintaining the Prussian universities, as shown by the reports of our Commissioner of Education is about $2,000,000 a year. Only about 9 per cent. of this enormous outlay is met by tuition fees. The state contributes all the rest in endowments and appropriations. Prussia now gives to her universities more than twice as much as she did before the Franco-Prussian war, as shown by the report of our commissioner at the Paris Exposition in 1867. In that year France gave her faculties of higher instruction only $765,764. After the overthrow of the second empire, popular appropriations for higher education greatly increased. The budget for 1888, shows that France now appropriates for college and university faculties $2,330,000 a year, more than three times the amount granted under Louis Napoleon. Despotism is never so favorable to the highest interests of edu cation as is popular government. Louis XIV, and Frederick the Great, according to the authority of Roscher, the political economist, regarded universities, like custom-houses, as sources of revenue, for the maintenance of absolute forms of government. The world is growing weary of royal munificence when exercised at the people's expense, with royal grants based upon popular benevolence and redounding to the glory and profit of the prince rather than to the folk upholding his

throne. Since the introduction of constitutional government into European states, representatives of the people are taking the power of educational endowment and subsidy into their own hands, and right royally do they discharge their duty. The little Republic of Switzerland, with a population of only three millions, supports four state uni versities, having altogether more than three hundred instructors. Its cantons, corresponding upon a small scale to our States, expend over $300,000 a year upon the higher education. The federal government of Switzerland appropriated, in 1887, $115,000 to the polytechnicum and $56,000 in subsidies to cantonal schools, industrial and agricultural; besides bestowing regularly $10,000 a year for the encouragement of Swiss art. The aggregate revenues of the colleges of Oxford, based upon innumerable historic endowments, public and private, now amount to fully $2,000,000 a year. The income of the Cambridge college endowments amounts to quite as much. But all this, it may be said, represents the policy of foreign lands. Let us look at home, and see what is done in our own American commonwealths.

Maryland began her educational history by paying a tobacco tax for the support of William and Mary College, in Virginia. This colonial generosity to another State has an historic parallel in the appropriation of a township of land by Vermont for the encouragement of Dartmouth College in the State of New Hampshire, and in the corn that was sent from New Haven to the support of young Harvard. In colonial days Maryland had her county schools, some of them classical, like King William's School at Annapolis. All were founded by authority of the colonial government and supported by aid from the public treasury. The principle of state aid to higher education runs throughout the entire history of both State and colony.

The development of Maryland colleges began on the Eastern Shore. In the year 1782, representatives of Kent County presented a petition to the legislature, saying that they had a flourishing school at Chestertown, their county seat, and wished to enlarge it into a college. The general assembly not only authorized the establishment of Washington College, which still exists, but in consideration of the fact that large sums of money had been subscribed for the institution by publicspirited citizens of the Eastern Shore, resolved that "such exertions for the public good merited the approbation of the legislature and ought to receive public encouragement and assistance." These are the very words of representatives of Maryland more than a century ago. Their deeds were even better than their words. They voted that £1,250 a year shoud be paid from the public treasury for the support of Washington College. That vote was passed just after the conclusion of a long war with England, when the State and indeed the whole country lay impoverished. Toward raising this government subsidy for higher education, the legislature granted all public receipts from marriage licenses, from liquor licenses, fines for breaking the Sabbath, and all

similar fines and licenses that were likely to be constant sources of

revenue.

The founding of St. John's College occurred two years later, in 1784. This act by the State of Maryland was also in response to a local demand. It was urged by the citizens of Annapolis that King William's School, although a classical institution, was inadequate to meet the educational demands of the age. It was very properly added that the Western Shore, as well as the Eastern, deserved to have a college; and so St. John's was established as the counterpoise of Washington College. The legislative act is almost identical with that establishing the earlier institution, although the appropriation was larger. The legislature gave St. John's 4 acres of good land for college grounds, and building sites and an annual appropriation of £1,750 current money. This sum, in the words of the original act, was to " be annually and forever hereafter given and granted as a donation by the public to the use of said college on the Western Shore to be applied by the visitors and gov ernors of the said college for the payment of salaries to the principal, professors, and tutors of said college." The establishment was to be absolutely unsectarian. Students of any denomination were to be ad mitted without religious or civil tests. Not even compulsory attendance upon college prayers was required so modern were the legisla tive fathers of Maryland.

The next step in the higher educational history of Maryland was the federation of the two colleges into the University of Maryland. The two boards of visitors and two representatives of each faculty constituted the University Convocation, presided over at Annapolis on commencement day by the governor of the State, who was ex officio chancellor of the University. One of the college presidents acted as vicechancellor. Thus more than a century ago Maryland inaugurated a State system of higher education which, if it had been sustained, would have given unity and vigor to her academic life. But unfortunately, in 1794, the legislature yielded to county prejudices and withdrew £500 from the £1,250 annually granted to Washington College and began to establish a fund, the income of which was distributed among various county academies on both shores of the Chesapeake. This was the origin of the subsidies still given in one form or another to secondary institutions in the State of Maryland. In 1805, the remaining appro priation of £750 belonging to Washington College and the entire £1,750 thitherto granted to St. John's College were withheld for the avowed purpose of "disseminating learning in the different counties of the State."

For six years there was a famine in the land as regards the support of higher education. At last in 1811, the legislature resumed appropriations to St. John's College. Realizing that it had misappropriated to local uses subsidies "granted annually forever" to St. John's, the legislature endeavored for many years to compromise by giving a smaller allowance.