The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-10-30
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 80, 1881
OUR UNIVER,SITY AND OTHER
UNIVERSITIES.


TIE reason why the great colleges of Europe
are so far in advance of our colleges is doubt
less attributable to the fact that they enjoy a
greater amount of popular sympathy than
ours do. The reason why they enjoy such
sympathy is because they can command it.
The history of every successful college, either
in this country or abroad, will show that its
success is due to faithful fulfilment of re-
ciprocal obligations between the public on
the one hand and the college on the other.
No college, be it never so well endowed, can
meet the constantly increasing demands of
education without steady increase of reve-
nue.. and no public will consent to be
a source of revenue to college if the fruits
of former outlays be trifing or insignificant
Education like everything else, is matter of
business. We contribute year after year to
enrich and strengthen a good bank, because
we have confidence in its directors and be-
lieve it to be an advantage to ourselves and
the community in general; we support a good
college for precisely the same reason. A very
modest capital will be sufficient foundation
for safe bank, provided always that business
is transacted within the limits of the capital
and every promise to pay be promptly hon
ored; and a very modest endowment will be
sufficient for foundation for safe college,
provided brains are behind it and every
promissory note of education be promptly
taken up. The reason why so
many American colleges have failed to attain
the end which their establishment looked to,
is because these reciprocal duties have never
been faithfully observed. With three or four
notable exceptions, our public has regarded
all collegiate enterprises with distrust or, what
is still worse, cold indifference; and, in their
turn, these colleges have found themselves
free from the sympathetic and watchful eyes
of the public, and dependent, to a great
degree, upon fees of tuition. What else could
come of such unnatural relations than abor-
tive universities, inefficient in their discipline
and injurious to their alumni? We need not go
out of Pennsylvania toprove that our system of
college education is in need of a speedy and
thorough reform. Our State is wilderness
of half endowed, half supported, and half
operative universities, some of which have
been struggling for bare existence these hun
dred years. So far as the fault lies with our
people, we think it should be acknowledged and
corrected. An opportunity is now about to
present itself which may, and we hope WILL
inaugurate a new state of things.
The friends of the University of Pennsyl-
vania are again about to urge its claims be-
fore Councils, with some reasonable prospect
of success We earnestly hope that the vote
on both sides will be more intelligently cast
than the vote in June. We submit that those
by whom a decision so fraught with interest
to every Philadelphian is to be finally rem
dered, should investigate for themselves as to
the merit and efficiency of the college which
demands this favor at their hands, and so cast
conscientious ballots for or against the mea-
sure. We would not be sorry to see the vote
deferred until after the college examinations in
December, to which, as we understand, the
public is invited To attend these exami-
nations should be the fixed purpose of every
member of Select Council who is in doubt
how to give his voice and influence in the
Almshouse purchase, and the purpose, as
well, of every citizen who desires to see our
University firmly and rightfully established.
The public is invited freely, and the public
ought to go. In justice to the college and
in Justice to ourselves we should make our
selves fully acquainted with the internal dis
cipline of an institution which educates, or
ought to educate, our children. If the Uni
versity of Pennsylvania is solid and
useful, we cannot understand why it should
not receive the needful help it asks; if it is
anything else, surely nothing is easier than to
prove it in the way we have stated We urge
upon our citizens this plain duty. If we have
indeed and in truth University of Pennsyl-
vania no sacrifice is too great to cherish and
protect it; if we have not, it is high time we
had, and the sooner we make one the better.