The New York herald., 1874-08-24
Our Educ tfonal Institutions-What
They Are and What They Should

Dy the beecner-Iaiton controversy has not
diverted the attention of serious men from the
question of national university and the re-
quiremen's of higher education in the United
States. Leaving to future occasion to dis
cuss thoroughly the whole matter of secondary
education, and for both sexes, we shall state
here that there is one respect in which the
seemingly antagonistc views of Presidents
Eliot and White can be reconciled. For, un-
questionably, there are certain great central
schools, which Congress alone can and ought
to establish, to endow and to encourage by every
msans in its power 1t is the duty and the
interest, as we conceive it, of both the fed
eral and the State governments to encourage
devotion in founding and carrying on
higher education, interfering only to check
abuses and perfect and develop the precious
elements OF good that exist in every State in
the Union. How this encouragement is to be
dealt out and this interference wisely tenn
pered we shall soon have occasion to show.
We now come to the pressing need of the
hour demanding the action of Congress and
the co-operation of the State Legislatures.
We do not want national university in the
strict sense of the word university" and
embracing the universally of science and art,
theology, philosophy, jurisprudence, medicine,
pure and applied mathematics, history. litera-
ture, philology &c. Such an institution, en-
bracing such range acknowledge, in country
like ours with population differing so widely
in religious belief, would not be possible.
But what is possible, what is most urgent,
is the foundation of great central schools of
science and art, such as exist in France Our
country opens to engineering, mining, archi-
lecture, agriculture, manufacture and all
the useful arts field so illimitable that it is
marvellous that the thought Of founding pre-
paratory schools for these various pursuits has
never entered into the heads of our legislators
Surely it is time that we had institutions
like the Polytechnic School in Paris, like the
Central School of Mining Ecole Certrale des
Mines), of Engineering (Ecoe des Points ct
Chdassees), and Of Arts and Trades Ecole
Centrale des Arts ct Mstiers), as we'll as one
which corresponded with the Ecole Normac
Ssperieure, where masters and mistresses and
directors for all the most efficient schools in
France are trained to perfection, without re-
gard to expense. Congress wisely takes care
of its naval and military academies. We could
wish that the conditions of admission to these
were made far more stringent, so as to secure
a higher grade both of talent and proficiency,
and that the final examinations were such as
to secure an Incompatible superiority for every
officer wearing the uniform of the United
States. But that is not now our concern.
| We are concerned with the great central
| schools from which our engineers, our miners
and chemists, our architects and builders, our
manufacturers, machinists and artisans should
60 forth to develop the splendid resources of
our country. In these, too, our scientific
men in every department would be thoroughly
trained, and in their well endowed professor
ships there would be a sure reward for su-
perior scientific genius and culture Who
does not see that such institutions are urgently
needed, and that they ought to be national?
Their establishment would not interfere
with Cornell or Harvard or Yale. On the con-
trary, to these central schools of theoretical
and applied science Yale and Harvard and
Cornell would be the first to send the elite of
their own young professors, who would thence
return to their Alma Matters with tenfold
power for inculcating knowledge and advanc-
ing it.
1t is not the province of public journal to
sketch in detail the measures necessary for
realizing the above national schools one and
all. We can only point out their necessity
and their possibility and urge the subject on
the attention of the representatives of the
people in Congress. Nor should we separate
from the idea of these national schools of
science and useful art that of a national school
of fine arts. In every part of the Union
new cities are springing up yearly, and the
old cities are enlarging their limits. But
it is notorious that we are the prey
Of architects who know nothing of the true
theory of their art, and of builders who care
nothing about the solidity or the safety Of
what they construct. 1t is high time, then,
that the national government should open
central school of the fine arts in which true
architects would be formed, not servile copy
lists of Old World designs and edifces, but
men educated to look to the purpose for which
every building is reared, and who, uniting
the knowledge of the engineer with that of
the builder, will have practical acquaint-
ance with the materials they use as well as
with the requirements of our varied climate.
It will be time when such schools are in
operation for the various State Legislatures
to enact laws preventing any man from prac-
tising the public profession of engineer, or
architect, or builder, or superintendent Of
buildings, who has not taken out his degree
in the national school. We say nothing of
painting and sculpture-they are subsidiary
to architecture.
What is here said Of architects should also
be made true of the EberaI r,rofessiops of Iau