The daily morning journal and courier., 1903-06-23


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 The thing which I would recommend is the establishment, at the foremost | institutions of learning in the United States, numbering perhaps twenty-five in all-nOrth, south, east and west-Of ' sundry professorships and scholarships bearing directly upon public affairs.
 1. First of all, I would establish, in each of these institutions, a professor | ship and at least two fellowships in | Comparative Legislation. Various countries have made beginning in this l already. The most notable example perhaps was when Laboulaye was call ed to such a professorship in the Col lege of France at Paris. His lectures marked an epoch, and they did much to make up for the depressing influence upon political morality exercised by the l Second Empire. As one who attended l his courses of instruction, can testify l that nothing could work more strongly and healthfully upon the minds of thinking young men than his presenta- tion, not only of legal ideals, but of practical courses of action based on his studies of the best that had been done in other countries and in his own coun- | try at various epochs. Looking at the problem as it stands to-day, it would seem that nowhere would professors and students in this field be supplied | with such abundant material for l thought and work, or encouraged by such certainty of fruitful results as in our own country. To say nothing of | the legislation of so many other con | stitutional countries, which is open for study to an American professor, he has in our own land, not only our national | legislature, but some forty-five state l legislatures, constantly working at the solution of every sort of practical prob lem in government. Here, in the ef forts of all these legislative bodies, can he study, near at hand, as in no other country, all sorts of attempts to solve | the problems of government, from the | most crude to the most subtle, from the most wise to the most farcical. The l endowment of professorships and fel- l lOWships at So many centers, to which there would be attatched the duty of l studying the best solutions arrived at in all these legislatures, foreign and domestic, could not fail to have most l happy influence. At present, the in- struction in all our law schools is in answer to the question, what our law is. The instruction which I propose should answer the question, what our law ought to'be.
 l 2. And now to my second proposal. Beside the improvement of law, there is needed an improvement of institu- tions; and for this purpose I would es- | tablish, in our more important unfver- sities, to the number of say twenty or twenty-five, professorships and fellow ships of Comparative Administration.
 Look at the problem as it presents itself in it's simplest form. Here are S0,000, ,000-and soon to me 1000 G00-of the most active-minded and energetic people in the world. The number of it's combinations for every purpose seems | infinite There are not merely state, county, city and village organizations, but institutions dealing with pauper- ism, inebriety, lunacy, feebleness of mind, incipient crime, chronic crime, and beside these an innumerable num- Der of minor corporations, combina- tions and arrangements bearing upon the public welfare. What some of them are, our newspapers tell us from time 10 time to our shame, as recently in various articles devoted to the state of Delaware and the cities of Minne- apolis, St. Louis and Pittsburg. Some other organizations are, no doubt hap py in their methods and admirable in their results; but the room for irr1- provement still remains large.
 Coming to his third proposition MT. | White referred to an improvement al- ready begun and which shows admira- ble fruits, viz, the establishment on a large and broad scale in the leading universities throughout the union of professorships and fellowships in Inter- national Law. In this connection he paid fine tribute to the late President l Woolsey, by whom more than any other since Henry Wheaton International Law has been brought to bear on American students both as a means of culture and as an aid in patriotic en- deavor.
 Mir Whites next proposal was that there be established at the leading uni versailles of the country professorships and fellowships for the History of Civ- lization and that there be knit into them obligatory instruction in Political Ethics.
 5. And now, as the fifth and final fea- ture in this group of studies, would suggest professorships and fellowships for the History of the United States. Many years ago, a Berlin professor, in my hearing, secuted the idea that a History of the United States could be written at that time or for centuries to come. To his mind, American his- tory was the record of a squalid Tyre and Sidon, the annals of fanatics and shopkeepers-or say rather, of beasts of prey more ignob1e than Milton's kites and crows. The evnts of the last forty years have ended that view they have revealed American history as a subject suggesting innumerable trains of fruitful thought.
 Dr. White said he would have two counsels of perfection, which would consist of literature and art. He dilat- ed at some length on this part of his subject, then personally addressing his classmates he recounted the wonderful things wrought and discovered by man since their day of graduation. "Now," ha ooDn1u1a6 tt1at tha first half of thn