New-York tribune., 1905-08-26
.Nesv- York as an Education Centre.
Accomplished Recently Direction



:.ssitutions of higher learning, whose combined
.,u.nber of students aggregates 1O,45S young
--ea and women. and whose total wealth is esti-
NJ ted at 50O00O00.
a this work of university expansion New
= ,~:l has accomplished results with its charac-
..istic energy and masterfuness. Unlike Yale
Z Harvard, any other of the great UNIVERSE
IS of the United States, the three chief educa-
,,onal institutions of this city have grown not
- putting forth one branch after another, not
~ adding building after building, but by tax
ing flying jumps to new environments, by abah-
a. ming old quarters which they had outgrown
"a reconstructing themselves in new dwelling
i4ces Indeed, the greatest institution of the
three Columbia University has been built three
t..nss in many places.
Tear down and build greater is the maxim
G the New-York business man; and so it is of
&c New-York educator One sees the same rule
cxemplfed in the destruction of the old brick
and brownstone buildings of lower Broadway
10 make room for vast skyscrapers, and in the
cemohtion of Columbia's old nome in Madison
ave- and the erection of the splendid edifices of
- new abode Morningside Heights.
And although New York, because of its great
commercial growth has come to be regarded by
many who live in quieter regions as 'mere
trading post" the same when it was founded
more than two and half centuries ago, it has
IL fact been able to provide schools OF higher
learning which in their scope and in the num-
asr of those who taking advantage of them
a.2 unrivaIled by any city in America.
The University of New-York was the first OF
,ao three institutions to which reference has
been made to step into this broader life In
tC94 it's undergraduate departments
owed from the handsome but draughty old
luiIding on Washington Square to the airy
plateau of Morris Heights, one of the most beau
>ifCl regions in the whole of the greater city.
Hero tract of twenty-four acres, situated
on a bluff overhangng the eastern bank OF the
Harlem River, at an elevation of 1I5 feet, appro-
,rriato and commodious buildings have been
erected in a park Of newly planted trees and
shrubs
Although Columbia University, the Oldest
v-ealthiest and largest Of the higher educational
Institutions of the city the first to plan
move uptown and had bought land on Morning
side Heights as long ago as 1892, it did not es
tabsh itself in it's new home until 1897. Until
that time it had been housed for forty years i'll
quarters in Madison-ave., between 49th and 50th
sts having gone thither from its original home
in Park Place Columbias new site consists of
six city blocks or about twenty-six acres. and on
It buildings have been erected scale of
grandeur which renders them fifty representa-
tive of the metropolis.
The College of the City of New-York, in the
same way is now abandoning old quarters at
Lexington ave and 23d-st. that have become
Inadequate for the needs of the institution.
Like New-York University and Columbia, il has
left the city's dead level and has built its new
home on a rock. Its new buildings
washington Heights, the campus occupying four
locks, between 13Sth and 140th sts., Amster-
Cun3-aye and st. Nicholas Terrace The build
i-sS stand elevation short distance from
- Hudson and overlook nearly the whole city.
Thcy five in number, arranged in a group
and dominated by the massive tower of the
main hall. Two Of them are nearly ready for
occupancy, and all of them it is expected, will
Eo in use by February, 1906.
Ii their intellectual as we'll as their physical
davelopment the New-York universities exem-
Ilify New-YorlS life. The tendency in business
Is to cenralize. tC combine small units into great
aEgregations. and to establish trusts and de-
partment stores. In much the same way Co
!unbia College has become Columbia Univer-
sity, consolidating with itself medical and sur
Gical and pharmaceutical colleges originally
independent, and at the present time it is about
t. bring under its control the chief art school
Il the country, the American Academy Of De-
si2n In addition to these schools and others
Ike them it has itself brought into being va
r;Ous departments which, IL they were separate
institutions, might easily be cIassed in the fore
most rank. Such is the School of Mines which
was established more than forty years ago as
the result of the efforts of a single Columbia
professor Thomas Egleston. To-day the School
q Mines has grown to such size that special
building, commodious and imposing, is to be de-
voted to its uses. and 1877 students are enrolled
in its various classes. And this is only one
example.