The Washington herald., 1908-02-04

given to the university idea their hearty
support. They were such men as John
Jay. John RUtledge, john Marshall, JO-
seph Story. John Mclean, Roger B.
Taney, Salmon +. Chase. and their sue
cess0rs generally of the bench. with such
heads of departments as Edmund Ran
dOlph, Timothy Pickering, Albert Gala
tin, Daniel Webster Henry Clay, William
H. Seward George $. Boutwell,, William
NJ. Evarts, John Sherman, Carl Schurz,
l.. Q. G. Lamar, and Augustus H. Car
land.
The United States Senate in 1890, by a
select committee, with Senator George F.
Edmunds, of Vermont, as chairman. ap-
pointed THE Committee to Establish the
University of the United States" This
was made d standing committee, pledged
20 a permanent adherence to the PROPOSE
tion as a national policy. The House has
had no such committee, and the func-
tons Of that of the Senate have appar-
emily sunk into an empty desuetude. Yet
the National Educational Association has
constantly hammered away on the prop
osition, through the general committee Of
400. From these An Appeal in Behalf Of
the Proposed University of the United
States has been made within the month
in a document presented to the Senate by
Senator William i. Frye, of Maine Its
signers are Andrew u. White. J. b.
Henderson, Eppa IuntOn, Nelson A.
Miles, George Dewey. Hilary A. Herbert
Simon Newcomb. John Lee Carroll, AleT-
rill E Gates, and John w. Hoyt.
The causes Of delay in actually starting
Ia .l q
educational committee i'm a summarized
form. Beginning with the statement. 1T
is next To incomprehensibie' that it
should languish after more than cen
tury of agitation. they state that at the
end of barely half a century the whole
people had not come to realize that il
was worth the requisite efforts and saCTl-
fees. that the cost would be too great
while the country was yet poor and multi
millionaires unknown; that the Interrupt
ton of the civil war seriously retarded
the movement and that unfortunate mis-
conceptions of certain opposing instits-
tiOns. particularly at the seat Of govern
ment, contributed 10 the embarrassment
incident 10 the great conception.
tt is argued by the committee that the
multitude of those directly concerned In
advancing the power and renown Of the
United States FOR a time have lost them
selves in self-satisfaction. They seem To
have forgotten that. important as are such
considerations, they are but the begin
nings of civilization. and that on foun-
dation so substantial as that already laid.
this republic is supremely competent 20
build things yet greater. 1t is the couyic-
tion Of liberal educators throughout the
United States. as expressed by the Ma
tional Educational Associations commit
| tee, that the Senate. i'm view of what has
been proposed and of the historic strug-
gle for the institution would long ago
have been justified in chartering the
University Of the United States without
the formal preliminary of providing q
special committee. Yet there have been
no less than eight Congresses which fail
ed 10 taketTeqUisite action. although FIVE
OF them saw the Senate unanimously
ConcurTing in affirmative committee re-
ports. IN three Congresses there was
not even a meeting of the university
committee.
The recent appeal remarks oertineutly:
Bearing i'm mind the reao ness with
which the several institutions known as
universities in the District Of Columbia
have been chartered and Techartered, and
otherwise remarkably favored one can
but be struck by the contrast: and we
I are accordingly left TO supply an ex-
PLANTATION the best we can"
The present conclusion as TO the situa-
tion marks the status OF the national