Daily Kennebec journal., 1908-06-10

and takes the initiative in drawing
| men and women into it through reach
| ing out and doing things, it certain
ly lacks the essential attributes of a
| typical university in America.
Wherever real religious freedom is
| and is valued, there intellectual free
dom ana civic freedom find an abiding
place also. And where these have come
to be, there the nOblest universities
have developed and there they have
steadily grown through the increasing
volume and strength of the mighty
forces which support them.
Nowhere have these forces sprung
into luxuriance of life more freely or
more rapidly than in this country. No
where have universities responded to
the freedom and the force of democ
raoy more admirably than here. In no
other land has the building of new
states marked the advance of democ-
racy, OF constitutioralism, of modern
ism, as has the march of the armies
of pioneers in the last half century
from the Atlantic to the Pacific ocean
across North America. And nowhere
else in all the world has the birth and
the progress OF real universities Illus
tratcd the universal rules of intellec-
tual progress as they are eXemplified
by the advance of the taX-supported
university movement in America.
The greatest uplift which has ever
come to university education in Amer
lea. or in any land, came in the Fed
eral Land Grant Act on the darkest
day of the Civil War, giving to each
state for higher education 10000 acres
of land for each senator and repre-
sentative that the state had i'll Con-
grcss. The act contemplated that the
states should use it's avails to enlarge
existent institutions or join forces and
build up new Institutions. The New
England states managed in one way
and another to get hold of the pro-
ceeds Cf the Federal act but they have
never entered into the spirit of it. 1t
IS doubtful if any of them have given
as much to the joint enterprise as they
have received from the Federal grants.
1t is certain that they have never
made the most, nor much. of them.
The spirit of New York was no better,
perhaps. not even as good. But the
scholarship and institutions Of An
drcw ID. White, formerly a professor at
in the New York Senate and the Phi
lanthropy and sagacity of Ezra Cor
nell, then also in the New York Sen
ate, did something to save the state
from it's annoying Indifference and
stupidity
Beyond the Alleghanies moneys and
opportunities have never been allow
ed to escape. In many states mechan-
ical aud agricultural colleges were
annexed to colleges of liberal arts al
ready established. In others technical
colleges were stated and where this
was done classical attachments were
soon added. AS a consequence. there
is no state west of the Ohio river
which does not possess aid is not COM
mitted to, a common university for
common ends. In its foundations and
generally in it's superstructure it Is
real university. Wherever a new
state has been formed, it has come
into the union with plans for COM
mon university, as well matured and
as strongly sustained as the states
plans for common schools All learn
ing is the universal passion. 1t Is
hardly too much to say that there Is
no state beyond the Ohio which has
not supplemented from federal grants
with much more than it has ever re-
ceivcd from them and it is certain
that many of those states give much
more to their universities every year
than they have received from the gen.
eral government from the beginning.
1t is not possible to name any num-
Der of higher American institutions. in
Df Ton oIar. nf
students, curbage under roofs, libra
ries, laboratories and equipment,
range of offerings, recognized standard
of efficiency, number OF degrees con-
ferred, annual revenues and influence
upon life, without finding that more
than half of them are tax-Supported
institutions Fortyone states have IN
stitutions which confer the A. b. de-
gree the five others have institutions
which do not confer this degree and
four of the five are in New England.
No one can Justly say that the growth
of democratic universities in the Unit
cd States is not one of the most mar
velous and gratifying movements IN
the entire history of world education.
state university feels bound TO
take the initiative in producing every
intellectual interest and in aiding ev-
ery business interest of the people of
the state. The common thought is not
merely that the university Is place
! where students may go il some exciu-
sive authority will let them in, nut
that it is a place where all VINO are
qualified to partake of the hlghest,
the broadest and the most diversified
la,rpipp NAV go as of right and a
place to which the people may turn for
the solution of their problems. wheth-
err those problems are intellectual or
| industrial, whether they are public or
| private and whether they concern the
| nation. the state or a county or munic-
| jpality thereof.