Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 62.djvu/542

536 'spirit of Washington' moved forward a hundred years, would call for an international or world university.

Suppose Mr. Carnegie had responded to the invitation to found a national university and had given ten million dollars for that purpose, in what respect could it have been greater than the institutions now in existence?

The assets of a university are: (1) the endowment and educational plant per se, (2) the faculty, (3) the felicity of its situation.

The entire Carnegie bequest would be exhausted before Harvard or Columbia could be reached, and the University of Pennsylvania would be barely passed. It is thus apparent that even when supplemented by the opportunities for study which Washington affords, the advantages in a material way would not exceed existing institutions by an amount sufficient to overcome sentimental or other reasons that attract students elsewhere.

A superior faculty can be secured, in general, only by offering salaries in excess of those now paid, and if the new faculty is to be greater in point of numbers and superior in attainments to all other faculties, the income on the entire amount given would not suffice to meet this charge alone.

Again, such men could be found, in general, only in existing institutions, unless the risky experiment of taking untried persons should be followed, and the withdrawal of each superior man from a university would weaken it or the institution that was called upon to fill the vacancy thus created.

Washington unquestionably possesses material educational advantages, but the institutions already located there are living up to them at least in as complete a degree as could be reached by a new institution, unless it should become merely a competitor. To be more than a rival, it would require an endowment sufficiently great to procure an equipment and faculty surpassing those now in existence.

The advocates of a national university declare that it should not be a rival to existing institutions, and Mr. Carnegie asserts that the aim of his institution is 'To increase the efficiency of the universities and other institutions of learning throughout the country, by utilizing and adding to their existing facilities, and by aiding teachers in the various institutions for experimental and other work, in these institutions as far as may be advisable.' The purpose of one is to destroy existing institutions—the intention of the other is to build them up.

Assuming that the plan of operation of the Carnegie Institution to be along the lines announced in the daily press, it is easy to see that the work of no institution will be duplicated but supplemented, that students will be sent to the universities rather than drawn from them,