Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 64.djvu/98

94 a somewhat similar site, but not so 'completely shut in by apartment houses. Gothic architecture, like academic gowns, seems to belong to the past rather than to the future, but a traditional environment carries with it much that is good, and there is perhaps move danger in innovation than in imitation. The architect, Mr. Geo. B. Post, has certainly fitted the buildings admirably to the site and united them to a picturesque whole. It is unfortunate that the modern college and the scientific laboratory have not developed a significant architectualarchitectural [sic] form, but it is useless to complain of the inevitable.

It has been indicated that the College of the City of New York may become one of the storm-centers of educational development. In spite of remarks made at the installation ceremonies by several of the speakers, including university presidents, the New York City College is not unique. There are somewhat similar institutions in Philadelphia and Baltimore, and Cincinnati has a municipal university. But the New York institution, coordinate with the great state universities, must lead the way. Here all the questions of the relation of the college to the high school and to the university, of liberal to technical studies, of higher education to the state, of public to semi-private and semi-religious institutions, will become pressing. We do not hesitate to express the opinion that the maintenance of education is as completely a public duty as the maintenance of the courts or of the army, that higher education should no more be left to private initiative than elementary education, and that ultimately all the educational and scientific institutions of New York City will be unified under the control of the people of the city.

Readers of The Popular Science Monthly may naturally expect to find here more or less authoritative statements in regard to scientific matters