When Charles Kendall Adams (1835-1902) wrote this review, he had been Andrew D. White's successor in the professorship of history at the University of Michigan for twelve years. Adams, a Vermonter, graduated from Michigan as White's star pupil and the influence of White (see Doc. 9, and Part in, Docs. 5-7) was seen in Adams' introduction of the seminary method of instruction for advanced students at Michigan, and in his presidencies of Cornell (1885-92) and Wisconsin (1892-1900). As an administrator Adams was particularly adept in appointing eminent professors and in conducting ambitious and imaginative campaigns of university expansion. So great was his affection for the University of Wisconsin that he left his entire property to it as a fellowship fund for graduate work in English, Greek, and history.

     Every one knows that at the present day public opinion inclines to the establishment of a sharply defined line between our upper and our lower schools. The belief is almost universal that our common schools ought to be supported by general taxation. The welfare of the State manifestly demands that the children of the poor, as well as those of the rich, receive an elementary education. This interest could not be subserved, if the poor were to be left to their own unaided efforts. The State, therefore, says to the rich: You shall contribute of your abun-dance for the education of your poor neighbors' children. It matters not that you educate your own children at a private school and at your own private expense; it matters not even if you have no children what-ever of your own to educate. You are a part of the State. You receive the benefits of that enlightened condition of society which comes from the general prevalence of schools; and, consequently, you must bear such a part of the burden of their support as your property is a part of the whole property of the State. But while this argument seems to be generally satisfactory when applied to the support of the common schools, it is often objected to when applied to the support of schools of a higher grade. The fact is obvious that throughout the country the opinion prevails to a great extent that our colleges and universities, and even our academies, ought to be supported largely, if not indeed ex-clusively, not at the expense of the public, but by means of private munificence. Not long since a case occurred in one of the most en-lightened of our States where a gentleman of high standing raised the question concerning the right of the school board to expend any por-tion of the school money for the support of a high school. Before the court it was argued on ethical as well as on constitutional grounds that the public moneys could not properly be expended in support of in-struction in any other than what are commonly known as elementary branches. Happily this position was not sustained by the court; but it must be confessed that the arguments advanced were quite in harmony with the views on the question which, at present, are more or less generally enlightened.
     Now it is our firm conviction that the distinction which we have noted is without substantial foundation. It seems to us that the argu-ments advanced in support of it are essentially fallacious; and, further-more, that it is entirely at variance with the early views and habits of our own country.
     It would scarcely seem necessary to plead the cause of higher edu-cation in a republic. In general and abstract terms everybody admits the necessity of it. It is too obvious to admit of question that there can be no intelligent guidance of the intricate affairs of state, without something of that discriminating knowledge which comes from a thorough training of the higher faculties. Of course it is impossible for all men to have large personal experience, and therefore it is best that, so far as possible, they should acquire large knowledge of the personal experience of others. Therefore the more of higher education you can have in a state the better. All this is commonplace, and will be universally assented to. But it is languidly admitted, rather than ear-nestly felt. It is, probably, after all, not too much to say that the masses of the people, as represented in the average legislature, half believe that higher education is a luxury to be privately enjoyed, rather than a necessity to be publicly supported. The consequence is that in most of our States, while the people guard strenuously all encroachments upon the system of common schools, they are quite willing to leave the care of their higher institutions of learning in the hands of those over whom they have no control. This willingness, encouraged by the arguments to which we have already alluded, has resulted in the general adoption of a policy of non-interference.
     But is it true that higher education is in any sense less necessary to the welfare of a state than the education afforded by the common schools? Is it not, after all, quite as essential that the men who are to make and administer our laws should be thoroughly trained, as that those who choose the lawmakers should know how to read and write ? Nay, is there any ethical or logical reason why, if you provide a certain grade of education for the voter, you may not also provide a certain grade for the lawmaker? Is there any just)fication of the one, that is not a possible just)fication of the other ? If these questions are answered as we apprehend they must be, the problem reduces itself to a very simple query: Is there any method by which higher education can be more certainly and more satisfactorily secured than by committing it to the charge of the state?
     Those who answer this question in the affirmative, so far as we have observed, found their objections to the policy of state support either on the belief that it is unjust to the tax-payer, or that it is unsafe for the student. It is sometimes urged that, as, in the nature of things, higher education can only be acquired by the few, it ought not to be secured at the expense of the many. But to this it is a complete answer to say that such an education is a public benefit,andthat unless it can be shown that this benefit can be better secured in some other manner, it ought to be provided for just as other public benefits are provided for. It is no argument against the establishment of hospitals and asylums by the state, to say that they are chicfly beneficial to the few only. No member of Congress presumes to argue against appropriations for lighthouses and harbor improvements, on the ground that such im-provements are chicfly advantageous to merchants and navigators; and, therefore, that merchants and navigators or their friends ought to con-struct them. The truth is, that a very large part of what are known as public improvements are directly beneficial to no more than a very small portion of the community, while the advantage derived from them by members of the public at large is only of that general and in-definite nature which comes from the improved condition of the state as a whole. It requires but a moment's reflection to perceive that no state could thrive, that no true civilization could exist even, if the principle were to be admitted that no man is to be taxed save for that which to him personally is to be of direct and tangible advantage. To admit the principle, and act upon it, would be to strike away the very possibility of social improvement. The argument, therefore, that our legislatures have no right to tax the people for the purposes of higher education, is utterly fallacious. The position can only be sustained when it is admitted that such education is of no advantage whatever to the state at large.
     The other objection to which we alluded, is that in universities sup-ported by the state, students are unsafe. This objection is not, perhaps, very loudly urged, but it is, without doubt, to a very considerable ex-tent, secretly entertained. Occasionally it crops out in unseemly ways. We happened to know of a zealous editor who, not long since in a moment of thoughtlessness, allowed his spirit to escape his control, and to make an antic display of itself In announcing the admission of a large class to one of our Eastern universities, which he did not think sufficiently religious, he headed his article, "Two hundred raw recruits for Satan!" It would, of course, be unjust to declare this editorial Boanerges as strictly representative of any large class of persons; and yet we fancy the number is not altogether inconsiderable who would differ from him chicfly in method of expression. It has to be admitted that there are vast numbers of good men and women who entertain the notion that those colleges which are in some way or other under the supposed control of the Church are the only safe resorts of our young men in search of an education.
     Now, we wish to state explicitly that, in our opinion, this notion is not only without foundation, but that it exerts a pernicious influence on the cause of higher education in the country.
     In the first place, the notion is founded on exaggerated views of the difference between the state and the denominational universities. It is often represented, and, indeed, believed, that institutions of the one class are distinctively religious, while those of the other class are dis-tinctively irreligious. Such representations are really the most efficient means by which a numerical majority of the colleges in our country are kept alive. But these representations are almost as far as possible from the truth. There is, indeed, a manifest difference between the dominant spirit of a great state university and that of an obscure denominational college. But the very moment you bring to the college a large faculty and a large number of students, the difference vanishes. We have no disposition to make invidious comparisons. But we have repeatedly heard men of earnest religious faith and life, who have had professional experience in both classes of institutions, declare that the difference in this respect is imaginary rather than real. Nay, further, we have never heard the contrary asserted by any one who has had good opportunity of judging. We have come to believe, therefore, that the comparisons so frequently made are either outright cant, or are the product of entire ignorance on the subject.
     The real distinction, then, is between the small colleges and the large ones. Here, no doubt, there is a marked difference. In the smaller institutions the student is under the more direct supervision of the fac-ulty. The professors know far more intimately the characteristics of in-dividual pupils. The peculiar wants of each are recognized, and are treated in their appropriate manner. It is also true that the individual peculiarities of the professors themselves leave a more positive impres-sion on the mind of the student. If the instructor is ardently religious, as in a college of this class he is likely to be, a restraining, and perhaps even a religious influence may be exerted. These, in general terms, are the advantages held out by the small college. For certain purposes they are, doubtless, not to be despised, but they are entirely different in kind from the advantages presented at a great university. They are the characteristics which direct rather than develop the mind. They stand guard over it, doubtless often keeping it out of danger, but they do not inspire it for its highest efforts. They keep it from utter failure, but they do not move it to the highest success. If the best education consisted simply of making perfect recitations and keeping out of mis-chief, the smallest college would be incomparably the best college. But the best education is far more than that. Perhaps it is correct to say it is an inspiration rather than an acquisition. It comes not simply from industry and steady habits, but far more largely from that kindling and glowing zeal which is best begotten by familiar contact with large libraries and museums, and enthusiastic specialists. It shows itself not so much in the amount which its possessor has made himself master of, as in the spirit with which he takes what he knows, and goes out with it to grapple with his life work. This is the reason, it may be said in passing, why valedictorians and senior-wranglers so often disappoint the hopes of their friends. For the moment a student begins to covet a given position, he is tempted, for obvious reasons, to limit his efforts to the work which will favorably affect his standing. His success depends upon the regularly perfect performance of the task assigned. He keeps himself, therefore, within very narrow limits. So long as this spirit dominates, it tends to narrowness rather than breadth. Its possessor is working for a price, whereas all genuine scholarship is, and must be, its own sufficient reward. The difference is quite enough to account for innumerable failures as well as innumerable successes in life. It needs scarcely to be said that the highest successes are to be awaited when to the exact scholarship of the one is joined the enthusiastic spirit of the other; and it is this combination of excellences which the large university is best adapted to secure. While the small college affords guidance and protection, the large one offers guidance, inspiration, and opportunity. What the respective merits of the city and of the country are to the man of business, those of the large institution and those of the small one are to the student. As the young merchant will be less exposed to financial perils in a village grocery than in the whirl of a commercial metropolis, so will the student be less exposed to danger in the quiet retreat of a rural college than in the more exciting atmosphere of a metropolitan university. But in both of these avocations it is the stir, the enthusiasm, the unceasing activity, and, above all, the constant intercourse with men of the same pursuits and the same ambitions, that develop the greatest energies and secure the highest successes.
     The advantages of a concentration of energies for higher education have long been felt in every nation of Europe. England, Ireland, and Scotland, with a population not much less than our own, have scarcely half a score of institutions empowered to grant degrees. In France there is, strictly speaking, but a single one. In Germany, where the sys-tem of education has been brought to the highest perfection, the num-ber is only twenty-one, or one for about two millions of inhabitants. In our own country the latest announcement is that we have three hundred and twenty-two colleges and universities, each entitled, so far as municipal law can bestow it, to rank itself as one of our highest in-stitutions of learning. A single one of our States has the enormous number of thirty-three colleges and nine universities, with an average gross income of somewhat less than nine thousand dollars each: forty-two faculties, forty-two libraries, forty-two museums, forty-two complete sets of apparatus, to say nothing of laboratories and observatories to be provided for and administered out of an income which scarcely exceeds, if indeed it does exceed, the insufficient income of Harvard College!
     Now, it is to be noted that this fatal isolation of educational appli-ances is the direct result of our methods of supporting our colleges and universities. In our opinion the system of private endowments could never have resulted otherwise. Local interests and ambitions are ever active, and have ever exerted a powerful influence. Men will give money for a college in their town, when they would give nothing for a college at a distance. Then, too, the attitude of the different religious sects has tended powerfully in the same direction. Every denomina-tion knows that, if it is to push its way in the civilization of the present century, it must have an educated clergy. It must also guard its mem-bers, especially its members in process of education, against the influ-ence of opposing creeds. To accomplish this result it must have schools. As our system practically excludes parochial schools, it is limited to the college and to the theological seminary. These, therefore, it must have in as great abundance as possible. Whenever a rich sectarian dies, therefore, he is exhorted to leave his money to one of the sectarian schools already founded; or, if he is unwilling to do that, to found a school in his own name. The exhortation is often made effectual by the fact that the cost of an efficient college is ridiculously under-estimated.
     Not long since occurred an example that will serve as an illustration. An effort was made to endow a denominational school in the heart of one of our largest States. A great meeting was held for the purpose. Within less than a hundred miles were several colleges already in op-eration, besides a university with an endowment of more than two millions of dollars. And yet one of the most zealous members was reported as using substantially these words: "We must endow a great Christian university. Yes, we must have the greatest and best university in the country, even if it takes an endowment of five hundred thousand dollars!" Here was pious simplicity indeed; and yet the speech was not altogether exceptional either in piety or simplicity. It was the identical spirit which has dotted the country all over with mendicant colleges and universities, whose chief work in the general cause of higher education has been to keep down the standards of scholarship, and to stand in the way of something better.
    Now, in our opinion the public has not sufficiently understood and appreciated the leading cause of this condition of affairs. We have no doubt that the immense number of our colleges is very generally deplored. But we are not sure that the public is ready to admit either the extent of the evil, or the fact that the evil is the legitimate and necessary product of our system. That it is such a product, we believe it is easy to show. We believe that as soon as it was determined that the colleges and universities were not to be supported in the same manner as the lower schools are supported, it was fixed as a necessary consequence, that, while the lower schools would flourish, the colleges and universities would multiply beyond all demand, and a vast majority of them would languish beyond all recovery. We believe that under the change of policy to which we have referred, the importance of higher education has declined in public estimation; that while a comparison of the state of the learned professions at the present time with the same of fifty years ago will reveal a degeneracy, a careful study of statistics, like those prepared by President Barnard in 1870, will also show that the number of students seeking a college education has relatively declined. We believe, furthermore, that nothing but a return to the early policy of our country will reinstate the general cause of higher education in the position of relative importance which it formerly occupied....
 It is evident that the number of undergraduate students in the coun-try, for the thirty or forty years previous to 1870, was not only dimin-ishing, but that the diminution during the last ten years of the period was very remarkable. What the tendency since 1870 has been, we have at hand no means of determining.
     Now, whatever may have been the specificcauses that have con-tributed to this diminution,—and they are doubtless several in number, —it is evident we are forced to the general conclusion that the colleges of to-day, as a whole, present less attractions to young men than did the colleges in the early part of the century. It may have been partly because courses of study have not conformed to the public demand. It may have been in a measure owing to the intense mercenary spirit which for the last forty years has had possession of the country. But in our opinion it is far more largely due to the insignificance of the modern college in the popular imagination. Ambitious young men who aspire to professional and political honors bend their chief energies to the means of helping themselves on. Forty-two colleges in a single State are sure to be insignificant, and are sure to be thought insignificant. The popular imagination attaches to them very little importance; and, as a matter of fact, the graduate finds that his degree has given him little or no advantage over his fellow. The ambitious young man, therefore, is quite likely to eschew the college and betake himself at once to the more attractive experiences of the office and the political stump.
     This is no fanciful picture, but one that may be shown to be abso-lutely true to the facts. The popular impression, at least among literary men, is that college graduates are considerably less numerous and less conspicuous in the professions and in political life than were men of a similar education fifty or a hundred years ago. The popular impres-sion is doubtless correct. In regard to the professions it is, perhaps, dif-ficult to speak with great confidence or precision; but in regard to the prominence of college-bred men in political life, the position admits of absolute demonstration. A study of the dictionaries will show beyond all question that the number of graduates elected to the last Congresses is considerably less than was the number elected in the early days of the Republic. We had supposed this to be the case; but after a some-what wearisome turning over of Drake and Lanman,we have found the difference to be even greater than we had suspected. Of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, for example, thirty out of fifty-six were college-bred; of the Senate of the First Congress, fifteen out of twenty-six; while of the Forty-first Congress, the latest of which we could procure exact information, the proportion from the same States was only seven out of twenty-six. If the investigation were to be ex-tended to the House of Representatives and to the other States, the comparison would probably be still less favorable. Be that as it may, it is too evident that for some reason or other the graduate of to-day is not so likely to be the man chosen by the people as was the graduate in the early days of the Republic. It thus becomes just as obvious that college graduates, as a class, are less conspicuous than they were formerly, as we just saw it to be that they are relatively less numerous.
     It needs only to be said, in concluding this part of our subject, that the responsibility of this serious, if not even alarming, tendency rests alone with our present educational system. It cannot be said to rest with the colleges, for it would be unjust to demand of them the im-possible. They accomplish all, be it said without qualification, that colleges under these limitations are able to accomplish. As a rule they are administered by men who, for ability, for earnestness, and for devotion would at least compare favorably with any other class of men to be found in the country. But they are bound hand and foot by the poverty of the means they have to do with. Probably no American educator has visited the alcoves and the museums of a European university without turning away heartsick at the thought of the meagre applicances to which he must return.
     For this meagreness there is of course no remedy, except by removing its cause. There is no reason to hope for any radical change for the better until, by some means or other, the number of colleges ranking themselves with the highest is reduced. To this end we believe that every consideration of true policy requires that the interest of the people should be concentrated upon a limited number of the larger and stronger colleges and universities. We believe that these should be raised into such conspicuous pre-eminence that the smaller and weaker ones will cease to be regarded as on the same level or to be entitled to rank in the same class. We believe that no other way can higher edu-cation be raised to the rank which it now holds in Europe, or even to the rank which it formerly held in our own country. If in the older States it is impracticable to enlist the legislatures in the work of raising the few at the expense of the many, the hope of a favorable change must rest upon the basis of private benevolence. But in the newer States where State universities have been established, no such limitations are imposed. There would seem to be no obstacle in the way of a large policy of legislative liberality similar to that which characterized the early history of New England. With the vast wealth of the West to support it, such a policy could not fail to build up a series of universities that would be a real credit to the land.