(c) Present conditions and future possibilities of the trade of the United States with South America.

(d) The present material and economic progress of South America.

(e) The practicability and utility of the proposed PanAmerican Railway.

II HISTORICAL

(a) The influences and conditions that worked for the independence and establishment of the South American Republics.

(b) The influence and conditions that worked for the independence and establishment of the Central American. Republics and Mexico.

(c) The character and achievements of Bolivar as shown in the struggle for the independence of Northern South America.

(d) The character and achievements of San Martin as shown in the struggle for the independence of Southern South America.

(e) The conditions surrounding and circumstances influencing the overthrow of the Empire and establishment of the Republic of Brazil.

The Committee in charge of the prizes consists of President Butler of Columbia University, Dr. Albert Shaw, Editor of the Review of reviews, and President Finley of the New York City College.

EDUCATIONAL REVIEW

FEBRUARY, 1906

I

AMERICAN UNIVERSITIES: THEIR RESEM-
BLANCES AND THEIR DIFFERENCES 1

1

"The American colleges and universities seem to the public and to their own constituencies to be very different; but as a matter of fact they are much alike, and what is more, they exhibit in a striking degree the same tendencies. In durable institutions tendency is quite as important as actual condition. It is my purpose in this lecture, first, to point out the fundamental similarities among the higher institutions of learning in the United States, and then to indicate briefly the nature and probable outcome of the differences they exhibit. I ought to premise, however, that my remarks will have no application to the group of American institutions which derive from the Roman Church their form of government, their discipline, and their program of studies. This firmly established group of colleges, which are chiefly under the control of the Society of Jesus, breathe the American atmosphere, and are not wholly inaccessible to the spirit of modern science; but being essentially ecclesiastical in structure and methods, they bear little resemblance to the ordinary American college, which is historically Protestant in origin and development, and distinctly secular, tho not irreligious.

"I. The first likeness I wish to point out is the likeness in the constitutions of the bodies which own and govern the 'An address delivered at Yale University, November 13. 1905. Reprinted from the Harvard bulletin, November 22, 1905.

American institutions of higher education. At first sight these bodies seem unlike, and there are certainly many diversities among them; but there is a strong tendency toward the same constitution-a tendency which is due to like desires or objects, and to like experiences in the actual working of the bodies originally set up. When the General Court of Massachusetts Bay created in 1642, by a natural inventive process, the first Governing Board for Harvard College, the Act prescribed that it should be composed of the Governor and Deputy Governor, the magistrates of the jurisdiction, and the teaching elders of six adjoining towns, with the President of the College. That is, the General Court intrusted the infant college to a large group of the leading persons in the little colony. This same sort of thing has since been done all over the country. By skipping 225 years and 1000 miles westward, I can take an illustration of this truth from the University of Illinois, which was established in 1867. This university was placed under the control of a Board of Trustees, consisting of the Governor, the Superintendent of Public Instruction, the President of the State Board of Agriculture, and twenty-eight citizens appointed by the Governor. The twenty-eight citizens appointed by the Governor have since been changed to nine elective members; but the idea of the original structure was much the same as that underlying the first Harvard Governing Board, except that the churches had no representation as such. Going on to the Pacific, we find the University of California. governed by a Board of Regents, seven of whom—including the President of the University-are ex-officio Regents, and sixteen are long-term appointed Regents, representing the various professions and business occupations, and to some extent the most important California communities. When Cornell University was incorporated in 1865 a very similar collection of men was set up as Trustees, eight of them—including the President and Librarian of the University-being exofficio members of the Board, and the other thirty being leading representatives of the various professions and business occupations mostly within the State of New York. The original Governing Board of Yale University was composed exclusively of

Congregational ministers, and remained in that condition for ninety-one years; but in 1872 there were added to this original Board the Governor, Lieutenant-Governor, and six senior assistants in the Council of Connecticut. These six senior assistants were subsequently changed to six senior senators. Thus, more than one hundred years ago the Governing Board of Yale University was brought into close resemblance to the original Harvard Board. These few illustrations really cover all the essential varieties in the single Boards of Trustees.

66

Within eight years of the Act that established the Overseers of Harvard College the General Court of Massachusetts established a smaller Board under the title of the President and Fellows of Harvard College, without repealing the Act that had established the Overseers of Harvard College. The new Board consisted of but seven men, including the President and the Treasurer of the University; and to this small Board the general power of initiation and all money powers were committed, the Overseers becoming a reviewing and examining body whose consent was required to important measures, but which had little power to originate measures. Thus early Harvard University acquired the double-headed

or

bicameral organization that has proved invaluable in political constitutions, being in this respect the most fortunate of all the American institutions of learning. The same motives, however, which determined the General Court of Massachusetts to charter the President and Fellows of Harvard College have prevailed in all subsequent cases, tho not expressed as at Harvard thru the preferable method of establishing a separate Governing Board. The large body of Trustees of an American college or university cannot meet frequently. The members are too numerous, and their residences are so widely scattered that meetings are costly and troubleMoreover, they are too large for active executive functions. They have, therefore, as a rule, given large powers to an executive or prudential committee, the members of which can be conveniently brought together, and can give much time and thought to the affairs of the University. In this way many of the advantages of the bicameral organization of Harvard

some.

have been secured by the other American institutions. The initiating body is the executive committee, and the Trustees inquire, examine, and approve or consent.

"The composition of the first Harvard Governing Boardthe Overseers-has been repeatedly altered by the Legislature. The original composition was altered in 1780 to the Governor, Lieutenant-Governor, Council and Senate of the Commonwealth, with the President of Harvard College and the ministers of the Congregational churches of the six towns. Thirty years later the Board was reconstituted as follows: The Governor, Lieutenant-Governor, Councilors, President of the Senate, and Speaker of the House of Representatives, and the President of Harvard College, with fifteen ministers of Congregational churches and fifteen laymen elected by the ballots of the majority of the Overseers. A few years later the Senate of the Commonwealth was incorporated in the Board of Overseers. In 1834 it was enacted that ministers of any denomination might be elected to the Board of Overseers. In 1851 the Senate was dropped and the Board was made up of the usual ex-officio members and thirty persons elected by the Senators and Representatives of the Commonwealth in six equal classes, each class to serve six years. Finally, in 1865, the power to elect these thirty Overseers in six classes was conferred on persons who have received from the College the degree of Bachelor of Arts, or Master of Arts, or any honorary degree, voting on Commencement Day in the City of Cambridge. This series of changes in the Harvard Board of Overseers perfectly illustrates certain common tendencies in American institutions of the higher education which will ultimately bring them all to a great similarity so far as their governing bodies are concerned: in the first place, the amount of political control tends to diminish; secondly, the religious denominations lose influence; and thirdly, the graduates of an institution as such come into possession of some power over it. The state universities have steadily endeavored to diminish the influence of politics in the selection of their Boards of Trustees or Regent; and they have also successfully excluded denominational control-not without effort, to be sure; for strangely enough, there was formerly