tem of scholarships where an outlay of money would be entailed, whereby this person who may be without means could come here and by doing certain work for the Government, perhaps in some of the Government expert bureaus, part of his time there in the service of the Government and part of his time devoted to his research similar to what they do in Germany, and like the work Dean Schneider explained they carry on in Cincinnati in the lower grades, he can continue his investigations in the interest of advanced knowledge. This would give us the chance to multiply the great scientific discoveries of the country. The Berlin University discovered many great men whose fruits are Germany's standing before the world. Among them appear the name of Fichte, Germany's greatest educator, and through him and others, Hegel; through him Schilling; and then Helmholst, the famous chemist; through these the world has the famous Hertz, who was the pioneer of the wireless telegraph, and who died at the age of 37. Here is a group in Germany of the finest minds in the world, all nesting about the great University of Berlin. We have now and then men whose brilliancy is never brought to the fore because they have to stop their research and go out to teach or to work to care for the bread-andbutter side of life. It seems to me that we ought to be able to invite these promising men and women to a center such as this and to open up these expert bureaus as laboratories for experiment and let them work out their discoveries in these laboratories.

Why should not the discovery of an antidote for cancer be made here in Washington, or why should not we learn to defeat the white plague here? Dr. Koch made his wonderful discovery as a research student in the laboratory. He did not gain his rank as a practitioner but as an investigator. Roentgen pursured the same course in the discovery of the X rays. This city, as was said, is our greatest scientific center, and it ought to be opened up to our investigators. Our Army has undoubtedly the greatest engineers of the earth, as was proven in the Canal Zone by the expert work carried on in every feature of that feat. In the field of sanitation Col. Gorgas is an example of what the Army can furnish in the way of experts. When I was down in Panama I sat one day on the porch of the Tivoli Hotel and talked to an Australian sitting alongside of me. I found that he had been sent there by the Australian Government to study the sanitation methods in Panama. When he found I was from the States he said, "The countries of the world are paying tribute to what your country is doing in the way of sanitation." The most cursory knowledge of his work will convince men of the truth of that statement. Now, the Government has developed such a man as Col. Gorgas, and he ought not to have one moment of his time distracted from his experiments along the line of sanitation. I doubt not the Government could discover a number of men like him if we had this national university to organize the expert material under the direction of great scholars. It is said that when Sir Humphrey Davy was asked what was his greatest discovery he replied immediately, "Michael Faraday." Michael Faraday was the boy that had come into his laboratory and afterwards surpassed him in the field that had made his master famous.

The CHAIRMAN. Then this university would be composed of men of the highest degree of education?

Mr. FESS. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. Largely for the purpose of the deepest possible research along every scientific line?

Mr. FESS. Certainly.

The CHAIRMAN. At the same time, however, this would be a university where pupils would enter for the purpose of obtaining the highest possible education. Is that true?

Mr. FESS. Yes. Only they would have to graduate from some other institution before they could enter here.

The CHAIRMAN. They would have to graduate from some other institution?

Mr. FESS. Yes, sir. We would not come into competition with these other universities. That would be unnecessary.

The CHAIRMAN. Now, what would be the effect upon the State universities?

Mr. FESS. It would have this effect: The State universities would be the feeders of this university. They would benefit by such an institution, because there would be men who would go through the State universities in order that when they got through they would have the credentials to admit them to the national university. That is one reason the State university presidents are back of this project. They appreciate the position that we ought to have the climax of our educational system in Washington to which we can send our strongest men and women. Then, on the other hand, they will look to this university in return for teachers of the highest expert grade for use in their own universities. If they want some man who has gone beyond the ordinary scope of their own university they will look for him here.

The CHAIRMAN. In other words, the autonomy of the universities of the different States would not in the least be affected?

Mr. FESS. Oh, no.

The CHAIRMAN. But it would be advanced?

Mr. FESS. Oh, yes; it would be advanced. Every State university is back of this proposition, because it would be a distinct advantage to our system of training.

Mr. CLANCY. Take, for example, the University of Syracuse. Every 10 years the faculty has a year's leave of absence with full salary, and instead of doing nothing they go to Europe to study, but they never come here.

Mr. FESS. No, sir; they go to Europe but never come here.

Mr. PLATT. Would you say that the laboratories and departments in Washington are closed to the research work of scientific men now?

Mr. FESS. Oh, no.

It is really using in a systematic way the material of a great university awaiting organization.

It will not interfere with the valuable work of the experts here, but will be an assistance. No doubt there will be found in the groups of students, men who will far surpass their directors in the years to come. When Sir Humphrey Davy was asked his greatest discovery, he instantly replied, "Michael Faraday" (his student). When John Adams was asked what was his greatest service to the Nation, he replied John Marshall, the great Chief Justice. So it will be here. The greatest work of these governmental experts will not be laws of nature, but rather research men in the realm of the laws of nature, etc. Berlin University stands without doubt as the greatest single

force in the Empire of Germany. The University of Paris in a less degree has such relation to France.

The national university will not only hold that relation to this country, but in the very best sense it will occupy that relation to all the nations of the world. In the best sense it will become the university of the world. There are more points of cosmopolitan interest in America than in any other country. We do not want the university merely for the sake of preventing our thousands of graduate students going to Berlin for advanced work which they can not get here in our own country. Perhaps it is an advantage in a way to have our advanced thinkers spending time in European centers of learning, but it will answer the objections that they must go or else cease their investigations.

But mainly the university will become the center of graduate work for the advanced students of all the world. In this connection the recent dispatch from South America is significant.

I clipped out a dispatch that was sent from Argentina to a certain newspaper wherein it was stated that the Argentine Congress was negotiating with us to see whether they could have a certain number of students here every year to spend a certain time in the universities. Such a plan would make an opening for an American professor in the University of Argentina. We have that affiliation with Germany. We aim to have some American university professor in some German university all the time, and we aim to keep in some parts of the country a German university professor in an Amreican university. Now, we ought to have that on a large scale, a great national university. If we had in this center, as Mr. Clancy said, just as Syracuse is doing, instead of getting a leave of absence every 10 years to go to Europe to study they could come here and study. Here would be the center, and they would not only come from our own universities, but from all the countries of Europe and South America, and this city would soon shelter the greatest group of scholars in the world. This custom of all great universities allowing at regular intervals each full professor a year's leave of absence to study would make this city a seat of university training.

This university will have an organic affiliation with educational institutions of other countries by which we will have the exchange of professorship. It would be difficult to estimate the influence upon a better relationship with all countries of ideas as an organization of this sort located at the capital of the Nation. It would be a far greater insurance against world warfare than battleships.

It goes without saying that such an institution must be free from all characteristics that dominate modern college life. Modern athletics, college spirit, and the consequent police disciplinary features, all proper in their places, will have no place here. Even degrees are not to be sought.

The CHAIRMAN. Even degrees are not to be sought?

Mr. FESS. No. The bill forbids them. We do not want people to come here for a degree, but to come here in the spirit of scholarship to find out things that ought to be known, to advance knowledge for truth's sake,

Mr. PLATT. Where will they get their degrees?

Mr. FESS. They will get their degrees from the places whence they

came.

Mr. PLATT. They will not have anything to show for what they do here?

Mr. FESS. No, sir. I want to take that prize idea out of the mind. Make it a pursuit for the real reward of scholarship.

Mr. PLATT. I do not think I can agree with you on that. I think that a national university should start as an examining board which does nothing but grant degrees.

Mr. FESS. Oh, no. You would have the opposition of all the schools at once, and defeat the very purpose of the university. Mr. PLATT. I do not think so.

Mr. FESS. This is what I would like to have done: Here in Washington air navigation was demonstrated. It was perfected as far as it went by Langley, of the Smithsonian Institution, right here in Washington. From that impetus the Wright brothers advanced the work. Now, institutions like the Smithsonian Institution are working along the line of trying to find a substitute for fuel, coal, gas, and oil. You see, those substances are going to be exhausted some day. The scientists of the world are trying to find a substitute. We know that all the energy there is in coal came from the sun, and the scholars are trying to discover how we can directly harness this energy from the sun. I would like to see this thing developed in Washington in an institution equipped to carry out the research necessary. It will be developed just as surely as we are sitting in this room. We ought to have scientists supported by the Government.

The CHAIRMAN. We have supplied an artificial light in the shape of electricity. Why not a substitute for heat?

Mr. FESS. Yes, sir. The Smithsonian Institution to-day has published in its history over 12,000 different titles, covering the results of original research in gathering knowledge. It is connected with 60,000 people in all parts of the world.

Mr. PLATT. It is, then, a national university?

Mr. FESS. Yes, sir; it is a good example of what a university should be and what such an institution could do if it were open to research men.

Mr. PLATT. But is it not open to research men?

Mr. FESS. Well, I do not mean to say that it is closed to research men, because that would not be fair to the institution, but it is not a laboratory in the sense in which this national university would be. Mr. PLATT. It seems to me that it is doing just exactly what your bill provides.

Mr. Fess. It is in a way, but in a small way in comparision with what it could do with more equipment.

Mr. PLATT. The Library of Congress is supposed to be open only to members of Congress, but any scholar who comes here has no trouble whatever in availing himself of it.

Mr. FESS. That is true. But it should be the training school for librarians throughout the country.

Mr. PLATT. And the same thing is true of all the departments. Mr. FESS. The late Secretary Langley, of the Smithsonian Institution, recommended very strongly the national university proposition. I will insert my statement here which I made to the educators of the country and which was published in 1913 in the Antioch College bulletin.

[Hon. S. D. Fess in the College Bulletin, Antioch College, Yellow Springs, Ohio, December, 1913.]

THE NATIONAL UNIVERSITY.

66 INDIFFERENCE A NATIONAL MISFORTUNE."

Of the many national inconsistencies noticed in our history the most striking, and most difficult to explain, is the Nation's treatment of Washington's desires for the establishment in the Capital of a national university. Any cursory read

ing of his letters and papers, private and public, will indicate his insistence upon such a consummation. He made it a specific item of recommendation at different times in his messages to Congress. He communicated his views in writing to such men as Randolph, Hamilton, and Jefferson, members of his Cabinet. He made specific recommendations to State officials of Virginia, including Gov. Brooke, in 1795; he solemnly urged it in his Farewell Address in 1796, and in the same year he communicated his wish to the Commissioners of the District of Columbia, even going so far as to indicate his willingness to set aside a fund for its establishment and to specify the probable site of the plant.

Before his death he had the indorsement of most public men, inside and outside of the two Houses of Congress. In 1799 his will contained a bequest of 50 shares ($500 each) of Potomac stock for the beginning.

His scheme was most heartily indorsed in official capacity by John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, J. Q. Adams, and Andrew Jackson. Jefferson, one of the country's earliest patrons of education, even went to the extent of proposing to Gen. Washington the transplanting of a European college, faculty and all, as an early step in the enterprise.

The appearance near the forties of sectional differences and the expression of the fear of too much centralization caused the friends of the enterprise to rest. In the forties and fifties much talk and some efforts were active in building such an institution at Albany, N. Y. The Civil War further shut out interest in the Washington project.

Interest was finally revived in 1869 by John W. Hoyt, who had made a tour of careful inspection of the European institutions of higher learning. The merits of Commissioner Hoyt's efforts lie in his effective work in creating a favorable impression among educators in the country. The results of his propaganda were noticed in the interest of the National Teachers' Association. At its annual meeting in 1869, held at Trenton, N. J., the association adopted a resolution offered by A. J. Rickoff, of Ohio, committing the association to the project. It also appointed a committee of 35, representing all parts of the Union and all the liberal as well as business professions, and upon which appear the names of Rickoff, of Ohio, and Wickersham, of Pennsylvania. From that day to this this great association has stood committed to the consummation of the great undertaking. Of all its many great heads not one has rendered more valiant service than its present head, President Swain, of Swarthmore College. It was largely through this body, ably seconded by numerous great scholars in college and university circles, that there was won support of such men as Senator Charles Sumner, T. O. White, J. W. Patterson, M. H. Carpenter, J. J. Ingalls, W. B. Allison, L. Q. C. Lamar, A. H. Garland, and many others. Through the influence of these men a bill was introduced in both Houses of Congress in 1872. By this time the propaganda was winning the support of most of the college heads of the country. One very important exception was President Charles W. Eliot. In 1873 President Grant made the university proposition an item of favorable recommendation in his annual message. The National Education Association continued by resolution and addresses to keep the matter before the public. President Hayes indorsed the project in 1878. L. Q. C. Lamar, Secretary of the Interior under Cleveland, called the attention of the country to the neglect in his report to the President. In 1890 the Senate created a special standing committee to be known as the National University Committee, which is still in existence, although quite dormant. The National Association of State University Presidents, representing all the State universities of the Nation, is also another significant association backing the movement. Looking over the activities working for this consummation, one is bewildered over the fact that in the face of it all there is nothing accomplished by the Government.

Note the factors:

1. Urged by Washington.

2. Seconded by at least 10 of his successors.

3. Supported by at least half a dozen justices of the Supreme Court, including Chief Justices Jay, Rutledge, Marshall, and Chase.

4. Formally recommended by at least 20 cabinet ministers, among them the most brilliant lights of our Nation.

5. Formal support by the heads of both the Army and Navy.

6. Enthusiastic advocacy of former heads of colleges and universities, at least 400 of them. including Cornell. Yale, Johns Hopkins, Columbia, Chicago, and Leland Stanford.

7. Almost unanimous indorsement of both the scholars and learned associations of the country.