Second. To provide for the higher instruction and training of men and women for posts of importance and responsibility in the public service of State or Nation, and for the practice of such callings and professions as may require for their worthy pursuit a higher training.

Third. To cooperate with the scientific departments of the Federal Government, with the colleges of agriculture and the mechanic arts founded upon the proceeds of the Federal land grant of the act of eighteen hundred and sixtytwo, with the State universities, and with other institutions of higher learning. SEC. 3. That no student shall be admitted to the university unless he shall have obtained the degree of master of science or of master of arts from some institution of recognized standing, or shall have pursued a course of study equivalent to that required for such degrees.

SEC. 4. That the university shall confer no academic degrees.

SEC. 5. That the university shall be governed and directed by a board of trustees in cooperation with an advisory council.

SEC. 6. That the board of trustees shall consist of the Commissioner of Education of the United States and twelve additional members appointed by the President of the United States for a term of twelve years. The appointed members shall be arranged in classes, so that the term of one member shall expire each year. The President of the United States may at any time remove any member of the board for neglect of duty or malfeasance in office.

SEC. 7. That the advisory council shall consist of one representative from each State in the Union. The representative from each State shall be the president or acting president of the State university in case there be a State university in said State; if not, the governor of the State may appoint a citizen of the State, learned and experienced in matters of education, to represent said State in the advisory council.

SEC. 8. That the board of trustees shall make all statutes, by-laws, and general rules in accordance with which the affairs of the university shall be conducted. But all such statutes, by-laws, and general rules shall, before going into effect, be submitted to the advisory council for its consideration. If the advisory council shall, by a majority vote of all the qualified members, disapprove of any such statute, by-law, or general rule, it shall not go into effect until it shall have been reenacted by a two-thirds vote of the board of trustees: Provided, That if the advisory council shall take no action within six months after submission of such statute, by-law, or general rule, the said statute, bylaw, or general rule shall go into effect: Provided further, That the advisory council may at any time take up the consideration of such statute, by-law, or general rule, and if it disapprove of the same the said statute, by-law, or general rule shall cease to be in effect from and after six months from the date of such action unless the board of trustees shall in the meantime have reenacted such statute, by-law, or general rule by a two-thirds vote: And provided further, That in case the advisory council shall disapprove of any statute or other action of the board of trustees the said board shall, before taking final action in the premises, give a formal hearing to a representative or representatives appointed by the council for the purpose of presenting the matter to the consideration of the board.

SEC. 9. That the board of trustees shall provide for the administration of the affairs of the university within the statutes thus enacted. It shall make all appointments and all assignments of funds. It shall issue all orders and instructions necessary to the management of the university. It shall provide suitable grounds and buildings for the work of said university; but in no case shall it incur financial obligations in excess of actual appropriation by Congress, or of actual income from tuition, fees, endowments, or gifts for special purposes. The actual administration of the university shall be intrusted to properly qualified agents of the board, who shall be responsible to the board for the performance of their duties. The board may delegate by statute to a president of the university, or to such separate faculties or other officers or employees as it may provide for, such functions in the administration of the university as may seem to it wise; and it may reassign such functions at any time. It may create such boards or commissions as in its judgment may best But the serve the interest of the institution and may abolish them at will. advisory council may at any time protest against any order, vote, resolution, appointment, appropriation, or instruction made by the board of trustees. In such case said order, vote, resolution, and so forth, shall stand suspended until the board of trustees shall, by a two-thirds vote, reenact such order, and so forth.

SEC. 10. That the advisory council may at any time make recommendations to the board of trustees respecting any matter concerning the university, and it shall be the duty of the board of trustees to give formal consideration to all such recommendations and to take such action in the premises as may seem to it good.

SEC. 11. That no member of the board of trustees or of the advisory council shall receive any pecuniary remuneration for his services as member of said board of trustees or advisory council; but the necessary expenses incurred by members in attendance upon meetings of said board or advisory council shall be defrayed by the university.

SEC. 12. That the board of trustees and the advisory council shall elect their own officers and define their respective duties, and a majority of each shall constitute a quorum to do business.

SEC. 13. That the board of trustees shall meet in regular session four times each year, namely, on the first Wednesday after the first Monday in January, April, July, and October. Special meetings may be called at any time by the chairman and shall be called by him on request of five members of said board. One month's notice shall be given in case of all special meetings. The advisory council shall hold two regular meetings in each year, during or immediately following the regular meetings of the board of trustees in January and July. Special meetings may be called by the board of trustees, by the chairman of the advisory council, or upon the request of ten members of the advisory council. One month's notice of all special meetings shall be given.

SEC. 14. That the board of trustees may accept unconditional gifts, legacies, donations, and so forth, from private individuals for the benefit of the university; but no such gift, donation, or legacy shall be accepted with any condition unless the same shall be approved by the board of trustees, the advisory council, and the Congress of the United States.

SEC. 15. That the various museums, libraries, bureaus, observatories, and departments of expert research belonging to the Federal Government shall be open for the use of graduate students without interference with the real function of such establishments.

SEC. 16. That the sum of $500,000 is hereby appropriated for the uses of said university for the fiscal year nineteen hundred and fourteen and nineteen hundred and fifteen.

SEC. 17. That the board of trustees shall, as soon as the members shall have been appointed, proceed to organize under this act and carry out the intent and purpose of the same.

Now, my interest in the national university dates away back. I noticed in my study and teaching of history how Gen. Washington had yearned for such an institution. You know he recommended it at different times to Congress, and he had even gone so far as to select or suggest the selection of a site, which is now called University Place here. He died in 1799 leaving in his will 500 shares of Potomac stock which was estimated to be worth $25,000. It is said that if that $25,000 had been put at compound interest and kept intact it would amount at the present time to $4,000,000. The matter had been officially looked up to ascertain where that $25,000 has gone. The Treasury Department investigated it in accordance with an official request and reported the opinion that it must have lapsed back into the estate. I will insert this report:

[Senate Document No. 164, Fifty-eighth Congress, third session.]

TREASURY DEPARTMENT,
OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY,
Washington, February 15, 1905.

SIR: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of Senate resolution of the 14th instant

"That the Secretary of the Treasury be directed to inform the Senate what was the amount of the bequest made by George Washington to the United States for the foundation of the university and what appropriation was made of it."

In reply thereto I have the honor to state that in the will of Gen. George Washington (see Sparks's Writings of Washington, vol. 1, pp. 571 and 572) a bequest of 50 shares of the Potomac Co. of the value of £100 is made for the establishment of a university in the District of Columbia, but there is no record in the Treasury Department showing that the shares thus bequeathed or any moneys arising therefrom were ever received by the General Government.

Mr. Worthington C. Ford, formerly Chief of the Bureau of Statistics, this department, published a volume in 1891 containing the will of Gen. George Washington, and in connection therewith states that the object of this bequest was never carried out (Wills of George Washington and his Ancestors, by W. C. Ford, Brooklyn, 1891, pp. 91 and 92).

In a treatise entitled "Authenticated copy of the last will and testament of George Washington, of Mount Vernon," published by A. Jackson, of Washington, D. C., in 1898, Appendix, pages 10 and 11, referring to Gen. Washington's wish that a university be established in the District of Columbia, it is stated that "This desire was never carried into effect, and the 50 shares thus donated reverted to the estate."

The two publications above mentioned are to be found in the Library of Congress.

Respectfully,

The PRESIDENT OF THE SENATE.

L. M. SHAW, Secretary.

The CHAIRMAN. There should be some official record of it. Mr. FESS. There certainly should be, but that is the best we can get. This plan of establishing in the capital here, or wherever the capital was to be, a national university was discussed in the Constitutional Convention, the Federal convention in 1787, and it was decided unnecessary to put the authority in the body of the Constitution because it was said it could be done without that. Then when Adams came to the Presidency he recommended it, and when Jefferson succeeded Adams he recommended it. Jefferson had gone so far as to suggest to Gen. Washington that the faculty of Geneva College be transferred bodily to this country, and that we build a university from that as a starter. Then James Madison recommended it three times in three different messages to Congress. James Monroe recommended it also. John Quincy Adams, one of the best scholars of the early times, though not a better trained thinker than Jefferson, was very enthusiastic for it. Andrew Jackson also favored it.

Mr. RUPLEY. What happened in the American Congress on these propositions?

Mr. FESS. Well, each time the recommendation was acted upon, but it was lost between the committee's recommendation and the final action of the Houses. For instance, the three District of Columbia Commissioners, that organized this District, in accordance with an act of Congress recommended it, as did Gov. Brooke of Virginia. Various committees recommended it to Congress from time to time, but it was always lost. It was never acted on favorably in any of these bodies so far as I know up to the time I have mentioned. Then, just preceding the Mexican War there seemed to be other interests coming in and the university proposition was forgotten. It was revived-Mr. Clancy will be interested in this--by a group of men who finally abandoned the idea of locating it here and wanted to locate it in New York State, and the college at Albany, called Union College, is the outcome of it.

Mr. CLANCY. I never knew that.

Mr. PLATT. That is at Schenectady.

Mr. FESS. Perhaps so, I understand from reports it is at Albany. This is the outgrowth of the national university movement when its promoters finally abandoned hope of locating it here; but that effort failed to accomplish what they hoped it would do, and then came the Civil War and broke up everything. The war as a result - is a striking comment upon the sentiment of the Farewell Address in 1796 of Gen. Washington. His idea was to have the national university here because it would act as a means of cementing together the various sections of the country, and he urged this in his historic Farewell Address, his last will and testiment to his people. That a national university located in the Capital City where the students from all over the country could come and listen to the debates in Congress, would be the strongest cementing element in the Nation and would prevent dissension among sections, can be of little doubt to the careful student of our country.

Mr. PLATT. Was not one of these institutions here in Washington organized with a view to developing into a national university? Mr. FESS. Yes, sir.

Mr. PLATT. What was the old Columbia College and what is now called George Washington University?

Mr. FESS. I have not gone into the history of these institutions. The people enthusiastic for the university idea had hoped something of that kind would grow out of these institutions, but, of course, there is no hope of that at all.

Mr. PLATT. I do not know what the history of these colleges is. Mr. FESS. Well, I have gone into that far enough to find it is all very confusing. Whatever might have been the cherished hopes of the builders of these various institutions it must be apparent that it is futile to expect a consummation of the project from these

sources.

Mr. PLATT. Columbia Heights is apparently named from the fact that Columbia College used to stand there.

Mr. FESS. I am not sure about that.

Mr. PLATT. John Burroughs told me that when he was in Washington in the sixties or seventies Columbia College stood right there. Mr. FESS. Gen. Grant was moved upon by some of the highest educational interests and he made a recommendation reviving the idea of a national university. His recommendation was followed by a similar one by Gen. Hayes, and that was followed by Garfield, and that, in turn, was followed by Harrison. Then Cleveland's Secretary of the Interior, Mr. Lamar, who was really at the head of the education department since the education department is a bureau under the Department of the Interior, took the matter up and made quite an exhaustive study of the university proposition and made a strong recommendation, as the head of the Interior Department, to President Cleveland. That was between 1885 and 1889. During this time the two Houses were not active on the subject. However, in 1869 or 1870, the National Education Association took it up, under the leadership of Rickoff, of Ohio. A report was written by John Wesley Hoyt, who labored here in Washington so long. Gov. Hoyt, had made a thorough study of the university movement in Europe, and when he returned he published his findings with recommendations as to what this Nation should and could do. Then, again in

t

1871, it was taken up by the National Education Association, and through its efforts a bill was finally introduced in the House of Representatives to establish the national university.

The CHAIRMAN. When was that?

Mr. FESS. That was in the forty-second Congress, 1872-73. The bill was unanimously reported from the committee, on which appeared such names as George F. Hoar, of Massachusetts; McIntyre, of Georgia; R. P. Elliott, of South Carolina; Butler, of Tennessee; etc.; but it died in the House, notwithstanding the exhaustive report touching upon the needs and possibility of such an institution. Then the National Educational Association continued to make its recommendations year after year but with little effect. The leading college men of the country, including the then heads of Yale, Columbia, and Thomas Hill, of Harvard, urged it. Finally in 1890 Senator Edmunds, who is still living, introduced a bill in the Senate, and had it referred to a special standing committee called the National University Committee. That committee was composed of Senators Edmunds, Sherman, Blair, Ingalls, Dolph, Harris, Butler, Gibson, and Barbour. I understand the Senate still recognizes this special standing committee, which is not so active in recent years. Senator Edmunds was the leader in that movement. The committee unanimously reported the bill out of the Senate. That is as far as it got. In 1893 it reported the bill again; in 1894 it reported the bill again; and again in 1896, 1899, and 1902. It reported the bill in the Senate five times, but that was as far as it could get.

[Senate Report No. 1384, Fifty-second Congress, second session.]

The Select Committee to Establish the University of the United States, to whom was referred the bill (S. 3824) to establish a national university, having considered the same, report:

The value of knowledge is recognized in all civilized countries, but in no country does it deserve higher recognition than in our own, for our Government is founded upon it, and we need it everywhere and all forms of it for our highest development. Hitherto there has been practical recognition of this in the United States in providing for State universities, for schools of agriculture and the mechanic arts, for military and naval schools, for the Department of Agriculture and the different surveys, and for great libraries. It is the purpose of this bill to make such organization more complete and more worthy of a great and progressive people by creating at the Capital of the Nation one supreme institution that (1) shall complete the system of American education by supplying the crowning and true university it lacks, both as a means of furnishing upon American soil every possible facility for the highest available culture, and of exciting a stimulating and elevating influence upon all classes of schools of lower rank; (2) that shall bring together in friendly as well as high intellectual Intercourse a large number of the most gifted and aspiring representatives of all the States for the pursuit of the highest knowledge in all departments of learning, thus supplying in endless succession the best trained thinkers and workers for every field of intellectual activity, and with broader views of men and things, as well as increased love of country and a juster regard for the citizens thereof, irrespective of locality, and thus more certainly assuring to the United States their proper place in the forefront of advancing nations.

That there has ever been in the past a deep realization of our deficiencies in this field is manifest:

Firs. From the great number of the ambitious young men of the country who, from the beginning, have been accustomed to go abroad for opportunities they could not find at home.

Second. From the zealous and repeated efforts of many of the foremost scholars, scientists, and statesmen to have in this country at least one postgraduate university of the highest possible grade.