Third. From the many honorable, but still inadequate, efforts of existing institutions, and of large-minded, philanthropic men to meet this demand by increase of endowments devoted to proper university work. Fourth. From the strong declarations repeatedly made by individual citizens and organized bodies of men most competent to judge, that when all shall have been done that can be through individual and denominational agencies, it will still be the high duty and interest of the Nation itself to establish and liberally endow an institution of such rank as is proposed by this bill. Such an institution only could in any proper sense complete the now incomplete system of American education and most wisely direct all worthy efforts in the field of original research and utilize the facilities for it so rapidly accumulating at Washington. Such an institution only could possibly become the long-deferred realzation of the aspirations and official appeals of those profoundly wise founders of the Republic, some of whom not only outlined the principles upon which it should be established, and the relations it should sustain to the Government and people, but also devised for it sources of revenue, and set apart lands of the District of Columbia deemed suitable for the location of its buildings. The proposed bill is intended to represent and give fruition to the plans and desires of Washington, Jefferson, Madison, and other Presidents, together with a multitude of citizens in other high stations. It was prepared with the concurrence of citizens most competent to advise in such matters, and not only the ends sought to be attained, but also the means and agencies to be employed have received the sanction of many of the foremost scholars and statesmen of all portions of the country. It provides for the establishment of a university of the highest type, resting upon the State universities and other institutions of collegiate rank as they rest upon the high schools and academies--a university whose facilities shall be open to all who are competent to use them, but whose degrees shall be conferred upon such only as have already received a degree from some institution recognized by the university authorities; whose opportunities are to be open without price to qualified representatives from every State and congressional district of the United States; whose several departments shall have endowed fellowships, open to persons of genius from whatever quarter of the world, for the advancement of knowledge by means of original researches; to whose professors, fellows, and students, all Government collections, literary, scientific, and practical, are to be freely open without detriment to the public service; and whose several heads of departments are to have advisory and cooperative relations with the heads of Government bureaus for the mutual advantage of the Government itself and the cause of universal science. The plan of government for the university seems well calculated to keep the institution in close relation with the people of all sections and yet safe from the dangers of political interference, while at the same time leaving the internal affairs and whatever is most vital to its welfare in the hands of those who are at once most competent to manage them and have the largest stake in its prosperity. As a partial provision for the location of the necessary buildings the bill grants the site selected for this purpose by President Washington in 1796, and now, since the removal of the Naval Observatory, without important use; and for the support of the institution sets apart one-half the net proceeds of the public lands, one-half of such half to be used currently in providing for the opening of the institution and for carrying it on, the remainder to accumulate in the Treasury of the United States as an endowment until competent to yield a sufficient revenue, together with the gifts and bequests that may be attracted to it, for the permanent support of the institution. Your committee are of the opinion that the cause of American learning demands such an institution as this bill provides for; that the highest dignity and welfare of the Nation demand it; that it should be established at the Capital of the country; and that after a delay of 100 years since it was first proposed and sought to be established by the founders of the Government it would be unworthy of so great a people to wait longer for a more favorable time in which to meet all these high demands. The committee, therefore, unanimously approve the bill and recommend its passage. [Senate Report No. 433, Fifty-third Congress, Second Session.] The Select Committee to Est blish the University of the United States, to whom was referred the bill (S. 1708) "to establish a national university," having considered the same, report as follows: The need of such an institution as the bill contemplates seems to your committee beyond question, since, in the language of its author and in the purpose of the multitude of its learned supporters, the University of the United States is to be, not an institution of the same type as even the greatest of existing universities, either American or foreign "But rather an institution broader in its scope, more complete in its organization, more philosophic and practical in its internal regulations, with the highest possible educational standards and aims; an institution above and beyond the best of the colleges with their loosely attached professional schools, and on its own higher plane existing for the extension and diffusion of all branches of useful knowledge; an institution where the love of knowledge * * * shall be fostered and developed; where advanced students devoted to any branch of knowledge, whether science, language, literature, or philosophy, or to any of the combinations of these constituting the numerous professional courses of instruction, shal! intermingle and enjoy friendly intercourse as peers of the same realm; where the professors, chosen from among the ablest and best scholars of the world, with aboslute freedom of conscience and of speech, shall be not teachers of the known merely, but also earnest searchers after the unknown and capable, by their genius, enthusiasm, and moral power, of infusing their own lofty ambition into the minds of all who wait upon their instruction; a university not barely complying with the demands of the age, but one that shall create, develop, and satisfy new demands and aspirations, that shall have power to fashion and mold the age unto its own ideal, and which through every change and every real advance of the world shall still be at the front, driving back from their fastnesses the powers of darkness, opening up new continents of truth to the grand army of progress, so leading the Nation for ward and helping to elevate the whole human race." In the opinion of your committee such an institution should be deemed necessary, first of all, on account of the supreme work it would do in every division of the purely educational field--work at present but very partially and scatteringly done at those few institutions so fortunate as to have a concurrence of competent men with the means requisite to the support of systematic courses of postgraduate instruction. (2) It would powerfully contribute to the improvment of the whole series of schools of the country from the kindergarten to the university. (3) It would correlate broaden, elevate, and strengthen the entire circle of the so-called professions, not only furnishing but indirectly elsewhere compelling better preparation for professional studies, with higher standards of professional attainment, and hence broader and more thorough courses of instruction. (4) It would prove a most important means of supplying to a multitude of industrial occupations the scientific principles requisite to their highest success, thus dignifying labor and building up many new professions. (5) It would enlarge the field of human knowledge by means of the original researches and investigations of its members, while, at the same time inducting students of genius into the art of investigation, thus helping mankind to an earlier mastery over the hidden forces of nature. (6) Such an institution would prove a powerful defender, as well as discoverer and teacher of truth. "Among its members there would always be moral heroes as superior to the menaces of power as to the insidious arts of the most skillful and corrupt devotees of false gods-men able to unmask error and bold to stand for the right at all bazards. The sacredness of truth, freedom of thought, and freedom of speech will be the inscription upon its portals. It will be not a light-house only, but a bulwark of liberty and a watchtower for the Nation and the world." (7) The proposed university is also a patriotic necessity. It would secure to us as a great people the independence we need in things intellectual. would strengthen our love of country, and so prove a new and powerful safeguard of free institutions. It would gather to its seat not only persons of genius and of lofty aspirations from all portions of the Union, but from all parts of the civilized world, thus at once stopping the present exodus to foreign institutions for advantages we do not here furnish and turning the tide of superior learning to our own shores. It would help the United States to a commanding It influence as a beneficent power among the nations; to a practical leadership in the march of civilization. For these important reasons the establishment of such an institution as the one now proposed has been in the minds of the foremost scholars and statesmen of our country from a period anterior to the adoption of the American Constitution. We find that Gen. George Washington considered the subject and predicted the establishment of a national university when in his military camp at Cambridge in 1775; that James Madison, John Adams Charles C. Pickering, Benjamin Franklin, William Samuel Johnson, James Rutledge, and others, realiz ing its importance and being unwilling to trust to the chances of future legislation, strongly favored provision for it in the Constituion itself; that upon the failure of this proposition in the convention,' solely because a majority deemed it an unnecessary encumbrance of that instrument, Dr. Benjamin Rush, signer of the Declaration of Independence and the leading American scientist of his time, eloquently pressed the subject upon the country in an address to the people of the United States, saying: 66 'Let one of the first acts of the new Congress be to establish within the district to be allotted them a Federal university, into which the youth of the United States shall be received after they have finished their studies and taken their degrees in their respective States. * * * ** "Let it not be said this is not the time for such a literary and political establishment. Let us first restore our public credit. Let us regulate our militia. let us build our Navy, and let us protect and extend our commerce. *** This is false reasoning. We shall never restore public credit, regulate. our militia, build a Navy, and revive our commerce until we remove the ignorance and prejudices and change the habits of our citizens." It was in this great interest that Thomas Jefferson, afterwards its supporter as President, while yet Vice President (in 1795) even went so far as to propose the importation of a learned faculty from Geneva, as a means of beginning the work of such a university. It was because of his continued and ever-deepening interest in the early founding of the institution that President Washington, having consulted with James Madison and Edmond Randolph, announced to the commissioners of this District, in 1795, his purpose to contribute a considerable sum, in stocks of the Potomac Co.. toward the founding of a university, peculiarly American in character, saying: 66 'For this reason I have greatly wished to see a plan adopted by which the arts, sciences, and belles-lettres could be taught in their fullest extent, thereby embracing all the advantages of European tuition with the means of acquiring the liberal knowledge which is necessary to qualify our citizens for the exigencies of public as well as private life, and (which with me is a consideration of great magnitude) by assembling the youth from the different parts of this rising Republic, contributing from their intercourse an interchange of information to the removal of prejudices which might sometimes arise from local circumstances." It is known that he actually did contribute a sum which, had the purposes of the giver been carried out, would now have amounted to over $4,000,000; that in the preparation of his farewell address, in 1796, he set apart the 19 acres of land long known as “University Square" as a site for that institution; and that in his final message to Congress he said, among other things, on this head: "I have heretofore proposed to the consideration of Congress the expediency of establishing a national university and also a military academy. The desirableness of both these institutions has so constantly increased with every new view I have taken on the subject that I can not omit the opportunity of once for all recalling your attention to them. The assembly to which I address myself is too enlightened not to be fully sensible how much a flourishing state of the arts and sciences contributes to material prosperity and reputation. True it is that our country, much to its honor, contains many seminaries of learning, highly respectable and useful, but the funds upon which they rest are too narrow to command the ablest professors in the different departments of liberal knowledge for the institution contemplated, though they would be excellent auxiliaries. Among the motives to such an institution, the assimilation of the principles, opinions, and manners of our countrymen by the common education of a portion of our youth from every quarter will deserve attention, 1 Madison Papers, 11, 740; III, 1354, 1577. The more homogeneous our people can be made in these particulars the greater will be our prospect of permanent union; and the primary object of such a national institution should be the education of our youth in the science of government. In a republic what species of knowledge can be equally important, and what duty more pressing on its legislature, than to patronize a plan for communicating it to those who are to be the guardians of the future liberties of the country? We also find that immediately after this last appeal of Washington the commissioners appointed under the act to establish the temporary and permanent seat of the Government of the United States, presented to Congress a memorial in this same behalf, urging the importance of the project, and especially saying: "We flatter ourselves it is only necessary to bring this subject within the view of the Federal Legislature. We think you will eagerly seize the occasion to extend to it your patronage, to give birth to an institution which may perpetuate and endear your names to the latest posterity." It is also a matter of history that Presidents John Adams and Thomas Jefferson favored the university proposition throughout their terms of office, repeatedly urging its importance upon Congress. For example, in his sixth annual message, President Jefferson, having already predicted favorable action by Congress and discussed the use of the Treasury surplus for a national endowment, said: ** ** "Education is here placed among the articles of public care; not that it would be proposed to take its ordinary branches out of the hands of private enterprise, which manages so much better all the concerns to which it is equal, but a public institution can alone supply those sciences which, though rarely called for, are necessary to complete the circle, all the parts of which contribute to the improvements of the country, and some to its preservation. The present consideration of a national establishment for education particularly is rendered proper by this circumstance also, that if Congress, approving the proposition, shall yet think it more eligible to found it on a donation of lands, they have it now in their power to endow it with those which will be among the earliest to produce the necessary income." The utterances of President Madison are so emphatic and important that we quote briefly from a number of them. From his second message these words: "By enlightening the opinions, by expanding the patriotism, and by assimilating the principles, the interests, and the manners of those who might resort to this temple of science to be redistributed in due time through every portion of the community, sources of jealousy and prejudice would be diminished, the features of national character would be multiplied and greater extent given to social harmony. But, above all, a well-constituted seminary in the center of the Notion is recommended by the consideration that the additional instruction emanating from it would contribute not less to strengthen the foundations than broaden the structure of our free and happy system of Government." From his seventh message: "Such an institution claims the patronage of Congress as a monument of that solicitude for the advancement of knowledge without which the blessings of liberty can not be fully enjoyed or long preserved: as a model of instruction in the formation of other seminaries; as a nursery of enlightened preceptors; as a central resort of youth and genius from every part of the country, diffusing on their return examples of those national feelings, those liberal sentiments, and those congenial manners which contribute to cement our Union and strength to the political fabric of which that is the foundation." In his final message he further said: "The importance which I have attached to the establishment of a university within this District on a scale and for objects worthy the attention of the American Nation, induces me to renew my recommendation of it to the favorable consideration of Congress." The university proposition also received the support of President James Monroe, whose sympathies with the desires and plans of Washington found expression at many times, and who fondly hoped that Columbian College, which did at different times later receive aid from Congress. would somehow grow into the desired institution. On the 28th of March, 1820, he said: "The establishment of the institution within the Federal District, in the presence of Congress and of all the departments of the Government, will secure to those who may be educated in it many important advantages. If it * * receives hereafter the proper encouragement, it can not fail to be eminently useful to the Nation." The same, and more, may be said of John Quincy Adams, who often urged it, even before he came to the Presidency, and who in his first message referred to it with a touching elequence in these terms: "Among the first, perhaps the very first, instruments for the improvement of the condition of men, is knowledge; and to the acquisition of much of the knowledge adapted to the wants, the comforts, and the enjoyments of human life, public institutions, and seminaries of learning are useful. So convinced of this was the first of my predecessors in this office, now first in the memory as he was first in the hearts of his countrymen, that once and again, in his addresses to the Congresses with which he cooperated in the public service, he earnestly recommended the establishment of seminaries of learning, to prepare for all the emergencies of peace and war, a national university and a military academy. With respect to the latter, had he lived to the present day, in turning his eyes to the institution at West Point, he would have enjoyed the gratification of his most earnest wishes; but in surveying the city which has been honored with his name, he would have seen the spot of earth which he had destined and bequeathed to the use and benefit of his country as the site for a university stil bare and barren." 66 Again, it was President Jackson who, in 1832, approved the appropriation of $25,000 to Columbian College on account of the generally acknowledged utility of a central literary establishment," and of his hope that said institution was to realize the dreams and aspirations of the long line of his illustrious prede cessors. Disheartened, as it would seem, by continued disregard of all these earnest appeals of their predecessors, but four of the more recent Presidents have ventured to urge the subject upon the attention of Congress, although several of them are known to have favored the founding of a central university as the crown and completement of the public educational system of the country. Of such as have done so honorable mention may be made, first, of President Grant, who, in his annual message of 1873, said: I would suggest to Congress the propriety of promoting the establishment in this District of an institution of learning or university of the highest class by donations of lands. There is no place better suited for such an institution than the National Capital. There is no other place in which every citizen is so directly interested." So fully convinced was he of the importance of such an institution, half believing that had it been founded in the time of Washington for the higher education of influential representatives of all sections the late unhappy conflict night never have come; so impressed was he with the wisdom of appropriating lands as a broad and sure foundation, and, finally, so confident of early action by Congress, that he thought chiefly of the concurrence of all friends of the proposition upon Washington as the seat of the institution. It is well known that similar views were cherished by President Hayes, of whose recommendations that of 1877 is especially worthy of note: ** "The wisdom of legislation upon the part of Congress in aid of the States for the education of the whole people in those branches of study which are taught in the common schools of the country is no longer a question. The intelligent judgment of the country goes still further, regarding it as also both constitutional and expedient for the General Government to extend to technical and higher education such aid as is deemed essential to the general welfare and to our due prominence among the enlightened and cultivated nations of the world. * I shall be glad to give my approval to any appropriate measure which may be enacted by Congress for the purpose of supplementing with national aid the local systems of education in all the States; and having already invited your attention to the needs of the District of Columbia with respect to its public-school system, I here add that I believe it desirable, not so much with reference to the local wants of the District but to the great and lasting benefit of the whole country, that this system should be crowned with a university in all respects in keeping with the National Capital, and thereby realize the cherished hopes of Washington on this subject." * * * We further note the agitation of the national university question from that time forward, with special activity at intervals, by leading scholars, scientists, and statesmen of every portion of the country; its support by the presidents and professors of nearly, if not every, State university, as well as by those of the denominational schools and universities of every section, and even by the |