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Education and Empire

An Address Delivered by the President of the Association
of American Agricultural and Mechanical Colleges

and Experiment Stations,

JAMES K. PATTERSON, Ph. D., LL. D.,

President of the State College of Kentucky.

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Pe eee ayer a
@ BUREAU OF syq—

Washington, D. C.,
Nov. 17, 1903.

"

PRESIDENT PATTERSON’S ADDRESS.

Gentlemen of the Association of
Agricultural Colleges and Experiment
Stations:

I thank you for the honor which
you have conferred upon me in select-
ing me to preside over your delibera-
tions during the present session.

The highest distinction within the
power of this body to bestow is not
to be lightly esteemed and I can only
wish that I had been more worthy of
it.

I propose to occupy your attention
tonight for a brief space by some

thoughts on the work of the Colleges,

and Universities which this Associa-
tion represents, and _ the influence
thereof upon the present and future
of the American people.

Many men distinguished by learning
and experience have in years gone by
addressed you from this chair. Some
having sown the seed which others in
due time will reap, have already pass.
ed over to the majority; others hap-
pily are still with us to animate by
their zeal, encourage by their exam-
ple and stimulate by their attain-
ments.

Like the pioneers of freedom in the
western world; like the founders of
the great republic; like the statesmen
who laid the foundation of the sys-
tem of education which this associa-
tion represents today—these men
have builded wiser than they knew
and results which they could not
have anticipated have followed.

Not visionary doctrinnaires, but
practical men, they addressed them-
selves to use to the best advantage

the material ready to their hands
and as new material accumulated in-
corporated it with the structure as it
grew—maintaining the original idea
of utility and preserving the archi-
tectural symmetry of the fundamental
conception.

The organization of this associa-
tion was a happy thought. These an-
nual meetings have brought together
a body of workers and of thinkers,
whose thoughts and achievements
contributed to a common stock, have
become the common heritage of all.
Happy intuitions, intelligent, scientific
forecasts have been patiently experi-
mented upon, translated from the hy:
pothetical into the actual—accepted
as accredited results and added per-
manently to the stock of human
knowledge.

Of some the relationship became
immediately apparent. They gravi-
tated at once into position; discover-
ed their proper place in the order of
things—filled a space hitherto unoc-
cupied, bridged over a hiatus, supplied
a missing link.

Others did not immediately yield to
classification and possible affinities
required further investigation. But
assailed from this side and from
that in the crucible and by the spec-
troscope a stubborn isolation could
not long be maintained and in the end
the most refractory yielded to the
analytic of the human intellect and
the potency of the human will.

But how greatly have these activi-
ties been stimulated by mutual con-
ference and mutual cooperation—a
hint in discussion has struck a spark

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which ignited the fuel into a flame; a
bow drawn at a venture has found
a joint in the harness and penetrated
the vitals of an unsubdued fact; a
stray seeed dropped into a generous
soil has under the influence of sun-
shine and rain sprung up and in due
time brought forth fruit—first the
blade, then the ear and at length the
full corn in the ear.

Alittle over forty years ago a new
departure took place in education in
America; until then classics, litera-
ture and philosophy had been the
dominant features of college work
The natural sciences were still in
their infancy; scientific men had,
however, for more than half a century
been working along scentific lines;
a priori deduction had given place to
induction founded upon observation
and experiment. The atomic the-
ory of Dalton; the correlation ot
physical forces worked out laborious-
ly and brilliantly by Helmholtz, Joule
and Tyndal; the uniformitarian hy-
pothesis of Sir Charles Lyell; the
spectroscopic analysis of Kirschoft
and above all the far-reaching gener-
alizations of Darwin and Wallace hada
made a new epoch in scientific dis-
covery. It recalled the spirit of ad-
venture which roused into feverish ac-
tivity the boundless energy and hero-
ic endurance of Henry the Navigator,
Vascoda Grama, Christofer Colombo
and Alphonse Albuquerque four cen-
turies before. A new world of iders
seemed to dawn upon mankind with
the introduction of the telegraph, otf
railway construction, of steam naviga-
tion and the application of scence to
the industrial arts. The age of the

Utopia of Sir Thomas More and of the
new Atlantis of Bacon divested of
fantasy and clothed in the habiliments
of decorous sobriety, seemed to have
dawned upon mankind.

The stimulus given to immigration
brought hundreds of thousands annu-
ally to our shores and the impulse
given to transcontinental migration,
through the development of the rail-
way system east of the Mississippi
transferred hundreds of thousands
annually from the Atlantic and mid-
dle states to the fertile lands stretch-
ed out in forest and prairie, ready to
receive and reward the hardy and in-
dustrious pioneer with comfort and
plenty. The rich gold fields of the
West, acquired by conquest and pur-
chase; the annexation of the great
empire of the Lone Star State; the
boundless domain between the Missis-
sippi and the Rockies—inviting capi-
tal and enterprise for pasturage and
cultivation; all contributed to develop
a feeling of unrest and a longing for
better things. The long pent-up ener:
gies of a young, vigorous, self-reliant
people broke beyond the geographical
limits which had hitherto bounded
their labors and rewards and swept a
living tide of humanity over hill and
valley, over mountain and plain, be-
yond lake and river into the illimita-
ble lands of the near and middle and
far West—from the Alleghanies to
the Mississippi and Missouri; from
the Mississippi and Missouri to the
great Amercan desert, the Rocky
Mountains and the shores of the Pa-
cific ocean. And thus the wave of
settlement, adjusting itself to peace-
ful industry laid the foundations of

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new states, planted new _ industries,
brought vast stretches of hitherto un-
productive lands under cultivation;
opened up the treasures of the mine;
multiplied the lines of communication
and poured the agricultural and min-
eral wealth of the great west into the
commerce of the world. Concurrent-
ly with these recent economic changes
resulting from the operation of natu-
ral causes economic changes of equal.
magnitude were brought about
through fiscal legislation at home and
,abroad. { The establishment of free
‘trade in Great Britain opened the
markets of that country to American
agricultural products, stimulating to
an unwonted degree production at
home\and correspondingly depressing
agriculture in the _ British Isles.
American wheat and corn monopo-
lized the supply of breadstuffs to the
British artisan, building up and con-
trolling a market into which no other
competitors could enter on equai
terms. Concurrently therewith the
protetctionist policy adopted by the
United States not only rendered this
country independent of foreign sup-
plies, but enabled her in the end to
become in many of the chief products
of the mine, the forge, and _ the
loom a formidable competitor for the
chief part of the commerce of the
world. Under these conditions, vague-
ly apprehended by the majority, but
apprehended with more or less clear-
ness of vision by a few of the far-
sighted statesmen of the country, the
Morrill law of 1862 was passed by the
Congress of the United States.

The demand for a system of educa-
tion adapted to the needs of the time,
which should go beyond the require-

ments for classics, law, medicine, di-
vinity and letters; an education which
without prosecribing or neglecting clas-
sical and philosophical studies, should
utilize for the public good the known
and discoverable laws and processes of
nature, for the increase of production
and the multiplication of the comforts
and necessities of life. This demand
the Morrill law was intended to satis-
fy, and upon this foundation more
than fifty state colleges and universi-
ties are established.

Mr. Morrill saw that in the rapid
alienation of the public lands through
settlement and gratuitous allotment
to railway corporations the public do-
main was rapidly being exhausted.
He accordingly determined to dedi-
cate a part of this rapidly diminishing
public domain to the education of the
American people, along new lines and
according to the necessities imposed
by geographical and economic condi-
tions peculiar to the western hemis-
phere. He provided that land script
should be given to the several states
in proportion to population for the en-
dowment of institutions of learning,
wherein should be taught those
branches of learning related to agri-
culture and the mechanic arts, with-
out excluding classical and other sci-
entific studies, and including military
tactics, for the education of the in-
dustrial classes in the several pur-
suits and professions of life. This
was a radical departure from the old
idea of education. It was a concep-
tion of University work such as had
never yet been thought out by any
tninker and whose realization had
never yet been attempted. The exist-
ing body of human knowledge, wheth-

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er of mind or of matter, hypothetically
assumed or actually realized, was to
be avaliable for appropriation by the
learner; and the far greater domain
of nature, unknown or partially
known, invited the investigator
through observation and experiment
to new fields of discovery. The old
institutions looked doubtfully and not
quite sympathetically on the new ed-
ucation. They gravely shook their
heads at the credulity of those who
thought that investigation in those
branches of science relating to agrt-
culture and the mechanic arts could
be carried beyond the merest rudi-
ments or would be productive of re-
sults at all commensurate with the
expenditure of time and money pro-
posed. But when within a few years
they saw an interpretation given to
the legislation of Mr. Morrill which
did not confine Mechanic Arts to
blacksmithing, carpentry and kindred
handicrafts—which went beyond the
still more advanced conception ot
manual training and discovered its ul-
timate application in Engineering—
Mechanical, Electrical, Civil, Sanitary
and Mining; when they saw as pre-
liminary and preparatory to these ex-
tended courses in Mathematics, Chem-
istry and Physics, reaching far above
and beyond those in the older Colleges
and Universities they began to show
more consideration for the new an@
to ask “Can any good thing come out
of Nazareth?” When, moreover, they
saw that the foundations of a Science
of Agriculture were being laid in ex-
tended courses of Botany, Compara-
tive Anatomy and Physiology, Biolo-
gy, Chemistry, Entomology — that
through these, barren fields were made

fertile the products of animal and
vegetable industry improved in quali-
ty, multiplied in quantity and _ in-
creased manifold in commercial value,
the exclusiveness of the old tacitly ac-
quiesced in a modified recognition of
the new. Silently, steadily, resist-
lessly the new has moved on regard-
less of the contempt, the pity and
tolerance of the old. Ere long the
new institutions, retaining for the
most part the classics and the philos-
ophies of the old, established Chemic-
al, Physical, Biological and Engineer-
ing laboratories on a scale of ex-
penditure and completeness far be-
yond the resources of the old; they
set the pace for scientific study and
investigation in America. By their
bold experiments and stupendous re.
sults they startled the old institu-
tions out of their complacent lethargy
and roused them to an activity hith-
erto unknown. They made it mani-
fest that classical and philosophical
attainments and dicipline could exist
Side by side with thorough training
and far reaching acquirements in
Natural Science and that these latter
found an application in the develop-
ment of Agriculture and Manufactur-
ing industry out of all proportion to
the original conception on which the
legslation of 1862 was based.

A few of the older Universities—
originally denominational but long
since secularized — Yale, Harvard,
Princeton, Columbia, with prestige
large endowments and wealthy alum-
ni, who have contributed freely to en-
large the sphere of their ‘capability
and activity; and a few recently foun-
ded and endowed by individual mu-
nificence on a scale of unprecedented

Gg

liberality—Johns Hopkins, Leland
Stanford and Chicago University
stand well to the front and maintain
each a staff of workers in the field of
investigation who are the peers of any
in the land. Most of the others, es-
pecially those which are dependent
upon denominational support have
fallen hopelessly to the rear. The
Colleges and Universities established
under the Congressional act of 1862,
whose areas of activity were enlarged
by the supplementary legislation of
lo87 and 1890 have grown so rapidly
that they are now recognized in most
of the states as the chief exponents
of the higher education coupled with
the practical education which finds ex-
pression in ever multiplying bushels
of wheat and bales of cotton and
tons of steel—an education which con-
ditions and renders possible the su-
premacy of America in productive ac-
tivity and commercial enterprises.
But our scientific achievements and
their translation into material wealth
must not be content with these tri-
umphs. The last forty years—a peri-
od coincident with the life of these in-
stitutions—have witnessed an increase
in population and in wealth such as
the dreams of the most sanguine could
not have ventured to anticipate. No
parallel for it exists either in ancient
or modern history, either in the old
world or the new; and the actually
realized power and wealth of the na-
tion are but the beginning of greater
and mightier things yet to be. With-
in another half century our population
will have quadrupled; our wealth in-
creased in more than corresponding
proportion, and our strength on land
and sea such that no power or com-

bination of powers will be able to
gainsay or resist. In this mighty on-
ward march the State Colleges and
Universities will lead the van. But
they must do more than point the way
which leads to material wealth and
dominion. Problems relating to mind
and matter of surpassing interest to
mankind are pressing for solution
and to their solution the scientists and
laboratories of these Colleges and Uni-
versiites must contribute an adequate
if not a preponderant share.

I have seen it stated that the theo-
ry set forth in Prof. Osborne Rey-
nolds’ “Sub Mechanics of the Unl-
verse” “that not a flawless continuous
ether, but a granular structure of the
spaces of the universe that not only
explains all observed: phenomena and
the cause of gravitation but reveals
the prime cause of the physical prop-
erties of matter” finds for the present
one of its chief facts of interest in the
fact that few if any of living mathe.

maticians are capable of following
his demonstrations and none are
strong enough to attack it. Sir Wil-

liam Crookes, in an address to the
International Congress for Applied
Chemistry at Berlin, June 4th of this
year, said that chemists now admitted
“the possibility of resolving the chem.
ical elements into simpler forms of
matter or even of refining them
away altogether into etheral vibra-
tions of electrical energy.” He fur-
ther declared that “a number of iso.
lated hypotheses as to the existence
of matter in an ultra-gaseous state,
the existence of material particles
smaller than atoms, the existence of
electrical ions or electrons, the con-
stitution of Rontgen rays and thelr

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passage through opaque bodies, the
emanations from Uranium and _ the
dissociation of the elements were
now welded into one harmonious the-
ory by the discovery of Radium.” He
added that if the hypothesis of the
electronic constitution of matter were
pushed to its logical limit it is possi-
ble that we are now witnessing the
spontaneous dissociation of Radium
and if so must begin to doubt the per-
manent stability of matter.” If this
be so the “formless mist’ must once
more reign supreme and the visible
universe dissolve.

Sir Oliver Lodge in the Romanes
Lecture delivered at Oxford on the
14th of June, suggested that atoms of
matter are actually composed of con-
centrated portions of electricity which
could exist separately or in associa-
tion. Seven hundred such electrons
inviolent orbital motion among them-
selves would constitute an atom of
hydrogen; 11200 electrons would form
an atom of oxygen and 150,000 an
atom of Radium. We have on this
heory arrived at the ultimate chem-
ical particle, various combinations of
which form all the infinitely diverse
aspects of matter. Sir Oliver observes
that “the attraction of this hypothesis
is that it represents a unification of
matter and a reduction of all materi-
al substance to a purely electrical
phenomenon.” This electrical theory
of matter involves two consequences,
a continual increase in the velocity
of the constituents of an atom and
the ultimate instability of those con-
stituents. There is thus a state of flux
and decay “in the foundation stones
of the universe, the elemental atoms

themselves.” Sir Oliver thinks, how-
ever, that there is at the same time a
system of reaggregation at work
which constitutes a sort of regenera-
tive process which will preserve the
universe by the creation of new forms
of matter in the place of forms that
have been dissolved. If these things
be so it can no longer be said “that
the ultimate details of atomic consti-
tution are beyond our scrutiny.” But
granted that these details are known
the mysteries of the universe are still
unsolved. What is the nature of elec-
tric phenomena? What are _ those
things which can evolve out of struc-
tureless simplicity the infinite com-
plexities of the earth and heaven?
Does a directive foree—intelligent and
eternal become the necessary postu-
late for a rational conception of the
universe? Are we warranted in con-
cluding with Tennyson that

“Only that which made us meant us
to be mightier by and by

Set the sphere of all the boundless
heavens within the human eye;

Sent the shadow of Himself, the
boundless, through the human sout

Boundless, inward in the atom, bound-
less outward in the whole.”

We are manifestly on the thresh-
hold of mighty discoveries. What
part will the American intellect play
in the investigation and solution of
these problems? What part will the
Colleges and Universities of this asso-
ciation play in the unfolding of this
stupendous drama? In the laboratory
of the chemist and the physicist the
work must be done. To this end we
need skilful workers, clear thinkers,
prophetic men with trained intellects

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and scientific imaginations. To this
end we need special endowments; but
special endowment for research means
large expenditure for the best materl-
al facilities which ingenuity can de-
vise and skilled workmanship can
construct. It means also highly disci-
plined and trained investigators whose
time is not occupied with the drudgery
of instruction but which is devoted
entirely to original work. These con-
ditions necessarily imply large expen-
ditures and the means for this must
be obtained from the liberality of the
nation and from the generosity of indi-
viduals. We must encourage the
study of higher mathematics in order
to develop men who snall be able to
follow and interpret the mathematics
on which the theory of the “‘Sub-Me-
chanics of the Universe” rests. We
must create in our laboratories the
Curies and the Kelvins and _ the
crookes and the Clark-Maxwells, the
Rutherfords and Bancrofts and Os-
walds who shall grapple with and if
possible solve the mysteries of the
physical universe. This, I trust, will
fall largely to the lot of the Colleges
and Universities which we represent
today. Let us hope that from their
halls shall issue the honored few;
from their ranks shall arise the he-
roes of science who in the achieve-
ments of these last and greatest re-
sults shall be welcomed to join the
ranks of the immortals.

With the accession of the Tudors in
1455 the influence of England in con:
tinental affairs had materially dimin-
ished. The days of Crecy and Poitiers
and Agincourt with the passing of En-
gland’s heroes—the Black Prince an@
Henry V. had also passed away. The

Treaty of Pecquini had left England
none of her continental possessions
except Calais and this too, was to
pass to the House of Valois before
Tudors ceased to reign. The ascen-
dency of Spain was unquestioned.
Even after the abdication of Charles
V. the Spanish monarchy was the
most powerful in the world. The vast
Over-sea possessions which that mone
arch had inherited from Ferdinand
and Isabella he transmitted, enlarged
and consolidated to his son Philip.
But the growing sea-power of Eng-
land after the accession of Elizabeth
was destined ere the close of the
century to give the Spanish power a
fatal blow. The defeat of the Armada
sealed the fate of the Spanish suprem-
acy and proved that something more
than prestige and gold was needful
on which to build national power and
national prosperity. From 1588 the
star of Spanish dominion gradually
declined and the scepter was by de-
grees transferred to mightier hands.
England followed close upon the track
of discovery, but more than a century
passed before any permanent settle-
ment was made by her in the new
world. Though she entered later on
the race of transatlantic adventure
than either Spain or France, yet she
was destined to outstrip all her com.
petitors in colonial dominion. The
colonies founded during the reign of
the successor of hte Great Tudor
Queen were established by men not
impelled by the lust of gold but by
men who sought political freedom and
liberty to worship God according to
their conscience. They carried with
them love of home, reverence for law,
a deep sense of the inalienable rights

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of man and the conviction that in
their veins flowed the blood of Al-
fred and of the Barons who extorted
the Magna Charta from King John on
the field of Runnymede; and here,
with these convictions and these tra-
ditions they laid the foundations of
what in the immediate future will be
the mightiest nation which the world
has ever seen. The Revolution of
1776 broke the political bonds which
united the original colonies to the
mother country; but it did not break
the bonds of blood, of inherited tra-
ditions, and of the glory which at-
tached to the common _ inheritance.
All the glorious ideals of the race have
quickened, enlarged and intensified;
and have found realization to a de-
gree which could never have been at-
tained within the narrow limits of
the original home in the old world.
The immemorial heritageof freedom,
brought by Angle and Jute and Saxon
from the banks of the Saale to those
of the Thames and the Humber and
the Dee, and after ages of growth
within the British isles transplanted
to ampler fields in America has found
its ultimate development in the great
nation of whose origin and history we
are all proud today. «and it may sure:
ly be a source of legitimate pride to
the mohter country “that the great
empire which neither the ambition ot
Louis XIV nor the conquering power
of Napoleon could dismember, receiv-
ed its first rude shock from the cour-
age which she had communicated to
her emancipated offspring and that
amid transatlantic wilds grew up a
‘race of men who have established
real liberty” on the principles which

they inherited from ancestors who /
were the countrymen and compatriots
of Bacon and Sidney, of Hampden
and Oliver Cromwell.

The last trace of Spanish domin-
ion on the American continent was
obliterated four years ago by the de-
cendants of men who harried and
plundered the Spanish main in the
days of Drake and Effingham, of
Frobisher and Sir John Hawkins. The
one then as now represented the Lat-
in race with its spasmodic activity
and ephemeral ideals; the other the
sturdy Anglo-Saxon stock with its
sturdy perseverance, its unflagging
energy, its uncompromising love of
freedom and its corresponding hatred
of oppression. “And this Anglo-Saxon |
stock by its inherent vigor and its in- |
telligent foresight and its undaunted )
spirit of enterprise is the coming race
in whose hands lie the destinies of
civilization. In its veins the sap -
swells high today and it will swell —
high tomorrow. b

The future of mankind lies not
with the Mercurial Latin-Celtic race,
nor with the crafty Mongol, nor with
the perfidous Slav, but with the self ‘
reliant, freedom loving, God fearing
men who preferred exile and poverty
to affluent, inglorious, conformity;
and who emancipating themselves
from the idols of the cave and the
idols of tune market buckled on their
freed spirits the harness of mind.

In the United States of today even
the busiest and most actively employ-
ed in the intervals of leisure stop to
enquire whence they came, what they
are and whither they tend. The ap-
prehension has heen felt and express-

Sap Ap,

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ed that we are too much given up to
the acquisition of wealth, too mate-
rial, that we care nothing for the
past, are absorbed in the cares of the
present and clothe the future in the
draping of the accumulated gain
built upon the foundations which we
have laid. The hundreds have grown
into the thousands, the thousands in-
to millions; we look to a future when
the latter shall have expanded into
billions and then the golden age in
another sense than that of the an-
cients will have superceded and sup-
planted all others and wealth, not
brains, will rule mankind. But wealth
in the second generation if not in the
first looks anxiously for a background
of respectability. This is a whole-
some feeling and a healthy indication.
The wealthy long for something more
than mere wealth to differentiate them
from the masses. Energy and capac:
ity and ability to accumulate wealth
were indispensable but these must
have had an antecedent existence in
the family. Heredity and atavism
are assumed as the necessary condi-
tions and these are sought for in fam-
ily history. Family traditions, fami-
ly records, title deeds, names and sur-
names, on this side of the Atlantic and
on the other are eagerly examined,
studied, collated, and translated into
genealogies embodied in family trees
with all the accessories of crests,
mottoes, armorial bearings and coats
of arms. These ideas are not incom-
patible with Republicanism. The
Washingtons and Jeffersons and Ad-
amses and Winthrops of colonial
times were proud of their title deeds
and genealogies and descent from
the gentry and gentlemen and nobili-

ty of the mother country. Not only
the leaders in the American revolt of
1776 were gentlemen and the sons of
gentlemen, but most of the non com-
missioned officers and men were of
reputable English and Scotch and
Irish descent. Gentlemen fought
and won in the Revolutionary con-
test. In no subsequent war in which
the United states has been engaged
did the armies of the republic contain
so large a proportion of gentlemen.
What then is calieu the modern craze
for genealogy is a healthy conserva-
tive mental condition an effort to dis-
cover and if not to discover to make
a place in the annals of recorded or
unrecorded gentility. Fortunately the
original contributory elements which
make up the history of the Great Re-
public are not so difficult to discover.
The early history of Puritan Pilgrim
and Cavalier is well known. The po-
litico-religious ferment which led to
the emigration of the one and the
spirit of adventure which led to the
voluntary expatiation of the other are
matters of history.

Other contributory elements from
Germany and Scandanavia and cen-
tral and eastern Europe have swelled
the population of this newer and
mightier England which occupies the
best half of the North American con-
tinent, but the basis, the back-bone,
the brain of the country remains and
will remain Anglo-Saxon. Our history
thus finds its roots in the history of
the people of the old world and pre-
eminently in that of middle England,
which stands mid-way between the
Saxon of the Saale and the Saxon of
America. Through our relations with
them Robert Bruce and Bannockburn

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‘are ours; Hastings and Runnymede,
Evesham and Crecy, Bosworthfield
and Marston Moor,Blenheim and Cul-
loden. Through them we inherit the
glory of an inalienable birthright in
the common law, in the growth of
parliamentary government, in the re-
formation of Knox and the martydom
of Latimer and Ridley. Through them
we claim an equal inheritance in
Wickliffe and Bacon and Shakespeare
in Newton and Boyle and Harvey; in
Burleigh and Halifax and Chatham—
while we allow them to share the
greatness of those who are peculiarly
our own, Franklin and Washington
‘and Longfellow, Andrew Jackson and
Abraham Lincoln.

Now inasmuch as the students in
our Colleges and Universities are or
‘should be educated not as scholars
and scientists only, but as citizens
who will be concerned in shaping the
destinies of the greatest people
whom the world has ever seen, it is
not less incumbent that adequate pro-
vision be made for the attainment of
the one end equally with the other.
The State University must be what
Ezra vornwell in founding the Uni-
versity which bears his name wanted
it to become, viz: a place where every:
thing could be taught which it is pos-
sible to teach, and where everything
could be learned which it is possible
for one to know.

_ I would urge then, with all the in-
sistence which I may, the necessity
that history and political philosophy
with all their correlated subjects
should become a special feature of
the University and Collegiate in-
‘struction which we represent. In

many they are already distinctive fea-
tures. They should be made distinc-
tive and obligatory in all.

Within the last 200 years history
has been made rapidly in America.
Hor a time almost isolated from con-
tact witu European nationalities and
in touch with the old world mainly
through official relationship, polit-
ical life developed without interfer-
ence from abroad. The theory of the
New England Commonwealth gradu-
ally became more political and less
theological; the limits imposed upon
religious freedom gradually relaxed
and political freedom became more
unrestrained. They were law-abid-
ing but the laws to which they sub-
jected themselves were of their own
making. So strong, however, was the
traditional respect for law and order
and so conservative were they when
least restrained by external authori-
tythat their legislation never tended
to sap the fountains of the Common:
wealth nor impair the _ obligations
of contract. Legislation was general-
ly along the lines of precedent, fol-
lowing the recognized principles of
the Common Law and adhering close-
ly to the rights and duties laid down
in the great charter of English free-
dom. When under new _ conditions
new legislation was needed for
which no precedent existed, known
to the law-makers, the ample shield
of the spirit of the Common Law
and of Magna Charta was invoked to
cover them. So in the interpretation
of the law by the judge on the bench,
if statute law did not exist to meet
the cause in action, the Common Law
was so interpreted as to apply and

(3: )

the spirit of jurisprudence came to
the relief of the dispenser of justice.
And this was exactly what happened
hundreds of years before in Wessex
and Kent and East Anglia and Mercia
and Northumbria. The principles of
law and equity had grown up silently
in the community enlarging in their
applications as new conditions arose
and became imbedded in the hearts of
Englishmen ages before they found
articulate expression in the laws of
Ina and Offa, Alfred and Ethelred;
ages before the charters of John and
Henry and Edward placed the seal
forever on the recognized and inalien-
able rights of Englishmen. This spir-
it and these traditions they brought
with them to the new world. England
alone of all the world could supply
such colonists and England alone of
all the world could continue without
exhaustion the work of colonization
on such a scale as to assure ultimate
success. The puritans of the North
and the Cavaliers of the South, rein-
forced in later times by the sturdy
Seot from the Lowlands and_ the
Highlands and later on by the equal-
ly hardy Scots of Ulster formed the
basis of American nationality and a
nobler ancestry the world has never
seen. The characteristics of the
first settlers remain the predominant
characteristics of the typical Ameri-
ean of today, and however affected
by subsequent infusions from conti-
nental sources remains in large meas-
ure unmodified. This propotency of
race and of blood is manifest in every
phase of the history of the American
people. Only people of Anglo-Saxon
blood, Anglo-Saxon endurance, and
Anglo-Saxon devotion to freedom

could have maintained and carried
the struggle for independence to a
successful issue against the power of
the mother country. Only people of
Anglo-Saxon blood could have main-
ed and successfully concluded the
seconu trial of strength with the might
of the British Empire in the war of
1812. Only the descendants of this
heroic stock could have routed the
armies of Mexico and planted the
stars and stripes wpon the ramparts
of Chapultepec and Churubusco and
in that terrific contest fought out for-
ty years ago for the maintenance of
the integrity of the Republic, when
armies larger than those engaged at
Marengo, Wagram, Austerlitz, Jena
or Waterloo met each other on the
field of battle, the men on both sides
who led them to victory or defeat,
and the men who followed them were
in the main the descendents of the
pioneers whose ancestors had lived
for thirty generations within the four
seas of Britain. Lee and Jackson and
Stuart and Hampton and Gordon, Mc-
Clellan and Grant and Sheridan anda
Sherman and Thomas are as _ thor-
oughly British names as Cromwell
and Marlborough and Wolf and Well-
ington. With this people, its noble
ancestry, its inspiring traditions, its
stupendous achievements and its glo-
rious history, I would have the most
ample provisions made in every in-
stitution in this Association for its
students to become acquainted. The
educated American should know the
history of his own people in itself
and in its relations. We go back be-
yond 1776, beyond 1620 and 1607. The
roots of our being are identical with
those of the patriots who worked out

(14)

patiently and laboriously for 600
years the problems of parliamentary
government, of the relation of the
subject to the state, of taxation to
representation, of the coordination of
liberty and authority. English his-
tory before 1776 belongs as much to
Americans as to Englishmen, and
American institutions are unintelligi-
ble if dissevered from their rational
relationship. The American constitu-
tion without the prior existence of
- Magna Charta, Habeas Corpus and
_ the Bill of Rights would have been
- impossible.

When Lord Beaconsfield returned
from the Congress of Berlin he gave
utterance to a felicitous expression
which roused to an intense self con-
sciousness the hearts of the British
people. “Libertas et Imperium”
struck a note which vibrated through
the British Isles. They felt that they
had achieved Empire through free-
dom. I would strike a kindred note
here today. I would have this Asso-
ciation adopt the motto: “Education
and Empire.’ Freedom we _ have.
Freedom forms the basis of our na-
tional existence, the air which it
breaths, the inspiration of the life
which it lives. But the inspiration
and the vitality of freedom and of
Empire must henceforth be _intelli-
gence, developed, strengthened, exalt-
ed, purified.

Not long since a conference of al-
lied colonial universities was held in
London. There were present men
like Lord Kelvin and the leader of
the House of Commons, eminent rep-
resentatives of learning and science,
men high in authority in the old uni-

versities of the mother country and
men of distinction in the more recent-

ly established universities of the
King’s over sea dominions. Mr. Bal-
four announced the object of the

meeting to be “An alliance of all the
universities that in an _ increasing
measure are feeling their responsibili-
ties not merely for training the youth
which is destined to carry on the tra-
ditions of the British Empire but also
to further those great interests of
knowledge, scientific research and
culture without which no Empire,
however materially magnificent, can
really say that it is doing its share in
the progress of the world.” What the
statesman of the kindred people be-
yond the Atlantic seek to do we have
already been doing for years. This
Federation of Colleges and Universi-
ties has been addressing itself to real-
ize the objects set forth in the lan-
guage just quoted, viz: “the further
ance of the great interests of knowl-
edge, scientific research and liberal
culture without which no Empire,
however materially magnificent can
really say that it is doing its share in
the progress of the world.” No such
federation of educational agencies
and activities as this association of
ours has ever been seen. It is the
first, the greatest, the most far reach-
ing in its aims and the most success-
ful in its results. It has long since
passed beyond the embryonic stage.
Embracing within its scope all that is
valuable in the old and incorporating
it with new ideals it presents to the
nation and the world a system com-
plete because all embracing and in-
spired by the vigor of youth goes on
conquering and to conquer.

(15 )

“To the solid ground of nature
trusts the mind which builds for aye.”

American institutions have materi-
ally influenced the principles of gov:
ernment in the old world; American
education is accomplishing a similar
work in influencing the educational
system of Europe. Germany has felt
its power—great though Germany be
in intellect, in pure science, in dis.
covery; England frankly acknowl-
edges her obligations to American
methods in university training and in
the application of science to industri-
al production; Russia in her commer-
cial exclusiveness pays a reluctant
tribute to American enterprise through
her policy of obstruction. All these
are legitimate sources of an honorable
pride, and all the more gratifying be-
cause the Federation of American
Colleges and Experiment Stations is
the exponent of the idea. The prece-
dence which we have won we must
maintain. Hoc Signo Vinces. State
and Nation are alike interested in the
existence and development of the
units which form this organization;
and State and Nation will respond
with equal liberality in order to main-
tain the most comprehensive, most
economic, most fruitful educational
activity which human wisdom ever
devised.

From a glorious past, through 2a
marvellous present, to an illustrious
future—the transition is natural and
easy. If the growth and prosperity
witnessed within the memory of liv-
ing persons have been unexampled, it
is because conditions, intellectual,
moral, religious, social, material and
political existed such as never existed

before. Some of these will continue,
others will undergo material modifi-
cation. The intellect, through scien-
tific discovery and liberal culture will
probably become more keen and more
intense in its activity. Social condi-
tions and relations will change as
they are changing now. The rich will
become relatively richer and the poor
perhaps poorer. A greater mastery
will be obtained over the powers of
nature, subordinating them to human
control and to human utility. The
visible embodiments of the collective
will in civil government , executive,
legislative and judicial will be deter-
mined by the moral and _ religious
ideas and convictions which prevail.
If there be wholesome, vital, intense
and strong social and political con-
victions, the relation of the individual
to the community, of the citizen to the
State will be determined by honest
and rational means for the attainment
of high and honorable ends. Upon
the moral and religious life of the fu-
ture will depend the future greatness
of the great republic. The vigorous
beliefs in which the fathers and the
mothers of the olden times were
brought up have without doubt chang-
ed. Is it for the better or for the
worse? Let us hope that human
elements only have been elimina-
ted and all that is divine is
retained; that the dross and the tin
have been purged and that the gold
remains. But somehow the shadow of
a doubt sometimes crosses the mind
that not the form but the essence has
changed, that:

“Now there are new religions, many
the codes and the creeds

LIBRARY OF CONG

NN

(16)

Many the quibbling changes to fit
with our fanciful needs
All of them waxing milder;
in strength and tone

None of them stern and sturdy; none
of them stand alone

None like the old _ religions—those
that the fathers made

Built on the fearless basis—the God
of the unafraid.”

waning

The moral and religious tone of the
country upon which the greatness of
the nation will depend will be influ-
enced largely by the moral and reli-
gious tone which pervades the Col-
leges and universities which compose
this Association. Let us see to it that
the God of our fathers—reliance upon
whom carried them through the
throes and perils of the birth of the
Nation is not forgotten; let us see
that “the Divinity that shapes our
ends rough hew them how we may”
is still recognized and reverenced—
conscious that amid human affairs
there is a power that works for prog-
pess and for righteousness and that
the great lesson of all history, spec-
ially emphasized and exemplified in
our own is the realizing of the divine
in the human; of the infinite in the
finite; of the eternal in the temporal;
that,

“Not in vain the Nation strivings
Nor by chance the currents flow

Error mazed yet truth directed
To their destined goal they go.”

We can picture to ourselves ere
the close of this century a nation of
seven hundred millions of people,
Christian, peaceful, rich and happy—

with realized industrial, agricultural
and commercial wealth, tenfold that
of the present, with a predominent in-
fluence in the councils of the world,
with a fiscal system light in its bur-
dens, with income balancing expen:
diture, with laws just and equitably
administered, with ignorance banish-
ed, crime restrained and pauperism
non-existant; with the relations of
wealth and labor rightfully adjusted,
and above all with a deep and per-
vading sense of the fatherhood of
God and the brotherhood of man.
We can fancy these Colleges and
Universities with endowments count-
ed by millions and students by thou-
sands—recognized as the prime fac-
tors in individual and national wealth
and greatness. Venerable abodes of
learning diffusing through their sons
and daughters an enlightenment and
culture pervaded by a deep religious
sense, enlightened by science and a
science leavened and glorified by re-
ligion. We can think of them as the
depositories of discovered truth
whence the pilgrims of every kindred
and clime recruit their stores for the
enlightenment of mankind; as_ bea-
cons whose illuminating beams irra-
diate every continent and transcend
every sea. Then shall we realize the
vision of the Hebrew Prophet, “Who
are these that fly as a cloud and as
doves to their windows; their sons
shall come from afar and their
daughters be nursed at thy side and
I will make the place of my feet glo-
rious.”

Happy land, happy people, yea hap-

py is that people whose God is the
Lord.

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