may exert an influence in the community and make himself felt in the right direction.

It was voted that a committee of three be appointed by the Chair to nominate officers for next year. Messrs. BULKLEY, BINFORD and SAWYER were appointed. Adjourned.

A. P. MARBLE, Secretary.

SECOND DAY.

WEDNESDAY P.M.-AUGUST 6th.

Meeting of Superintendents' Department at 23 o'clock - President Wм. T. HARRIS in the chair.

Both gentlemen on the programme being absent, it was voted to adjourn, to listen to the exercises of the other section.

The report of the committee on the future meetings of this Department was announced for to-morrow. A. P. MARBLE, Secretary.

THIRD DAY.

THURSDAY-AUGUST 7th, 2:30 P.M.

President HARRIS in the chair.

In the absence of Chancellor ELIOT, of the Washington University, St. Louis, Mo., his paper on Western University Education was read by WM. T. HARRIS, of St. Louis, J. W. BULKLEY, Superintendent of Brooklyn Schools, in the chair.

WESTERN UNIVERSITY EDUCATION.

A university, properly speaking, is the highest institution of learning: an institution in which the "higher education" in all departments can be obtained. In the largest sense of the word, therefore, there is no university in the United States, as yet, though there are some to which the name can be properly given, as the child bears the name of the man. The propriety of its application depends not chiefly upon the more or less extensive range of studies pursued, nor upon the number of professors and students, nor upon the methods of instruction in class-room and lecture-room, nor upon the social arrangements adopted, whether of the dormitory, conventual system, or of the larger and more cosmopolitan plan of leaving both teachers and taught to the same liberty of choice, as to place and mode of living, which belongs to other citizens;

but rather upon the breadth of idea, the catholicity of thought, the elevation of aim, the thoroughness and exhaustiveness of research, the profoundness of learning, given and received, in whatever department of inquiry may be actually established.

The number of studies may be increased or lessened; the methods and arrangements may be indefinitely modified; the classes may consist of one or of a thousand students; the actual studying may be done on the college premises or a hundred miles off; the proof of proficiency may be given by daily recitations and other personal intercourse with the teacher, or by examination and thesis when the work is done; -- but let these things be as they may, that institution has the highest claim to honor in the university rank, which reaches the highest point of investigation in science and philosophy; which is most earnest and successful in the development of truth; which does the best work for the individual man, in the education of his whole manhood, and in fitting. him for the highest and best work of civilized Christian humanity.

The larger the field of human inquiry, the greater the range of science, the more important does it become to educate the man. The greater the variety and difficulty of the work, the more intelligent must be the workman.

The advantage enjoyed by Americans, in comparison with the average of English laboring men, is in this: -the latter are well trained in specialties only, under a sharply-defined division of labor; Americans may not be as skilled in any one direction, but, under the pressure of strong motive, can turn themselves to every new task and ultimately excel.

No man can know every thing. No man can be an expert in all the sciences, even as they now are, and every year is opening new avenues of research. But by so much the more necessary is it to improve the mind itself, the mental faculties, by thorough education in some one direction and by sound intellectual discipline.

The special direction in which the university shall apply its energies depends, as with all other institutions, whether of educational or religious character, upon the time, place and circumstances; for by these the necessities and capacity of the public mind and the nature of the work to be done are determined.

It would be absurd, for instance, to repeat the scholastic methods of the middle ages in this nineteenth century, or to educate our American youth as if the Latin language were the common vehicle of thought among educated men. It would be equally absurd to transplant German or French or English universities to our shores, even if it were possible to do so. Imagine it to be done, with no other change than the language spoken, and the transferred institution, prosperous and useful in its present home, would either soon die out, or be compelled into so great changes of method and plan as to be practically a new organization. We have much to learn from European colleges and universities, but we could not repeat them here, if we would. We should gain but little by a close imitation of them, for every thing would need to be translated into "American," not less than the language itself, and even if the language were the same. Our institutions of learning are in some respects, although not to the degree commonly supposed, inferior to theirs; but wherein we are deficient we must work out our own salvation, in our own way,

by our own experience, with a genuine American development and growth, if we would succeed at all. For it is in young republican America, to meet American demand, that we are working, and not in imperial Germany nor in democratico-imperial France, nor in oligarchical England, where generations must pass away before they can have as grand an outlook over the field of humanity as we have before us this day. Educators may say what they please in favor of a European education, it is not what we need for American youth, nor what we desire to accomplish. As we have public schools after our own type, taken from no other, upon the maintenance of which our national existence depends, so must our colleges and universities be distinctively American, of a higher and better type than Europe has ever seen; as they ought to be, to meet the present and future wants of a great Republic.

We may therefore say, in passing, that the practice of sending American children and youth to Europe for their education is a great mistake. It is simply to unfit them, so far as education can do it, for happiness and usefulness at home. If continued through the forming years of life, say from fourteen to twenty, the young person returns home practically unable to appreciate either the merits or demerits of his own land, and requiring to learn and unlearn so many things, that one-half the education at home would have served a better purpose. After completion of the American college course, or still better after a technical or professional education has been measurably obtained, a few years in Europe may be, in some departments of knowledge and art, almost essential; but up to the point at which the habits of thought and the moral and intellectual character may be considered as established, American education is that which should be desired for all, whether male or female, who expect to become American citizens.

Pursuing the same train of thought, it may reasonably be expected that in a country of so great extent as ours, some characteristic differences will obtain among institutions of learning, in places so far separate as California, Louisiana and Massachusetts, both as to the results sought for and the methods of attaining them. Too close an imitation of each other, or an attempt to conform them all to the same pattern, would be neither philosophical nor wise.

It does not follow, for example, because, at Cornell and Ann Arbor and other Western colleges, young women are profitably admitted on equal terms with young men, that therefore they can be profitably admitted at Harvard and Dartmouth and Yale. That it will follow, in sequence of time, I have no doubt, for in this respect I believe that the West is in the advance and has adopted the right principle; in proof of which we may appeal to HUXLEY'S brief but comprehensive essay upon "Black and White Emancipation." But we do not the less freely admit that the one case does not settle the other, and that to the wisdom of educators and the public demand the decision must, in both cases, be ultimately left.

In like manner, collegiate instruction in elocution and oratory may be safely neglected in some parts of the country, as I infer from the catalogues of some of the oldest and best colleges, either because there is a natural aptness in this respect, or because the community is already educated beyond the necessity of the suaviter in modo to commend the fortiter in re,- but in other more crude

communities, where an attractive form is essential, as a passport to the soundest sense, such neglect would be a serious or fatal omission.

The general difference between the older and the newer states, so far as it affects educational interests, is, to a considerable degree, the same with that which is felt in comparing the United States, as a whole, with the nations of Europe. No one who has lived in New England and then at the West can fail to perceive it or to be influenced by it, though it is not easy to describe. Every thing is younger, fresher, more superficial, more practical, more progressive, more regardless of precedents and perhaps ignorant of them; more ready for experiments and more rash in making them, even where the most important interests are involved. There is a necessity for young people to get earlier into active life, and the opportunities of doing so are greater. Practical knowledge is every where in demand, profound scholarship seldom. Material interests very much outweigh all others in public regard, and to develop the country and its resources is the leading purpose. Immediate results are impatiently demanded. Personal and social prosperity, with the comfort and power consequent, is the prize for which all are contending, while the higher moral and intellectual interests are incidentally rather than directly regarded. Philosophical studies, learning, art, science, so far as they require patient, elaborate, life-long pursuit, have scarcely obtained a recognized position. Every one is wide awake, eager and pushing, ready to adopt the latest improvement, with not a little self-conceit, thoroughly believing in the "destiny" and future greatness of the West;-nor can any one believe in it more thoroughly than I do, and that more confidently now than I did thirty-eight years ago. In a word, the Western States are the "Yankee nation" expanded and intensified.

Such is the general field in which, at the West and Northwest, we have to work; where there is a great deal of intelligence, but, as yet, comparatively little of the "higher education"; a great deal of progressive, enterprising "hard sense," but little book-learning, and almost as little regard for it. Wideawake, intelligent, self-reliant, practical, progressive, materialistic, that is the West.

To this condition of things, therefore, schools, academies, colleges, universities, must measurably adapt themselves. How far and in what manner they can rightfully do so, is the great practical question.

To answer it, or rather to indicate the direction in which the answer can be found, is the sole object of the present paper.

The familiar answer, given daily in newspaper articles and popular speeches, and some times in learned essays by eminent scholars, who kick away the ladder by which they have themselves climbed, is the easy and plausible one. "Yield to the current; put yourself in accord with the age; discard traditions; attend to the practical, not the theoretical; work for the present and future, regardless of the past; let the study of ancient give place to that of modern literature; substitute German for Greek, French for Latin, and history for logic and metaphysics; in a word, give the education that young men call for; that which tells and pays in direct use, which can be quickest gained and brought most immediately to a good market."

All of which has some truth in it; nor can any part of it, with safety, bę

entirely disregarded, if merely considered as a practical protest against antiquated things, and as a recognition of the demands and necessities of the present day.

But we fear that it indicates, particularly when applied to university education, a growing disregard to the importance of careful mental discipline and of the highest intellectual culture. It looks too much to the attainment of knowledge, to the accumulation of facts, to intellectual possessions; and too little to that increase of manhood and intellectual creative power which is the highest education of all. But this is the work which the university is bound first to do, although not to leave the other undone.

For the university, considered as the highest educational agency, should firmly hold itself as, eminently, a conservative force, whatever elements of progress it may admit. It should, indeed, make proof of all things, with a wise and cautious discretion, and may even, by importunate demand, make reluctant trial of some things which wisdom would reject; but, at all hazards, as guardian of the republic of letters and bound to see that it does not suffer, the university must hold fast that which is good. Feebly to yield to the popular current, and, still worse, to stimulate the already excessive devotion to mere materialistic ends and pursuits, may seem for a time good policy, and will probably increase its following, but ultimately will destroy its best uses and deprive it of its right to be. The university has no distinctive and characteristic existence when it converts its halls of learning and science and art into mere technical trainingshops for "bread-and-butter" success.

We fear that the tendency in this so-called practical direction is already felt, to a dangerous degree, and that it needs to be carefully reconsidered, if not rebuked. Most certainly, the college curriculum is not too high, any where in America, nor can it be lowered, under any pretense, without serious injury. In this respect, we may easily be led into error by the protests of English writers against the medieval systems still prevalent in their colleges and classical schools, and by their appeals for introduction of practical studies, such as physiology, physics, history and the modern languages, to a reasonable share of attention. But in this country the classics have been already shorn of a great part of their European honors. The student, in fitting for college and going through the college course, may take all the Greek and Latin required, without neglecting English studies, including a fair preliminary knowledge of the leading sciences and the methods of their study, together with a sufficient knowledge of German and French to use those languages both for enjoyment and for scholarly research, and yet take his degree of graduation at the age of twenty-one or twenty-two. This is done every day, by students of fair ability, who also find time enough for healthful physical exercise and, if they have a taste in that way, for considerable proficiency in music and drawing, and for no little enjoyment of social life.

To substitute German for Greek would, therefore, be as unnecessary as it is unphilosophical. I do not know that it has ever been seriously proposed, but it would be like substituting potatoes for roast-beef, when both are needed and neither can take the place of the other. The modern languages are indispensable to a good education, but they can not be made to do the work of classical study and there is not the smallest need of the experiment.