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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 49

State Colleges to Crush Out Denominational Colleges

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State Colleges to Crush Out Denominational Colleges.

This policy is foreshadowed in the proposed National University scheme. I am not drawing inferences from my imagination. The address of President White of Cornell University, delivered at Detroit, in August, 1874, lacks nothing in openness and directness of speech. Among other points, it contains these: "It is in view of such a meagre growth in over two hundred years, under the prevailing system, that I present the following as the fundamental proposition of this paper:—

"The main provision for advanced education in the United ' States must be made by the people at large, acting through page 31 their National and Stale Legislature, to endow and maintain institutions for the higher instruction, fully equipped and free from sectarian control.

"But I argue next, that our existing public-school system leads us logically and necessarily to the endowment of advanced instruction."

To show his utter contempt for the rudimentary education called for by President Grant, Mr. White thus expresses his conviction : "The preliminary education which many of our strongest men received leaves them simply beasts of prey. It has simply sharpened their claws and tusks; but a higher education, whether in science, literature, or history, not only sharpens the faculties, but gives him new exemplars and ideals." President White and Herbert Spencer both require very advanced education before morals, under this new dispensation, avail to make a man better.

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