Bearing in mind these restrictions in regard to the idea of success, we offer a few suggestive facts to show the number of college men who have made a record in the annals of the country.

The college has been the open doorway to positions of eminence and usefulness in all countries. Lord Macaulay, in one of his speeches in Parliament, said: "Take the Cambridge Calendar, or take the Oxford Calendar for two hundred years; look at the church, the parliament, or the bar, and it has always been the case that men who were first in the competition of the schools have been first in the competition of life."

Speaking of the advantages of a university education in Germany, Professor J. M. Hart says: "I am warranted in saying that the majority of the members of every legislative body in Germany, and three-fourths of the higher office holders, and all the heads of departments, are university graduates, or have at least taken a partial course—enough to catch the university spirit. All the controlling elements of German national life, therefore, have been trained to sympathize with the freedom, intellectual and individual, which is the characteristic of the university method."

It is estimated that only one-half of one per cent. of the male population in America receives a college education, and yet this small contingent of college men furnishes one-half of the Senators and Vice-Presidents, two-thirds of the Presidents and Secretaries of State, and seven-eighths of the Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States.

Rev. W. F. Crafts says: "I have examined the educational records of the seventy foremost men in American politics—Cabinet officers, Senators, Congressmen, and Governors of national reputation—and I find that thirty-seven of them are college graduates; that five more had a part of the college course, but did not graduate, while only twenty-eight did not go to college at all. As not more than one young man in five hundred goes to college, and as this one-five-hundredth of the young men furnishes four-sevenths of our distinguished public officers, it appears that a collegian has seven hundred and fifty times as many chances of being an eminent Governor or Congressman as other young men."

The college graduate generally has the pre-eminence among professional men. The proportion of successful men in the professions is difficult to obtain, but if a wide reputation be regarded as the criterion of success, the college-bred men take the lead.

President Thwing has carefully estimated that, of the 15,142 most conspicuous persons of our American history, whose record is sketched in "Appleton's Cyclopaedia of American Biography," 5,326 are college men. Among the latter, the percentage found in the various callings is as follows: "Pioneers and explorers, 3.6 per cent.; artists, 10.4 per cent.; inventors, 11 per cent.; philanthropists, 16 per cent.; business men, 17 per cent.; public men, 18 per cent.; statesmen, 33 per cent.; authors, 37 per cent.; physicians, 46 per cent.; lawyers, 50 per cent.; clergymen, 58 per cent.; educators, 61 per cent.; scientists, 63 per cent." He further estimates that one college man in every forty attains recognition, to one in every ten thousand non-college men; and a college-bred man has 250 times the chance of attaining recognition that the non-college man has.

Dr. Channing says: "The grounds of a man's culture lie in his nature, and not in his calling;" and, in keeping with this, the primary aim of a college is to train men. Yet, it should be the door of approach to all professions. The studies pursued in college are the foundations of the practice of the various professions, and a young man does himself and his profession no credit when he neglects to master a college course because of his impatience to rush into a professional career, and thus help to swell the army of poorly-equipped professional men.

"To practice law or medicine in France," says Matthew Arnold, "a person must possess a diploma, which serves as a guarantee to the public that such a person is qualified for his profession. A licentiate of law must first have got the degree of Bachelor of Letters; have then attended two years' lectures in a faculty of law, and undergone two examinations, one in Justinian's Code, and the Codes of Civil Procedure and Criminal Instruction. The new bachelor must then, in order to become licentiate, follow a third year's lectures in a faculty of law; undergo two more examinations, the first on the Institutes of Justinian again, the second on the Code Napoleon, the Code of Commerce, and Administrative Law, and must support a thesis on questions of Roman and French Law. To be a physician or surgeon in France, a man must have a diploma of a doctor either in medicine or in surgery. To obtain this, he must have attended four years' lectures in a faculty of medicine, and have two years' practice in a hospital. When he presents himself for the first year's lectures, he must produce a diploma of Bachelor of Letters; when for the third, that of a Bachelor of Sciences, a certain portion of the mathematics generally required for a third degree being, in his case, cut away. He must pass eight examinations, and at the end of his course he must support a thesis before his faculty."

Young men with talent and ambition are led to believe that the professions are so over-crowded that there is very little opportunity, in these days, for a collegian to succeed in a professional career. A comparative study of the number of students in the professional schools in Germany, France, and the United States, for 1890 reveals the following facts:

KEY:

A: Law. B: No. to every 100,000 population. C: Medicine. D: No. to every 100,000 population. E: Theology. F: No. to every 100,000 population.

A B C D E F

Germany, 6,304 13 8,886 18 5,849 12 France, 5,152 14 6,455 17 101 .. United States, 4,518 7 14,884 24 7,013 11

We glance briefly at the promises which the so-called learned professions hold out to young men. The opening for young men in the legal profession has many difficulties, but it is not without its rewards. David Dudley Field estimated that in 1893 there were 70,000 lawyers in the United States. If we estimate the population of the nation at 70,000,000, there would be one lawyer for every 1,000 of the population. Assuming that three-fourths of the population are women, children, and men under age, there would be one lawyer to every 250 males of full age in the United States.

Germany, with a population of 50,000,000, has about 7,000 lawyers, or one to every 7,000 persons. In the State of New York, with a population of 6,000,000, there are 11,000 lawyers, or one for every 545 of the population. Of this number of lawyers, there is a great proportion engaged in real estate business, or other outside matters, which enables them to secure a maintenance. Others have entered the law because of its promise of social position and honor.

Aside from the numbers in the legal profession, there are other considerations in the problem. The people of to-day are less disposed to controversy, and avoid employing lawyers to settle disputes and differences in court, and others often hesitate to employ a lawyer for fear of being made a victim of the rapacity of some who have brought the profession into disrepute. Again, there is less confusion in the laws. They are being collected, condensed, arranged, and simplified, and people are coming to understand the codes. Likewise, the courts are adopting simpler rules and codes of civil procedure, which give less room for pettyfogging hindrances and delays in litigation. A lawyer of talent, with the aid of a good stenographer and typewriter and other advantages of to-day, can do double and treble the work of a lawyer twenty-five years ago.

Finally, the qualifications of a lawyer never reached so high a standard. To attain the greatest professional success, it is indispensable to get the highest development which a college training can give. Chauncey M. Depew says that three-fifths of the lawyers are unfit for their profession from lack of ability or training. The people demand abler and better lawyers. The requisite qualities of a good lawyer to-day are not only knowledge and a good judgment, but patience, industry, honesty, and certain other aptitudes for his work. He must be ready to compete with a trained and talented rival. Special training is of great value. A lawyer of several years' standing at the bar in New York, in a recent conversation, remarked: "I studied law in a lawyer's office. My brother, here, several years younger than myself, went through the law school, and he has so much the advantage of me, in consequence of that training, in the studious habits he has formed, in being brought into immediate contact with the best legal minds, in being held to the highest standards, that this fall I shall enter the law school and take the entire course."

In facing these difficulties, let it be remembered that there are always openings for young men of superior qualifications. Some one asked Daniel Webster whether the legal profession was not over-crowded, and he replied that there was always room at the top. An ambitious young man of ability can win his way to the front, while mediocrity will wait for patronage. There is jostling and crowding in the rear ranks of every profession. It is surprising how few thoroughly trained men are entering the profession. In 1890 there were in the various law schools in this country 4,518 students, and only 1,255 of these had degrees in letters or science. In the same year, 1,514 were graduated in the schools of law, which was only 2.4 in every 100,000 of the population. There is a demand for specialists. The field is enlarging in the department of patent law, railroad law, and other legal specialties. The business transactions of this age are more complex, and the interests more important. Corporation controversies need to be adjusted by those who thoroughly understand the principles and practices of equity. "I was a teacher of law to young men for more than twenty years," says Judge Hoadley, "and have never seen any reason to discourage a sober, honest, and industrious young man from studying law. He needs, first of all, absolute fidelity, trustworthiness, and integrity; secondly, devotion to his calling—in other words, industry that will not be interfered with by the distraction of society or pursuit of politics. If he be honest and willing to work, he will, with reasonable intelligence make a sufficient success, if he have the patience to wait for success. If, in addition, he have what I may call the lawyer's faculty—that God-given power to appreciate leading principles and apply them to facts as they arise, coupled with ability to reason, and to state results cogently and persuasively,—he will make a shining success."

Again, the advantages of a thorough medical education are generally recognized. The sacred work of ministering to the suffering demands the most thorough instruction in medicine and methods of treatment. In 1890 there were 15,404 students in 116 medical schools in the United States, distributed as follows: Regulars, 13,521; eclectics, 719; homeopathists, 1,164. For the same year there were 4,492 graduates, or 7 in every 100,000 of the population. Sixteen of the medical schools had no students enrolled who had previously obtained a literary or scientific degree. Only 15 per cent. of all the students matriculated had obtained a degree before entering the medical schools. There is an evident lack of thorough preparation in foundation studies on the part of the students. The medical profession is second to none in importance, and the students of medicine who will give time to the more extended culture of a college course will naturally obtain greater skill and a broader range of thought, which will contribute to their efficiency as practicing physicians.

It is also encouraging to know that the statistics of each decade indicate that an increasing proportion of young men entering the ministry have received a college education. There were 112 theological schools in 1890, that reported 7,013 students, of whom 1,372 were graduated, or two for every one hundred thousand of population. This is certainly not over-crowding.

Of the students in theology enrolled in the schools of the various denominations in 1890, the proportion was as follows: Baptists, 15.6 per cent.; Presbyterians, 15 per cent.; Methodists, 14.9 per cent.; Lutheran, 14.7 per cent.; Roman Catholic, 13.4 per cent.; Congregational, 9.7 per cent.; Christian, 5.5 per cent.; Episcopal, 4.7 per cent.; Hebrew, .5 per cent. Of the total enrollment, 7,013, only 1,559 students had received degrees in letters or science. The church demands educated men for the pulpit. A call to the ministry in these days means that a man should prepare for the work. God does not honor the slothful, but the man who seeks to make full proof of his ministry. This is done when a man of piety takes the time to acquire mental culture and refinement, and to become able properly to guide and instruct the people. Such ministers, "thoroughly furnished unto every good word and work," honor the church, and strengthen the cause of Christ. Their mental endowments command respect and inspire confidence. There never has been a time in the Christian ministry when there was such a demand as now for ministers with minds cultivated and well stored with knowledge, and hearts set on fire by the Holy Ghost.

The old idea that a college graduate must study for medicine, law, or the pulpit, has attracted a large number of them into these professions. We have learned, however, that these professions are not superior to other avenues in science and business. A college training is only a means to an end. It is giving a man fitness for work of any kind. The departments opening up to college-trained men in all lines of work are multiplying and expanding with each succeeding year.

The future is bright for those who will take up statesmanship as a profession. Nothing has a more important bearing on the social interests of the people than the science of civil government. The nation is burdened with politicians, but intelligent Christian statesmen are few. The intelligent people of this nation are asking for men educated in history, political and social science, who, with clear heads and loyal hearts, will use their ability for the welfare of the public. Good citizens have too long held themselves aloof from the great concerns of our organized society. All civic matters are worthy of our best thought and noblest effort. The management of our political and social interests has too often been usurped by politicians, who, with little self-respect, efficiency, or character, have worked not for the public good, but on the principle that "to the victors belong the spoils." Their rapacity and greed have led them to sacrifice principle to party. They aim to manage caucuses, pervert elections, override the wishes and defy the moral sense of the people, and corrupt the sources of national life.

We have come to ask for a remedy. Its answer must be found in the young men whose patriotism will lead them to thoroughly prepare themselves for public service and make statesmanship a profession. Along with a broad and comprehensive knowledge of the science of government they should cultivate the capacity for effective public speech, in order to present political and social themes with such power as to guide public opinion in the right direction. They must be willing to carry their independent convictions into civil affairs, and help to ennoble the national spirit, and purify public life, and make it expressive of the highest intelligence and the best moral sentiments of the people. Statesmanship is a sacred calling, and the people are ready to uphold and encourage young men who will dedicate themselves to this exalted work.

It is an omen of good that chairs of political and social science are being established in all our high grade colleges to train young men for this service. They ought to prosper, and will. Milton saw this need years ago, and said: "The next remove must be to the study of politics, to know the beginning, end, and reasons of political societies; that they may not, in a dangerous fit of the commonwealth, be such poor, shaken, uncertain reeds, of such a tottering conscience, as many of our great counsellors have lately shown themselves, but steadfast pillars of the state."

Those who are to be trained for this leadership, and expect to gain a strong hold on society, should be taught and trained to think upon complicated questions, and able not only to frame platforms and shape legislation, but to grapple with modern social problems, and lead the people to nobler action.

Journalism is another important field for talented young men and women. The journalists of to-day need breadth and concentration of mind to meet the demands of a reading and thinking people. They need a knowledge based on history, literature, and politics in order to report speeches correctly and to discuss living questions clearly, cogently, and with a broad knowledge of principles and facts. The press wields an influence next to the pulpit, and it should be consecrated to the highest service through men qualified for editorial work.

The profession of teaching has justly assumed a position in this country second to none in influence and power.

There are 15,000,000 pupils in the public schools of this country. There are 364,000 teachers employed in giving instruction to this army of youth. College graduates are rapidly acquiring a control of the high positions in these schools. The superintendents, principals, and the majority of the male assistants are college graduates. A college education is fast becoming an absolute necessity to secure a position in the best schools. School boards will rarely select a superintendent or a principal of the high school who has not received a collegiate education. There is an increasing demand for thoroughly trained men and women in this work. Few teachers can hope to attain prominence in their profession without these advantages.

There is, likewise, a rich and fruitful field opening up to those who receive a careful scientific education. The application of science to the arts and industries is rapidly changing the social and economic conditions of the people. We are unable to conceive of the ever-widening field in which educated men will be needed to discover new methods of concentrating and transmitting electrical and mechanical power, thereby reducing the cost of production, and adding to the comfort and happiness of the human family. There is a growing demand for men versed in electrical science, who can take charge of establishments for the transmission of power. Civil and mechanical engineers are needed, who can wisely and economically construct our bridges and highways of commerce, and who can apply the highest scientific skill to all the constructive enterprises of the country.

"The Swiss and Germans aver," says Matthew Arnold, "if you question them as to the benefit they have received from their realschulen and polytechnicums, that in every part of the world their men of business, trained in these schools, are beating the English when they meet on equal terms as to capital, and that where English capital, as so often happens, is superior, the advantage of the Swiss or German in instruction tends more and more to balance this superiority. I was lately saying to one of the first mathematicians in England, who has been a distinguished senior wrangler at Cambridge and a practical mathematician besides, that in one department, at any rate—that of mechanics and engineering,—we seemed, in spite of the absence of special schools, good instruction, and the idea of science, to get on wonderfully well. 'On the contrary,' said he, 'we get on wonderfully ill. Our engineers have no real scientific instruction, and we let them learn their business at our expense by the rule of thumb, but it is a ruinous system of blunder and plunder. A man without a requisite scientific knowledge undertakes to build a difficult bridge; he builds three which tumble down, and so learns how to build a fourth which stands, but somebody pays for the three failures. In France or Switzerland he would not have been suffered to build his first bridge until he had satisfied competent persons that he knew how to build it, because abroad they cannot afford our extravagance.'"

We find, likewise, that our industries are demanding men trained in applied chemistry. The application of the principles of chemical philosophy to manufacturing steel, chemical fertilizers, artificial preparation of articles of food, bleaching, dyeing, and printing of cloths, offers a very inviting field of study. We might multiply instances, but enough has been said to suggest to our minds the rich possibilities before educated young men and women. We are only on the edge of the future of applied science.

We need, also, to carry our culture and training into business careers. Business is conducted by different methods than in the past. The management affords a broader field for judgment and thought. Many, in the future, may succeed without a college education, but they will work at a disadvantage. The chances are always in favor of the man who is well educated. It is a common belief that a college education unfits a man for practical work. He often does appear at a disadvantage on leaving college, but, other things being equal, he will distance, within a few years, the man of like ability who has not been rigorously trained to see, think, and judge. "Experience also confirms this impression by the decisive testimony gathered from a multitude of witnesses," says Noah Porter, "that the young man who leaves college at twenty-one, and enters a counting or sales-room, will, at twenty-three, if diligent and devoted, have outstripped in business capacity the companion who entered the same position at sixteen and has remained in it continuously, while in his general resources of intellect and culture he will be greatly his superior."

Germany has for more than fifty years insisted that her youth should not only have the foundation of a general education, but that opportunities should be given for higher commercial instruction. This superior education and training is producing its legitimate results. Notwithstanding the many unfavorable circumstances which have combined to prevent her growth in commerce and industry, Germany has gained an amount of skill and experience in mercantile training that has no parallel in France, England, or America. The advance of German trade is due to the superior fitness of the Germans through their systematic training in technical schools.

M. Ricard, in his report to the French Chamber of Commerce, said: "Every intelligent man must admit that the invasion of our commerce by foreigners is due entirely to this educational inferiority. The Germans are taking our places everywhere. They even supplant the English. Let the merchants of France take warning in time. German commerce has better instruction, better discipline, and greater enterprise than French commerce; it is at home everywhere; no languages are foreign to it; it keeps a lookout over the world; it is not ashamed to go to school, and if you do not awake from your lethargy, it will annihilate you."

The London Chamber of Commerce found, on examination, that ninety-nine per cent. of Englishmen who take to commercial life are unable to correspond in any foreign language. The comparative disadvantage, on all commercial lines, of England with Germany, is owing to "a higher average of mercantile intelligence all round." It is not to be alleged that the English are mentally inferior to the Germans, but, as Professor W. G. Blackie said before the Educational Institute of Scotland: "The question is solely an intellectual one, and must be solved through educational means. It assumes the aspect of an educational duel between the mercantile population of this country and their competitors on the continent, in which the mastery is sure to remain with those who are the most fully equipped for the contest."

The report on the superior instruction of Antwerp contains the following words: "Men have seemed to imagine that, in order to prosper, commerce and industry have only required money and favorable treaties of commerce. Governments have occupied themselves with the material side of the future merchant, without taking care to develop his intellectual capacity, which is, indeed, the spirit of his operations, without taking care to improve his intelligence, which is the germ of enterprise in the commercial life of a nation."

Young men and women are often led to believe that there is no chance for them to have a successful career, and so fail to attend college and develop their capacity, and, as a consequence, often become restless and idle. But this is no age for triflers. The world is in need of educated men in all of the higher walks of life. There is abundant room for men of ability and culture who can bring things to pass. The fact that earnest, talented, and consecrated men and women are overworked in their professions shows that there is a place in the front ranks of all useful professions and vocations.

The door of the twentieth century swings open and invites the ambitious men and women of talent and consecration to the service of humanity, and extends the widest opportunities and the most exalted privileges ever vouchsafed to man. Will the youth of the land be ready to enter?



VIII.

OUR INDEBTEDNESS TO COLLEGES.

The American colleges hold the most intimate relation to the whole community, for which they have done a vast work. They rightly enjoy the confidence and esteem of the American people, since they have infused into society some of the most purifying and life-giving influences. Many of the first settlers were among the best educated men of England, and they recognized that education was the corner-stone of civil and religious liberty. Pembroke, Delaware, William Penn, Roger Williams, the Winthrops, and a large number of worthy men who settled in the early colonies came from the classical shades of Oxford and Cambridge, and retained the educational predilections which were so firmly established in their mother country. The spirit and principles of our wise and godly ancestry were early introduced into the colleges, which have conserved and perpetuated them down to the present day.

The American people owe much to the colleges for training capable and worthy men to fill the posts of honor and power in the nation. The men who have given shape and character to the early political organizations and spirit have been mostly collegians.

These institutions for higher education have trained men in history, philosophy, and the principles of government, who have become the right hand of strength to the nation. Their extensive knowledge and thoroughly disciplined and comprehensive minds have been largely instrumental in perfecting our system of government, and in elevating the nation to the rank of one of the greatest political powers.

The colleges have trained the intellect and conscience of the majority of students so that they have gone forth as leaders, and have exerted a prodigious influence among the people for right thinking and right acting. They have not only disciplined the powers of the masterly statesmen, but have fostered among them a sense of fraternity concerning our civil destinies. The students that have been gathered into the colleges from the different portions of the nation have become imbued with one sentiment, and entered upon public life linked together by the bonds of a common intellectual life and strong friendships, which have resulted favorably for the republic.

Some of the colonial colleges have richly repaid the nation for all the effort and sacrifice it cost to found them. William and Mary College has sent out twenty or more members of Congress, fifteen United States Senators, seventeen Governors, thirty-seven Judges, a Lieutenant General and other high officers of the Army, two Commodores to the Navy, twelve professors, seven Cabinet officers; the chief draughtsman and author of the Constitution, Edmund Randolph; the most eminent of the Chief Justices, John Marshall, and three Presidents of the United States.

Harvard has furnished two Presidents, one Vice President, fifteen Cabinet officers, twenty Foreign Ministers, twenty-nine United States Senators, one hundred and four Congressmen, and nineteen Governors.

Princeton has beaten the Harvard record in everything except the first and fourth items. It has given to the country one President, two Vice Presidents, nineteen Cabinet officers, nineteen Foreign Ministers, fifty-five United States Senators, one hundred and forty-two Congressmen, and thirty-five Governors.

The collegians have ranked among the principal leaders in the political life of the nation. Fifty-eight per cent. of the chief national offices have been filled by them. Thomas Jefferson, author of the "Declaration of Independence," was a college man. Hamilton, Madison, and Jay, who took such a prominent part in the framing of the Constitution of the United States, were college-trained men. Three-fourths of the signers of the Declaration of Independence were college graduates. These and other superior men in public life, at this period, were educated and possessed a scholarship that was in compass and variety more than abreast with the learning of the time. George Washington was a self-made man, but he had recourse to America's greatest statesman, Alexander Hamilton, a graduate of Columbia College, in preparing his state papers.

The counsellors of Abraham Lincoln, during the stormy days of the Rebellion, were men of trained minds. "All the leaders," says Professor S. N. Fellow, "in that Cabinet were college-trained men. William H. Seward, the shrewdest diplomatist, who held other nations at bay until the Rebellion was throttled; Salmon P. Chase, whose fertile brain developed a financial system by which our nation was saved from national bankruptcy, and made national bonds as good as the gold in foreign markets; Edwin M. Stanton, that man of iron, who organized a million of raw recruits into an army equal to any in the world; Gideon Welles, who, almost from nothing, created a navy sufficient for our needs,—each of these, and every other member of Lincoln's Cabinet, save one, was a college graduate. So, also, in the army. It was not until thoroughly trained and disciplined men filled the chief places in command that the Federal forces overwhelmed and destroyed the Rebellion. We repeat, the law is, and it is believed to be universal, that the higher the rank or position, the larger per cent. of college graduates are found in it."

Education was an important factor in deciding the issues of our Civil War. Thoroughly trained and disciplined men filled the chief places in command in the Federal Army. The Northern soldiers were better educated than those of the South. It has been said that "in the German Army that fought the battles of the Franco-Prussian war, those who could neither read nor write amounted to only 3.8 per cent., while in the French Army the number amounted to 30.4 per cent." According to the admission of the defeated, the universities conquered at Sedan. Perhaps it is not too much to say that the great number of colleges in the Northern States conquered at Appomattox.

A large per cent. of the leaders in the American Congress, during the trying period of our country's history from 1860 to 1870, were either college graduates or had taken a partial course in college and gained its inspiration.

The college graduates have furnished 33 per cent. of the Congressmen, 46 per cent. of the Senators, 50 per cent. of the Vice Presidents, 65 per cent. of the Presidents, 73 per cent. of the Associate Judges, and 83 per cent. of the Chief Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States.

Again, we are especially indebted to the colleges for encouraging private and public schools, through which we have become an enlightened people. It is impossible to estimate the indebtedness of popular to collegiate education. There is an intimate and vital relation between the college and the public schools, which differ not in kind, but only in the degree of instruction. "The success and usefulness of common schools," says Professor W. S. Tyler, "is exactly proportioned to the popularity and prosperity of the colleges, and whatever is done for or against the one is sure to react, with equal force and similar results, upon the other."

The colleges have been foremost in advocating that the education of the youth should not be left to those of meager attainments and narrow sympathies. They have maintained that, in order to reap the best advantages of our public schools, it is important to have wise, competent, Christian men and women to give instruction, as well as to prepare text-books, and to increase the appliances employed in teaching.

It has been a difficult task to bring our public school system to the present condition of progress. The work has proceeded slowly and steadily under the example and inspiration of great educational centers. The excellence and usefulness of our school system has advanced just in proportion to the culture and ability of the teachers. A collegiate education has always tended to foster and encourage higher standards of scholarship among teachers, and this influence has been diffused into the public school system. President Charles W. Super truthfully says: "That which leads up to the highest must always be supervised and directed by that which is at the top. A system of elementary and secondary education which does not culminate in the university, and make that the goal towards which its efforts are directed, is an absurdity. There must be good teachers before there can be good schools, and good teachers can only be formed in institutions that are chiefly concerned with knowledge at first hand. This has been a recognized principle in Germany for half a century, or longer; is now almost universally admitted in France, and is the goal toward which the whole civilized world is rapidly moving."

The efficiency of our public schools has been felt in every department of our social organization. They have been a strong bulwark against the influences of a raw and uninstructed foreign population, who, like a tidal wave, have flooded our shores. Some of these have not only been ignorant and infidel, but filled with monarchical ideas and un-American sentiment. The public schools have brought their children into accord with our American institutions, and developed intelligent patriotism. They have taught the youth common rights and privileges, and helped to generate a union of sympathy and sentiment which leads to the consolidation of our society into a homogeneous body.

The colleges, working through the public school teachers, have likewise helped to educate the millions of the manumitted and enfranchised colored people, and to break up sectionalism, allay party strife, and make for the peace, prosperity, and unity of the nation. Our political safety has called for a wise and vigorous effort to educate the masses and to assimilate the heterogeneous elements into our body politic. The public schools and colleges, with their interdependence, have in a great measure met the demand, and given us a legacy of peace, prosperity, and intelligence enjoyed by all the people.

Likewise, the colleges have contributed largely to the general prosperity and material progress of society. They are the real centers of power of this enterprising and progressive age. "The revival of learning and the epoch of discovery ushered in the epoch of natural science, which has made possible the epoch of useful inventions."

College-trained men are the most practical and useful of men. They have been the creators of material wealth and prosperity. Their discoveries and inventions have revolutionized business and social life. Every department of life is teeming with the fruits of science and philosophy, which have been largely built up by colleges and college-trained men. Bacon, Newton and Locke were sons of the English universities. Watt and Fulton associated with college men, and "derived from them the principles of science which they applied in the development of the steam engine and steam navigation. Professor Morse, the inventor of the electric telegraph, was not only a college graduate and professor, but made his great experiments within the walls of a university." Likewise, many other scientists, who have demonstrated the limitless possibilities of steam and electricity, and other valuable discoveries and inventions, were either trained in the colleges or received from them the working principles which were essential to their success. These human inventions are of priceless value to the people. The steam engine has contributed greatly to human welfare. It represents, in the United States alone, 20,000,000 horse power in the form of locomotives, or the steam power of 300 horses for each thousand inhabitants. Besides all this, 6,000,000 horse power in stationary steam engines manufacture goods for us. They give the vast force which toils for us, and the laborer furnishes only the guiding power. These inventions have enabled us to increase our wealth at the rate of $2,000,000,000 a year during the last decade, and helped to make our people sharers in the products of the world, and in all the blessings of civilization.

Professor Huxley was right when he said: "If the nation could purchase a potential Watt, or Davy, or Faraday, at a cost of a hundred thousand pounds down, he would be dirt cheap at that money." Fifty-two of the inventions now prized by the civilized world were made in Germany, and within the influence of her universities. All these discoveries are opening the doors for more wonderful disclosures. All the great industries of the country require men of trained minds and directive intelligence to organize and control them, and the colleges are recognized agencies to help produce them.

Our literature is also largely the fruit of college labor and tastes. The colleges, as centers of intellectual life, have fostered literary tastes in those who have built up and enriched literature. Their libraries and lectures have gathered together men of literary aims and ambitions, so that the seat of the college has become the home of new and grand ideas, which at once encourage literature and science. This congenial intellectual atmosphere has incited many a young person to project noble literary plans.

The majority of great writers have spent years at the university. Lord Bacon outlined his gigantic plan for "the Instauration of the Sciences" during the four years spent in the University of Cambridge. Milton laid the foundations of his classical scholarship in the university. "Newton was matured in academic discipline, a fellow in Trinity College, Cambridge, and a professor of mathematics. He passed fifteen years of his life in the cloisters of a college, and solved the problems of the universe from the turret over Trinity gateway."

The literary influences of our colleges were early manifest in our nation. The scholarship, classical taste, and fine literary style of the superior men in public life led the Earl of Chatham, in the House of Lords, in 1775, to pay "a tribute of eloquent homage to the intellectual force, the symmetry, and the decorum of the state papers recently transmitted from America, which was virtually an announcement that America had become an integral part of the civilized world, and a member of the republic of letters."

The colleges have nourished the conditions out of which a pure, classical literature may grow. Such men as Edward T. Channing, of Harvard, and Webster, Worcester and Goodrich, of Yale, have performed an inestimable service in preparing the way for our mother tongue to be spoken in its purity.

In the line of history, the American colleges have given the nation such men as Bancroft, Parkman, Palfrey, Prescott, Motley, Winthrop and Adams. In the sciences, there are Dana, Gray, Cooke, Walker, Porter, Woolsey and Agassiz. In law and political science, we have Hamilton, Jefferson, Adams, Evarts, Webster, Chase, Choate, Everett and Sumner. These men have been the true architects of the state. The pulpit is represented by such men as Mather, Edwards, Dwight, Storrs, Warren, Beecher, Talmage, Cook, Thomson and Brooks.

Literary genius has been displayed by men like Longfellow, Bryant, Lowell, Holmes, Hawthorne, Mitchell, Holland, Emerson and a host of lights scarcely less brilliant. These men, who have written in a terse and graphic style, received their stimulus and training in college, and are among the bright examples of classical scholarship, and the results of their genius have enriched character and enlightened the world.

The periodical literature reflects the prevailing ideas, sentiments and spirit of the American people. The college-trained men have been especially quick to utilize this throne of power to guide the public mind to right principles and inspiring motives. The colleges must continue to be fountains whence shall flow a pure, earnest, and truthful literature, which will, in a great measure, determine the destiny of the present and future generations.

We are especially indebted to the colleges for the maintenance of the ascendency of the moral and religious principles which have done so much in unfolding and shaping our national life. The religious sentiment has been the controlling spirit of the nation, and our patriotism has issued from a meditative and religious temper, which the colleges have been foremost in fostering. Nearly all the great religious and reformatory movements have proceeded from the colleges and universities, whereby great good has come to society. "It was through the interchange of students between the Universities of Oxford and Prague that the teachings of Wycliff passed over into Bohemia and issued in the splendid work of Huss. It was from college students of Florence that Colet, and Erasmus, and More caught somewhat of the spirit of Savonarola, and felt the power of truths that emerged in the Italian Renaissance, and made them contribute so grandly to religious liberty in England. It was in the presence of the college students of Germany that Martin Luther nailed his thesis to the doors, and burned the papal bull, and lit the watch-fire of the Reformation that has awaked an answering brightness from ten thousand hills. It was from a little circle of Oxford students that God led forth Wesley and Whitfield to shake the mighty pillars of unbelief in the eighteenth century."

President William F. Warren says: "By means of the great religious movement called Puritanism, the English University of Cambridge shaped, for nearly two hundred years, the intellectual and spiritual life of New England. Emmanuel College, the one in which John Harvard, Thomas Hooker, John Cotton, and many of the early New England leaders were educated, was founded for the express purpose of providing a nursery for the propagation of Puritan principles. Never were the hopes of founders more fruitfully fulfilled. The New World, then just opening, furnished a field of unimagined extent, with motives and social forces and ranges of opportunity which even yet are a marvel. By founding a new England beyond the sea, and planting a new Emmanuel College in a new Cambridge, English Puritanism was enabled to transcend itself, to exchange the attitude of a struggling ecclesiastical party for that of an Established Church. It gained the opportunity to originate a new social order, and to impress itself upon a new age, built upon new and democratic principles. The initial and fundamental covenant out of which grew the chief of all New England colonies—that of Massachusetts Bay—was formulated and signed in ancient Cambridge. In fact, in American Puritanism, with its social, civil, and religious results, may be seen the high-water mark of the intellectual and spiritual influence which, in the whole course of history, have thus far proceeded from the banks of the Cam." The church, in harmony with the genius of Christianity, has always fostered education. It assumes to guard Christianity by directing education as one of its most powerful of organized forces.

The existence and support of colleges are largely due to the Christian Church. They are the offspring of a dominant desire to promote the cause of Christ, and make them powerful agencies for a positive and aggressive Christianity. In the middle ages the pious princes, Charlemagne and Alfred, established schools for the elevation of the clergy. Oxford, Cambridge and Glasgow Universities were established and fostered by the church to educate more fully the clergy. The founders of Harvard College thus described their motive: "Dreading to leave an illiterate ministry to the churches, when our ministers shall lie in the dust." Yale College was founded by preachers for a like purpose. Princeton College was founded "to supply the church with learned and able preachers of the Word." The fact is that prior to the eighteenth century there was no university founded save those established for the glory of God and the good of the church.

The chosen mottoes of the colleges indicate the spirit of the founders. That of Oxford is, "The Lord is My Light;" Harvard, "Christ and the Church;" Yale, "Light and Truth." Eighty-three per cent. of the colleges in our land were founded by Christian philanthropy, and are under denominational control. The spirit of infidelity does not lead men to make the sacrifices to found colleges. Perhaps there is not more than one in our nation.

The majority of colleges are positively religious. According to Dr. Dorchester, even Harvard, the oldest college in the United States, that wishes to be understood as non-denominational, has been, for more than half a century, "under the direction of a Board of Fellows, all of whom have been Unitarians, except one elected within a few years; and, besides, the theological school of Harvard College is usually mentioned in the Unitarian Year Book as a Unitarian institution." Leland Stanford University is one of the youngest and richest of our American colleges. The regulations declare it to be the duty of the trustees "to prohibit sectarian instruction, but to have taught the immortality of the soul, the existence of an all-wise and benevolent Creator, and that obedience to His laws is the highest duty of man."

Both of these colleges, reported as "non-sectarian," generously provide buildings and pastors for religious services and lectures. Dr. Dorchester believes that one-third of the State universities are under the presidency of evangelical divines. He further states that "in 1830 the students in the denominational colleges were 76.6 per cent. of the whole; in 1884, they were 79.2 per cent."

All the foregoing facts show the strong and enduring progress of Christianity in the United States; that it is "identified with the highest educational culture of the age; that the denominational institutions are incalculably leading in number and students all the undenominational colleges, and that the great principles and blessed experiences of Christianity are voluntarily and intelligently adopted by a far larger proportion of college students than ever before."

The colleges have upheld the vital truths of the gospel by expounding the scriptures, and setting forth their ethical and religious teaching. They recognize that the divine order in saving men is through the inward working of the truth and spirit of God in their souls. Since knowledge is essential to salvation, it is a duty to enlighten men and bring them to understand the divine plan of salvation. The Bible has been communicated to us in foreign languages, and requires prolonged study and extensive knowledge in order that these oracles of God may be known and accepted among men.

The colleges have given a higher efficiency to the Christian ministry. There are those who have obtained their training and knowledge outside of the college who have accomplished great good. There are pious and devoted men who are illiterate, but whose Christian work has been attended with more apparent results than some college-trained ministers. These, however, are the exception. The rule is that those who combine with their piety scholarly acquisitions exert by far the greatest influence for good. The history of Christianity shows how God has raised up a multitude of scholarly men to uphold the supremacy of the gospel over all its foes. Paul, Luther, Melancthon, Calvin, Knox, Cranmer, Wesley and Fletcher were all college-trained men. These men, with others, endowed with mental vigor, great learning and executive force, have been used by God to accomplish His great task of building up His kingdom on earth.

The church has learned that there is no need of antagonism between knowledge and spirituality. Knowledge and intellectual training may work evil in an undevout mind, but when consecrated to the service of Christ, learning becomes the handmaid of piety. The strength and power of the Christian Church of to-day are attributable in no small degree to the Christian colleges, that have not only encouraged mental training, but have fostered refinement and humble evangelical piety. The union of scholarly training and a holy life has raised the ministry in the public estimation so that it commands more respect and influence for good than ever before. The cause of Christ never took such hold on the popular mind, and its influence never penetrated so deeply the foundations of our social organism as it does in our day.

It is farthest from our aim to exalt and magnify the knowledge that "puffeth up," or unduly to glorify the human faculties, but we do plead that the widest opportunity be offered our youth to enlarge their knowledge, and strengthen and train their mental powers, and make the most of themselves, and that they may be consecrated to the Master's service. Men and women thus trained in our Christian colleges, and eminent alike for learning and piety, will more and more esteem the divine revelations, and through them help to hasten the establishment of the Kingdom of righteousness on the earth.

The Students' Volunteer Movement began in 1876. It aims to awaken a deeper interest in foreign missions among college students, and to enlist their services. Within a brief period, more than 4,000 students consecrated their lives to this heroic Christian work. Already, since the movement began, 600 young men and women have entered the mission field, and thousands of others are waiting on a hesitating church to furnish the means to send them to work in foreign lands. Well did Ex-President McCosh say that the Christian Church had not witnessed such a spirit of consecration since the day of Pentecost.

The colleges have done another valuable service in awakening and strengthening in the national life a deeper sense of the value and importance of human knowledge. They are monuments of the dignity and worth of ideas, and the aspirations of the human soul.

In a new country, with its marvelous possibilities, the danger has been in having an excessive and exaggerated estimate of our national advantages, and our civilization has tended to take on a too mechanical and material character. We need to have more time to cultivate the nobler nature, and, by Christian and scholarly associations and more intimate friendships, discover and prize the fineness and sweetness of character in others, which may enrich our own life and incite us to worthy action. It is the province of higher education to help foster those conditions of mind and heart whose flexibility and natural aptitudes lead the individual "to draw ever nearer to a sense of what is indeed beautiful, graceful, and becoming." Such wisdom and goodness are of the highest practical utility in the life of a nation. The colleges have helped to offset the material tendency of our civilization by holding up high ideals and emphasizing the supremacy of the unseen mental, moral, and spiritual forces in our life. Through their leadership in the schools, and through the press, platform and pulpit, they have introduced into the fomenting mind of the republic the noblest ideals and the most generous incentives, which have, in a large measure, transformed public sentiment for the better. We have, at least, learned one great lesson in our history: that if we would have peace, contentment, happiness and prosperity, we must give the people a Christian education, and put all we can into character.

The college receives students from all ranks and conditions of society, and holds open to them its great opportunities, and worthily trains them to go forth into those professions and higher walks of life where their generous character and refreshing influences may be of larger service to the whole community. In the language of President Thwing, it may be said that "it is to the people that the college and university desire to give more than they receive from the people. It is not unjust to say that the people are debtors. The community has given to Yale, and to Princeton, and to Harvard, much, but Yale, and Princeton, and Harvard have given to the community more. For the college and the university are set to hold up the worth of things to the mind, and these things are the worthiest. In an age democratic and material, they are to represent the monarchy of the immaterial. In an age of luxuriousness, they are to declare the words of Him, homeless and pillowless, who said: 'A man's life consisteth not in the abundance of things which he hath.' They stand for the continuity of the best life, intellectual, ethical, religious, Christian. In the realm of thought, they stand for the value of ideas; in the realm of morals, for the value of ideals; in the realm of being, like the church, for the value of character."

Next to the home, the college has been the ruling spirit in private and public life. The colleges have rigorously upheld the principles of piety, justice and sacred regard for truth as the best foundation of social order. The true wealth and power of the nation are the great and good men produced by the colleges whose example and influence have been to promote intelligence and good order in society.

We look over our vast territory, with its multiplied resources and growing population, and rejoice in our material possibilities and social privileges. But what is better and grander than all these, is the fact that more than 300 Christian colleges are scattered over our land as beacon lights in our national life, building up Christian character as the best legacy for present and future generations. Some of the colleges are yet weak and struggling, but they glory in their aspirations and prospects of future grandeur. The great fabric of our national life is radiant with the golden threads of good influences emanating from these centers of superior intelligence and instruction, where time is given for careful thought and reflection on the great problems of life.

Education by the Christian college is essential to the largest growth and progress of the state, the church, and all humanitarian movements. "The progress grows more rapid," says William T. Harris, "as the Christian spirit which leavens our civilizations sends forward, one after another, its legions into the field; for great inventions, as well as great moral reforms, proceed from Christianity."

No one can afford to be indifferent to the power and influence for good of the Christian college. These are immeasurable. The Christian Church and all the friends of human progress and welfare must, more and more, emphasize the lesson that, if we educate in our colleges the leading minds of the nation, we will be able so to control the prevailing habits and modes of thought throughout the country as to secure the permanency and glory of Christian liberty and religious institutions.

These truths may be enforced by many historic examples. The Jesuits have always been eminent for their adroit management of men. They recovered a large part of Europe to the papacy by seizing and controlling the colleges and universities as fountains of power. They had at one time under their control 600 colleges. They made it their business to educate the leading minds, and through them to guide and govern communities and nations. When only one in thirty of the inhabitants of Austria adhered to the papacy, Professor Ranke says that "the Jesuits obtained a controlling influence in the universities, and in a single generation Austria was lost to the Reformation and regained to the papal hierarchy."

In the sixteenth century, the Protestant King of Poland appointed a Jesuit minister of public instruction, who soon filled the professors' chairs with members of his own order. The "scale was soon turned, and the doctrines of the Reformation never again recovered the ascendency."

In our own day, the influence of a college education is seen in the case of a number of young Bulgarians at Roberts College, in Constantinople. These students rekindled hope and courage in the people and revived the feeling of nationality in the hearts of the Bulgarians. This prepared the way for a general uprising in 1876, the bloody repression of which brought on the war with Russia, which led to the liberation of the province. Thus, influences descend with power from above into society. The colleges are the right arm of strength for all noble efforts for human welfare. Professor Van Holst, in his recent address, delivered at Chicago, said: "The most effectual way to lift the masses to a higher plane—materially, intellectually and morally—is to do everything favoring the climbing up of an ever-increasing minority to higher and higher intellectual and moral altitudes. Therefore, universities of the very highest order become every year more desirable—nay, necessary—for the preservation and the development of the vital forces of American democracy. Undoubtedly, to have them established is the interest of those who would frequent them, but it is still infinitely more in the interests of the American people in its entirety."

It is impossible to estimate all the good that comes to society through the influence of the college. It is quite evident that our colleges stand for the production of the highest manhood and womanhood, and their friends should marshal their forces to enhance their growth and usefulness. It is the underlying forces at work for good in our colleges that insure the integrity and safety of our social and religious organizations. Men and women who have means should regard it a privilege to lavish their gifts upon the colleges that labor for the imperishable things of life, and provide incentives for the highest Christian character and activity. He who consecrates his money to found a professorship in a Christian college erects a monument to the worth of the human soul, and perpetuates his own fame. He helps the colleges to determine, in a large measure, the character of the persons who shall fill our pulpits, teach our schools, edit our papers, write our books, and give direction to all the political and social movements. The dangers that menace our nation lie in the lack of intelligent Christian leadership. It is within the power of friends of the colleges to enroll among the college graduates a vast army of the youth of our land, whose largeness of manhood and womanhood and magnificence of character will commend themselves to the love and esteem of the lowly and suffering in every land.

Lord Macaulay once said that "the destiny of England is in the great heart of England," and we may safely say that the power for usefulness of the colleges is in the great heart of the Christian people of America, who will be more and more loyal to the sacred trust.



TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE. The ordering of the table in Chapter II has been left as originally printed, although Dartmouth and Queen's Rutgers are not in chronological order.

THE END