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The American Association last met in New York City in 1887, though there was a meeting in Brooklyn in 1894. The past thirteen and even the past six years have witnessed an extraordinary development in the educational and scientific institutions of the city. Columbia College and New York University have developed into great universities, each having found a new site and erected upon it buildings which might have been expected to come only as the growth of a century. The American Museum of Natural History has become one of the great museums of the world, millions of dollars having been spent on buildings. A botanical garden and a zoölogical park have been established, which promise to rival those of any of the European capitals. A well-equipped aquarium has been opened under the auspices of the city; the Metropolitan Museum of Art has been entirely rebuilt to accommodate its increasing collections; a magnificent building is in course of erection for the Public Library to contain its great assemblage of books, which with its endowment is largely the result of recent years. While Boston and Philadelphia have made great advances within the last few years, and Washington has become the chief scientific center of the United States, it is especially noteworthy that New York City has enjoyed an educational and scientific development commensurate with its material resources.
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Jonas G. Clark, who ten years ago established at Worcester a university and christened it with his name, has died and left to the university several hundred thousand dollars, and on certain conditions practically the whole of his estate, which is said to be between five and ten million dollars. The will is a complicated document with numerous codicils, somewhat difficult to interpret and likely to give rise to legal complications. The history of Clark University has been curious and interesting. As in the case of the Johns Hopkins University, there was a difference of opinion between the founder and the president as to the scope of the institution. In both cases the founder had in view a more or less local college, while the president believed that we had colleges in sufficient number, but needed in the United States universities on German models, but going even further than Germany in making research rather than instruction the primary object of the institution. Johns Hopkins died very soon after the establishment of his university, and though there was for a while a good deal of difference of opinion in the board of trustees, the university idea triumphed. A college was, however, established in connection with it. At Clark University the founder lived for ten years, and appears to have altered several times his point of view. He withdrew his support, and the university work which began brilliantly was much reduced in range and quality. The greater part of the faculty removed in a body to the University of Chicago. It appears that at this time Mr. Clark bequeathed his money to the university only on condition that the president should resign, but later devised a compromise by which the university should continue as at present, while a partly independent college should be established in conjunction with it. The interpretation of the will, the value of the estate and the development of the university open problems that will only be settled in the course of time.
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Europeans who look upon the United States as a material and commercial nation must find it difficult to interpret the great gifts that are continually made for the cause of higher education. Twenty-five years ago there were in America no universities in the sense in which the term is most properly employed. During this comparatively brief period the older institutions have become universities, and the great increase in expenditure has been met chiefly by voluntary contributions. The annual expenditure, for example, at Harvard and Columbia Universities is about a half million dollars beyond the tuition fees, and the money invested in grounds and buildings, is in the case of either university many millions. Then this period has witnessed the establishment of new universities, rivaling in endowment the older institutions. The Johns Hopkins University and Clark University have been mentioned above, but the most noteworthy instances are the University of Chicago, to which one benefactor still living has given eight million dollars, and Leland Stanford Junior University, the endowment of which reaches the enormous sum of thirty-five million dollars. At the same time, the State universities, directly supported by the people, are beginning to rival privately endowed institutions. It may be confidently asserted that no nation has ever so liberally supported higher education, and the wisdom of this liberality is now demonstrated, even from the most mercenary point of view, by the place the United States has taken in the world’s commerce. It will be still further demonstrated in the course of the next twenty-five years. It is possible that existing conditions are not favorable to literature and to art, but the future of science in the United States is assured beyond question.
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It is sometimes said that Government control and individual initiative can not be united, but there is no justification for this view in the development of the educational and scientific institutions of the United States. Institutions established by private initiative have been assisted by the State, and State institutions have received large sums from private individuals. The New York institutions referred to above—the American Museum of Natural History, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Public Library, the Botanical Gardens and the Zoölogical Park—are in almost equal measure supported by the city and by citizens of the city. Johns Hopkins University, the University of Pennsylvania, Cornell University and other privately endowed institutions have received assistance from the State, without any decrease in private gifts, while the State universities, California for example, are receiving large private endowments in addition to their support from the State. These conditions may not last, but at all events they obtain at the present time, and we find the country in which the largest gifts from private individuals are made for education and science to be the country in which they are most liberally supported by the Government.
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Never before has any government made such great appropriations for the development of the resources of the country or for the advance of science as the Congress which has just adjourned. We may take for example the Department of Agriculture, for which the appropriation is $4,023,500, an increase of more than $280,000 over the appropriation for the preceding year. Every one familiar with the conditions at Washington and throughout the country will know that this large sum of money is expended with the utmost economy, and there is no doubt but what the money invested by the nation is returned to the people many fold in the course of every year. Some of the items of the bill deserve special notice. Thus, a new agricultural experiment station is to be established in the Hawaiian Islands, and the work of the Weather Bureau is to be extended to them. The agricultural resources and capabilities of Porto Rico are to be investigated, and bulletins of information in English and in Spanish are to be distributed to the inhabitants. The division of chemistry is to investigate the use of food preservatives and coloring matter, determine their relations to health and establish the principles which should guide their use. The division of forestry receives an increase of $40,000 and the Weather Bureau an increase of over $35,000. Other items of the appropriation act are as follows: Biological Survey, $30,300, an increase of $2,740; Division of Botany, $43,080, an increase of $14,280; Nutrition Investigation, $17,500, an increase of $2,500; Division of Pomology, $18,400; Public Road Inquiry, $14,000, an increase of $6,000; Division of Statistics, $146,160; Library, $14,000; and Museum, $2,260.