It will be seen that of the 298 institutions reported, 225 report the date of their charter, and 73 do not thus report; 30 report only preparatory students; 217 report collegiate students; 121 do not report students by classes; 124 do not report the degrees conferred in course; 69 do not report their libraries.

It should be noticed that there are reported 3,040 instructors; that there are 6,694 unclassified students; that 19,476 students are in preparatory courses;. that there are 19,260 in collegiate courses, and that 198 are reported as resident, or post-graduate students..

There were conferred at the last commencement day the degree of A. B. in course upon 1,963 individuals, the degree of A. M. in course upon 746, and various honorary degrees upon 341.

Connected with these institutions there are reported 4,261 female preparatory students; and in the collegiate departments, 1,419. Of these, 10 only are in New England colleges.

With reference to the number of years in the courses of study, 48 do not make any report; 209 report 4 years; 9 report 3 years; 7 report 2 years, aud 25 report over 4 years. These last evidently include both the preparatory and collegiate courses.

In Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Louisiana, Minnesota, Nebraska, Nevada, Oregon, Texas, Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and Washington Territory, no institutions are reported to have conferred the degree of

A. B.

Tracing the difference of work done in various States, it will be observed that in California the 132 persons reported as embraced in college faculties had under instruction 127 unclassified students, 1,129 preparatory students, and 504 collegiate, and that only six persons received the degree of A. B., while in Connecticut 87 college professors

had under instruction 795 collegiate students, and graduated 173 with s the degree of A. B.

If the whole number-19,249-reported as in the collegiate courses of instruction completed that course, there should be conferred annually about 4,800 degrees of A. B., instead of 1,963, as now reported.

The summary here attempted, of the results of this grade of instruction, it is hoped, can be repeated until completeness is secured.

a commentary do these figures furnish upon the disposition of American youth to terminate their course of study! How they emphasize the necessity of elevating our conceptions and standards of culture, and increasing and multiplying the motives to induce the young to extend the period of their study.

In the midst of the ignorant boasting of the intelligence of the American people, (and we all have sufficient inclination to boast of our country's merits,) the best informed have felt deeply the inadequacy of instrumentalities and results in the direction alike of elementary and higher education. It will be seen by a careful examination of the data already given how well-founded are these apprehensions. Shall light increase or diminish? Shall we as a people go forward or backward?

An able and very suggestive writer observes: "A large part, a very large part, of the world seems to be ready to advance to something good-to have prepared all the means to advance to something goodand then to have stopped and not advanced. India, Japan, China, almost every sort of oriental civilization, though differing in nearly all other things, are in this alike. They look as if they had paused when there was no reason for pausing; when a mere observer from without would say they were likely not to pause."

Shall a similar record be made of the United States? Whether there shall or not turns upon the consideration given this subject of education. Shall elementary, secondary, and superior instruction be made enough in quality and amount to assure the stability and progress of this great people? The opportunity is before us as a nation. We have the extent of territory, the variety and richness of soil, and the diversity and salubrity of climate, aud intermediate oceans to save us from interference by others. The expectation and the coming of all other nations are toward us.

The nature of our institutions and the incentives to personal and associated effort afford conditions of success not possible elsewhere under other forms of government; but, if the result is to be attained, this one purpose must penetrate every grade of mind.

The multiplied forces that may contribute to this end must be harmonized and rendered active. The citizen must never expect to escape from this responsibility in reference to education, and his appropriate contribution to that of others must go on till the day of his death. The higher he rises in position and trust, the greater (not the less, as some seem to think) is his responsibility.

The advanced student in our colleges must be so instructed as to encourage him to thoroughly complete the collègiate curriculum, and the curriculum itself must, as time goes on, assume the form, include the studies, and become prepared to furnish the culture which our institutions and modern times unite in demanding. Original investigation in science, in history, and in political and social economy must be fostered, and the devoted and self-sacrificing investigators of these subjects must be encouraged by sympathy, respect, and substantial support. It is by these means aloue that our political institutions can be improved; that our seats of learning can continue to flourish; that our vast material prosperity can hereafter gain proportionate advances. Our distinguished and venerated citizen, Professor Louis Agassiz, of Cambridge, Massachusetts, expressed opinions, in the course of a conversation in this office, which I have his permission to publish, and to which I would call attention in connection with these statistics :

The question is how to manage education so as to elevate the character of the nation.

There are three elements in which you are equally interested. One is to bring out this class of States, where there is a practically ignorant population; though I am not as much interested in that class of efforts, I see that no effort in the higher walks of knowledge can be really sustained unless we can remove entirely this dead load by dragging the low stratum to a higher level. We must not allow such a distinction to become permanent-of States where schools are nothing, and those where they are well provided for.

Another element is to take care of the public schools. I am telling my friends in Massachusetts a very bitter thing, and I have become bolder and bolder in saying that I am under the impression that the whole system of popular education is superannuated; that what is taught is no longer the food which the rising generation really wants most; and that the very knowledge that is taught is not the best. So that I would change both the substance and the methods of our popular schools.

And then, thirdly, our higher institutions of learning are utterly inadequate to give our young men that kind of instruction which will place them on the highest level of culture, and enable those that have not the means to go abroad to get an equally good education at home. We should never be satisfied until our institutions have attained such a superiority that European students shall find it necessary to come here.

*

*

#

I grant that the lowest strata from Europe are at once raised by coming to the United States, but our colleges are of an inferior character. It is a mistake to suppose that this is a necessity of slow growth. Our institutions of learning can be called into existence very rapidly. The very fact that there is no university in the United States, the intellectual interests of which are managed by professors, but always by a corporation outside, shows that we do not understand what a university is. The men who are in it must know better what are the wants of an institution of learning than outsiders. I believe there is no scientific man who will concede that there can be a university managed to the best advantage by anybody but those interested in its pursuits, and no body of trustees can be so interested.

Not only do material restrictions hamper the instructors, but who is the man who knows what is best to teach? And you see every organization, every college which is got up by outsiders, has to prosecute a curriculum and the professors have to teach that. That is all wrong for a university, but not for a high school. And that is why we have no university and no students of a higher order coming to us from the Old

World. That is as plain as daylight. Those are the essential conditions of a university.

Again, among teachers there are two classes of men, those who know what they are teaching just as well as anybody else, but who have not the natural disposition or qualification to increase the knowledge of mankind, and those who devote their lives to the production of new knowledge, and who are at the same time able to teach.

But many of the most productive thinkers are not teachers at all; they are a class of men whom the country does not recognize; they are men of original research who are not born teachers, but find they must assume the duties of instruction in order to obtain recognition. We should learn the conditions of success; and a condition of success in this matter is not to put a man with one power to do that which requires another power.

*

#

*

*

督

#

*

Professor Henry says the resources of the Smithsonian Institution are too small for the work to be done. Some gentlemen think the income of the institution ample. I thoroughly agree with Professor Henry, that its resources are entirely inadequate. For one solitary department at our museum of zoology we spend annually more than the sum total of the income of the Smithsonian Institution, which is to cover publications, the scientific, archæological, and zoölogical department, and which is to provide for the museum, the preservation of the collection, and the printing of the investigations as submitted.

We deal with one solitary subject, zoölogy, and for that department, for the last five years, we have spent annually sixty-five thousand dollars.

And the sum total of the income of the Smithsonian Institution is forty-five thousand dollars.

We have only $10,500 annually derived from the income, the rest is the result of my begging from private individuals, and the legislature, and all around.

Improve the character of the teachers, and let the teachers have a little more to do with teaching than simply hearing recitations, so that the teacher shall be a teacher, and not a mere machine to hear recitations.

The following opinions of Professor John Tyndall, furnished by himself at my request, are quite harmonious with those expressed by Professor Agassiz:

This is the core of the whole matter, as regards science. It must be cultivated for its own sake, for the pure love of truth, rather than for the applause or profit that it brings. And now, though my occupation is gone, still I will bespeak your tolerance for a few concluding remarks in reference to the men who have bequeathed to us the vast body of knowledge of which I have sought to give you some faint idea in these lectures. What was the motive that spurred them on? What the prize of their high calling for which they struggled so assiduously? What urged them to those battles and those victories over reticent nature, which have become the heritage of the human race? It is never to be forgotten that not one of those great investigators, from Aristotle down to Stokes and Kirchoff, had any practical end in view, according to the ordinary definition of the word "practical." They did not propose to themselves money as the end, and knowledge as a means of obtaining it. For the most part they nobly reversed this process-made knowledge their end, and such money as they possessed the means of obtaining it.

*

#

*

To many of their contemporaries it would have appeared simply ridiculous to see men, whose names are now stars in the firmament of science, straining their attention to observe an effect of an experiment almost too minute for detection.

*

That scientific discovery may put not only dollars into the pockets of individuals, but millions into the exchequers of nations, the history of science amply proves, but the hope of its doing so is not the motive-power of the investigator. It never can be. his motive-power. I know that I run some risk in speaking thus before practical men. I know what De Tocqueville says of you. "The man of the North," he says, "has not