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ready to establish and support such an institution, even without governmental aid. The matter has been under consideration for years. Those who represented the interests of education in the Prussian government have conducted the discussion with an eye not only to the local interests of the city of Frankfurt, but with a regard for the nearby universities already in existence and for the independent scientific and literary institutes already established. As a result, the university, if it be established, will coördinate and render more effective all existing agencies. It will not add a new competing institution. The whole proceeding is full of suggestion to Americans interested in education and in the function of educational institutions in human progress. the process of founding the new university all interests have had an opportunity to be heard. The whole question as to what function the university is to serve, how it should be established and conducted, what relations it should have to other schools and institutions, is being worked out under the eyes of the entire city, region, and kingdom in a manner and with a care and foresight unknown to us. In our cities a new university is founded by a single man or a group of men, and the idea of calling the community or the state into council over the matter has rarely occurred to any one. The spectacle is most suggestive to us as citizens of a democracy, not merely because it is an example of educational building carried on in a thoughtful instead of a haphazard way, but for the stronger reason that it is an example of the working of a modern government in the effort to conserve both the interest of the individual and the interest of the organized community. All modern government, practically all modern legislation, is an effort to deal with these sometimes divergent interests. How to preserve the freedom of the individual and at the same time to promote the efficiency of the organizations which do the work of modern civilized states is the essential problem which every government, whatever its form, faces. This is the question to-day in America at the heart of all legislation by Congress, whether it deals with trusts, or labor organizations, or railroads, or customs duties, or any other similar problem. The real problem before the legislature and the people is not how to destroy corporations, or labor organizations, or railroads, or other agencies, but how to develop them and still preserve the interest and the freedom of the individual. And the significant thing to us as a nation in the process of founding the proposed Frankfurt university is the fact that here an effort is being made to deal thoughtfully and seriously with a problem that in our American democracy we leave to be settled absolutely at haphazard, without supervision on the part

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of those who are capable of judging, and without real participation on the part of the great body of people whose interests are affected. The United States has not yet learned to use the expert intelligently, or to distinguish between the expert and the pretended expert. Compare with this method of founding a new university the action of our Congress, which pours annually into the treasuries of the various states a total of $2,400,000 for educational purposes, without knowing what is really done with the money.

The result of this lack of foresight on the part of the federal government and of the extremely limited scrutiny exercised by the states themselves over the institutions of higher learning has been the establishment in the United States of an enormous number of institutions calling themselves colleges and universities, a number far in excess of those existing in any other country, and undoubtedly greater than the country needs or can support.

The number of these institutions is not so remarkable, however, as the great variety of the work that they undertake, the varied standards that they set up, and their lack of relationship to the general system of schools of their respective states. The colleges and universities of the country are yet often indifferent and sometimes even hostile to the systems of public schools upon which the college and the university ought to rest. Too few of those who start a new college and those who conduct colleges that are already established admit that they owe any duty to the general school system. This is, on the whole, the most astounding fact in our higher education. The spectacle of colleges and universities founded and conducted without reference to the general school system is truly unique. It goes without saying that under such circumstances the colleges and the universities contribute far less than they should to a unifying national force in education.

Notwithstanding this lack of educational unity among the institutions of higher learning, the separate state systems have been kept in practical touch by their public schools. The common schools of the separate states, while showing great variations in their equipment, in the training of their teachers, and in the extent to which their studies are carried, are nevertheless founded upon practically the same plan. They begin with the child at about the same age, and either lead him or seek to lead him to about the same intellectual development. As a result, the common schools have been the great unifying force in citizenship in this country. They have made the English language the sole medium of communication. In the public schools the enormous armies of immigrants have received their induction into citizenship, and through the unifying force of the public school system the educational unity

of the country has been preserved. This has been rendered easier by the interchange of teachers and students that has gone on between the separate states. As we look over the educational history of the last half century, it seems clear that the educational and political solidarity of the country and the possession of common national ideals has been due in very large measure to the fact that a common system of elementary and secondary schools has spread throughout all the states.

The last ten years have been remarkable not only in the material gains of the institutions of higher learning and the increase in the number of their students, but also in the progress that has been made, particularly in the last half of that decade, in relating the institutions of higher learning to the general system of schools. This movement going on to-day with increased energy will in the long run transform our detached schools and colleges into a true educational system, in which the institutions of higher learning shall have fruitful relations not only with one another, but with the elementary and secondary schools as well. In attempting to review briefly what has been accomplished during the last decade, if one is to regard it from a national standpoint at all, it is necessary, therefore, to consider the steps taken in the direction of relating higher education to the public system of schools. The day has gone by when isolated educational institutions can serve either a locality or the state efficiently. Whether one considers the local community, the state, or the nation, all educational progress for the future lies in such coördination of the higher institutions of learning with the common school system as will conduce to the best education of the individual. Out of this coördination will come not only increased efficiency, but also greater freedom, alike for the secondary school, the college, and the university.

II. INCREASED NATIONAL AID

In Chapter II were presented some of the more important portions of the record of the part played by the Federal government, through grants of both land and money, for the upbuilding of the public school systems of the several states; and also of the various efforts made from time to time, to secure further national aid for these school systems. The Hoar Bill and the Blair Bill are representative of the earlier efforts, during the period immediately following the Civil War. The so-called Davis Bill of 1907, and the Page Bill of 1912 illustrate the con

temporaneous efforts to tap the springs of national resources for the betterment of educational opportunity for the American people. The Agricultural-Extension measure passed in 1914 (Smith-Lever Bill') was a logical application of the principle incorporated in the several Morrill Acts.

As a culmination of a decade of efforts toward national aid, Congress in 1913 created a commission to consider the need and to report a plan for national aid to vocational education.2 Upon the recommendation of the commission a comprehensive scheme for such aid was proposed in the following bill :3

To provide for the promotion of vocational education; to provide for cooperation with the States in the promotion of such education in agriculture and the trades and industries; to provide for coöperation with the States in the preparation of teachers of vocational subjects; and to appropriate money and regulate its expenditure.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That there is hereby annually appropriated, out of any money in the Treasury not otherwise appropriated, the sums provided in sections two, three, and four of this Act, to be paid to the respective States for the purpose of coöperating with the States in paying the salaries of teachers, supervisors, and directors of agricultural subjects, and of teachers of trade and industrial subjects, and in the preparation of teachers of agricultural, trade, and industrial and home economics subjects; and the sum provided for in section seven to the Federal Board for Vocational Education for the administration of this Act and for the purpose of making studies, investigations, and reports to aid in the organization and conduct of vocational education, which sums shall be expended as hereinafter provided.

SEC. 2. (Relates to the amount of the appropriation for agricultural subjects; beginning with $500,000 for the year ending June 30, 1916, with an annual increment of $250,000 for six years (1922), and then two annual increments of $500,000, making the appropriation in 1924, and thereafter, $3,000,000.) . . . Said sums shall be allotted to the States in the proportion which their rural population bears to the total rural population in the United

1 See p. 101.

* Senate Joint Resolution, No. 5 (April 7, 1913).

Contained in the Report of the Commission on National Aid to Vocational Education. House Doc. No. 1004, Sixty-third Congress. Introduced in the House of Representatives, June 1, 1914 as H. R. 16952 (Smith-Hughes Bill).

States, not including outlying possessions, according to the last preceding United States census: Provided, That the allotment of funds to any state shall not be less than a minimum of $5,000 for any fiscal year prior to and including the fiscal year ending June thirtieth, nineteen hundred and twenty-two, nor less than $10,000 for any fiscal year thereafter, and there is hereby appropriated the following sums, or so much thereof as may be necessary for the purpose of providing the minimum allotment to the States provided for in this section. (Graduated appropriations for minimum allotments.) ...

SEC. 3. (Relates to the amount of the appropriation for trade and industrial subjects; beginning with $500,000 for the year ending June 30, 1916; with increments and a maximum as for agricultural subjects.) . . Said sums shall be allotted to the States in the proportion which their urban population bears to the total urban population in the United States, not including outlying possessions, according to the last preceding United States census: Provided, That the allotment of funds to any State shall be not less than a minimum of $5,000 for any fiscal year prior to and including the fiscal year ending June thirtieth, nineteen hundred and twenty-two, nor less than $10,000 for any fiscal year thereafter, and there is hereby appropriated the following sums, or so much thereof as may be needed for the purpose of providing the minimum allotment to the States provided for in this section. (Graduated appropriation for minimum allotments.)

SEC. 4. (Relates to the amount of the appropriation for the preparation of teachers, supervisors and directors of agricultural subjects, and teachers of trade and industrial and home economics subjects; beginning with $500,000 for the year ending June 30, 1916; with two annual increments of $200,000, and one of $100,000, making the final appropriation for 1919 and thereafter, $1,000,000.)

Said sums shall be allotted to the States in the proportion which their population bears to the total population of the United States, not including outlying possessions, according to the last preceding United States census: Provided, That the allotment of funds to any State shall be not less than a minimum of $5,000 for any fiscal year prior to and including the fiscal year ending June thirtieth, nineteen hundred and eighteen, nor less than $10,000 for any fiscal year thereafter. . . . (Graduated appropriation for minimum allotments.) . . .

SEC. 5. That in order to secure the benefits of the appropriations provided for in sections two, three, and four of this Act, any state shall, through the legislative authority thereof, accept