things? Already in some of them we have two distinct systems of education. A principal of one of these institutions in the West said to the writer: "We are working under the disadvantages of a double curriculum. We have a scheme of studies, scientific and practical, drawn with reference to the larger number of our pupils who come from the common schools, and who close their studies with us. We take them through an English course, with mathematics, book-keeping, political economy, physics, chemistry, botany, and physiology. And we have also a classical course for a small number of students who are preparing for college. But the exactions of Latin and Greek are so great upon these that they get hardly a smattering of the subjects pursued by the other students." The tactics of Dr. McCosh were admirable. To keep the proceeds of the public lands from going to the agricultural colleges and scientific institutions, he is willing to resign all claim upon them for the benefit of the classical colleges; at the same time, if the money is expended for the extension of high-schools, as the doctor says, "these schools would aid colleges far more powerfully than a direct grant to them." Yet, as long as the two systems of education remain so diverse that the regular high-school graduation is not accepted as preparation for college, there will be conflict for the control of these establishments. Only as the college curriculum becomes more broad, modern, and scientific, and the classical studies are restricted to the special classes who have need of them, can American education become harmonized in its elements and unified in its system.
The report of President Eliot, of Harvard, on a national university, was a strong document. We publish the last portion of it, which deals with the main question, and ask attention to the high grounds on which he bases his demand for the non-interference of government with the system of higher education. His paper started a warm debate on the broad and important question of the proper relations of government to the work of instruction, and, of course, his views met with vigorous opposition. It was maintained that there is no break in the logic by which government action is prescribed; and that, admitting the propriety of state action in primary education, there is no halting-place until the government takes charge of the entire school machinery of the country. And such is the overshadowing influence of politics, and so profound the superstition regarding government omnipotence, that this view found its urgent advocates, who seem blind to the consequences that are certain to follow when the people shirk the responsibilities of attending directly to the education of the young, and shoulder it off upon a mass of politicians holding the offices of government. The friends of state education certainly pressed their case to its extreme conclusions. Government contributes money to support common schools, and appoints officers to regulate them; therefore let it appropriate $20,000,000 to establish a national university at Washington, with $1,000,000 a year to be divided among the congressional appointees, who will hold the professorships. Dr. McCosh suggested that recent congressional experiences were hardly calculated to inspire confidence in the action of that body, and asked what guarantee we should have against a university ring and systematic educational jobbing; and it was objected by others that the class of men who congregate in the capital, and the whole spirit of the place, would make it more unfit than any other in the country for such an institution. Prof. Richards, of Washington, came to the rescue of the reputation of his town, and asked, em-
