These blunders are never forgiven. If we fail to see our day of opportunity, we shall drop into the rear, and cease to do our part for the evangelization of this land and this world, and that sad voice from the broken-hearted watcher of Olivet will come to us: "O Methodism, Methodism; if thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong to thy peace!"

From the address of Rev. Dr. McCabe:

If the past is prophetic of the future, this American University will have much to do with the cause of missions. The name of a university professor is a household word in Methodism, because it is connected with that all-conquering theology which is believeable and preachable, and which is destined to take the world—James Arminius, of the University of Leyden.

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Now it is our purpose to establish in Washington a training school for missionries, where they will have every facility to learn languages and customs and manners of the countries to which we propose to send them.

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Another feature of our work will be to bring to our country the highest minds of the Orient and educate them, and send them back to their homes saturated with the love of liberty and the love of God and of His Son Jesus Christ.

From the address of Rev. Dr. Bashford:

The cost of maintaining the college in a large city, the diversion of young and immature minds through the entertainments of city life, the prevalence of the commercial spirit, and, above all, the difficulty of bringing spiritual forces to bear in the most effective manner, may lead the Church for generations to maintain her colleges in more retired localities. But the great cities are absolutely essential to university work. The demand for concentration and study amidst the whirl of business and entertainment is in itself a discipline for professional students. The great hospitals and courts of law, the leading pulpits, the galleries of art, and the great libraries are absolutely essential to the professional student. But what great city is more favorable to university work than the capital of the nation? The University of Paris at the capital of France, is the largest university in the world. The history of the University of Berlin is a more striking illustration of this principle. It is a modern university, organized less than a century ago. It was planted in a nation full of universities. And yet with the marvelous advantages of the capital of that great empire Berlin University has become within three-quarters of a century the leading university of the world.

From the address of Bishop Thoburn:

Every nation, like every individual, has a personal mission, a personal responsibility. God gives to a nation as to an individual an opportunity. He lays upon every nation its responsibility. A nation will be held responsible for what is given it, as an individual would be. The position of America is unique. There has never been a great power in human history that occupied such a position as we occupy in the world to-day; and I think one of the great questions which the American people have not yet fully settled is that of the mission of their own nation in the world. I fear the prevailing opinion is that we have been put in this western world, with superb opportunities, simply that we might become the greatest people on the globe. If that foolish conceit takes possession of us, as a people, we are lost. * * * My own conviction has long been that the mission of America in the world is that of being the missionary nation of modern times-a great agent in the hands of God in bringing all the nations of this world to Christ. Education maintains a prominent place in mission work, and I believe that in the fullness of time this university idea has been started.

From the address of Rev. Dr. Moore:

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But the university period has only dawned in America. Its harbingers have been many, but itself is not older than the opening of Johns Hopkins. It must certainly

be gratifying to Methodists that thus early the plans are matured and the enterprise auspiciously inaugurated to found in our national capital a Methodist institution, which shall be an university in the broadest sense of the term, the scope of whose work is suggested by the fact that it does not propose to open its doors until it has an endowment greater than that gathered by all the institutions of our church in a hundred years.

CIV. The action of the Human Freedom League at the time of its organization in Independence Hall, Philadelphia, on the 11th of October, 1891, by resolution including among its duties and responsibilities that of promoting the establishment of a national university; said resolution being as follows:

(3) To take up the work outlined by George Washington in his will, whereby he left a large share of his property for the purpose of endowing a university where the youth of the country might be educated in statecraft, and push the same to a successful conclusion. Such a university should be national, and yet have its doors always open to the youth of every land.

CV. The reading of a paper entitled, "The National Debt of Honor," by Dr. George Brown Goode, of the Smithsonian Institution, at a meeting of the general committee of the Pan-Republic Congress, held in the Academy of Music at Philadelphia, on the 13th of October, 1891; which paper, besides presenting the main facts of Washington's efforts for a national university, as herein mentioned, strongly urges the obligation of the nation, not only to establish and liberally endow such an institution, but to make good the full amount of the bequest intended by him to be the beginning of its endowment, and concludes with an indorsement of the national committee's plan of the proposed institution, and with a moving appeal in behalf of the great enterprise:

Congress has, however, failed to extend its direct patronage to any educational enterprise of the highest grade. Unlike most of the governments of the old world, it supports no faculties of learned men whose duty it is to discover truth and give it to the world. It has not yet provided a national university so excellent that it is not necessary, in the language of Washington, "for the youth of the United States to migrate to foreign countries in order to acquire the higher branches of education." While it has established a great system of schools under the patronage of the several States, it has failed to provide a central institution which shall serve as a model for all the others, train teachers for their faculties, afford their scholars post-graduate instruction, and add character and dignity, intellectual and moral, to the nation's capitai. The sum of $4,401,000 [amount of Washington's bequest with compound interest to the present time], if appropriated for this purpose by Congress, and placed in the Treasury of the United States, there to remain paying interest at 6 per cent, would yield over $264,000 each year, a sum that would provide for many professorships, lectureships and scholarships, and fellowships, as well as for the current expenses of several seminaries or colleges. Private gifts would in time be added in large amounts, and Congress would of course erect such buildings as from time to time were found necessary.

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Among the various plans for the organization and government of a national university, that proposed by Governor John W. Hoyt, of Wyoming, and embodied in a

bill unanimously reported by a committee of the House of Representatives, in 1873, is by far the best, and, in its practical features, seems all that could be desired. This bill received the approval of Charles Sumner, Joseph Henry, Louis Agassiz, Spencer F. Baird, John Eaton, William T. Harris, as well as many other distinguished citizens, and had the sanction of the National Educational Association.

CVI. The adoption, by the Pan-Republic Congress General Committee of Three Hundred, of the following preamble and resolution offered by John W. Hoyt, at the conclusion of the paper read by Dr. Goode, of the Smithsonian Institution, on the 13th of October, 1891, as above recited:

Whereas, this general committee, formed for the purpose of advancing the cause of peace and liberal government throughout the world by means of a succession of congresses of the representatives of all civilized lands, could yet further contribute to these great ends by encouraging such organizations and enterprises as look to the increase of knowledge and of liberal thought among men; and

Whereas, it is manifest that a truly national university established at the seat of government of the United States, and aiming, first, to crown the present incomplete system of American education; secondly, to promote the advancement of knowledge by means of the researches and investigations of its members as well as by its influence upon the science and learning of other lands; and, finally, to encourage à larger intellectual intercourse and community of feeling among the leading minds of the world, would at once prove conservative of our own free institutions, strengthen the bonds of fraternity among all peoples, and contribute to the betterment of governmental institutions everywhere; and

Whereas, it appears from the records of history, not only that on this very spot sacred to liberty and independence the importance of such a university was urged by the framers of the American Constitution, but that several of the Presidents, including George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, John Quincy Adams, Ulysses S. Grant, and Rutherford B. Hayes, pressed its early establishment as a patriotic duty; that President Washington even remembered it with a liberal gift in his dying bequest; that the proposition to establish it has been sanctioned by other leading statesmen throughout the period of our national history, and, finally, that such proposition has been thrice unanimously indorsed by that great body of American educators, the National Educational Association; therefore,

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Resolved, That in order to aid in the founding of such an institution, the chairman of this general committee is hereby requested to appoint a special committee consisting of one or more members from each of the States and Territories, whose duty it shall to be adopt and carry forward such measures to this end as to them shall seem proper; reporting to this committee in their discretion, or as required from time to time, and in particular at the time and place of the Pan-Republic Congress to be held in the year 1893.

The following committee was appointed:

John W. Hoyt, Laramie, Wyo., chairman; Dr. G. Browne Goode, Smithsonian Institution; ex-President Andrew D. White, Ithaca, N. Y.; Dr. Edward Everett Hale, Boston; President A. S. Andrews, Southern University, Greensboro, Ala.; Rev. Dr. Geo. D. Boardman, Philadelphia; Dr. Chas. B. Cadwallader, Philadelphia; President Thomas J. Burrell, University of Illinois; Hon. J. W. Anderson, State superintendent public instruction, Sacramento, Cal.; Hon. Harvey L. Vories, State superintendent public instruction, Indianapolis, Ind.; President John R. Winston, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; Dr. James Hall, State geologist, Albany, N. Y.; ex-President Horace M. Hale,

University of Colorado; Hon. Edwin F. Palmer, State superintendent public instruction, Waterbury, Vt.; ex-Senator J. W. Patterson, Concord, N. H.; Dr. James Grant Wilson, New York City; Hon. Albert J. Russell, State superintendent public instruction, Tallahassee, Fla.; Hon. Cortez Salmon, State superintendent public instruction, Pierre, S. Dak.; President Francis E. Nipher, Academy of Science, St. Louis, Mo.; Dr. Charles C. Jones, Augusta, Ga.; Hon. J. R. Preston, State superintendent public instruction, Jackson, Miss.; Dr. M. Schele de Vere, University of Virginia; Hon. William Wirt Henry, Richmond, Va.; President Newton Bateman, Knox College, Galesburg, Ill.; Hon. J. W. Dickinson, secretary State board of education, Boston, Mass.; Hon. Thomas B. Stockwell, State commissioner of schools, Providence, R. I.; Dr. Frank H. Kasson, editor of Education, Boston, Mass.; Dr. H. B. Adams, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Md.; President T. C. Chamberlin, State University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wis.; Rt. Rev. Ethelbert Talbot, Protestant Episcopal bishop of Wyoming and Idaho; Hon. S. M. Finger, State superintendent public instruction, Raleigh, N. C.; President J. C. Gilchrist, University of Northwest, Pierre, S. Dak.; Hon. Gardner G. Hubbard, Washington, D. C.; Col. W. O. McDowell, editor of Home and Country, Newark, N. J.

CVII. The address of John W. Hoyt before the Philosophical Society, at Washington, in October, 1891, by request of that body.

CVIII. The preparation and wide circulation, by John W. Hoyt, of a leaflet late in 1891, wherein were set forth the claims of the proposed National University; the same being an outline of this present paper, to wit:

A great and true university the leading want of American education.
The offices of a true university.

Reasons why the Government should establish such a university.
Reasons for founding such a university at Washington.

Summary of the notable efforts hitherto made in this behalf.

Reasons for a renewal of such efforts at this time.

The proposition of to-day.

The conditions of success.

CIX. The interest manifested in various ways and at different times during the past twenty years by numerous distinguished citizens in all portions of the country, including, besides those already named: (1) Such leading educators as

President Thomas Hill, of Cambridge, Mass.; President F. A. P. Barnard, of Columbia College, New York; President Alexander W. Winchell, of Syracuse University, New York; President Erastus O. Haven, of Michigan University; President J. L. Pickard, of Iowa State University; President Paul A. Chadbourne, of Wisconsin State University; Dr. Henry Barnard, United States Commissioner of Education; President J. M. Gregory, of Illinois State University; President J. M. Bowman, of Kentucky University; President W. G. Elliot, of Washington University, St. Louis; President Newton Bateman, of Knox College, Illinois; President David S. Jordan, of Leland Stanford, jr., University; President George T. Winston, University of Mississippi; Dr. M. Schele de Vere, University of Virginia; President A. S. Andrews, of the Southern University, Alabama; President Thomas J. Burrill, University of Illinois; President T. C. Chamberlin, University of Wisconsin; President Horace M. Hale, University of Colorado; President James B. Angell, University of Michigan; President Francis Wayland, of Brown University.

(2) Superintendents of public instruction in nearly all the States; the unanimity and cordiality of their support resulting from a conviction of the great service a national university would render to the whole system of public schools.

(3) Such eminent scholars, scientists, and promoters of science as

Rt. Rev. Bishop Alonzo Potter, New York; Dr. Henry P. Tappan, chancellor of the University of Michigan; Prof. Arnold Henry Guyot, Princeton; Dr. Alex. Dallas Bache, early superintendent of Coast Survey; Prof. Benjamin Peirce, former superintendent of Coast Survey; Prof. Spencer F. Baird, former Secretary of Smithsonian Institution; Prof. H. V. Hayden, United States Geologist; Prof. John W. Powell, Director of the U. S. Geological Survey; Prof. Benjamin Apthorp Gould, astronomer; Prof. Ormsby M. Mitchell, astronomer; Prof. J. Lawrence Smith, president American Association Advancement of Science; Admiral Sands, former Superintendent of National Observatory; Lieut. M. F. Maury, former Superintendent of the Naval Observatory; Dr. S. P. Langley, present Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution; Dr. Simon Newcomb, Superintendent of the Nautical Almanac; Prof. James Watson, astronomer, Michigan and Wisconsin State Universities; Prof. T. C. Mendenhall, present Superintendent of the Coast Survey; Dr. James Hall, State geologist, New York; Dr. F. Nipher, president Academy of Science, St. Louis; Hon. Edwin Willits, Assistant Secretary of Agriculture; Dr. Mark W. Harrington, Chief of the Weather Bureau; Dr. J. S. Billings, Superintendent United States Medical Museum; Gen. A. W. Greely, Chief of the United States Signal Office; Gardner G. Hubbard, president National Geographical Society; Dr. Persifer Frazer, of Philadelphia; Rt. Rev. William Paret, Bishop of Maryland; Rt. Rev. Thomas M. Clark, of Providence; President William R. Harper, University of Chicago; Prof Hinsdale, of Michigan University; Dr. J. C. Pumpelly, of New York; Dr. Clark Ridpath, of Indiana; Prof. E. P. Powell, of New York; Dr. Edward Everett Hale, of Massachusetts; Dr. Frank W. Kasson, editor of Education; Dr. James Grant Wilson, of New York; Rt. Rev. Thos. A. Starkey, Bishop of Newark.

(4) Such distinguished statesmen, not already cited, as

Ex-President Grover Cleveland, Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase, Gen. W. T. Sherman, Senator Justin S. Morrill, Senator Carl Schurz, Senator Stanley Matthews, Senator James R. Doolittle, Senator Redfield Proctor, Senator John Sherman, Senator Charles F. Manderson, Senator W. F. Vilas; also, many members of the House of Representatives, such as Samuel Shellabarger, George F. Hoar, James A. Garfield, and William A. Wilson.

CX. The steps already taken toward the organization of a National University Association of the United States, to be composed of many of the most eminent citizens of the country, and to have for its sole object the furtherance of this great enterprise.

In view of this record of more than a hundred years, showing how deeply the subject of a National University has interested a great number of citizens, not a few of them foremost in the history of the Republic, the question arises, Why all this effort with so little of visible result?