aim of the university, which from this day will be the most conspicuous and powerful institution in this great city. Here will be treasured the best memories of unselfish sacrifice and heroic achievement; here will be recorded all the failures as well as the triumphs of civic statesmanship; here social problems will be discussed and solved through its affiliated institutions, which will reach every household and every citizen. The children in the kindergartens, the boys and girls in the schools, the workmen in the shops, the clerks in the marts of commerce, the merchants and the manufacturers in their offices, the professional men in their studies, all will come under its influence. The efforts of the community will thus be coordinated for progress and for evolution into a higher and better environment. Every agency for instruction, for culture, and for refinement will be systematically employed in the development of a nobler civic life; and, above all, the wealth which has accumulated in this city by the joint association of its people, and to which every human being contributes by his industry, will come to be regarded as a sacred trust to be administered in the public interest for works of beneficence to all. The petty jealousies between the classes will steadily disappear, and it will be demonstrated that democracy and liberty are coexisting and inseparable factors in the largest and best development of civilization.

The trustees of the college have shown themselves to be fully conscious at all times of the obligation which rests upon them in the administration of the great trust confided to their keeping. From the humble beginning in 1754 with seven students and two instructors, with an income so modest for nearly a century as to limit the instruction of the college to such branches as were necessary to educate Christian gentlemen, the college, under the wise guidance of President Barnard and President Low, has been developed into a university, which, during the last year, gave instruction to 1,973 students, enlisted the services of 265 teachers, and expended a revenue of over $750,000. It now undertakes to provide instruction in all departments of human learning required for the highest development of modern life. The old academic training is preserved for those who wish to lay the foundations of a scholarly education, fitting them for the study of the learned professions or for the pursuit of a literary career. Its schools of science qualify the engineers who are to become the captains of modern industry, or to pass their lives in the study of natural phenomena; its school of medicine, with its affiliated hospitals, in connection with which the names of Sloane, Vanderbilt, and Kissam will ever be held in grateful remembrance, provides the best instruction for alleviating the physical sufferings of the race, and the sanitary knowledge necessary to prevent the spread of disease; its school of law graduates the men who are to protect, enlarge, and defend the civil rights of a free people, and to develop jurists who will have the knowledge, courage, and honesty to maintain the law and administer justice without fear and without favor.

But, above all, and crowning all, is the school of political science, whose province it is to investigate the principles of justice, the elementary conditions and customs of the social organization, and the history and results of their influence in the development of civilization, and the progress of man from a state of barbarism to the infinite refinements and culture of modern life. Herein Columbia College has realized the ideals of Jefferson for the university to which he gave the ripe experience and the affectionate devotion of his old age. It has given effect to the hopes of Washington, who in his first message delivered to Congress in this city, in his correspondence, and in his last will, gave voice to the purpose which was near his heart, of founding an institution in which the principles of free government might be taught to specially selected students who would thus be qualified for public office in the same manner as the Academy at West Point educated officers for the military service of the country. Already in issues of

great moment the influence of Columbia University has done much to dispel error, to promote a better understanding between nations, and to avoid complıcations which might otherwise have resulted in actual hostilities.

Such is the university which the legislature of New York in 1784 foreshadowed when it declared that Columbia College was to be the mother under whose fostering care the educational system of the State would be made worthy of the great people who had pledged every dollar of its property for the education of every child within its domain.

But, as it is with the city which has given birth and wealth to this chief monument of its prosperity and glory, so the university stands only upon the threshold of a great career. Already it has outgrown the provision which a decade ago was supposed to be adequate for all possible requirements. By the general concurrence of its trustees, its faculty, and its alumni, and with the approval of the city and of the State, it is to be transferred to these historic heights, surrounded by a vision of beauty which satisfies the ideals of the poet, the patriot, and the scholar. Here, then, is to be forever the center of the intellectual life of the city-the citadel of last defense against the perils of ignorance, of superstition, and of false doctrine. Here, buttressed by the noblest cathedral of our age, by institutions of charity and learning, and especially by Barnard College, in which, if the rich people of New York do their duty, the women of the future will be admitted to equal educational privileges with their brothers, the university buildings will forever, under the flag of freedom, be an unassailable bulwark of sound learning and the gateway to universal knowledge.

If, then, the university has a duty to the city which it is striving to perform, have the citizens of New York no corresponding duty to discharge in providing it with the halls and buildings in which this beneficent work is henceforth to be carried on? If its vast endowment is to be sacredly applied, as it should be, to defray the cost of instruction and administration, ought not the rich citizens of New York, whose wealth has been derived from the same source and by virtue of the same law of increment which has given to Columbia College this endowment, be emulous to apply their surplus riches to the building of the structures and to the provision of the appliances for higher education on a scale adequate to meet the ever-increasing demands of modern civilization? Large gifts have already been made by the alumni, by the Fayerweather estate, and by publicspirited citizens for the purchase of the new site. Seth Low, its honored president, inspired by filial piety and by public spirit, has given the great sum of money required for the construction of the library, around which all the other departments of the university must necessarily be grouped. William C. Schermerhorn, chairman of its board of trustees, whose long life of usefulness in this city has only been equaled by his modesty, has set the example of appropriating a portion of one of the large fortunes which have been created by the growth of the city to the erection of a hall of physical science, whose developments day by day are awakening an astonished world to new possibilities of discovery tending to the prevention and cure of disease, the increase of the general welfare, and to the final triumph of mind over matter.

While these lines are being penned, another family, among whose members are distinguished graduates from Columbia, have provided the means for erecting the great building devoted to chemical science and art, which will for all time commemorate the source from which the prosperity of the descendants of Frederick Christian Havemeyer has been derived. For the naming of the remaining halls to be constructed, there will undoubtedly be a generous rivalry among the families whose names are connected with the early history of New York, and whose descendants have been enriched by its growth. In this country patents of nobility are wisely prohibited, but a title to immortality is surely ED 99-36

within the reach of those to whom the trustees may finally award the privilege and the glory of erecting any one of these buildings. One college hall, however, the trustees have wisely reserved for the alumni to build by contributions, large or small, as a memorial to the living and dead sons of Columbia, whose names shall be inscribed upon tablets to be placed in the great hall of the building. In the entire history of Columbia College the number of its graduates has not been large, but in point of character, ability, and achievement the roll of honor is illustrious. Hereafter, when the university shall number its sons by hundreds of thousands, every one of these early names will have an interest for future generations, especially when they suggest the ties of family and excite the pride of an honorable ancestry. In the coming competition which I foresee, it is to be hoped that the trustees will be very cautious in admitting to the company of the immortals, whose names these great halls shall bear, any one which may not hereafter revive the memory of an honorable and useful career in the acquisition of fortune. Thus Columbia will stand not only for what is pure in thought and action, but will be a perpetual incentive to virtue, public spirit, noble aspirations, and successful achievement.

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Social reforms never come from below. They originate in the trained intellect of scholars and in the inspirations of genius in an atmosphere favorable to their reception. Slowly but surely great ideas descend and penetrate the mass of the people. The current belief of to-day was the scientific discovery of yesterday, while the evil of one age is very often due to reforms instituted in a previous age, and yet the underlying principles of truth and justice never change. The guardianship of these principles reside in the higher instructions of learning, and their application to the changing conditions of society depends upon teachers and scholars who devote their lives to the investigation of truth, regardless of the material results of their labor.

In this country the democracy, whose power will never grow less, will tolerate no violation of its ideals. But these ideals may be either true or false. They may lead to the ruin of society, as they did in the French Revolution, or they may raise it to new standards of justice and happiness. The outcome will depend on how far the public will is guided by the knowledge of sound principles. This knowledge can not be acquired in the common schools. Even if every child is instructed in the rudiments of education, the limitations of age and of the time which can be devoted to elementary learning do not admit of the intellectual and moral training necessary in dealing with great questions of public policy. It is true that in rare instances men like Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and George Washington, who were not college bred, appear upon the stage of public life and take their place among the leaders of thought and action. But they were men of great natural powers which had been developed by extraordinary opportunities and responsibilities in early life, serving thus to prove the rule that thorough training and large experience in public affairs are prerequisites to successful administration.

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XIII.-SPEECH OF HON. J. L. M. CURRY BEFORE THE LEGISLATURE OF GEORGIA, NOVEMBER 29, 1897.

MR. SPEAKER: This generous and sympathetic welcome to a Lincoln boy is very encouraging. Our distinguished friend, who has demonstrated in our hearing this morning his great fitness for the position which he fills, spoke of his presence here before the legislature as being a "red-letter day." It is of course an honor which any one might appreciate to have the privilege of standing before those whom the honest and unpurchasable constituents of 137 counties have sent here to do the

great and solemn and, I might say, sublime work of making laws for the government of the people.

A few years ago, in my ministry of education, I visited the Girls' Normal School at Milledgeville, which is abundantly worthy of your confidence and support, and I went into the hall of the capitol, which now no longer exists, and I remembered (and it is among my earliest recollections) the fact of my own father leaving the dear old county of Lincoln and going down to Milledgeville-not once, but twiceas a legislator; and also an uncle of mine, who has held the position which you so honorably fill to-day as speaker of the house of representatives of Georgia-I mean Thomas W. Murray, for whom a county is named-and another uncle of mine, Peter Lamar, who was for years a representative and a senator from the same county of Lincoln.

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In addition to my nativity and bearing a diploma from the university, I feel that I have some right of speech before a Georgia legislature. As I stood in that old hall there came thrilling memories; and as I walked through those historic scenes where Georgia history had been made so luminous, I imagined I could see coming out from the walls into the aisles the images of those who had made Georgia so conspicuous, and I do not now hesitate to say that, in my humble judgment, there is no State in this Union-not even Massachusetts, Ohio, Pennsylvania, or Virginia-which has contributed to jurisprudence and to politics and to higher civilization more distinguished men than the State of Georgia. [Applause.] Politics is a science of government that has too often been degraded into mere spoils of office, our citizens forgetful that public trust is not for individual aggrandizement but for the public good. I do not know that there has ever been a time when there was a greater need for wise and discriminating and courageous legislators or broad statesmanship. I have in the past known men who, taking their lives in their hands, would march with unblanched cheek in the presence of a strong battery or encounter the discharge of a whole field of artillery, and I have sometimes seen those same men in the legislature quake and shiver in a dastardly manner lest what they did would incur the ill will of Tom Jones or Jack Brown, of "Possum Trot," in his county. [Applause.]

The legislature is not here to ascertain what the people want, but what they ought to want, and I have sometimes thought that there was a failure to appre hend what were the just limits of legislation, distinguishing subjects for legislation from those that should be left to courts or to moral agencies of society, and also the art of framing appropriate and effective laws.

In these days of political corruption there is a new beatitude, "Blessed are the strong, for they shall prey on the weak." Government is perverted into partnership with monopolies, helping the few, the rich, to grow richer. The maxims and methods of government should be exalted and citizenship should be raised into a partnership with every virtue, giving predominance to justice, right, veraciousness, equality before the law. Ordinarily in looking over the calendar of a legislature you will find it is filled with bills numerous and experimental, and sometimes of local character and of doubtful justice. I came to-day to plead with you, my friends, for an object general and universal-one that applies to every neighborhood, to every family, and to every citizen in the State of Georgia, from Dade to Camden or from Rabun to Decatur-one of universal concern, which lies at the foundation of civilization and good government and of material as well as mental prosperity. The good book says that the "king himself is served by the field," and that is the text of the most excellent speech of our distinguished friend this morning, the Secretary of Agriculture, and it means that the people, the government represented by the king, are served by the field, and that wealth comes from the field, and that agriculture is the basis of our real wealth and prosperity.

There are some things of general and permanent concern which, it seems to me, should attract the attention of a legislator, and they are closely connected with the question of schools. One of the most important things is to provide for good roads. An agricultural journal estimates that farmers pay the enormous sum of $600,000,000 for transporation of produce to nearest market. The heaviest tax a citizen pays in this country is the cost of transporting crops to market, and if that cost could be put down in dollars and cents instead of wear of machinery and live stock, loss of time and temper, and violation of the good rule which prohibits us from swearing, there is not a community in Georgia that would not rebel against the impoverishment. Wagon transportation over the average road costs from. 15 to 20 cents per ton for each mile. When roads are impassable in winter, more than a million draft horses are kept in unproductive idleness. I have seen a woman and a dog hauling, over a good road in Germany, more produce than could be hauled by a wagon and two mules over some roads in Virginia and Alabama.

Those who manage railway companies sometimes incur the ill will and prejudice of unthinking people. Those who manage the railroads of this country, amounting to a capital of twelve thousand millions, with 180,000 miles of railwayand generally, in my judgment, good men, many of them surely so-I take it that those who manage railroads are on an average about as good and nice people as the merchants and lawyers, and doctors, and, if some of my friends before me will excuse me, the preachers and legislators of the country. [Applause.]

Another, a great measure, is prison reform. I have before me a pamphlet which I picked up for railroad reading just as I left home, "The Fifth International Prison Congress Proceedings in Paris." It is a Government publication, and full of valuable information and instruction on this subject.

Nearly every man I met a few weeks ago was talking about the convicts. Well, I shall not take up your valuable time in saying what I think about them, but I will say that the prisons, generally, in this country might be called normal schools for criminals. The juvenile offenders are under the tuition of the criminal classes. We want better penal legislation, improved administration of the prisons. We want to strengthen the prevention of crime and introduce humanity into law, rehabilitate the offender, and put better elements into the present condition of prison life.

[Cheers.]

We want better education, intellectual, moral, industrial, practical, and home training, and inducements to self-exertion instead of State-supported pauperism. What is saved in withholding proper education from children is lost in criminal jurisprudence, jails, police, almshouses. Perhaps you will laugh at me when I say that as prisons are normal schools for prisoners, it would be a good thing if we had a school for the training of wardens of the penitentiaries, so that they might understand their business and the science of penitentiaries. [Applause.] We are told that agriculture is the great basis of civilization, and we know that the farms of this country aggregate over $13,000,000,000 and are the most important economic interest of our people. It is natural that they should be interested in the improvement of agriculture. Agriculture is very unremunerative. Men can not grow cotton profitably at 4 cents a pound. Some of the depression is the result of culpable negligence, of bad farming. The Commissioner of Agriculture, in his last report, says that 98 per cent of farms sold under mortgages were those in which the one-crop system was followed,

Your main duty now as legislators, as Georgia statesmen, is to enlarge the power and worth of Georgia citizenship. The chief wealth of civilization is man, his freedom in individual conduct and belief, his right to the possession and enjoyment of all his faculties, capacities, and activities in such full measure as is consistent with the enjoyment of like rights of other people. Does the sun shine less