STATE UNIVERSITIES, The. General The history of education hardly offers a parallel to the rise and growth of State supported institutions for higher learning the United States during the latter part of the 19th and the first decade of the 20th century. In 1875 20 such institutions had been founded but a very few had risen to any kind of educa tional prominence. They had at that time a total registration of 2,340 students. In 1885 26 institutions enrolled 4,599 students. In 1903 36 institutions enrolled 41,369 students. On 30 June 1917, according to the latest available figures issued by the United States Bureau of Education, there were 90 institutions in the States and Territories of the Republic sup ported in whole or in part by public funds and offering collegiate or professional courses beyond the range of the secondary school, with faculties numbering 12,368 persons, a total enrolment of 138,838 students and a total annual working income of upward of $60,000,000.
This movement is not only unrivaled in the history of education; it is also perhaps the most significant and promising development in the history of our democracy. The sentiment which supports the movement is practically uni versal and it is the product of the spirit of the pioneers of the Central and Western States. Thirty-nine States now tax themselves without stint to provide a practically free education for their sons and for their daughters from the kindergarten through the college, and in many instances through the professional school as well. The nine States which do not have reg ularly designated State-supported universities, nevertheless contribute very generously to the support of higher education and maintain or help to maintain institutions which serve in part at least to perform the functions so admi rably performed by such typical State univer sities as those in Michigan, Minnesota, Wiscon sin and Illinois. The nine States which do not have State universities, as the term is now commonly understood, are Connecticut, Dela ware, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hamp shire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island.
No people have ever before carried forward such a movement on any similar scale. In the early days Massachusetts and Connecticut and New York and New Jersey gave substantial aid to Harvard and Yale and Columbia and Princeton, but without any idea of becoming responsible for their permanent support and management. The common thought as to the
functions of government touching education would not permit more than State aid and en couragement to a university in the colonial days or even in the earlier years of the Re public. The settlement of the great West opened the way for a new educational order of things. The pioneers built for the future, and they were especially anxious that ample pro vision should be made by the State for the edu cation of their children.
Nearly all the State universities are open to women on an equal footing with men, and the tuition in collegiate courses is free or only a nominal sum. The tuition in the professional schools is ordinarily higher but is not based upon the theory of an adequate financial re turn for the expense involved. Indeed, the State universities more than any other agency have been responsible for removing professional schools in recent years from the realm of commercial enterprises. This is particularly and fortunately true of the profession of medicine. The State universities in common with a few highly endowed and thoroughly reputable private institutions have demonstrated that the teaching of medicine, as it ought to be taught, is not and cannot be a profit-making business.
All classes are represented in the great student bodies of the typical State universities, but the middle class predominates overwhelm ingly. There are many students who find it necessary to their way,' and if they do it and sustain themselves in their university work they uniformly gain the respect they de serve for it. Young men and young women work side by side in classrooms and labora tories; they attend social gatherings in com pany, with little in the way of regulation which is not self-imposed, and with the very best results. Life is free and genuine and natural and earnest, and the sentiment of the campus is wholesome. More than that the spirit of the typical State university is widely regarded as the most splendid promise of our democracy.