its wealth, its numbers, its breadth of courses, its provision for graduate work and for research, the distinction and power of its teaching force, and some thing not exactly expressed in all these, that I may call its spirit and traditions. Some of these excellences are matters not to be settled by the figures of annual reports; and even in respect to those that are mere matters of record, one university may excel on one side, another on another side, and neither clearly rank the other. The half dozen I have named, it is true, exceed all others in the country in numbers, advancement, general scholarly repute, and (except Johns Hopkins University) in wealth; but as among themselves, no one is distinctly eminent. Columbia is the wealthiest; Harvard and Michigan are alter nately the most numerous; Harvard has the highest matriculation requirement; and Johns Hopkins the most advanced range of graduate work and research. The Clark University, though too poor in money and still too much of an experiment to be ranked with the established great universities, passes any of them in the place given to research. If one should try to name a second half-dozen, and give to each one its rank, eighth, or ninth, or tenth, among the universities of the country, it would be still more an impossible attempt. Somewhere in this group, however, the University of California would fall, judged by any measurement. By wealth: the American universities that have incomes of over $200,000 a year are: THE BACON LIBRARY. I could find no financial statements from Princeton; nor are any made by the Leland Stanford Jr. University. So far as can be conjectured, these two and the Chicago University have incomes between $100,000 and $200,000. The universities of Minnesota, Iowa, Kansas, Mississippi, and four or five religious colleges, of which Dartmouth is the only one well known, have from $75,000 to $100,000 annually. There are 20-odd State universities that run thence to $25,000 income; and some 350 private colleges, most of them still poorer. Where incomes depend on legislative appropriations, they are liable to so much. variation that any such comparison would be worthless; but none of the incomes above $200,000 are thus dependent. The University of California draws its income from invested funds, and from a tax of one cent on each $100 8 THE NEW ELECTRICAL BUILDING. of the State assessment, making an income not only very secure but certain to increase for many years. With the same tuition rate as at Cornell, this University would have as large an income. California, the Leland Stanford, Jr., and the small University of Kansas are the only institutions. among those named above that do not charge regular tuition, though the fees are very light at Michigan. The comparative wealth of univer sities is not necessarily quite as their income, for the difference in value of grounds, buildings, and equipments, is considerable. Thus I have ventured to get a rough estimate of what may be called total wealth, by putting together the value of grounds and buildings, funds, and capitalized value (at a uniform rate of five per cent) of income from other sources, as I could gather these items from their reports,-an estimate with too many assumptions to be of much value: 1. Columbia. 2. Harvard. 3. Yale..... 4. Michigan. 5. California. 6. Cornell. 7. Pennsylvania.. $18,000,000 16,700,000 All these figures give but the roughest means of finding the comparative rank of a college. All the large universities are swelled in number of students by a fringe of schools, not only of law, medicine, and divinity, but dental, veterinary, and art schools, which do not require full university matriculation, though occasionally, as in the case of the law school here, approaching it nearly. One third of the enrollment of the University of California and of Harvard, one half at Columbia, and two thirds at the University of Pennsylvania (which, indeed, consists first of all in its great medical school) are in these professional schools. In like manner, a large Arranging by numbers of students staff of teachers may mean that much. of California is greater, rather than less, than its general repute,- greater than its repute in the East, because the East is ignorant of developments in letters to the westward; greater than its repute here, because we have not yet faith in ourselves in these higher matters, and lean somewhat timidly and provincially on Eastern opinion. Just as Professor Bryce found Americans most apologetic with regard to their universities, - their most hopeful institution in his judgment, while confident enough about their politics, their press, their cities, one may find Californians bearing themselves toward their own best possession. The opinion of men who have seen Drawn from an old wood cut by Van Vleck and Keith THE COLLEGE OF CALIFORNIA. always been a cause of just pride; but it was a matter of public consent and public taxation, a thing in which the whole. community was at one. The founding of the College of California, if less to the honor of the community, was more to the honor of the small guard of men that achieved such results in an indifferent, sometimes even a hostile, community. And this began with the very year the discovery of gold brought the rush. of Americans to the Territory, not yet a State, barely out of Mexican possession, and still under Mexican law. In the very first of this rush, several zealous young clergymen started for California, filled with the purpose of seeing that the things of the spirit should not be forgotten in the craze for gold,- and be it said in passing, not one of them was enticed away from that purpose when they came into that fast and furious early-day life. Three of them were on the first steamer that sailed for California. At New Orleans they overtook another, a young Dartmouth man, Mr. Samuel H. Willey, who had started before the news of the discovery of gold, and who stopped at Monterey. Here still lived Thomas O. Larkin, the most important American citizen there; a Massachusetts man by birth and breeding, though he had been years in California as United States Consul. As soon as they were fairly acquainted, the two men began to talk of founding a college. Un like the gold-seekers, who expected to fill their pockets and go home, these men regarded their homes as fixed here, believed in the future of the community, and meant that its foundation should not be laid entirely in materialism. On the voyage out, indeed, the passengers of this first steamer had kept the anniversary of the landing of the Pilgrims, with resolutions pledging themselves to found a State in like spirit. There were a few others scattered about the Territory - now early 1849with whom Mr. Willey and Mr. Larkin communicated, and who joined in the plan at once; and during the summer of '49, in spite of the overwhelming occupa tions of that time, the vast roadless distances and irregular communication, they managed to shape everything in readiness to charter the college as soon as a constitution should be adopted, and a law passed for granting such charter. They secured promise of land for an endowment; they corresponded with the Harvard and Yale authorities as to method of organization (Mr. Larkin was a kinsman of Dr. Rogers, one of the Harvard overseers; Mr. Sherman Day, another of the group, was son of the president of Yale), selected a board of trustees, and drafted a law. It was to be a Christian, but not a sectarian college; all were agreed on that. Not only was the environment heavily against sectarianism, fourteen or fifteen tiny churches in 150,000 square miles of territory, making such way as they could against the reckless abundance of counter institutions; but the sentiment of the circle was |