has equipped them in a most liberal way, and will continue with increasing liberality to keep them fully abreast of the times. They are doing a work which no other element in our school system is doing, and I expect, for my part, to see them improve and grow rather than decrease, and the State University and the normal school together will form, if you please, a single institution for furnishing, in the most efficient and economic method practicable, properly trained men and women for the great system of public schools supported by the State. But the state university, it seems to me, must proceed further than I have thus far indicated, and with one or two brief suggestions as to some of the directions in which the state university will develop, I shall bring these considerations to a close.

The state university will become more and more a great civil service academy, preparing the young men and women of the state for the civil service of the state, the county, the municipality and the township, exactly as the military and naval academies are preparing young men for the military service of the government.

The business of the government is becoming more and more complex with every passing year. The American people are beginning to take a new attitude upon the subject of its civil service. Formerly it was thought that anybody who could read and write was fit for almost any position in the service of the state, and for a long time in the history of the country it was thought that the most practical method of selecting men and women for positions in the civil service was by their affiliation with and devotion to political parties or political factions. We are coming to a recognition of a new state. The abuses of politics have led the American people to the general acceptance of a principle, very far from being worked out as yet, under which men and women shall be selected for the civil service by a method which shall eliminate the element of political affiliation (I am speaking now of the administrative positions in the narrowest sense of that term), and every passing year sees some new strengthening of this principle of the so-called merit system under which people are selected for posts in the public service on other grounds than that of party devotion.

But we shall not be satisfied very long with this condition of things. Public administration is becoming with every passing year a more complex subject. It calls for special knowledge. It calls for the trained hand and the trained mind. It will not be long, therefore, until the American people will, for many positions now practically open, insist that the holder shall be properly trained and qualified to perform the duties of that particular office; and now that the state offers every opportunity to secure an education not merely in the elements of learning, but in the secondary and higher grades as well; now that the state offers an opportunity to procure practically free

the technical training necessary to qualify people for these posts, we may expect to see more and more a standard of efficiency set up and insisted upon by the people of this State, for all persons entering the public service. In an age of excellent courses in civil engineering supported by the state almost free of charge, we may expect to see the state require that the civil service aspirant in the field of surveying, for example, shall be a man of scientific training, not merely one who has learned his business by the mere rule of thumb. We shall expect to see every municipality demand and employ men of careful scientific training to test its water supply and its food supply. In other words, the time of the haphazard, happy-go-lucky, hit-or-miss public official and of the ignoramus in the department of public administration is passing away in favor of the scientifically trained man who knows his business. Now the people of this State have a right to demand of the State University that it shall turn out men and women properly equipped for this kind of work, and who will return to the State in efficient service a thousandfold over the cost of their training.

Now, all this you will note is in addition to and quite apart from the function of the state university as a center for the training of men and women who wish to enter the learned professions, a topic which has been discussed previously. To my mind, if the state requires an examination of proficiency from anybody as a condition of practicing any profession, it should itself provide the centers properly equipped, where the requisite training may be obtained. And as the state may undoubtedly increase this supervision over callings now left free, we may expect to see the state, in the state university, provide opportunities for study in many directions which are not now to be found at all.

But the state university must be and become more than a civil service academy. It is and is destined to become to an ever-increasing extent the scientific arm of the state government, just as the governor and his assistant officers are the executive arm and the judges and the courts are the judicial arm.

As the business of government becomes more complex, the problems which the state has to solve in many different directions become more difficult, requiring in many cases more careful scientific experimentation and long-continued investigation, for the pursuit of which there must be adequate laboratory equipment and trained investigators. For all such work the state university is the natural and simple means already provided.

I have called attention to the fact that here in the University of Illinois are already located, for example, the State Water Survey, the State Natural History Survey, the State Entomologist's office. the State Geological Survey, etc. There is no doubt that if the university is properly organized to undertake this scientific work in a

way to make it thoroughly effective, it will, to an increasing extent, be constituted the scientific arm and scientific head, if you please, of the state administration.

It goes without the saying that this concentration of the scientific work of the state government at the university has most valuable educational results. The increasing number of scientific men centered. at the universities helps create that scientific atmosphere, that scientific spirit which is absolutely essential to the upbuilding of a great university. This union of scientific investigation and educational work is a most fortunate combination for both sides of the enterprise. The scientific work for the state government offers an opportunity to train the young men in actual practice, and by thus securing their interest in and training for such work the government is able to obtain an ample and regular supply of properly trained workers in this field. By such a union the state secures the maximum of service at a minimum of cost.

Further, the state university will, I believe, in combination with the normal schools become practically, for many concrete purposes, the state department of education. We have already in this State and in most of the American states a state department of education, consisting usually of an officer called the state superintendent of public instruction. His duties, however, are comparatively narrow, as prescribed by law. The possibility of performing them is determined by very meager appropriations. Usually speaking, it is an office entrusted with the enforcement of the school laws and the distribution of the school money. The functions of the public ministry of education such as one finds in so many of the European states either are entrusted to him in a very small degree, or he is enabled to carry out these functions only within very narrow limits. The duty of canvassing the educational needs of the state from time to time, urging and impressing them in a strong way upon the people of the state, not merely upon the teachers and the legislatures and the government, but upon the great masses of the people-this is something which our American departments of education have done only to a very slight extent. Now and then a strong personality in the position of state superintendent has worked out great things for the education of the state. We have an example of such a personality in the superintendent's office of the State at present. But there is need of a more continuous, of a wider spread, of a more deeply rooted, activity in this direction, than the state superintendent's office under existing conditions can develop. Such a function, within certain limits, I believe the state university combined with the normal schools can perform. The department of education in the state university organizing the resources of the state university for this particular purpose may bring to bear upon the educational problems and upon the educational

needs of the state, an expert opinion which it is not possible to find in any other department of the state administration.

This function, it may be said, is not performed by the university in its capacity as a civil service academy, preparing teachers for the educational service of the state. It is larger and wider than this. It is a recognition of the university as one of the organs created by the state for determining, within certain limits, the policy of the state in the great field of education.

And thus I might proceed with a summary of other great things that are waiting for the state university if is only knows the day of its visitation; if it only measures itself up to its opportunities; if it only performs faithfully and simply the duties which the state thrusts upon it.

But time presses and I must draw these considerations to a close. I have left untouched many things which you may have expected me to discuss, not because I do not consider them as important, but either because I regard them so fundamental that we should all agree upon them or because the limitation of time does not permit even of their mention. You will have gathered from what I have said my conception in general of the function and future of the state university.

It may be defined in brief as supplementary to the great system of higher education which private beneficence and church activity have reared, and it is to be hoped will continue to rear. It is corrective rather than directive; it is coöperative rather than monopolistic; it is adapted for leadership in certain departments, but must look to the non-state institution for leadership in others. It should be as universal as the American democracy-as broad, as liberal, as sympathetic, as comprehensive-ready to take up into itself all the educational forces of the state, giving recognition for good work wherever done, and unifying, tying together all the multiform strands of educational activity into one great cable whose future strength no

man may measure.

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 19

THE ASSEMBLY OF THE COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING

THE CHAPEL, 9:00 A.M.

THE STUDENT-ENGINEER

W. F. M. Goss, M.S.

Dean of the College of Engineering, Purdue University

In the forty-nine Land Grant colleges of this country, of which the University of Illinois is one, there are today approximately ten thousand students in engineering courses. These students are in most cases mature men. They have come to their present work as the result of careful selection after long courses of preliminary training, and they look out upon their life-work with high aspirations. The studentengineer is in fact a force making for American citizenship, the full significance of which few people yet understand. He is permitted privileges such as the world has never before set before her young men, and it goes without saying that these privileges carry with them responsibilities which are unusual. The character of some of these it is my purpose briefly to discuss.

First of all, the thinking student will not fail to consider the value and extent of the college influence. The varied and dignified exercises of the present week in which you as students of the University of Illinois have had a part, give emphasis to this theme. Here are ample grounds, fine buildings, extensive laboratories and complete equipments apparatus which in some cases has the delicacy required in the researches of the scientist, and in others the massive proportions necessary in the machinery of the engineer. Here, also, is a staff of distinguished doctors and professors, aided by numerous instructors and assistants all working in an effective organization for the accomplishment of definite results,-men who have come to their present positions after special training, and some of whom have through years of arduous service so well guided the destinies of this institution as to make possible its effective methods and its present high standards. Here, too, are students coming from every part of a great state, from other states, and even from foreign lands; from city and town; from the home of the farmer, the artisan, the merchant and the lawyer, here to live and work as one people, to be animated by a common purpose, each one to give and to receive something from his contact with every other one.

Such a description, embracing the grounds, buildings and equipment, the professors and the students, is often regarded as constituting a description of the University. It represents the materials and persons which appeal to the ordinary visitor. But such a conception