These institutions would
exist and be more flourishing than ever, but they would all be merged in
a wider 'University of England,' or 'University of America'; and, just
as the state means the whole nation acting in its political capacity
through municipal or national institutions, so the university would mean
the whole adult nation acting in its educational capacity through
whatever institutions might be found desirable. Such a university would
never be chartered; no building could ever house it; no royal personage
or president of the United States would ever be asked to inaugurate it;
the very attempt to found it would imply misconception of its essential
character. It would be no more than a floating aggregation of voluntary
associations; like the companies of which a nation's commerce is made up
such associations would not be organized, but would simply tend to
cooeperate because of their common object. Each association would have
its local and its central side, formed for the purpose of mediating
between the wants of a locality and the educational supply offered by
universities or similar central institutions. No doubt such a scheme is
widely different from the ideal education of European countries, so
highly organized from above that the minister of education can look at
his watch and know at any moment all that is being done throughout the
country.
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