A University at Washington.

The Forum for February has an article by Andrew D. White, on the expediency of founding a university at Washington.

Washington is a centre in which great educational resources are brought together, and from which are radiated vast influences upon American life; and the fact that it is our capital has made it the permanent or temporary residence of very many leading men, upon whom a university might draw for its lecture rooms and council chambers. Moreover, Washington offers advantages for scientific research, which can be obtained in no other city in this country. The Smithsonian Institute, the National Museum, the great government Surveys, sundry Government commissions and bureaus, whose work is largely scientific, and many retired officers of the army and navy, who have interested themselves in scientific pursuits, all combine to lay strong foundations for scientific activity. Here are laboratories affording the most admirable opportunities for all kinds of advanced investigation. A university founded among such surroundings, and equipped with an able body of professors, might reasonably be expected in time to rival the University of Berlin, the first university in the world.

The advantages to be derived from such an institution are obvious. It would strengthen then the universities and colleges now existing, by sending back strong men into their Faculties. It would be a perpetual incentive to the best men in the country to exert themselves to their utmost, in view of a possible appointment to a professorship at Washington. But great as the benefits would be to the cause of learning, the greatest benefit of all would be felt by the country at large, for the atmosphere of a great university could not fail to have a beneficial effect on the law-givers of the nation.