In numbers, in endowment, in efficiency, our Universities were inferior
to those of our chief rivals. We in Great Britain had thirteen Universities competing with a hundred and thirty-four State and privately endowed Universities in the United States, and twenty-two State-endowed in Germany. If we were not to go down in the great struggle of the modern world, we must have more Universities, and, in addition, a far better endowment of all the existing ones. It was hopeless to expect the money to be provided by individual munificence —private effort had only supplied four millions in sixty years, as against ten times that amount in the United States—and at least twenty-four millions were required to start and endow the eight Universities necessary, on the basis of population, to complete our equipment. What, then, was to be done ? We must "duplicate the Navy Bill of 1888-89, and do at once for brain-power what we so successfully did then for sea-power. Let 224,000,000 be set apart from one asset, our national wealth, to increase the other, brain-power." Expert authorities were convinced that it would be a splendid investment ; and there were the stimulating precedents of Prussia after Jena and France after Sedan. "Even more wonderful than these examples was the 'intellectual effort' made by Japan, not after a war, but to prepare for one. The question is, Shall we wait for a disaster and then imitate Prussia and France ; or shall we follow Japan and thoroughly prepare by 'intel-
lectual effort' for the industrial struggle that lies before us ? "
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