AS OTHERS SEE US.
The fairest, completest, and most accurate de
scription of the Pennsylvania State College as it
now stands, together with the fullest explanation
of its objects, aims, and central position in the ed
ucational system of Pennsylvania, appeared edito
rially in the Pennsylvania School Journal for Dec.,
'92. As the entire article would occupy half of
all the space in the FREE LANCE we give only ex
cerpts, regretting that it cannot appear in its en
tirety. (Italics are ours.)
“Tne top anti crown at the Pennsylvania system
of public instruction, towards which students from
her High Schools and Normal Schools will one
day look as affording ample facilities for the
broadest scientific and literary culture, will be the
Pennsylvania State University, located in the cen
tral part of the central county of the Common
wealth. This institution, which has of late years
been rapidly developing on strong lines, isat pres
ent known as the Pennsylvania State College, and
the thriving village below, which has grown up
under its. shadow, has taken its name from the
school. But this name may with propriety be
changed to the euphonious University Place, when,
as seems inevitable, the college shall have attained
to such full organization and equipment as will
justify its taking on the higher title.
Does it seem visionary, a wild dream of the fan
cy, to think of plans already entered upon here as
being so far developed that before many years, un
der the fostering care of the State, a thousand stu
dents shall crowd these halls and others that must
be opened to receive and welcome them? The
time is coming when this great campus of fifty
acres and more--which can readily be extended
to twice or thrice this area—will be dotted all
over with buildings of imposing architectural de
sign for its numerous special departments of Uni
versity work, with its homes of professors and stu
dents, its ladies' cottages, its fraternity houses, lt•
braries, its lecture hall; when along with its fine
gymnasium and armory, already aprominent fea
THE FREE LANCE
ture of the campus, its grand conservatory of music
will also challenge attention. Here will he a Ifni
veristy town among the hills in the geographical cen
tre of Pennsylvania, far removed from the disturb
ing attractions and allurements of the city; living
its own higher life, breathing its own purer air,
dwarfed by nothing nor by anything compelled to
take a second place—not even by the charm of its
own natural surroundings.
The State should year by year erect• its build
ings, provide for their more thorough equipment,
and gradually accumulate a larger and larger en
dowment fond, until private beneficence, as in the
case of other leading institutions of the country,
shall supplement its bounty by still more generous
gifts. Why should not wealthy public spirited
men in Pennsylvania erect and endow here build
ings and departments like the Sheffield School of
Science, the Whitworth School of Mechanic Arts,
the• Worden School of Electrical Engineering,
the Dixon School of Mines, the Sedgwick School
of History, Law, and Philosophy, the Newcomb
Observatory, the Kingsley Memorial Chapel, and
others? Within the past year Yale has had more
than two millions added to her endowment fund ;
while those of Princeton, Harvard, the University
of Pennsylvania, have been increased very largely.
Great gifts go, as •a rule, to great schools. "To
him that bath shall be given, and he shall have
more abundantly." But nearly every great
school has known its day of "small things." The
Pennsylvania State College is passing slowly
through this stage of experience, while before it
opens the promise of a grand future of distinction
and usefulness.
Tens of thousands of graduates, learned, useful
and noble men and women in all parts of the State
and beyond its borders, will one day hail this
school with grateful pride as their Alma Mater.
And as the crowning feature of our system of free
public instruction, which to-day gathers nearly a
million of pupils into the schools, Pennsylvania,
in that coming day, will be full as proud of her