This opinion of the writer is a virtual admission that in reality higher education in the United States has not advanced in quality, though it has in quantity. To be in 1876 merely where education was "relatively" in 1776, is no advance at all, but rather retrogression. The cause of this declension, the writer thus incidentally admits:-- "Most of the colonies established, or aided, the (ante-revolution colleges named). The principle of the State support to higher learning was not merely accepted, but was the prevalent one."--Page 17. Mr. Gilman, President of the Johns Hopkins' University, touching on the same point, says:-- "There was a civil as well as an ecclesiastical element in most of these foundations. Harvard and Yale were chartered, and, to some extent, controlled by colonial government of Massachusetts and Connecticut, and were for a long time nurtured by appropriations from the public chest....--Page 215. "These institutions were colleges of an English parentage and model, not Scotch nor continental universities.... They were disciplinary in their aim, and had more regard for the general culture of large numbers, than for the advanced and special instruction of the chosen few. They were also, to a considerable extent, ecclesiastical foundations--finding the churches and ministers their constant, and sometimes their only efficient supporters. Harvard, Yale and Dartmouth were controlled by the Congregationalists; Princeton was founded by the Presbyterians; and New Brunswick, N.J. (Queen's, now Rutgers) by the Dutch Reformed; William and Mary was emphatically a child of the Church of England; and King's College (now Brown University) was under the patronage of the Baptists.... "The declaration of the original supporters of these colleges indicate a desire to train up young men for service of the State, not less distinctly and emphatically than to desire to provide an educated ministry. Individual aid was also expected and invited, and the names of Harvard and Yale perpetuate the remembrance of such generous gifts." Then follows a eulogy upon these colonial colleges, and a tribute to the intellectual vitality of their teaching, as shown in the mental equipment and breadth of culture exhibited by men who took part in the perilous and stormy times of the American revolution. To this we have already referred. Mr. Gilman, in following up his remarks in the extract which we have just given, says:--