THE opening of the Drexel Institute in Philadelphia was properly distinguished by impressive exercises. Mr. MacVEAGH, in presenting the deed of trust, made one remark which recalled the praise which CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS bestowed upon Mr. SEWARD in his eulogy before the New York Legislature. The money which has built and furnished this noble school, said Mr. MacVEAGH in effect, is money honestly earned. We must say, in praise of Mr. SEWARD, said Mr. ADAMS in effect, what would once have been an insult, that his honesty was beyond suspicion. The purpose of the Institute is as generous as its endowment, and as characteristic of the time and the country. There is nothing more distinctive of the time than the extension of education. The movement for university extension is but a sign of it, and the great interest and Co- operation in that effort is evidence of its vitality. The system is another form of the same spirit, and the Harvard Annex and Barnard College illustrate still another aspect of it.
The Drexel Institute is not another college or university in the old sense, but in the new. The aim of its founder is the promotion of education in art, science, and industry, the extension and improvement of industrial education as a means of opening better and wider avenues of employment to young men and women. It embraces many departments-- art, science, mechanic arts, domestic economy, special technical courses, business, physical training, training of teachers, lectures and evening classes, library and reading- room, and museum. This scheme has been elaborated carefully and wisely into details, including all the chief branches of practical use, such--in the technical department--as applied electricity, machine construction, house decoration, cookery, dressmaking, photography, and mechanical drawing. There is a Board of Managers, of which Mr. DREXEL is president; and an Advisory Board of Women, of which Miss ANNA HALLOWELL is chairman; while the selection of Dr. JAMES MacALLISTER as President of the Institute itself is singularly happy, for, as Superintendent of Schools in Philadelphia, not only was Dr. MacALLISTER eminent for ability, but no man is more thoroughly acquainted with the character and requirements of those from whom the pupils of the Institute will be largely drawn.
Like the fairy who showered good gifts upon the cradle of the Prince, the opening of the Institute was graced by the characteristic generosity of Mr. GEORGE W. CHILDS, who presented to it almost his entire and famous collection of rare prints, manuscripts, rich relics, and autographs, which is probably the finest collection of the kind in the world, and is valued at not less than a hundred thousand dollars. Mr. DREXEL'S munificent foundation and Mr. CHILDS'S precious gift may be said, happily, to be characteristic of American benefactors. No school could begin under fairer auspices than those which attend the Drexel Institute; nor need any disciple of the older faith of higher education anticipate any harm to it from the founding and prospering of the new schools. It would indeed be a fatal error to relax in any essential way the traditional standard of university education. The recent proposition at Cambridge University in England to make Greek an optional study was defeated by a vote of three to one; and a writer in the last Fortnightly holds that to make Greek optional is to abdicate the vital function of a university, which is to form on the present the highest literary influence of the past. That is a purpose not to be abandoned. But in order to maintain it, it is not necessary to prohibit or to depreciate the studies which contemplate immediate usefulness.