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colleges of America did not reproduce the same setting of legal and scholastic authority of colleges and universities of the Old World. At the time of the Revolution there was no state-supported college in America. All were private, and all but one were sectarian. They were founded by small communities. They did not preserve the European isolation of the college from the community. They developed in accordance with distinctively American needs and uses. Lay boards of control helped marshall the available resources and made the college a part of the organic community.

The university as it developed in this country was further influenced by ideas which were dominant in the early national period of American life. No idea was affirmed more insistently by the Founding Fathers than that general education was essential to democratic representative government. Several of the revolutionary state constitutions, including that of North Carolina, made provisions for state universities. Washington asserted that democratic government was feasible only so far as the people were enlightened. Franklin, whose philosophy shaped the character and institutions of American life as much as any man's, permanently influenced American Education toward the practical, the utilitarian and the common-sense. Madison long championed the unrealized goal of a national university. Thomas Jefferson's lifetime of public service culminated in the founding of one of the historic state universities of America. No institution is more typically American than the state university; and the premier state university of America is the University of North Carolina. William Richardson Davie reflected the aims of the Founding Fathers when he wrote into the Plan of Studies for the University the words of the French Convention, "As in every free government the law emanates from the people, it is necessary that the people should receive an education to enable them to direct the laws...."

The constant search for knowledge and understanding which characterizes universities shapes the life of the state; its influence reaches into every crevice of society and charts the course that determines the future of our culture. Public universities in particular have, therefore, a peculiar responsibility for the power they possess. They must be responsive to the needs of society; yet they must ever be wary of conforming to the patterns of thought that pervade their sources of support. To accept a subservient relationship to the culture of which they are a part would be to deny the freedom of thought that makes them invaluable and to betray their reason for being. Universities must stand apart, secure in the freedom they enjoy to seek the truth wherever it may lead and to serve as analyst and critic of the contemporary scene; yetthey must be conscious always of their mission to train the men and women who will deal with the practical problem of today and tomorrow. The best hope for meeting successfully the problems of modern life lies in increasing the influence of those who are trained in our universities.

The educational history of America has been marked by the steady adaptation of universities to the requirements of society. There has been a progressive tendency toward broadening the scope and extending the reach of teaching, research, and myriad services of government, business, and individuals. To classical studies have been added the scientific and patently vocational. Courses in the liberal arts have been joined by courses in agriculture, engineering, and business. Undergraduate colleges have been enveloped by graduate and professional colleges of medicine, law, education, journalism, social work, librarianship, and many more.

The state university is but one of many threads in the history of American higher education. Later in inception but not less significant was the Land Grant movement in education instituted by Congressional enactment of the Morrill Act in 1862. In the train of this action what is now North Carolina State College was founded as the North Carolina College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts in 1887 with the declared objective of teaching: "the branches of learning relating to agricultural and mechanical arts and such other classical and scientific studies as the board of trustees may elect to have taught, and to promote the liberal and practical education of the industrial classes in the several pursuits and professions of life."

Again there is no more inspiring chapter in public higher education than that which was written by the founders of the state normal schools and