SHORT PAPERS 153 



standing? " The elementary school saith, " It is not in me; " and the secondary 

 school saith, "It is not with me." It cannot be gotten for technical skill, nor shall 

 professional success be weighed for the price thereof; it cannot be valued with 

 the gain of the specialist, with his enlarged knowledge or his discovery. " Whence 

 then cometh wisdom, and where is the place of understanding? " 



One cannot answer that question by raising small inquiries of immediately 

 appreciable gain. Let us ask, then, the largest questions and note their generally 

 admitted answers. Assuming that the world and life are not wholly irrational, 

 what is the best we can say concerning the meaning of the earthly life? What 

 is the goal of civilization? What is the danger of the American nation? What 

 are the greatest needs of the individual man? 



The wisdom of the centuries has not been able to suggest a better meaning for 

 the earthly life than that it is a preliminary training in living itself. The goal 

 of civilization, our sociologists tell us, is a rational, ethical democracy. Our 

 political students insist that the foremost danger of the nation is the lack of the 

 spirit of social service. The greatest needs of the individual man are always 

 character, happiness, and social efficiency. If these are even approximately 

 correct answers to our questions, then the deepest demands to be made upon an 

 educational system are that, so far as it may, it should give wisdom in living 

 that should insure character and happiness to the individual, and that spirit of 

 social service that should make men efficient factors in bringing on the coming 

 rational and ethical democracy. 



This requires that somewhere in our educational system we should attack the 

 problem of living itself and of social service in the broadest possible way, and in a 

 way that is broader than is possible to either the elementary or secondary school, 

 though neither of these may legitimately shirk this task. Just this, then, is the 

 function of the college : to teach in the broadest way the fine art of living, to give 

 the best preparation that organized education can give for entering wisely and 

 unselfishly into the complex personal relations of life, and for furthering unself- 

 ishly and efficiently social progress. As distinguished from the other forms of 

 education, it has no primary reference to the earning of a living, or to the per- 

 formance of some specific task; it faces the problem of living in a much broader 

 and more thoroughgoing fashion ; it does not specifically aim or expect to reach 

 all, but seeks to train a comparatively small self-selected number who shall be the 

 social leaven of the nation. 



If the task so set the college seems too large, let us remember not only that the 

 admitted individual and social goals require no less, but also that the outcome of 

 the maturest thinking upon man and his relation to the world indicates that the 

 best anywhere can be attained only through such breadth of aim. 



For if we seek light from psychology we are confronted at once with its insist- 

 ence upon the complexity of life the relatedness of all and upon the unity of 

 man. But these principles deny point-blank the wisdom of an education ex- 

 clusively intellectual, and require rather that, for the sake of the intellect itself, 

 the rest of life and the rest of man be not ignored. Positively, they call for an 

 education that shall be broadly inclusive in its interests, and that shall appeal to 

 the entire man. 



If we turn to sociology, we meet, if possible, an even stronger emphasis upon the 

 complexity of life, and a clear demand that, back of whatever power the individual 

 may have, there should lie the great convictions of the social consciousness, that 

 imply the highest moral training, and set one face to face with the widest social 

 and political questions. No narrow education can meet the sociological test. 



And if we ask for the evidence of philosophy, we have to note that its most 

 characteristic positions to-day in metaphysics and theory of knowledge, its 

 ideological view of essence, its insistence that the function of knowledge is 



