THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOOD AND EVIL 145 



not going to be so indiscreet as to specify any of the courses which 

 seem to me relatively or absolutely innocuous ; but I am going to assume 

 that our present opinion is, that the knowledge of good and evil is what 

 the university really seeks to impart, and that it accepts, frankly and 

 fearlessly, responsibility for creating shadows as well as light. In a 

 certain sense, it may be said to produce evil as well as good; what it 

 really does is to create judgments, whereby these ideas enter the field 

 of human consciousness, in response to the stimulation of objective 

 realities. 



The university standard of success, as we must now regard it, is the 

 ability to recognize values. In order to do this, it is necessary to 

 heighten the consciousness of objective reality, and to develop especially 

 a sense of that stability in things which we call truth. It is essential 

 to cultivate imagination, controlled by reason, so that the value of the 

 flower may be seen in the seed, the value of the soul in the form of clay. 



Scholarship, culture, judgment, can not be bought at the second- 

 hand store, " a little soiled, but as good as new." They must be created 

 by the fiat of that divinity which we have assumed, re-made from the 

 fruit of the tree in a process of transcendental assimilation. 



It is for this reason that I think every university — some day perhaps 

 every high school — should be a center of productive scholarship; not 

 merely of some such, but should glow with the ardor of scientific, liter- 

 ary and artistic creation. Only so may the judgment of fitness be 

 properly established ; only thus may the divine gifts be widely received. 

 True it is that comparatively few have strong creative power, such as 

 attracts the attention of the world — but my proposition is that all have 

 some, and that whatever there is, it is the true function of education to 

 develop and sustain it. 



This will be more apparent when the scope of recognized scholarship 

 has grown broader. If one may be " a scholar and a gentleman," why 

 not " a scholar and a merchant," or " a scholar and a farmer " ? We 

 are beginning to find out, indeed, that these latter professions call for a 

 good deal more scholarship than was necessary for the dilettante gentle- 

 man of the old school. "When the avenues for creative effort have 

 grown wider and more numerous, and we have learned better to recog- 

 nize this form of activity under its various aspects, it will no longer be 

 said that all forms of original scholarship are the monopoly of doctors 

 of philosophy. 



To those who have tasted of the fruit of the tree, there has never 

 been any doubt of the value of the experience. Whatever the disad- 

 vantage, the advantages are enormously greater. The curious point is, 

 that this does not admit of argument, because it is exactly the power 

 of judgment which decides the relative values. So well assured are we 

 of the precious character of our value sense that we would not exchange 



