UNIVERSITY TENDENCIES IN AMERICA. 141 



UNIVERSITY TENDENCIES IN AMERICA.* 



By President DAVID STARR JORDAN, 



LELAND STANFORD JUNIOR UNIVERSITY. 



^T^HE business of the university is to train men to know, to think 

 -*- and to do. To be will take care of itself, if the others are pro- 

 vided for. Wisdom is knowing what one ought to do next. Skill 

 is knowing how to do it. Virtue is doing it. Religion is the work- 

 ing theory of life. It deals with the reasons why one ought to do. 

 To all these ends the university is devoted. It does not make men. 

 It remodels them to bring the powers they have to greater effective- 

 ness. It brings, according to Emerson, 'every ray of varied genius 

 to its hospitable halls,' that by their united influence 'they may strike 

 the hearth of the youth in flame.' 



Most precious of all possessions of the state is the talent of its 

 citizens. This exists not in fact, but in possibility. What heredity 

 carries over is not achievement, but tendency, a mode of direction of 

 force which makes achievement possible. But to bring about results 

 training is necessary. There can never be too many educated men, 

 if by education we mean training along the lines of possible indi- 

 vidual success. With birth, Emerson tells us, 'the gate of gifts is 

 closed.' We can no longer secure something for nothing. The child's 

 character is a mosaic of unrelated fragments, bits of heredity from a 

 hundred sources. It is the work of education to form these into a 

 picture. It is the art of living to range these fragments to form a 

 consistent and effective personality. 



It is the duty of the university among other things to take hold 

 of these fragments of human possibilities and to arrange them so as 

 to fit them for achievement. It is another duty 'to bring men to 

 their inheritance.' This inheritance consists of the gathered experi- 

 ence of the past, that truth which is won through contact with reali- 

 ties, and with this the knowledge of the methods by which men have 

 tested truth. Again the university has the public duty of preparing 

 the instruments of social need. 



The kings have recognized the need of universities and university 

 men. In this need Alfred founded Oxford and Charlemagne the 

 University of Paris. The Emperor William is quoted as saying that 



* Abstract of an address before the North Central Association of Colleges 

 and High Schools, Chicago, April 3, 1903. 



