142 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



'Bismarck and von Moltke were but tools in the hands of my august 

 grandfather.' To furnish more such tools and in all the range of 

 human activity, the University of Berlin was established. 



In like manner the great historical churches and their lesser 

 branches have founded universities each in its degree, because of the 

 church's need of men. It has demanded trustworthy agents, expert 

 dialecticians, great persuaders and spiritual leaders, and these have 

 arisen in the church universities in obedience to the demand. 



A like need of leaders is felt in democracy. It has a work to do 

 greater than that of king or church and this work must be done by 

 skilful and loyal hands. Democracy means opportunity. The 

 greatest discovery of this most democratic twentieth century will be 

 that 'the straight line is the shortest distance between two points.' 

 This is a geometric definition of democracy. It trusts not to Lord 

 this and the Earl of that. Its leaders are not chosen arbitrarily as 

 the earliest offshoot from each link in the strain of heredity. When 

 democracy has a man's work to do, it calls on the man who can do it. 

 Such men it creates, and wherever they spring up they are developed 

 in the sunshine of popular education. Democracy does not mean 

 equality, a dead level of possession, happiness or achievement. It 

 means equality before the law, that is the abolition of artificial dis- 

 tinctions made in the dark ages. It means equality of start, never 

 equality of finish, and the most absolute equality of start makes the 

 final equality the greater. As democracies need universities, so do 

 universities need democracy as a means of recall to duty. Lincoln 

 used to say that 'bath of the people' was necessary now and then for 

 public men. This 'bath of the people' the university needs lest it 

 substitute pedantry for wisdom, or lest it become a place for basking 

 instead of an agency for training. 



An Oxford man said not long since: 'Our men are not scholars; 

 our scholars are not men.' Those we call scholars are bloodless 

 pedants, finical and inefEective. Those we call men, strong, force- 

 ful, joyous, British boys, have no adequate mental training. Whether 

 this be true of Oxford, it is often true in all universities. It is the 

 sign that there is something wrong in practise or ideals. Scholarship 

 should be life, and life should be guided by wisdom. The university 

 should be a source of power, not an instrument in social advancement. 

 Its degree should be not a badge of having done the proper thing, a 

 device to secure the 'well-dressed feeling,' given also by 'Boston 

 garters' and by faultless ties. The college degree is an incident in 

 scholarship, a childish toy, so far as the real function of building up 

 men is concerned. Prizes, honors, badges and degrees — all these mat- 

 ters have no necessary place in the machinery of higher education. 

 If our universities had grown up in response to the needs of the people, 



