UNIVERSITY TENDENCIES IN AMERICA. 143 



not in imitation of the colleges of England, we should never have 

 been vexed by these things, and never have felt any need of them. 



The primitive American college was built strictly on English 

 models. Its purpose was to breed clergymen and gentlemen, and to 

 fix on these its badge of personal culture, raising them above the com- 

 mon mass of men. Till within the last thirty years the traditions of 

 the English tripos held undisputed sway. We need not go into details 

 of the long years in which Latin, Greek and mathematics with a dash 

 of outworn philosophy constituted higher education in America. The 

 value of the classical course lay largely in its continuity. Whoever 

 learned Greek, the perfect language and the noble literature, gained 

 something with which he would never willingly part. Even the 

 weariness of Latin grammar and the intricacies of half-understood 

 calculus have their value in the comradery of common suffering and 

 common hope. The weakness of the classical course lay in its lack 

 of relation to life. It had more charms for pedants than for men, 

 and the men of science and the men of action turned away hungry 

 from it. 



The growth of the American university came on by degrees, dif- 

 ferent steps, some broadening, some weakening, by which the tyranny 

 of the tripos was broken, and the democracy of studies established 

 with the democracy of men. 



It was something over thirty years ago when Herbert Spencer asked 

 this great question: 'What knowledge is of most worth?' To the 

 schoolmen of England this came as a great shock, as it had never oc- 

 curred to most of them that any knowledge had any value at all. Its 

 function was to produce culture, which, in turn, gave social position. 

 That there were positive values and relative values was new in their 

 philosophy. Spencer went on to show that those subjects had most 

 value which most strengthened and enriched life, first, those needful 

 to the person, then those of value in professional training, then in 

 the rearing of the family, the duty as a citizen, and finally those fitting 

 for esthetic enjoyment. For all these, except the last, the English 

 universities made no preparation, and for all these purposes Spencer 

 found the highest values in science, the accumulated, tested, arranged 

 results of human experience. Spencer's essay assumed that there was 

 some one best course of study — the best for every man. This is one 

 of the greatest fallacies in education. Moreover, he took little account 

 of the teacher, perhaps assuming with some other English writers that 

 all teachers were equally inefficient, and that the difference between 

 one and another may be regarded as negligible. 



It has been left for American experimenters in education to insist 

 on the democracy of the intellect. The best subjects for any man 

 to study are those best fitted for his own individual development. 



