144 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



those which will help make the actual most of him and his life. 

 Democracy of intellect does not mean equality of brains, still less indif- 

 ference in regard to their quality. It means simply fair play in the 

 schedule of studies. It means the development of fit courses of study, 

 not traditional ones, of a 'tailor-made' curriculum for each man in- 

 stead of the 'hand-me-down' article, misfitting all alike. 



In the time of James II., Eichard Eumbold 'never could believe 

 that God had created a few men already booted and spurred, with 

 millions already saddled and bridled for these few to ride.' In like 

 fashion, Andrew Dickson White could never believe that God had 

 created a taste for the niceties of grammar or even the appreciation 

 of noble literature, these few tastes to be met and trained while the 

 vast body of other talents were to be left unaided and untouched, 

 because of their traditional inferiority. In unison with President 

 White, Ezra Cornell declared that he 'would found an institution 

 where any person could find instruction in any study.' In like spirit 

 the Morrill Act was framed, bringing together all rays of various 

 genius, the engineer, and the psychologist, the student of literature 

 and the student of exact science, 'Greek-minded' men and tillers of 

 the soil, each to do his own work in the spirit of equality before the 

 law. Under the same roof each one gains by mutual association. 

 The literary student gains in seriousness and power, the engineer in 

 refinement and appreciation. Like in character is the argument for 

 co-education, a condition encouraged by this same Morrill Act. The 

 men become more refined from association with noble women, the 

 women more earnest from association with serious men. The men 

 are more manly, the women more womanly in co-education, a condi- 

 tion opposed alike to rowdyism and frivolity. 



In the same line we must count the influence of Mark Tappan, 

 perhaps the first to conceive of a state university, existing solely for 

 the good of the state, to do the work the state most needs, regardless 

 of what other institutions may do in other states. Agassiz in these 

 same times insisted that advanced work is better than elementary, for 

 its better disciplinary quality. He insisted that Harvard in his day 

 was only 'a respectable high school, where they taught the dregs of 

 education.' Thorough training in some one line he declared was the 

 backbone of education. It was the base line by which the real student 

 was enabled to measure scholarship in others. 



In most of our colleges the attempt to widen the course of study 

 by introducing desirable things preceded the discovery that general 

 courses of study prearranged had no real value. We have learned all 

 prescribed work is bad work unless it is prescribed by the nature of 

 the subject. The student in electrical engineering takes to mathe- 

 matics, because he knows that his future success ,with electricity de- 



