334 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



The best education for any man with brains and character should 

 involve these three elements. It should have the final goal in view as 

 soon as possible. It should be broad enough and thorough enough to 

 develop cultured manhood and at the same time to furnish the strength 

 needed to reach this goal. In other words, it should look to success 

 in the profession and to success as a man. Toward both these ends the 

 methods of finding the truth for oneself are vitally essential. The uni- 

 versity should disclose the secret of power, and this secret lies in 

 thoroughness. Science is human experience tested and set in order. 

 The advance of science has come through the use of instruments of 

 precision and methods of precision. Opinion, feeling, tradition, plausi- 

 bility, illusions of whatever sort, disappear when the method of power 

 is once mastered. 



The college course should have a little of the professional spirit for 

 its guidance, a little of the university spirit for its inspiration; the 

 best interests of all three will keep them in the closest relation to each 

 other. At the same time they must not starve each other. At the 

 present time the needs of the college in most cases tend to dwarf the 

 more costly functions of the university. The professors have their 

 hands full of lower work. The books and material the university work 

 demand are far more costly than the college can afford. The trustees 

 still too often regard the graduate school as an expensive alien, and its 

 demands in most quarters still receive scant attention. To train fifty 

 investigators costs more than to give a thousand men a college educa- 

 tion. The sciences cost more than the humanities, and the applied 

 sciences, with their vast and changing array of machinery, are most 

 expensive of all. 



Equally unwise it seems to me, though less common, is the disposi- 

 tion to slight the college course for the sake of advanced research. Poor 

 work, wherever done, leaves its mark of poverty. The great university of 

 the future will be the one which does well whatever it undertakes, be 

 it high or low. Better have few departments, very few, than that any 

 should be weak and paltry. Better few students well taught than many 

 neglected. 



It is fair to judge a university by the character of its advanced 

 work. Institutions can not be graded by the number in attendance. 

 This is the most frequent and most vulgar gauge of relative standing. 

 The rank of an institution is determined no more by the number of its 

 students than by the number of rocks on its campus. What sort of 

 men does it have and what are they doing ? These are the living ques- 

 tions. Buildings are convenient; beautiful buildings have a great cul- 

 ture value. We should be the last to underrate the effect of the charm 

 of cloisters and towers, of circles of palms and sweet-toned bells. But 

 these do not make a university. Books are useful, they are vital to 



