482 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



upon German gymnasia, offered such mental training as was supposed 

 to be prerequisite for professional study. But new conditions arose with 

 the close of that war — the country had discovered its mineral wealth 

 and had accumulated capital for development; the world had learned 

 of America, and its surplus population poured in upon us, ignorant of 

 our laws, alien to our modes of thought, yet eligible to citizenship, to 

 a voice in our government. At once, the demand arose for an education 

 adapted to the needs of those who did not intend to become lawyers, 

 clergymen or physicians, who required a broader, stronger training, 

 fitting men to cope with the new difficulties and to scflve the new 

 problems. 



It is true that, long before the Civil War, many eminent men had 

 recognized the inherent defects in our college system. They asserted 

 that training in classical languages should not be the important feature 

 of college education; that the Eoman church no longer controlled 

 thought or education and that Latin had ceased to be the language of 

 learned men, while changed conditions in professional study had 

 rendered thorough knowledge of Greek equally unessential, so that those 

 languages should be replaced by others as necessary now as those had 

 been. The colleges themselves had recognized the transition and Latin 

 and Greek were taught, with few exceptions, not with a view to impart 

 knowledge of the tongues but with a view to mental training. In other 

 words, Latin and Greek were employed for mental exercise as Indian 

 clubs are employed for muscular exercise in a gymnasium. But no 

 material change was made in curricula ; natural science was introduced, 

 but was taught in a most elementary wa}', while the most precious years 

 of a lad's life were spent as before in monotonous study of 'paradigms 

 and syntax. 



The abrupt demand for better education found our colleges unpre- 

 pared to meet it. The faculties were composed for the most part of 

 men trained after the accepted method, students by habit, living in a 

 cosmos of their own and conceiving of the outer world very largely as 

 they constructed it on a priori principles. As they knew practically 

 nothing about the conditions which made a radical change necessary, 

 the demand was like a rude awakening. Makeshifts were offered as 

 tubs thrown to a whale ; subjects dealing with everyday life were intro- 

 duced into the ' regular ' course and the student was led to think in 

 a somewhat 'lower intellectual plane,' that is to say, more nearly in 

 accordance with the actual condition of things. Under the old system 

 he was in the nineteenth century world, but very truly not of it ; under 

 the modified system, he was permitted, during part of the college hours, 

 to be actually in touch with it; facts were dealt with sometimes in 

 political economy, a bit of physiology found its way into psychology, 

 the chemistry of common things became a legitimate subject of dis- 



