IS THIS A DEGENERATE AGE? 483 



cussion. So-called scientific courses were added in many cases, but 

 usually they were so ill-adjusted as to be laughing-stocks for those taking 

 the formal courses. 



But mere makeshifts could not suffice; the country's material de- 

 velopment was advancing rapidly but not always profitably. Competent 

 men were too few; the successful pit-boss was a poor mining superin- 

 tendent amid novel conditions ; the land-surveyor was helpless in a new 

 region; the iron-founder of high repute proved himself a hopeless 

 blunderer when tried on strange ores and furnaces. The successful men 

 were those who had been trained in the American technical schools 

 or in those of Germany. Their success marked out the line of needed 

 preparation and emphasized the demand for men broadly educated in 

 principles as well as in practical applications of science. Schools were 

 established and courses planned to meet the requirements. The number 

 of scientific and technical students increased rapidly, and, in not a few 

 institutions, soon exceeded, as it does still, that of students adhering 

 to older so-called literary courses. Certainly this condition affords good 

 ground for the complaint respecting college education. 



Yet not so. The desertion of the, so to speak, unapplied side is 

 apparent, not real. There is no such desertion. Unquestionably, of 

 the students now in American colleges and high schools, the percentage 

 taking modified courses of the older type is much smaller than it was 

 forty years ago; but that is not the proper percentage for use in com- 

 parison. Not relation to the total number of students but relation to 

 the total population is the basis for comparison. From this standpoint 

 one sees that the proportion adhering to the unapplied side has increased 

 more rapidly than the population — indeed, one may make a greater 

 restriction and say that the number of those taking classical courses 

 has increased out of proportion to the population. There has been no 

 decrease, on the contrary there has been an increase, of interest in 

 literary study, while, on the other hand, thousands are acquiring mental 

 training and much of mental culture by pursuing difficult courses 

 almost unknown to our colleges of forty years ago. Formerly, the 

 majority of college men had professional life in view; now it is 'the 

 thing' to have a college degree, without reference to one's intended 

 calling. 



But this avails nothing. The proof of the pudding is in the eating; 

 and we are told that no great poet now lives among English-speaking 

 peoples and that in our country no eminent writer has arisen within 

 two decades — this, because 'every man's mind is turned to material 

 things.' Eecently our patriotic pride was wounded by the announce- 

 ment that America has produced no Shakespeare, no Newton, no Coper- 

 nicus, no men of some other kinds — and this, too, because of our 

 devotion to gross things. One may remark here, parenthetically, that 



