656 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



liberal education. And the educational value of good literature is all 

 the greater in our day, because the progress of knowledge more and 

 more enforces early specialization. Good literature tends to preserve 

 the breadth and variety of intellectual interests. It also tends to culti- 

 vate the sympathies; it exerts a humanizing influence by the clear and 

 beautiful expression of noble thoughts and sentiments; by the contem- 

 plation of great actions and great characters; by following the varied 

 development of human life, not only as an evolution governed by cer- 

 tain laws, but also as a drama full of interests which intimately concern 

 us. Moreover, as has well been said, if literature be viewed as one of 

 the fine arts, it is found to be the most altruistic of them all, since it 

 can educate a sensibility for other forms of beauty besides its own. 

 The genius of a Buskin can quicken our feeling for masterpieces of 

 architecture, sculpture and painting. Even a very limited study of 

 literature, if it be only of the right quality, may provide permanent 

 springs of refreshment for those whose principal studies and occupa- 

 tions are other than literary. We may recall here some weighty words 

 written by one of the very greatest of modern men of science. " If I 

 had to live my life again/' said Charles Darwin, " I would have made 

 it a rule to read some poetry and listen to some music at least once 

 every week. . . . The loss of these tastes is a loss of happiness, and 

 may possibly be injurious to the intellect, and more probably to the 

 moral character, by enfeebling the emotional part of our nature/' The 

 same lesson is enforced by John Stuart Mill, in that remarkable passage 

 of his ' Autobiography ' where he describes how, while still a youth, 

 he became aware of a serious defect, a great lacuna, in that severe intel- 

 lectual training which, for him, had commenced in childhood. It was 

 a training from which the influences of imaginative literature had been 

 rigidly excluded. He turned to that literature for mental relief, and 

 found what he wanted in the poetry of Wordsworth. " I had now 

 learned by experience " — this is his comment — " that the passive sus- 

 ceptibilities needed to be cultivated as well as the active capacities, and 

 required to be nourished and enriched as well as guided." Nor is it 

 merely to the happiness and mental well-being of the individual that 

 literature can minister. By rendering his intelligence more flexible, 

 by deepening his humanity, by increasing his power of comprehending 

 others, by fostering worthy ideals, it will add something to his capacity 

 for cooperating with his fellows in every station of life and in every 

 phase of action ; it will make him a better citizen, and not only a more 

 sympathetic, but also a more efficient member of society. 



One of the urgent problems of the higher education in our day is 

 how to secure an adequate measure of literary culture to those students 

 whose primary concern is with scientific and technical pursuits. Some 

 of the younger English universities, which give degrees in science, con- 



