THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE. 



95 



namely. Greek. He now finds thai there 

 are things in colleges thai are worse 

 than Greek, namely, the elective system. 

 which lie calls crude, ill-considered, 

 thoroughly unscientific and extremely 

 mischievous.' The address may be 

 fairly represented by the concluding 

 paragraph, which reads: 



" For him who graduated half a cen- 

 tury ago, the game is now either won 

 to a degree or irretrievably lost. But, 

 reviewing his record, he is apt to see 

 with great distinctness the nature of 

 the game, and wherein his play was 

 defective, wherein correct. For my- 

 self, thus retrospecting, I am con- 

 strained to say that, as a training place 

 for the game in which I was to take a 

 hand, the college of the period — and 

 Harvard stood first among them — 

 viewed as a mental gymnasium, was 

 ill-adapted to existing conditions, un- 

 sympathetic, and, as respects organiza- 

 tion, already distinctly outgrown. In 

 the matter of intellectual training, it 

 was a period of transition — the system 

 of prescribed studies was yielding to a 

 theory of electives. So far as it had 

 then been developed and applied, the 

 new system proved in my experience a 

 delusion, a pitfall, and a snare. My 

 observation, as I said in the beginning, 

 leads me to apprehend that conditions 

 in these respects have not since changed 

 for the better. The old organization 

 yet lumbers along; the implicit belief 

 in the pursuit of aptitudes on lines of 

 least resistance is in fullest vogue. 

 Could I, on the contrary, have my way, 

 I would now break our traditional 

 academic system into fragments, as 

 something which had long since done 

 its work and is now quite outgrown; 

 and I would somehow get back to the 

 close contact of mind upon mind. I 

 would to a large extent do away with 

 this arms-length lecture-room educa- 

 tion for the college period. I would 

 develop an elective system based on 

 scientific principles, and the study of 

 the individual: properly regulated, it 

 should be intelligently applied. I 

 would prescribe one of the classic 



tongues, Greek or Latin, as a com- 

 pulsory study to the day of gradua- 

 tion, the one royal road to a knowledge 

 of all that is tinest in letters and art. 

 1 would force every student to reason 

 closely all through his college days; 

 while no man not trained to observe, 

 and equal to tests in observation, 

 should receive a degree. Beyond this 

 I would let the student elect. 



THE CAUSES OF DEATH. 



The Bureau of the Census has issued 

 a special report on statistics of mortal- 

 ity from 1000 to 1004. which gives 

 important information in regard to the 

 prevalence of certain diseases. 



Tuberculosis of the lungs and pneu- 

 monia were by far the leading causes 

 of death. The average annual mortal- 

 ity from tuberculosis of the lungs, or 

 consumption was 172.6 per 100.000 of 

 population. The rate has shown a 

 marked decline since 1S90, when it was 

 245.4. The mortality from this dis- 

 ease in the registration area in the 

 United States is lower than it is in 

 Ireland, Germany, Norway, Spain and 

 Switzerland, but higher than in Eng- 

 land and Wales, Scotland, the Nether- 

 lands, Belgium and Italy. 



Pneumonia was second among the 

 principal causes of death, the average 

 annual rate being 165.6 per 100,000 of 

 population. In the registration states 

 the mortality from pneumonia was 

 about 50 per cent, higher in the cities 

 than in the rural districts. 



Heart disease was third among the 

 leading causes of death, the average 

 annual rate in the registration area 

 for the five years being 120.9 per 100,- 

 000 of population. 



Among the leading causes of death, 

 diarrhoea and enteritis were fourth, the 

 average annual mortality from this 

 disease for the five years being 113.1 

 per 100,000. Over 80 per cent, of the 

 deaths from these diseases were deaths 

 of children under 5 years of age, and 

 over 65 per cent, of children under 1 

 ! year of age. The average annual death 

 rate from these diseases was about 75 



