PARASITIC CULTURE 257 



from the channels of vital usefulness. Nature is sternly and rigidly 

 utilitarian, and yet she is splendidly idealistic. Her aim is always an 

 enlarged, and ever enlarging, life, and to this end she can tolerate 

 nothing in her economies that is functionless and therefore an obstacle 

 to progress. 



Here, then, is the clue that modern education is beginning to accept 

 for its guidance. As a result, the ideal of general culture in education 

 is being subjected to standards of criticism that are as new as is our 

 better understanding of the nature of life. Men have believed for cen- 

 turies that certain studies, or forms of discipline, have the peculiar 

 virtue of generating in the mind, or the body, a power, or wealth of 

 resources, that may subsequently be available for any purpose to which 

 mental or physical energy is applied. From the days of the renaissance 

 to the present time, universities and colleges have contended for this 

 ideal of general culture. Mathematics and the classical languages have 

 been regarded as, in a special sense, indispensable to such culture. In 

 the organization of secondary schools, these institutions have been sub- 

 ordinated to university and college entrance requirements. And so 

 throughout our educational system, above the elementary schools, and 

 frequently in the elementary schools themselves, the culture ideal has 

 largely determined the subject-matter and methods of instruction. 

 Thus it is that in our very midst, every boy and girl who looks towards 

 higher education in our standard institutions of learning is compelled 

 to have certain courses in mathematics and the classical languages. 

 Greek has at last been made an optional entrance requirement, but 

 Latin and mathematics still hold their distinctive places. No difference 

 what the ulterior life-purpose of the adolescent boy or girl may be, no 

 difference what their tastes or aptitudes may be, Latin and mathematics 

 they must have ; and Latin and mathematics they must look forward to 

 pursuing even after they enter college. All for the sake of the general 

 culture these subjects are supposed to give ! 



In the light of the biological law of wasted energy and disease, in 

 connection with organs that are parasitic on the life, we are now pre- 

 pared to estimate this ideal of general culture from a new point of view. 

 And first of all, as being more obviously amenable to this biological law, 

 let us consider the ideal of physical culture. Now it has been con- 

 tended for generations, in accordance with the general culture ideal, 

 that certain courses of discipline will give a fund of physical energy 

 that may be available for all the demands of subsequent life. Thus 

 physical culture has been separated from the natural, every-day func- 

 tions of life, and made a matter of general courses of training in the 

 gymnasium. Even since the play-idea of physical culture has come to 

 the front, and the gymnasium has had to share its prerogatives with 

 the athletic field, much of the justification of the undue absorption of 



vol. lxxvii. — 18. 



