384 TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



The habit of thus associating the richness of history, romance and 

 science with one's daily work is found in some men, and is a source in 

 them not only of technical efficiency, but of strength and joy. How 

 little is such genuine liberalism fostered by the aristocratic conception 

 of culture as a means of occupying leisure, or by our actual practise of 

 dissociating the study of history, literature and philosophy from the 

 common tasks of to-day ! Perhaps the remedy lies partly in the intro- 

 duction of industrial training into our schools, perhaps in the more 

 common employment of teachers who have worked in shop and factory 

 and office. 



The third way in which under present conditions the liberal in edu- 

 cation stands opposed to the technical, is in the recognition of individ- 

 uality, the right of each individual to "yield," in Emerson's words, 

 " that peculiar fruit which he was created to bear." In place of each 

 man adjusting himself to his environment, which, technically speaking, 

 means the present or anticipated demands of the buyer, Emerson in- 

 vites the individual to " plant himself indomitably upon his instincts 

 and there abide," for the huge world will come round to him. How- 

 ever exaggerated the language, the conception is fundamentally the 

 liberal conception, viz., that the end of all our activities is nothing but 

 the bringing to flower and fruit the highest perfection of which each 

 man is capable. Whereas the technical view at present is to look on the 

 individual as part of the machinery by which the " world's work " is 

 done, that is, service is rendered for which people can be got to pay, the 

 liberal view is to insist that the world's work is the cultivation of the 

 garden of human life, and the best service a man can render is to offer 

 the world the finest fruits of his own personality. Liberalism bids the 

 man take counsel of his own spirit rather than of the market, and 

 prophesies that in maintaining his stand in the face of the world he 

 will gain a deeper insight of the essential harmony between himself and 

 it, while lifting life to a higher scale of intensity and idealism. 



By thus starting from the simplest possible conception of liberal 

 education, as education for freedom, for the realization of personality, 

 we escape from a narrow tradition, and from a false antithesis to in- 

 dustrial ardor and efficiency, and are left free to judge for ourselves 

 wherein under present conditions true personality consists, to note 

 without prejudice what evils the technical emphasis in education actu- 

 ally tends to nourish, and to devise under constantly changing condi- 

 tions new ways for the protection and furthering of the liberal ideal. 

 Clearly the defense of the liberal in education is not merely a matter 

 of insisting on certain courses of study traditionally styled liberal ; but, 

 if I have correctly analyzed the situation, it is to cherish certain ideals 

 and to train in certain habits, viz., in the evaluation of one's conduct 

 in terms of its effect upon character, in the appreciation of the interest 



