THE HIGHER EDUCATION. 409 



remains to be noticed, and this will bring us naturally to the question 

 of method. A large majority of our American college professors are 

 graduates under the old r'egime. Having been trained in the old edu- 

 cation, by the old methods, they are, consequently, unable to adapt 

 themselves perfectly to the new. In the modern system, modern 

 methods must be used. The old bottles will not hold the new wine. 

 Formerly, instruction was given by lectures and text-book recitations; 

 the student received, but gave nothing ; he was placed upon a sort of 

 Procrustean bedstead, and shaped according to a common pattern. 

 The classics and mathematics were established things ; the learner 

 must take them as he found them ; he was neither permitted to add 

 nor to modify. Routine governed every thing. DiiFerences of capacity, 

 of tastes, and of needs, among a class of students went for nothing ; 

 there was so much raw material for the teacher to work up, and he 

 must do it by the clumsiest rule and measure. 



The new education is very different. Here we have a variety of 

 subjects to be studied, each one best suited to a particular class of 

 minds. The scholar who proves to be dull in one branch may be 

 brilliant in another. Evei-y branch is continually undergoing the 

 changes attendant upon progress and growth. In each science new 

 questions are continually arising ; the higher we go up the mountain 

 the wider our horizon will be. Through these changes the minds of 

 both student and teacher are kept in constant activity ; a condition 

 requiring very different treatment from that given in the colleges of 

 thirty years ago. 



But the greatest changes in the educational method must be looked 

 for in another direction. No longer are text-books and lectures ade- 

 quate means of instruction ; a new element must be brought in. This 

 is the element of laboratory instruction. The student must not only 

 hear about scientific truths, he must be able to demonstrate them in 

 person. There are tools to be handled as well as books. Tf botany 

 is to be studied, it must be partly in the field and partly with the 

 microscope ; if zoology, then the scalpel must be used ; if chemistry 

 or physics, the student must learn to perform his own experiments. 

 Without practice of this sort the instruction will be largely thrown 

 away. It is to science what the exercise of translation is to the study 

 of language, or what the solution of problems is to mathematics. The 

 student must be trained to observe for himself ; then to generalize 

 upon his observations. In no other manner can the natural and physi- 

 cal sciences be taught. All other teaching in them is a mere pretense. 

 How many American colleges can boast a " scientific course " in which 

 this method is really employed ? 



But this necessity again brings a disadvantage to science in very 

 many institutions. A poorly-endowed college cannot afford suitable 

 laboratories and apparatus, any more than it can afford to employ the 

 specialists who are alone competent to manage them. Accordingly, 



