SCIENTIFIC COURSES OF STUDY. 189 



way. Even Harvard and Yale, old and powerful as they are, feel the 

 bad influence. Perhaps the Johns Hopkins University, protected by 

 its great wealth, may escape from the evil tendency. 



Not many years ago, partly in consequence of the growth of the 

 natural and physical sciences, and partly because of a popular demand 

 for an education not exclusively classical, a number of American col- 

 leges established scientific schools. Naturally, the larger universities 

 led off in this movement, and the smaller soon followed ; only the lat- 

 ter, as a rule, inaugurated not separate schools for science, but scien- 

 tific courses, so called, parallel with the courses in classics. As might 

 reasonably be expected, the attempts at first were crude ; nobody 

 knew exactly what was wanted ; vagueness characterized the entire 

 subject. The classicists rather distrusted the new policy; looked upon 

 it as an effort to degrade true education ; and generally gave it the 

 cold shoulder. Still, they were obliged to concede something to the 

 new education ; and their concessions, wrung from them by popular 

 pressure, were seriously affected by the competition for students of 

 which I have already spoken. Even respectable Eastern colleges 

 yielded ground, and established courses of study which were obviously 

 meant to be easier than the older curriculum, in order that they might 

 swell their numbers by attracting students too badly prepared, too 

 stupid, or too indolent, to do the regular, traditional, solid work. In 

 short, there sprang up by degrees, all over the countrv, courses of 

 study requiring but little preparation on the part of the student to 

 enter them, and not much exertion to remain and graduate afterward. 

 They were, in many cases, mere waste-heaps, in which the college rub- 

 bish was allowed to gather, there to remain for four years fermenting 

 before being finally cleared out of the way. 



Along with the call for scientific studies came a demand for the 

 higher education of women. Some distinctively female colleges were 

 established, but in the majority of instances coeducation was tried. 

 Again the spirit of false competition for students told against true 

 learning. At first but few girls were well prepared for admission to 

 college ; and, consequently, immature students were accepted. They 

 could not well carry on advanced studies ; and so, to suit them, in 

 many places special " courses for ladies " were organized ; and these 

 were in some instances identical with the courses in science. Thus 

 two distinct movements, both good in themselves, were made to work 

 together for evil. The old classical system of education was well 

 established, was governed by the traditions handed down through cen- 

 turies of experience, and was therefore able to hold its own. The 

 competition for students, therefore, chiefly affected the new system, 

 and in the direction of science it exerted its strongest degrading 

 influence. The demand was for good scientific education on the one 

 hand, and for the advancement of women on the other ; the first result 

 in many cases was the establishment of shams. That women should 



