484 HUMAN BIOLOGY 



even in colleges, is the extent to which subjects studied are 

 dropped about as soon as the courses devoted to them 

 are scholastically terminated. Along with the formation of 

 such active and enduring tastes would go experience to 

 inform students as to proper sources of information and 

 abihty to utihze them. As long as the idea of subject-matter 

 for its own sake persists, instead of subject-mastered for 

 the sake of developing inherent intellectual interest and 

 method, no thoroughgoing reformation of instruction seems 

 to be probable. 



At present the conservatism of schools contrasts strangely 

 with the readiness to scrap old machinery in industry, 

 old behefs in science, and old practices in the professions, 

 when new conditions render better ones available. It cannot be 

 truly stated that schools have not made an effort to re-adapt 

 themselves to new social conditions. For the converse is true. 

 But the adaptation has been made largely by procedures that 

 defeat the purpose. For it has been attempted mainly by 

 addition, with the result already mentioned. What is needed 

 is a change of attitude and aim that takes advantage of the 

 non-scholastic resources that have developed, and that recog- 

 nizes that method which enables the mind to deal with prob- 

 lems as they manifest themselves is now more important in 

 life than accumulation and cold storage of subject-matter. It 

 would be absurd of course to suppose that method can be 

 acquired except in actual deahng with subject-matter. But if 

 the thought and energy that now go into a vain effort to record 

 subject-matter and keep up with its growth were spent in 

 selecting Hmited fields that are typical of present methods of 

 intellectual inquiry and mastery the outcome would be very 

 different. As long as the issue is regarded as lying ahiiost 

 exclusively between the hmited and thorough curriculum of 

 the past in classics and mathematics and spreading over the 

 whole content of present-day knowledge and interest, the 

 present situation of confusion will continue. 



The large degree of failure to obtain, by our present 

 system, fundamental intellectual achievement is seen in two 

 marked traits of the popular mind: undue deference to any 

 one who obtains popular prestige as an "authority" in any 

 field, and an accompanying credulity of mind that undis- 



