PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES. 19 
one. But the reason is not hard to find. The engineer is judged more by his 
peers, while the lawyer’s or physician’s success is dependent very largely upon 
the public. The capacity of the engineer must invariably be made apparent to 
men of affairs and ability, while the lawyer or physician is judged, for the most 
part, by those who are incompetent to determine his real merits. 
Undoubtedly, as the years go by, more rigorous requirements will be de- 
manded from the engineer, as from the lawyer and physician, but I do not be- 
lieve that they will ever be very great in extent, save as new methods of teaching 
are developed, and these will require ability and capacity rather than time. The 
engineer may enter upon active life at the age of twenty-four or -five at the out- 
side, fully grounded in the principles of his profession. No gap is left in his edu- 
cation between the high school and his strictly professional course, but the one 
grades into the other in an harmonious way. Though he graduates with the 
commonplace degree of bachelor of science, it represents, on the average, more 
college work than does that of doctor of medicine. 
lf, then, the learned professions are drifting away more and more from the 
college of liberal arts, what is the object of a general college education? What 
does the average young man or young woman have in view when he enters upon 
a four years’ course leading to the degree of bachelor of arts? Undoubtedly the 
larger number have nothing definite in view. They are actuated, for the most 
part, by the desire for a better education, without any clear idea of what they 
wish to accomplish in life. Had the student in the high school a definite con- 
ception of his future work in life, he would be more apt to seek that special train- 
ing which would most enhance his prospects for success. Many of the universities 
and colleges have endeavored to attract those students who have determined upon 
their life-work, and who would otherwise skip the general college course, by offer- 
ing some choice of studies, or by permitting the last year in the course for the 
arts degree to be spent in the professional school. This system of optionals has, 
perhaps, reached its highest development at Harvard and Leland Stanford uni- 
versities, where not only great latitude is allowed in the entrance conditions, but 
the whole college course is made up more or less fully of optional studies. That 
this system has been popular is shown by the more rapid growth of these and 
similar institutions as compared with the more conservative institutions, where 
many of the older classical requirements are yet rigidly insisted upon. 
But the system of optionals has gone quite far enough in some directions, not far 
enoughin others. The average student, who has not yet made up his mind what he 
will do with himself, is bewildered and confused by the multiplicity of studies 
opened up before him. He is not competent to judge what is best for himself, and 
he needs at this time, more than at any other in his life, the advice and assistance 
of those who have gone before him over those labyrinthine roads; and he rarely 
gets it. The study of Chinese jurisprudence seems to have as much importance 
in the college curriculum as do other subjects, and, if the teacher is popular or 
‘‘easy,’’ he selects it. If he is working for his degree, as unfortunately most 
undergraduate students ia the college are, he picks out the ‘‘soft snaps,’’ in col- 
lege parlance, and tries to double up on his studies that he may get through the 
sooner. Throughout all his preliminary course in the high school, as well as in 
his freshman and sophomore years, the study of language and mathematics has 
been strongly emphasized and he has had hardly a glimpse of any other branch 
of knowledge. In the name of common sense, then, how can he be expected to 
have acquired any taste whatever for unrelated and dissimilar studies, or to have 
any conception of their relative importance? “His advisers have been chiefly 
linguists and mathematicians, whose ignorance of the natural sciences is often 
