PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES. RS 
Stanford University, in which knowledge of the ancient Janguazes is not indis- 
pensable for graduation. In this institution twenty-two subjects may be offered 
for admission, only one of which ( English) is required, the remainder to be chosen 
from the twenty-one other courses. This list includes algebra, geometry, trigo- 
nometry, physics, chemistry, physiology, botany, zoology, drawing, American, 
English and ancient history, Spanish, French, German, Latin, and Greek. In 
the college course certain groups of studies must be selected under advice, but 
this is the only restriction upon free choice. The effect that this latitude has 
upon the choice of studies is interesting. Of those who last year took their 
major work in Latin and Greek there were 76; in history and economics, 219; in 
mathematics, 29; in the natural sciences, 223; in modern languages, 80; in Eng- 
lish, 140. In the ancient languages 151 students were enrolled the first semester 
of last year; in the modern languages, 686; in mathematics, 148; in the natural 
sciences, 926. 
The friend of classical culture may justly say that the education that seems 
possible at Leland Stanford is a narrow and one-sided one. A student who 
knows nothing whatever of the foreign languages is as surely a dwarfed and one- 
sided man as is he who studies the languages only and none of the natural 
sciences. It is not to be supposed that the students of Leland Stanford are of a 
different class from the students of other universities. There their choice is 
almost wholly unrestricted and the natural inclination away from the ancient 
languages is conspicuously shown. The only bachelor degree given for work in 
any of the lines possible is that of bachelor of arts. 
When the old classical idea was yet so firmly inwrought into higher education 
that all else was leather and prunella, degrees of all sorts sprung up as mush- 
rooms —bachelor of science, of philosophy, of pedagogy, of music, of engineering, 
of pharmacy, of agriculture, of mechanics, and of goodness knows what. They 
were frank statements that such degrees did not mean liberal culture, and were 
given rather as placebos. These degrees have, fortunately, largely been aban- 
doned, the older degree of bachelor of arts supplanting them; an acknowledg- 
ment that liberal culture may be obtained in other ways than the old classical 
one. Iam aware that many will lift up their hands in classical horror at the bare 
suggestion that such a thing is possible as a bachelor of arts course in science, 
thoroughly convinced that the wolf has at last stolen bodily the raiment of the 
sheep. 
The effect of the present requirements for the admission to the colleges and 
University of Kansas has been in a high degree disastrous to science instruction 
in the secondary schools. Chemical laboratories that once delighted and in- 
structed the high-school pupils, the microscope and its world of revelations, the 
herbarium, the museum and the dissecting knife have been abandoned, and in 
their place Latin, German, and French have been substituted. Of all the sub- 
jects required for admission to the state university, students come best prepared 
in Latin, because the requirements in this subject have been made most severe 
and important. Instruction in the natural sciences in the secondary schools of 
our state is superficial and imperfect in the highest and most astounding degree. 
Of all those who are candidates for the state teacher’s certificate to teach the 
sciences, it is the exception that one has as much knowledge of any branch as 
might be acquired by the diligent student in ten weeks of work; rare that an ex- 
aminoatioo paper is the equal of those offered by the second-rate students in our 
university. 
Put, however, the same emphasis upon botany, zoology, chemistry, and geology 
that is given to Latin, and the preparation would very soon be fully as good, fully 
as thorough. Let the high-school scholar learn that the study of the natural 
