50 Proceedings of Indiana Academy of Science 



of teaching, while the other may or may not have been conscious that 

 he was following any system. The difference was in the men them- 

 selves and this difference must always exist. I am not saying that the 

 poor teacher should not study to improve, not his method or system, 

 but his results. But that must be done by an entirely different process. 

 It may even not be done at all, in which case this man should give up 

 teaching and seek to acquire wealth in some other way. 



What we must recognize is that there is a certain intangible some- 

 thing that makes men different from each other, that gives some the 

 ability to do well that which others may do only poorly or not at all, 

 and that this difference is nowhere more striking than in the world 

 of the teacher. When we contemplate the numbers of individuals who 

 have found their way into the ranks of college (nay, and of university) 

 faculties, who have no ability whatsoever for teaching, who never can 

 have any ability, and who are without vision or inspiration, even if we 

 assume (as we may if we have sufficient optimism) that the lazy and 

 indifferent teachers are usually weeded out — even then, what a sight 

 it is and what a thought it is that so many young men and women have 

 to lose the only opportunity for an education that they ever will have, 

 simply because they chose the wrong college, or the wrong course in 

 the right college, or the wrong class and the wrong teacher in the right 

 course in the right college. 



There should not be any such thing as a wrong and right college, 

 course or teacher, except as this may be understood to refer to the 

 innate fitness or unfitness of a student for a given kind of work. Cer- 

 tainly it should not be that the purposes of scientific (or other) educa- 

 tion should be thwarted by having our science faculties poisoned by the 

 presence of incompetent or uninspired teachers. But this does not point 

 to standardization. It points in exactly the opposite direction. It means 

 that the state of affairs should be such that no matter where the stu- 

 dent goes, whether from intelligent choice or from fancy or necessity, 

 he shall be placed under the guidance and oversight of men and women 

 who know their subjects, who believe in their work and whose whole 

 efforts are in the furtherance of interest in and understanding of the 

 kind of knowledge which they are charged with teaching, but each of 

 whom gives to Iiis students something that he alone can give. 



When this shall be so, every student (if he be a real student) will 

 find a great opportunity, no matter what college or university he may 

 choose and no matter what particular teacher may come to him as his 

 drawing in the lottery of college "assignments". His opportunity will 

 be different from that of another student who has gone to another school 

 or who has drawn another teacher, but so it should be. 



Have you ever considered what it is that makes the meetings of our 

 scientific societies such a rare pleasure to all of us? Is it not the con- 

 tact of mind with other minds and of character with other character? 

 Is it not the exhilaration which is the product of the reaction upon our 

 own mental habits of the mental habits of othei's whose interests are 

 similar to ours but whose ways are different? And when we gather at 

 our alumni dinners do we not dwell, more than upon any other topic, 

 upon the special characteristics of the various teachers under whom we 



