150 THE COLLEGE 



worthiness of the statistics on which he bases his educational re- 

 forms. Even the few facts I have presented to you this afternoon 

 have been collected at great expenditure of time from many journals 

 and educational magazines published during the past twenty years. 

 They are nowhere to be found classified and arranged. Indeed, 

 if the present chaotic conditions in education are to continue, boards 

 of trustees ought to be required by law to provide a trained statistician 

 as the running mate of every college or university president before 

 letting him loose on our educational systems. 



Intellectual experiments are the most costly of all conceivable 

 experiments, for they affect the mind stuff of the next generation. 

 The decline or advance of the race is the issue involved. It is indeed 

 terrible to think that changes of vast importance have already been 

 made in the constitution of the American college, based on such in- 

 correct assumptions and misleading arguments as those which I have 

 attempted to disprove. This discussion has at least shown the need 

 of collecting carefully and studying accurately such educational 

 data as exist before we lay rash hands on the college which, im- 

 perfect as it may be, has yet proved itself so marvelously adapted 

 to our needs in the past. 



