PROBLEMS OF THE UNIVERSITY 161 



opportunity. If they perform this duty to the best of their ability 

 they justify their existence, whether they do other things or not; 

 if they neglect it, though they may turn out accomplished and well- 

 read gentlemen, fitted to enjoy to the utmost whatever pleasure 

 comes their way, or eminent lawyers or physicians, or brilliant 

 engineers or chemists, they fail in the one point wherein their op- 

 portunity, and consequently their duty, are unique. And this is as 

 true of the universities in the newest country as of those in the oldest. 

 Service, and training for service, of our fellow men is, or should 

 be, the keynote of modern education. But there are many forms 

 of service, many ways in which the trained man or woman may 

 help along the world's advance in civilization; and who is justified 

 in saying that an occupation which to him seems profitless and a mere 

 amusement may not contribute in the end to the sum of human wel- 

 fare? Whatever else the university may do or leave undone, it 

 cannot without being unfaithful to its highest opportunity neglect 

 to train some persons to be contributors to the sum of human know- 

 ledge, to be investigators. It may do, and in most instances is 

 organized to do, many things beside this, and so far as it does these 

 well it is fulfilling more or less well its duties toward the nation in 

 which it exists; but its duty toward the world at large is not fulfilled 

 unless it helps in the work of actual research and uses this activity 

 as an inspiration and model for those of younger generations who 

 shall take up the torches that fall from the hands of their elders and 

 carry them a little further onward. 



In the obligation to service of this sort I conceive the common 

 ground of universities the world over to lie; here is their point of 

 contact, here their bond of union, and from this common point of 

 view are visible many problems that concern them all alike 

 problems that can be solved only by cooperation of many countries. 

 Getrennt marschieren, vereint schlagen, is a principle that must at 

 last prevail in the world's highest educational practice no less than 

 in its wars; marching by way of its duty to its own country, each 

 university must strive to pass beyond that and to reach the ultimate 

 goal of service to the whole human race. 



Is the problem thus confronting the universities of the world a 

 modern problem exclusively or chiefly, so that the experience of our 

 predecessors can help us but little to solve it? 



It is chiefly a modern problem, because it is only in very recent 

 years that great nations have begun to look steadily abroad in 

 educational matters, to view themselves as reflected in the views 

 of other nations, to profit by the experience of those others; because 

 enormous advances in science of all sorts have been made within a 

 century, countless new fields of investigation opened up, and old ones 

 reexplored. The doctrine of free investigation in all directions pos- 



