242 ESSAYS BIOGRAPHICAL AND CHEMICAL 



to which he intends to devote himself, and is ripe for 

 research, he enters a Seminar, in which he is provided 

 with a library, paper, pens and ink, and a subject. The 

 method of using the library is pointed out to him, and he 

 is told to read books which bear on the particular subject 

 in question ; he is made to collate the information which 

 he gains by reading, and to elaborate the subject which 

 is given him. Naturally his first efforts must be crude, but 

 ce n'est que le premier pas qui cotite. It probably costs him 

 blame at the hands of his instructor ; after a few unsuc- 

 cessful efforts, however, if he has any talent for the par- 

 ticular investigation to which he has devoted himself, 

 his efforts improve and at last he produces something 

 respectable enough to merit publication. Thus he is 

 exposed to the criticism of those best competent to judge, 

 and he is launched in what may be a career in Historical, 

 Literary, or Economic research. 



Such a Seminar is carried on in philological and 

 linguistic studies, in problems of economy involving 

 statistics, in problems of law involving judicial decision, 

 and of history in which the relations between the develop- 

 ment of the various phases in the progress of nations is 

 traced. The system is borrowed from the well-known 

 plan of instruction in a physical or chemical laboratory. 

 Experiments are made in literary style. These experi- 

 ments are subjected to the criticism of the teacher, and 

 thus the investigator is trained. But it may be objected 

 that the youths who frequent our Universities have not a 

 sufficient knowledge of facts connected with such subjects 

 to be ^capable of at once entering on a training of this 

 kind. That may be so ; if it is the case, our schools must 

 look to it that they provide sufficient training. Even 

 under present circumstances, however, I do not think I 

 am mistaken in supposing that a young man or woman 

 who enters a University at the age of eighteen years with 



