Education as a factor in Civilization. 245 



history and geography, have been greatly enlarged in scope 

 and method. As for the social subjects clamoring for study, 

 the number is already enormous, and constantly increasing, 

 while there is constant discussion of the question, " Is the 

 college a help or a hindrance to man in his preparation 

 for the work of life ? " A leading educational paper has 

 recently declared that, " except a skinned eel or a boiled 

 lobster few things are worse prepared for life than the 

 average college graduate." If this be so, it is cause for 

 thankfulness that in New England, at least, the number of 

 persons in colleges is no larger than the number in insane 

 asylums, though more people of the United States take a 

 college course than those of any other country. In England 

 there is loud complaint that the universities are not keep- 

 ing pace with the progress of the people, and that a smaller 

 number of educated men are every year coming to the 

 front. According to President Eliot of Harvard, the ordi- 

 nary American college-graduate is nearly thirty years of 

 age before he becomes, even theoretically, self-supporting, 

 and then is fitted only for professions already overcrowded. 

 Certain it is that neither in school nor college will medi- 

 aeval methods much longer satisfy the demands of this 

 modern day. Evolution is reconstructing the fundamental 

 conceptions of education as well as of philosophy and 

 religion. Althovigh from the magnitude of the movement 

 its results are not readily apparent to the impatient or 

 careless observer, this fact is practically recognized in 

 most of our colleges to-day. Oxford and Cambridge are 

 rising in their efforts to reach downward to the common 

 people. Harvai'd and Yale are developing new and wise 

 policies. The elective system, tried experimentally for 

 twenty years before its permanent adoption, is now almost 

 universally accepted. Many post-graduate courses have 

 been added for the adaptation of studies to individual 

 needs ; and not only in the intellectual but in the moral 

 environment of the college has evolution been steadily at 

 work, for, much as we deplore the riotous outbreaks which 

 occasionally scandalize our university towns, we are soothed 

 and encouraged by the remembrance that the old Vienna 

 statutes found it necessary to specify that "the students 

 shall not spend more time in drinking, gaming, and fighting 

 than at logic and physics." 



If the addition of a grammar-school training increases 



