16 On the Campus 



Now many of these new concepts, and things which 

 occupy so much of daily thought, have found place, nat- 

 urally enough, in the curricula of our schools ; tentatively 

 at first, then more aggressively until to-day the youth 

 who seeks an education finds himself confronted by the 

 learning of the century in every possible detail, until, 

 in fact, instead of a definite course which he may com- 

 plete in four definite years, he sees stretching away, 

 course upon course to the last horizon of human research, 

 where no human lifetime since the age of Methusela 

 would suffice to compass it all. 



Nor is this all: the old system of apprenticeship hav- 

 ing fallen by the way, our handicrafts are in confusion. 

 There has come about a centralization. Manufacture of 

 every sort is performed in great shops. The butcher, the 

 baker, the candle-stick-maker have lost each and every 

 one his trade. Great plants, maintained by importation 

 of skilled labor, have almost eliminated the old-time 

 trades of cooper, wagon-maker, shoe-maker; and the 

 American youth grows up, not only ignorant of, but ac- 

 tually out of touch with, all those fine old arts which 

 ever heretofore formed a delightful, healthful, and with- 

 al honorable employment for hand and brain. 



To meet the difficulty the schools are summoned to 

 teach the arts and crafts. In the common school, pro- 

 vision must be made for quasi-carpentry under the guise 

 of manual training, and even the university applies its 

 science, has benches and forges. Even the old-fashioned 

 arts of the field are made the subject of lessons and lec- 

 tures, and our very recreations, games, and sports, play 

 their part in the university or college curriculum where 



