4OO Edivard Livingston Youmans. 



suited to their times, have fallen out of harmony with the 

 intellectual necessities of modern life, and a conflict has 

 arisen which is deepening in intensity with the rapid 

 growth of knowledge and the general progress of society. 



The friends of educational improvement maintain that 

 the system of culture which prevails in our higher institu- 

 tions of learning, and which is limited chiefly to the ac- 

 quisition of the mathematics, and of the ancient languages 

 and literature, was shaped ages ago in a state of things so 

 widely different from the present that it has become inade- 

 quate to existing requirements. They urge that since its 

 establishment the human mind has made immense ad- 

 vances; has changed its attitude to nature and entered 

 upon a new career; that realm after realm of new truth 

 has been discovered ; that ideas of government, religion, 

 and society have been profoundly modified, and that new 

 revelations of man's powers and possibilities, and nobler 

 expectations of his future, have arisen. As man is a being 

 of action, it is demanded that his education shall be a 

 preparation for action. As the highest use of knowledge 

 is for guidance, it is insisted that our Collegiate establish- 

 ments shall give a leading place to those subjects of study 

 which will afford a better preparation for the duties and 

 work of the age in which we live. 



The adherents of the traditional system reply that all 

 this is but the unreasoning clamour of a restless and inno- 

 vating age, which wholly misconceives the true aim of a 

 higher culture, and would reduce everything to the stand- 

 ard of a low and sordid utility. They maintain that 

 knowledge is to be acquired not on account of its capabil- 

 ity of useful application, but for its own intrinsic interest ; 

 that the purpose of a liberal education is not to prepare for 

 a vocation or profession, but to train the intellectual facul- 

 ties. They, therefore, hold that Mental Discipline is the 

 true object of a higher culture, and that for its attainment 



