440 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXX. No. 770 



neering; E. 0. Cheswell, instructor in engi- 

 neering laboratories; P. L. Bean, B.S. 

 (Maine), promoted to associate professor of 

 civil engineering; A. L. Grover, B.S. (Maine), 

 promoted to assistant professor of drawing. 



Dr. Otto Grossner, of Vienna, has been 

 elected professor of anatomy at the University 

 of Prague. 



DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE 

 THE HARVARD CLASSICS AND HARVASD 



I. The Harvard Classics 



Some one quotes to me a remark of William 

 James's, " That no body of men can be 

 counted on to tell the truth under fire." Per- 

 haps " firing " is, after all, not a very effective 

 method of searching for truth; and perhaps 

 tliose who do the firing are more bent on 

 making points than on getting to the root of 

 the matter. 



Two letters which I wrote during the sum- 

 mer to Harvard ofiicials, on the " Harvard 

 Classics " illustrate, aptly enough, the weak- 

 ness of controversial methods as a means of 

 securing assent to anything. In one of these 

 public letters I asked Dr. Eliot, and in the 

 other I asked Mr. Henry L. Higginson, trus- 

 tee of Harvard, whether Harvard College had 

 indeed granted the use of its name to the 

 famous five-foot-shelf publication to which 

 the public is now being invited to subscribe. 

 No public answer was given to the letters; 

 but the fact remains that the university did, 

 by formal vote, lend its name to this book 

 enterprise. 



At this time I can realize, in re-reading 

 these letters, that there was in them a good 

 deal of desire to give pain, to see the worst, 

 to nail the claws of the offenders to the 

 ground, to state facts in such a way that the 

 Harvard officials could not answer without 

 making humiliating confessions and without, 

 in effect, acknowledging that I was more 

 virtuous than they. 



At the bottom of the whole situation, how- 

 ever, and behind the conditions which pro- 

 duced the " Harvard Classics " there are cer- 

 tain facts about American culture to-day 

 that ought to be considered dispassionately. 



It required a very peculiar juncture of influ- 

 ences between our educational world and our 

 commercial world to produce "the Harvard 

 Classics." 



For the last thirty years Harvard has been 

 struggling to keep the lead among American 

 colleges; and Harvard has been content to 

 take its definition of leadership — to adopt its 

 ideal of leadership from the commercial 

 world. We see in this the atmospheric pres- 

 sure of industrial ways of thinking upon an 

 educational institution. The men who stand 

 for education and scholarship have the ideals 

 of business men. They are, in truth, business 

 men. The men who control Harvard to-day 

 are very little else than business men, run- 

 ning a large department store which dis- 

 penses education to the million. Their en- 

 deavor is to make it the largest establishment 

 of the kind in America. 



Now, in devising new means of expansion, 

 new cash registers, new stub systems and 

 credit systems — systems for increasing their 

 capital and the volume of their trade — these 

 business men have unconsciously (and I 

 think consciously also) adopted any method 

 that would give results. A few years ago 

 their attention was focused upon increasing 

 their capital (new buildings and endow- 

 ment) : to-day it is focused upon increasing 

 their trade (numbers of students). The 

 whole body of graduates is being organized 

 into a kind of " service " to employ Harvard 

 men, to advertise Harvard, to make converts, 

 to raise money, to assist in a general Harvard 

 forward movement. 



Henry Higginson and Charles W. Eliot and 

 Dr. Walcott and Dr. Arthur Cabot, and the 

 various organized agencies under them, feel 

 that Harvard should be kept in the front; 

 and they are willing to appeal to self-interest 

 in the youth of the country in order to get 

 that youth to come to Harvard. It is given 

 out that Harvard means help for life; Har- 

 vard is for mutual assistance; Harvard 

 means cheap clubs and many friends on 

 graduation. The wonderful ability of the 

 American business man for organization is 

 now at work consolidating the Harvardi 



