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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXX. No. 772 



and might not considerable numbers of 

 them have much in common? 



A discussion of the ideal college training 

 from these three different aspects, the high- 

 est development of the individual student, 

 the proper relation of the college to the 

 professional school, the relation of the stu- 

 dents to one another, would appear to lead 

 in each case to the same conclusion; that 

 the best type of liberal education in our 

 complex modern world aims at producing 

 men who know a little of everything and 

 something well. Nor, if this be taken in a 

 rational, rather than an extreme, sense, is 

 it impossible to achieve within the limits of 

 college life ? That a student of ability can 

 learn one subject well is shown by the ex- 

 perience of Oxford and Cambridge. The 

 educational problems arising from the ex- 

 tension of human knowledge are not con- 

 fined to this country; and our institutions 

 of higher learning were not the first to seek 

 a solution for them in some form of elec- 

 tion on the part of the student. It is al- 

 most exactly a hundred years ago that the 

 English universities began to award honors 

 upon examination in special subjects; for 

 although the mathematical tripos at Cam- 

 bridge was instituted sixty years earlier, 

 the modern system of honor schools, which 

 has stimulated a vast amount of competi- 

 tive activity among undergraduates, may 

 be said to date from the establishment of 

 the examinations in Literis Humanioribus 

 and in mathematics and physics at Oxford 

 in 1807. The most popular of the subjects 

 in which honors are awarded are not tech- 

 nical, that is, they are not intended pri- 

 marily as part of a professional training; 

 nor are they narrow in their scope; but 

 they are in general confined to one field. 

 In short they are designed to ensure that 

 the candidate knows something well; that 

 he has worked hard and intelligently on one 

 subject until he has a substantial ground- 

 ing in it. 



For us this alone would not be enough, 

 because our preparatory schools do not give 

 the same training as the English, and be- 

 cause the whole structure of English society 

 is very different from ours. American col- 

 lege students ought also to study a little of 

 everything, for if not there is no certainty 

 that they will be broadly cultivated, espe- 

 cially in view of the omnipresent impulse 

 in the community driving them to devote 

 their chief attention to the subjects bearing 

 upon their future career. The wise policy 

 for them would appear to be that of de- 

 voting a considerable portion of their time 

 to some one subject, and taking in addition 

 a number of general courses in wholly un- 

 related fields. But instruction that im- 

 parts a little knowledge of everything is 

 more difScult to provide well than any 

 other. To furnish it there ought to be in 

 every considerable field a general course, 

 designed to give to men who do not intend 

 to pursue the subject farther a comprehen- 

 sion of its underlying principles or methods 

 of thought; and this is by no means the 

 same thing as an introductory course, al- 

 though the two can often be effectively 

 combined. A serious obstacle lies in the 

 fact that many professors, who have reaped 

 fame, prefer to teach advanced courses, and 

 recoil from elementary instruction— an 

 aversion inherited from the time when 

 scholars of international reputation were 

 called upon to waste their powers on the 

 drudgery of drilling beginners. But while 

 nothing can ever take the place of the great 

 teacher, it is nevertheless true that almost 

 any man possessed of the requisite knowl- 

 edge can at least impart it to students who 

 have already made notable progress in the 

 subject; whereas effective instruction in 

 fundamental principles requires men of 

 mature mind who can see the forest over 

 the tops of the trees. It demands unusual 

 clearness of thought, force of statement and 

 enthusiasm of expression. These qualities 



