512 



SCIENCE 



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



to scholarly ambition. This is a change 

 which few colleges can now aiiord to make, 

 for colleges must do with the means they 

 have and keep within their incomes, if they 

 can. 



As to how this much discussed decline in 

 scholarship, the real existence of which I 

 seriously doiibt, has come about, there are 

 widely different opinions. In the first 

 place, it may be justly questioned whether 

 it is not apparent rather than real. The 

 average student acquires more and wider 

 knowledge in college now than he did thirty 

 years ago. Outspoken scholarly enthusi- 

 asm rather than the getting of lessons seems 

 to have suffered. Many students appear to 

 have relaxed a little in the seriousness of 

 purpose with which they approach their 

 work. They certainly show more reserve 

 in the way they speak of it. Here it must 

 be remembered, however, that fashions the 

 country over have changed and the expres- 

 sion of interest and enthusiasm in some 

 subjects is more stintingly measured than 

 a generation ago. If anything we now 

 often get a scant portion in expression 

 where we used to get an over-weight. No- 

 where is this change more striking than in 

 the gentle art of public speaking. Yet 

 fashions react on men and our time 

 may have lost something in forcefulness 

 from its often assumed attitude of intel- 

 lectual weariness, from a painstaking effort 

 at restraint and simplicity of utterance. 

 Our present tendency is to speak on the 

 lighter aspects of even grave matters— pos- 

 sibly a kind of revolt against a flowery 

 sentimentalism, an unctuous cant, or a long 

 face. It is not considered in the best of 

 taste just now to get into heated discussions 

 and controversies over man's most vital in- 

 tellectual and spiritual concerns. 



The habit of suppression has come into 

 the college from without. I do not think it 

 began there. Science in the university may 

 have misled the thoughtless to some extent 



by an emotionless discussion of facts, but 

 facts should be discussed without emotion; 

 it is the lifeless statement of purpose from 

 which we suffer. The driving power of 

 intellect is enthusiasm, and there is no lack 

 of it in that passionate devotion to research 

 which so painstakingly and properly ex- 

 cludes all warmth from its calm statement 

 of results. Yet it is nothing short of a 

 divine zeal, an irresistible force, which 

 urges the true investigator on to those great 

 achievements, which are so profoundly 

 changing the habits of our daily life and 

 thought. For any mental indifference, 

 therefore, be it real or assumed, science is 

 in no wise responsible. Science takes her- 

 self very seriously and is always in deadly 

 earnest. 



In only one phase of college life to-day 

 may a student, other than shamefacedly, 

 show a full measure of pleasurable excite- 

 ment, and that is in athletics. What 

 might not happen to him who threw up his 

 hat and cheered himself hoarse over a the- 

 orem of algebra, or over the scholarly 

 achievements of the faculty ! Some young 

 men appear to have grown shy and to feel 

 that a show of enthusiasm over ideas re- 

 veals either doubtful breeding, a lack of 

 balance, or small experience with the 

 world They would be like Solomon in 

 saying "there is no new thing under the 

 sun," and profoundly unlike him in every- 

 thing else — an easy apathy to things of the 

 mind and spirit so often passes for poise 

 and wisdom with the young! Thus some 

 indifference in college and out of it is un- 

 doubtedly more assumed than genuine. 

 But again we are in danger of utterance 

 and manner reacting on thought and effort. 

 Signs of such a reaction are already ap- 

 parent. Thus the college atmosphere has 

 seemingly lost, for the initially weak in 

 character, some of its vigorous and whole- 

 some mental incentive. 



May we not henceforth live our college 



