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SCIENCE 



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



itself. It is the manly struggle more than 

 the victory which men go out to see. I can 

 not conceive how we are to clothe scholar- 

 ship contests with a dramatic setting— as 

 well attempt to stage the book of Job, aptly 

 called "the drama of the inner life." The 

 drama of scholarship must ever be a drama 

 of the inner life which will never draw a 

 cheering multitude nor light bonfires. To 

 call men to witness a contest in geometry 

 is less strong in its appeal to human sym- 

 pathies and interest than the bootless cries 

 of Diogenes prostrated at the roadside, to 

 those who passed on their way to the 

 Olympic games. "Base souls," he cried, 

 ' ' will ye not remain ? To see the overthrow 

 and combat of athletes how great a way ye 

 journey to Olympia, and have ye no will 

 to see a combat between a man and a 

 fever?" Competition is a fundamental 

 law of nature, and it may be a human in- 

 stinct, but it never can be an ideal, for the 

 virtue of an ideal is a willingness for self- 

 sacrifice of some sort, while the virtue of 

 competition is a willingness to sacrifice 

 others. Competition, therefore, is not a 

 moral force, and as a motive lacks the 

 highest driving power. 



Most that I have said of undergraduate 

 life has been in analysis of its weakest 

 members. The vast majority of college 

 men are sound in mind and heart and pur- 

 pose and no young men were ever worthier 

 of admiration and respect than these. I 

 have not dwelt upon them because their 

 condition suggests no vexed pedagogical 

 nor administrative problems. "They that 

 be whole need not a physician, but they 

 that are sick." 



THE TEACHER 



As with the undergraduate, so with the 

 faculty, many a reformer has singled out 

 the weakest member and has seemingly 

 afSxed this label to all. But has he for- 

 gotten that there are mediocre lawyers, 



physicians, preachers, engineers, business 

 men, all making a living from their various 

 occupations simply because there are not 

 enough men of first-rate ability to supply 

 the world 's needs 1 Teaching can not stand 

 alone but must share the lot of other pro- 

 fessions. In a generation the monetary 

 rewards in most occupations have advanced 

 more rapidly than in teaching, where they 

 never have been adequate, and colleges 

 have felt a relative loss. In law, in engi- 

 neering, in medicine, in business, the aver- 

 age rewards for corresponding successes are 

 roughly double those in teaching. It is 

 safe to say the colleges are getting far more 

 out of their better teachers than they are 

 paying for. Teaching is to many a very 

 attractive career, not because of the leisure 

 for idleness which it is supposed by some 

 to offer but because of its possibilities of 

 service to the wholesome life and highest 

 welfare of society and the state. The 

 teacher who takes his calling seriously and 

 fulfils its high demands spends less time in 

 idleness than his apparently more busy 

 brethren in trade. That he must give 

 many hours to wide-ranging thought and 

 reflection has often misled the public into 

 thinking him an idle dreamer. But dream- 

 ing and visions are a part of his business, 

 though the dreamer to be worthy must 

 dream straight and the vision must be 

 clear. How much do we not owe to the 

 dreamer, in science, in literature, in art, in 

 religion, to say nothing of his part in those 

 unthought of benefits, those subtler influ- 

 ences grown up in tradition, influences 

 which have lost or never had a name, which 

 yet continue to inspire and brighten all 

 our days — visions seen by earlier men 

 whose lives must have seemed idle enough 

 to an auctioneer? 



Judged by the higher standards, there 

 are iinquestionably a few uncertain and 

 indifferent teachers in our colleges. There 

 always have been. The proportion of men 



