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SCIENCE 



[N. S.' Vol. LIII. No. 1380 



is directed to give a young man of intellectual 

 interests and possibilities the main features of 

 his racial background and especially to ac- 

 quaint him with the best and most significant 

 things which have been thought and done in 

 the world, so that at maturity all new things 

 which present themselves to him, he can in 

 some measure appraise in their relations to 

 this background. 



I know no better measure of a man's real 

 education than the adequacy of his thought 

 and action in whatever actual situations he 

 may find himself, for adequacy of thought and 

 action imply some hold on world experience. 

 Our daily use of the phrase " common sense " 

 has no other meaning. 



Vital possession, conscious or unconscious, 

 of this world background enables a man sanely 

 to face and interpret reality. You rarely find 

 such a man seriously occupied in chasing rain- 

 bows or fighting windmills. His chief mental 

 characteristics ars breadth, balance, sanity. 

 To train such men and women should be the 

 dominant ideal of the educational process. 

 How often and how far, alas! do we fall short 

 of attaining it. 



Mr. Chesterton's recent amusing raillery at 

 " The ignorance of the educated " would lose 

 none of its charming humor and would gain in 

 truth and pungency if he changed his title 

 to " The ignorance of the haK educated." 

 These are the really dangerous men, for they 

 are facile of speech and wholly unaware of 

 their intellectual limitations. By contrast the 

 adequately educated man knows always just 

 where he stands. Ought not an engineer to 

 know enough of philosophy and its uses not 

 to be misled into dogmatizing upon its tech- 

 nical intricacies : and should not a philosopher 

 be taught enough about bridges and dynamos 

 to be satisfied with dwelling on the broad sci- 

 entific principles they illustrate without ven- 

 turing to criticize minor details of construc- 

 tion? 



Education interpreted as a background 

 builder is far wider than the schools and 

 stretches endlessly from the cradle to the 

 grave. Yet a careful scrutiny of the course 

 of individual development shows that in the 

 latter half of the period of adolescence, say 

 from eighteen to twenty-five years of age, lie 



the strategic years of education. It is in this 

 period that wisely directed teaching can do 

 most to integrate and interpret this back- 

 groxind, do most to give it unity of form and 

 grouping, color, symmetry, and depth. Dur- 

 ing this formative period no great department 

 of human experience can be safely ignored, 

 if our purpose is to train adequately educated 

 men and women. 



The department of human experience and 

 action on which the major emphasis shall fall 

 is a matter wisely left to the individual pref- 

 erence, aptitude, and taste of the student. .In 

 schools of technology this emphasis falls nat- 

 urally on the study of science. But studies in 

 science can be made as narrow as can studies 

 in philosophy and the arts. Narrowness of 

 outlook, always a major defect in our efforts 

 at education, we must strive imceasingly to 

 avoid. All fields of knowledge and experience 

 form a whole, and, in our teaching, their vital 

 interdependence must be most clearly empha- 

 sized. 



With his characteristic grasp of essentials. 

 President Nicholas Murray Butler has stated 

 these traits of the educated man : (1) Correct- 

 ness and precision in the use of English; (2) 

 refined and gentle manners; (3) power of re- 

 flection; (4) power of growth; (5) sound stan- 

 dards of feeling and appreciation; (6) the 

 ability to do efficiently without nervous agi- 

 tation. To these I venture to add yet another 

 trait of the usefully educated man: Power to 

 marshal the world's experience in at least one 

 field, and to use it effectively for further con- 

 structive achievement. 



Engineers have, surely, the same broad, edu- 

 cational rights and responsibilities as other 

 professional and non-professional men, yet, 

 amid the growing complexities and perplexi- 

 ties of technical education there has been, 

 and is, a steady and strong temptation to in- 

 troduce more detailed technical courses at the 

 expense of other background building studies. 

 This temptation, weighty as are the arguments 

 for yielding to it, must nevertheless be steadily 

 and firmly resisted. The problem of modem 

 technical education is indeed most intricate 

 and difficult, but other solutions must be 



