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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXVIII. No. 720 



studies; but for things of the spirit, for 

 the cultivation of intellectual independ- 

 ence, for the pursuit of knowledge which 

 seems to have no direct utilitarian applica- 

 tion, we must look to those institutions 

 which depend for their existence on private 

 beneficence; that only here, free from the 

 agitation and the tyranny of a democratic 

 majority, can we hope that the pure light 

 of learning will be kept burning. This 

 line of criticism involves two assumptions, 

 the mere statement of either one of which 

 makes the whole position ridiculous. If 

 the criticism be true, then it must be that 

 the choice spirits are to be found at en- 

 dowed universities only, that by some irre- 

 sistible attraction they find their way to 

 those institutions of learning to the loss of 

 those which are supported by public 

 money ; or else it must be that the people, 

 the democratic majority, refuse to have cul- 

 ture in their state institutions, an assump- 

 tion which by no means is justified by his- 

 torical facts or a priori theory. 



In spite of all these criticisms, however, 

 democracy is reaching out and taking pos- 

 session of the field of higher education. 

 "Those who believe that the practical in- 

 stincts of men, as witnessed in a long 

 stretch of history and over a broad area of 

 political existence, do not easily go wholly 

 wrong ; and that in the case of a conflict of 

 practical life with theoretical criticism the 

 latter is most apt to be at fault, will be 

 likely to demand a revision of theory" 

 (Dewey). In view of this fact, I venture 

 to put forward and to defend the thesis, 

 not only that democracy is not incom- 

 patible with high scholarship in any line, 

 but that, on the contrary, the cultivation of 

 scholarship by democracy is necessary to 

 its stability, progress and perpetuation. I 

 assert that, using scholarship in a broad 

 sense, the permanent interests of developed 

 democracy demand that the pursuit of 

 knowledge shall be made in its own in- 



terest, by its own servants, supported by 

 itself, to the end that knowledge shall not 

 be made to subserve the purposes of a 

 class, but become the general property of 

 the community for the promotion of its 

 material, intellectual and spiritual well- 



There is truth in the charge that scholar- 

 ship has not developed in the United 

 States, which may be regarded as a repre- 

 sentative modern democracy. It is true 

 that we are suffering now-a-days from an 

 excess of materialism, from the arrogant 

 assertions of positivistic science over 

 imagination and spirituality ; from the sub- 

 jugation of idealism to realism, and from 

 the too great importance attached to mere 

 material prosperity. But it is not alone 

 the greatest democracy of the world that 

 is thus suffering, although perhaps it suf- 

 fers more than others. The condition 

 exists throughout the civilized world, and 

 we hear protests against materialism from 

 the apostles of the ideal in every country, 

 whether monarchic, imperial or democratic. 

 It is a passing phase of civilization. Civil- 

 ization does not move forward equally in 

 all directions at the same time. It de- 

 velops first on this line, then in that direc- 

 tion, and later on still another plane. The 

 great geographical and industrial dis- 

 coveries of the past century have put 

 emphasis upon material growth for the 

 present, and the light of things spiritual 

 seems low by contrast. But that light has 

 not gone out. Mankind has seen similar 

 conditions before, and now, as hitherto, 

 they are but temporary. 



For, in the first place, in the United 

 States particularly, men have been obliged 

 by the conditions attached to life in a new 

 country to devote themselves to the pursuit 

 of economic success. A nation, like an in- 

 dividual, can do only one great thing at a 

 time. Our work during the first century 

 of our existence was that of the conquest 



