684 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXVIII. No. 724 



It harks back to the old-world ideas of 

 nobility and caste to insist upon a separation 

 of the cultivation of the intellect, and the use 

 that may be made of such cultivation. 



Why should it be unworthy or undignified, 

 and devoid of intellectual profit, to teach 

 carpentering and plumbing, cooking and 

 dressmaking, etc., instead of manual training, 

 and domestic science? Is it not a foolish 

 remnant of old-world pride, a relict of false 

 aristocracy to which we feel we must cling, 

 for fear the old world may sneer at our democ- 

 racy ? 



A president of a university once said to me : 



If any one in speaking of our department of 

 domestic science should call it a cooking school, 

 just take a club to Mm, in my name. 



In discussing some elaborately concocted 

 dish, with a graduate of this department of 

 domestic science, I remarked that too much 

 time and labor were consumed in its prepara- 

 tion to justify its place in a menu, and she 

 replied : 



O, I just learned how to make it in order to be 

 able to teach in a domestic science department 

 in some college, you know! 



So it seems that our manual training is 

 more or less entangled with the prevailing 

 ideas about intellectuality and — the trades. 



It is considered actually dangerous to open 

 our curricula doors to the great arena of prac- 

 ticability, for fear of the over-cultivation of 

 the material nature at the expense of the 

 inner life. Let me quote from a recent uni- 

 versity commencement address : 



Educational science regards the development of 

 the inner life as the true course, and yet it is 

 almost entirely neglected in both common school 

 and college. A material education is the one 

 sought, and though this is against all philosophy, 

 it is kept up by the clamor and clatter of the 

 world's perverted ideals. The true doctrine is 

 preached in the halls of education and finds elo- 

 quent advocacy in school literature, but when it 

 comes to real experience it recoils before the 

 money-making, pleasure-getting and fame-achiev- 

 ing anxieties of the schools. 



The energy of the school purpose is diverted 

 almost wholly to how to make a living, while 

 how to live, which is the greater quest, is quite 

 neglected. 



In this age of the world it seems utter folly 

 to philosophize about the outer and the inner 

 life, as if they were two separate and distinct 

 entities. 



Imagine the world intent upon the cultiva- 

 tion of the inner life — having renounced its 

 worldly zeal in making a material living! 

 Commerce would go to sleep and civilization 

 would drop back into barbarism. The con- 

 sensus of opinion of the thinking world to- 

 day is that the status of commercialism in any 

 country is an index to the condition of civil- 

 ization in that country. Every kind of labor 

 may be the means of the cultivation of the 

 outer and the inner life, but the inner life 

 will never be lifted to a higher, spiritual plane 

 by decrying what is popularly called the 

 money-getting-sin. The inner life can only 

 develop as the outer life prepares the way; the 

 two are bound together and no philosophy can 

 rend them asunder. 



Only hy teaching honestly what the world 

 needs, and can use, may the schools accom- 

 plish their lofty aims. 



It is a slow and wasteful method to try to 

 help on the progress of general education by 

 forcing an overflow of the liberal arts down 

 into the trades, by way of the public schools. 

 The better way would be to help the trades 

 themselves to climb to more and more in- 

 creased proficiency by the aid of the public 

 schools and higher institutions of learning. 

 Stella V. Kellermak 



PROVINCIAL MUSEUMS 



Professor C. C. Nutting has recently writ- 

 ten a very suggestive paper entitled " The 

 Function of the Provincial Museum,'" which 

 the writer has read with great interest. On 

 page 169 the following statement occurs, 

 which requires emendation : 



One has tp look in vain for such a museum in 

 our central states, the nearest approach to it 

 being our own museum at Davenport. But the 

 time is coming when such institutions will rank 

 in importance with either of the other classes 

 enumerated above.^ 



^ Proe. Daven. Acad. Sci., X., p. 167. 

 -Referring to the University and Metropolitan 



