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SCIENCE 



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



cators, however, were not aware of the fact; 

 others caught half-g-limpses of the movement 

 and stubbornly — shall we say blindly? — re- 

 sisted it. He perceived the impending revolu- 

 tion and unhesitatingly cast his influence on 

 the side of the new regime. It was evident 

 that, with the development of scientific re- 

 search in many branches, with the quickening 

 interest in historical studies and economics, in 

 the fine arts, and in modem languages — that 

 tmder these circumstances the old hard and 

 fast curriculum was bound to break down; 

 that it had broken down. No college could 

 pretend to minister to the intellectual needs of 

 mankind which confined its students to the 

 narrow round of the classics, mathematics, cut- 

 and-dried philosophy, and a smattering of 

 physics and chemistry. The new wine was 

 bursting the old bottles. President Eliot 

 dared greatly. Under a storm of criticism he 

 boldly converted Harvard into an experimental 

 laboratory for the application of the elective 

 system. That experiment has not yet ended. 

 We may not have mastered all the principles 

 involved ; we are still overwhelmed by the mass 

 of details to be coordinated and subordinated. 

 But whatever final results the centuries may 

 bring, we can say now that President Eliot 

 achieved a success which astonished his sup- 

 porters and confounded his opponents. 



The elective system is based on the theory 

 that the best educational product is to be 

 obtained only when student and teacher enjoy 

 the widest intellectual freedom; and to this 

 theory President Eliot has adhered with un- 

 swerving consistency. Indeed, he is often ac- 

 cused of pushing it to extremes. The student 

 is allowed unrestricted range in the choice of 

 courses ; the professor's academic freedom has, 

 as President Eliot himself once expressed it, 

 been subject to only two limitations, "those 

 of courtesy and honor." The president, too, 

 has followed a liberal principle in picking his 

 faculty. He has never shown that suspicion 

 or dread of unusual intelligence, that predi- 

 lection for mediocrity, which marks some of 

 our heads of universities. He has selected the 

 ablest men he could find, whether graduates of 

 Harvard or not, and Harvard has thus 

 escaped the blight of inbreeding which two or 



three decades ago afflicted Yale so severely. 

 And all these policies have been carried out 

 with wonderful executive skill — with un- 

 exampled grasp of detail, with foresight, 

 patience, steadiness and tolerance. 



To find a man who can fiQ.1 his place is, 

 of course, impossible. His attention to public 

 questions and his utterances on such subjects 

 as labor and its rights have made him the 

 foremost private citizen of the United States. 

 But it will take a long time for the next 

 president of Harvard to establish such a 

 reputation. Even the administrative work 

 will have to be rearranged ; for the giants who 

 can lift the load to which his shoulders have 

 grovpn accustomed are few. Nor are Har- 

 vard's problems all solved. The practical ap- 

 plication of the elective system is full of dif- 

 ficulties. The system has been abused at 

 Harvard and elsewhere. Small institutions 

 of limited resources, ambitious to present an 

 imposing list of courses in the catalogue, have 

 sacrificed the instruction in the old studies 

 with well developed disciplines, in order to 

 spread the teaching thin over a broad field. If 

 Harvard has been able to avoid this form of 

 enfeeblement and demoralization, it has had 

 other forms to contend with. Committees of 

 the faculty are still trying to derise means 

 by which students shall not divide and dis- 

 sipate their energies in too many directions, 

 or shall not slip through college on " soft " 

 courses and practically avoid all study. 

 These, however, are minor matters; for if 

 Harvard can maintain a distinguished faculty, 

 can make the conditions of life and teaching 

 at Cambridge so attractive as to draw to its 

 service the finest minds and characters in 

 America, the rest will be comparatively easy. 

 Thus President Eliot's successor can, as the 

 letter of resignation puts it, face " the sure 

 prospect of greater labors and satisfactions to 

 come." — New York Evening Post. 



SCIEIVTIFIC BOOKS 

 Marine Engineering. By Engineer-Com- 

 mander A. E. Tompkins, Royal Navy, 

 Late Instructor in Steam and Marine Engi- 

 neering, Machine Construction, etc., at the 

 Royal Naval College, Greenwich, and Lee- 



