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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXIX. No. 740 



omy has certainly had a tremendous effect on our 

 intellectual and spiritual life. The important 

 points are briefly these: (1) For the specialist 

 in science or in engineering, college laboratory 

 work of the right sort is an essential part of his 

 professional training. (2) For the non-technical 

 or general student, college laboratory work is 

 neither essential nor desirable; the emphasis in 

 this case should be laid on the services of science 

 in developing and maintaining intellectual, social 

 and economic life. 



Thus the college will have made the first 

 step towards a definite adjustment to the 

 conditions of life, when it has worked out a 

 fundamental, common basis which takes 

 up the essential and significant factors of 

 actually extant activities. It has next be- 

 yond this a specific duty in reference to 

 each individual, the duty of preparing him 

 for his particular function in just this 

 same society. The particular function of 

 the student must then at this moment be 

 decided: on native lines, if possible, but 

 decided, in any event. As to this I shall 

 have a word to say presently. Just now I 

 point out that the valid scope of election 

 can extend only to such choice of individ- 

 ual function. That choice once made, it is 

 the business of the college to devise the 

 educational procedure that will give it 

 effect. The task is made generally pos- 

 sible of achievement by the fact that mod- 

 ern society has already been difiierentiated 

 into certain typical forms, a process 

 rapidly going further. The tendency is 

 not without dangers, which would, how- 

 ever, be partly combated by the general 

 cultural procedure already suggested, and 

 partly otherwise. To ascertain what the 

 types in question are and what the lines of 

 training adapted to each, the college must 

 again recur to the existing social situation, 

 in order to discover the forms in which 

 individual energy plays and to work out 

 for each its appropriate pedagogical ex- 

 pression. It is needless to attempt a list 

 of these types now. That again is a task 



for the college pedagogy yet unborn. 

 Local as well as general conditions here 

 come into play ; not impossibly the attempt 

 to recognize and to develop such types 

 may lead to a differentiation among col- 

 leges, each of which will then perhaps no 

 longer seek to be all things to everybody. 

 For purposes of illustration, having al- 

 ready touched upon engineering, I confine 

 myself now to the well-defined professions 

 of law and medicine and to trade. In each 

 of these we must organize a curriculum 

 which will constitute an effective prepara- 

 tion for a subsequent training that, once 

 begun, can not afford to concern itself with 

 preliminary matters, and that will also re- 

 late the career in question to social life at 

 large. In general, instruction on these lines 

 must be liberally and not just technically 

 conceived. Take the case of medicine. The 

 college will, within its limits, train broadly 

 when, free from any immediate tech- 

 nical responsibility such as exists in the 

 professional school itself, it presents every 

 subject philosophically as well as technic- 

 ally. The student of biology, physics and 

 chemistry is thus on the technical side pre- 

 paring for the study of medicine; mean- 

 while the bearing of modern scientific 

 methods and discoveries on the whole 

 trend of social speculation and activity 

 may be simultaneously made clear to him. 

 If we exclude the distractions that are now 

 largely through administrative timidity 

 suffered to consume much of his time and 

 energy, and organize his instruction, 

 as to both substance and method, with a 

 clear notion of what we are driving at, the 

 college years amply suffice for the thorough 

 two-sided treatment of the scientific basis 

 of subsequent medical study. 



The argument holds equally in refer- 

 ence to law. I submit that a careful 

 analysis of the function of the lawyer in 

 modern society will suggest a very definite 

 preparation for his career, though the col- 



