Mabch 5, 1909] 



SCIENCE 



373 



large measure, according to his own idio- 

 syncrasies, tastes and professional plans. 

 With this change in the studies of the 

 college course has been associated a change 

 in the constituency of the college. In 

 earlier days the fixed curriculum of the 

 college was supposed, rightly or wrongly, to 

 be adapted to furnish the best substratum 

 for the subsequent professional training 

 of men who were dedicated to the three 

 pursuits known as the "learned profes- 

 sions" — the ministry, the law and medi- 

 cine. The members of these professions 

 formed a sharply defined intellectual 

 aristocracy. Membership in that aristoc- 

 racy was, in large degree, hereditary. 

 The members of these professions consti- 

 tuted what Dr. Holmes has felicitously 

 called "the Brahmin caste" in the Ameri- 

 can society of earlier days. For those 

 boys who were not destined for the learned 

 professions, and for all girls, the training 

 of the common schools in the three R's was 

 supposed to be all-sufficient. To-day 

 there is no such Brahmin caste. The 

 aristocratic constitution of society has 

 changed to one which is intellectually, as 

 well as politically, democratic. The acad- 

 emies and high schools teach the rudiments 

 of the new learning to boys and girls who 

 have no aspiration for any specially 

 learned professions, but who are to do the 

 common work of men and women in so- 

 ciety. In the changes which have passed 

 over society new professions have de- 

 veloped which rival the old learned pro- 

 fessions in their demand for advanced in- 

 tellectual training. The work of the 

 teacher has been evolved into a distinct 

 profession, instead of being merely an inci- 

 dental and temporary employment for 

 persons who were ultimately to pass into 

 other walks of life. The applications of 

 science in the various useful arts have 

 created a demand for advanced intellec- 

 tual training on the part of multitudes of 



men who are destined not to lives of scho- 

 lastic seclusion, but to lives whose business 

 is with the concrete realities of the mate- 

 rial world. There is no sharp distinction 

 between a learned class and an unlearned 

 mass; there is rather an indefinite grada- 

 tion from the most educated to the least 

 educated members of the community. 

 Now that the sciences of nature, the mod- 

 ern languages and literatures, history, eco- 

 nomies and sociology have assumed a domi- 

 nant position in the college course, the 

 college attracts to itself a much wider and 

 more varied constituency. Not alone the 

 devotees of the ancient learned professions, 

 but multitudes of those who are going into 

 the variety of pursuits embraced under 

 the general name of business, throng to 

 the college, and find there instruction and 

 training which will fit them for larger 

 views of their own calling and for broader 

 service as citizens. The college commu- 

 nity has become relatively heterogeneous. 

 Precisely herein lies the danger to which 

 I have thought it worth while to call your 

 attention. In the olden time it was as- 

 sumed that every student in college was 

 dedicated to a distinctively intellectual 

 pursuit. His life was to be a scholarly 

 life. Hence a scholarly aim, more or less 

 definitely conceived and more or less con- 

 sistently maintained, during the college 

 course, was expected on the part of all. 

 Now a large share of college students are 

 looking to something very different from a 

 life of learned seclusion. They are to be 

 in the busy world of affairs; they are to 

 develop the material wealth of the com- 

 munity. The careers for which they are 

 intending to fit themselves will demand in- 

 tellectual vigor and, in many cases, a con- 

 siderable degree of special knowledge; but 

 they are not careers that would naturally 

 be called scholarly. Hence there comes a 

 pressure exerted upon college faculties to 

 tolerate a lower standard in the scholastic 



