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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXIX. No. 741 



been that of a "liberal culture." This 

 formerly meant three things: As con- 

 trasted with studies pursued for utilitar- 

 ian ends solely or chiefly, it meant genuine 

 intellectual interest. As contrasted with 

 studies determined by the external re- 

 quirements of future vocation, it meant 

 study directed by the inner, personal valu- 

 ations, aptitudes, or desires of the scholar 

 himself. In both these respects it meant 

 "liberation," and freedom — freedom for 

 the life of the spirit as over against ex- 

 ternal necessities or constraints. And in 

 the third place, as predominantly classical, 

 it gave a glimpse of another and different 

 ■civilization. To the boy or girl brought 

 up in the meager and isolated environment 

 of New England hiUs or pioneer farm it 

 opened a vista. It gave the testhetic value 

 of detachment. Some of finer temper 

 caught the full inspiration of converse 

 and companionship with the great minds 

 they came to know. In this sense it was 

 really humanizing. And for ordering 

 one's life and measuring life's values, how 

 could one better gain a point of view from 

 which to see life steadily and whole than 

 in the perspective of the best that had 

 been thought and said? 



Now this general scheme of freedom 

 and individualistic literary culture fitted 

 admirably the religious, political and 

 social ideals. For protestantism was re- 

 ligious individualism. Governments were 

 supposed to exist to protect individuals in 

 their natural rights. With practical eco- 

 nomic equality, and in a rural, independ- 

 ent mode of life, freedom from external 

 constraint seemed to be the chief social 

 good. And as regards utilitarian de- 

 mands, in spite of the hard conditions 

 under which life was often led, it was a 

 tradition from early colonial daj's which 

 had not failed of reenforceraent that man's 

 life did not consist in his possessions. 



The prevailing method of classical 



study, and of the mathematics and philos- 

 ophy that went along with it, was also 

 strikingly adapted to the professional 

 training and general social order of the 

 period. For the three professions for 

 which the college prepared were occupied 

 chiefly in deducing the consequences from 

 fixed first principles. Systematic theology 

 or grammatical exegesis was the minister's 

 task in the seminary. The statutes, on the 

 one hand, and past decisions on the other, 

 with some fundamental conceptions of 

 natural rights, were the fixed datum of 

 the lawyer. The physician might be less 

 certain of his ultimate principles, but 

 whether "regular" or "homeopathic," his 

 method was about as dogmatic ; and as for 

 society, its social, political and moral 

 standards and categories were all sup- 

 posed to be established. Even the move- 

 ment for the abolition of slavery needed 

 only the familiar conceptions of rights 

 and freedom. The moral standards could 

 still be regarded as unchanged. The 

 scriptures and the Declaration of Inde- 

 pendence could be appealed to, and al- 

 though some went so far as to denounce 

 the Constitution, American society as a 

 whole strove rather to make its attitude 

 seem to accord with the Constitution than 

 to admit frankly that social needs had out- 

 grown the Constitution. "Legal fiction," 

 through which the courts like to preserve 

 the semblance of fixed principles, could 

 probably never have been taken so seri- 

 ously, even by the law itself, if it had not 

 suited on the whole the conservative 

 temper of American society. On the one 

 hand, therefore, the learned professions, 

 on the other, society as a whole, had a 

 relatively fixed system. 



How admirably the classical and mathe- 

 matical method of the time prepared the 

 student for such a scheme of fixed con- 

 ceptions! Syntax and prosody presented 

 a perfect system, a logical whole, which 



