Mabch 12, 1909] 



SCIENCE 



409 



needed not to be investigated, but to be 

 learned and applied. The future theo- 

 logian learned respect for authority as he 

 searched the scriptures of Hadley and 

 Goodwin, or Liddell and Scott. In the 

 statutes and decisions of Harkaess the fu- 

 ture disciple of Blaekstone gained prac- 

 tise in tracing subjunctive or dative back 

 to its constitutional rights and limitations. 

 To watch for agreement in gender, num- 

 ber and case, remains, I am told by legal 

 educators, an unmatched training for legal 

 procedure. Finally, Euclid 's axioms were 

 the favorite symbol for the supposedly 

 fixed rules of eternal right which every 

 good citizen should learn to respect and 

 obey. If there was any doubt as to this 

 fixity the course in philosophy was calcu- 

 lated to remove it. 



This exact adaptation of the method of 

 college to the methods of the professions 

 seems to account, in part at least, for the 

 results achieved in the way of efficient 

 training. It was maintained and the 

 claim need not here be challenged, that 

 the old college training gave power and 

 effectiveness. Modem experimentation 

 has tended to discredit the abstract con- 

 ception of "power," gained once for all by 

 some hard study, and then applied to any 

 task that presents itself. But the old 

 training was not isolated or in a vacuum. 

 It was about as near the whole habit of 

 mind and technique of method which later 

 life would employ as anything that could 

 be devised. It was thus essentially, al- 

 though unconsciously, vocational in 

 method, while "liberal" in ideal. 



Both in its intellectual ideal of liberal 

 or free culture, and in its method of in- 

 struction the college was therefore well 

 fitted for its former place in American 

 society. No wonder that the educational 

 creator pronounced it all very good. And 

 so long as the Sabbath Day lasted the sys- 

 tem was beyond criticism. 



n. THE PRESENT SITUATION 



The variety of subjects now offered, and 

 the elective system as the method of de- 

 termining the student's course, are in part 

 due to the activity of science in organizing 

 new materials. "With the wealth of re- 

 sources offered by the natural and social 

 sciences and by modern literatures it 

 seemed impossible to restrict access to the 

 city of the elect to the single straight and 

 narrow path formerly followed. There 

 must be gates on four sides instead of on 

 one. But there has also been a social fac- 

 tor in the change, even if it has not always 

 been consciously recognized. 



Economic and social expansion has in- 

 creased greatly the number of occupa- 

 tions for which trained intelligence is 

 needed. Technical schools have arisen in 

 partial answer to this demand, but the col- 

 lege has made its responses also through 

 its variety of subjects with its freedom of 

 individual selection. The progress of 

 science, as represented especially in the 

 graduate school, has no doubt in many 

 cases given to subjects a specialized mode 

 of treatment which is as, technical in its 

 way as the method which any professional 

 school pursues. This apparently suits 

 well the needs of one of the new vocations 

 for which the college has come to be a prep- 

 aration — that of the teacher. The young 

 women who have come to form so large a 

 part of our college constituency, and who 

 for the most part have been looking for- 

 ward to teaching, have found their needs 

 well met. But for other occupations, es- 

 pecially for non-professional life, no such 

 vocational connection has been worked 

 out. Studies have become individualistic 

 and detached in a far greater degree than 

 was true of the old curriculum, which was 

 really, though unconsciously, vocational. 



But economic and social expansion has 

 had another consequence for the college. 

 It has increased greatly the number of 



