March 5, 1915] 



SCIENCE 



351 



we shall be surprised that even this limited 

 store of information has not been put to 

 some practical use. Even in scientific labo- 

 ratories by utilizing this information the 

 conditions under which research is carried 

 on could be greatly improved. Progress 

 would be more rapid if scientific men esti- 

 mated successful achievements not only by 

 counting the number of new facts dis- 

 covered by an investigator, but by meas- 

 uring the dynamics of human nature and 

 the character of the mental processes by 

 which investigators attained their results. 

 Occasionally the scientific atmosphere be- 

 comes so oppressive that we are justified in 

 taking precautions so that anomalous emo- 

 tional reactions, cynicism, moods of depres- 

 sion and exaltation, over-valued ideas, ob- 

 sessions, paranoid trends of thought and the 

 maniac's capacity for indulging in invec- 

 tive and controversy, as well as in depre- 

 ciating the achievement of other persons, 

 may be replaced by more desirable mental 

 mechanism. 



The importance of the early formation 

 of desirable mental habits is a principle 

 reiterated so often that it makes many 

 moments unhappy ones during the copy- 

 book age, but the practical application of 

 the doctrine to increase our happiness and 

 efficiency in living is almost ignored by the 

 present educational system in America. A 

 system of education based upon the vital 

 principle that success in living should be 

 measured by the ease with which the hu- 

 man machine works, and not by the amount 

 of cargo stored in the hold, would be of 

 incalculable benefit to our race. 



No more effective demonstration that 

 science is common sense at its best is needed 

 than the justification derived from the 

 modern methods of studying mental phe- 

 nomena of making habit-formation the chief 

 function of elementary teaching, and from 

 this procedure follows a natural and not 



arbitrary division between school and uni- 

 versity; the former would then be recog- 

 nized as the place in which habit-mechan- 

 isms are carefully trained, and the latter a 

 field for trying out under supervision the 

 activities essential for independent think- 

 ing, and for offering encouragement to 

 competent persons to contribute to the ex- 

 tension of human knowledge. 



If the citizens of this country are ani- 

 mated by a sincere desire to maintain a 

 condition of peace expressing the activities 

 of virile manhood and not the idle dreams 

 of those who are unable to protect them- 

 selves against aggression, a well-directed 

 effort should be made to assist those poten- 

 tially capable of intellectual leadership to 

 develop their mental faculties to the maxi- 

 mum of efficiency. Although leaders of 

 thought may now be classed as among the 

 actual necessities of life, the atmosphere of 

 the American university is distinctly favor- 

 able for the growth of dilettantism and 

 mediocrity. These institutions suddenly 

 find themselves called upon to do their 

 share in bringing about a readjustment of 

 civilization hampered by an organization 

 continually modified to meet either the 

 demands of alumni, who for purely senti- 

 mental reasons are disinclined to aid 

 actively in carrying out the proposed trans- 

 formation of college into university or the 

 increasing number of protestations coming 

 from the champions of a hysterical ath- 

 leticism. The measure of our intelligence 

 as well as capacity to control effusive senti- 

 mentalism may be readily gauged by the 

 methods we adopt in attempting to trans- 

 form the universities into centers from 

 which a spirit of intellectual leadership 

 may be disseminated. 



One result of "the splendid isolation" 

 of our universities from each other has been 

 that a chain of fictitious values for both 

 ideas and ideals is established that empha- 



