January 30, 1914] 



SCIENCE 



159 



formance corresponds with their environ- 

 ment rather than with their heredity. 

 There is not a single mulatto who has done 

 creditable scientific work. 



According to unpublished statistics which 

 I have collected, 43 per cent, of our 

 scientific men come from the professional 

 classes who form one thirtieth of the pop- 

 ulation. Probably one half of them are 

 sons of the one per cent, of the popula- 

 tion most favorably situated to produce 

 them. A child must be well born if he 

 is to become a large figure in the world, 

 but there may be tens of thousands of 

 children born with the natural endow- 

 ments of our productive scientific men who 

 are given no opportunity to develop and 

 use their ability for the benefit of society. 

 A child with the exact constitution of Dar- 

 win born in China a hundred years ago 

 would surely not have become Darwin. 

 What chance would he have had in this 

 country, or even in England, if his father 

 had not been a man of wealth? The chief 

 object of our educational system should 

 be to select men and women for the work 

 for which they are most fit. To train them 

 for it is also important, but less so. In 

 England one half of its men of perform- 

 ance have been educated at two universi- 

 ties having together some 6,000 students, 

 nearly all from the dominant classes; one 

 half of its cabinet ministers have come 

 from a few interrelated noble families. It 

 may be that there the object of the univer- 

 sities has been to train the privileged 

 classes, of the trade schools to train artisans. 

 Here the end of our schools is to break 

 down, not preserve, the barriers of birth, to 

 provide opportunity, not privilege. 



Our democracy has not failed in its 

 quantitative provision of education, but it 

 has been backward in adjusting this educa- 

 tion to its needs. In the elementary school, 

 in the high school, in the conventional col- 



lege, to a certain extent in the university 

 with its professional schools, outworn tra- 

 ditions have persisted. The high school and 

 college are in large measure traditional fe- 

 male seminaries of the kind that used to 

 teaeh "Latin, logic and the use of globes." 

 The colleges of liberal arts when women are 

 excluded tend to unite the amusements and 

 amenities of a county club with the frivo- 

 lous amateurism and the futile scholasticism 

 of its class-rooms. The schools of medicine 

 and of law have been until recently trade 

 schools of poor grade, proprietary institu- 

 tions largely conducted for the indirect 

 financial profit of the professors. Endow- 

 ments are now being provided and stand- 

 ards are being raised, but there is some- 

 thing amiss in a system which does not per- 

 mit a man to become self-supporting or to 

 engage in his life 's work until he is twenty- 

 seven years old. If the cost of a physi- 

 cian's education must be $10,000, this 

 money should be paid for those most com- 

 petent to profit from it, not for those only 

 whose parents happen to have so much 

 money. 



Nothing could be more undemocratic and 

 anti-social than the plan of endowing — 

 namely, compelling the people to support 

 ^\'ithout the power to control — institutions 

 where the sons of the newly rich may ac- 

 quire the manners and prejudices of the 

 leisure classes, and at the same time to con- 

 duct trade schools in order that there may 

 be cheap skilled labor for exploitation. But 

 the road to democracy may be paved with 

 bad intentions. It is one of the ironies of 

 history that the university endowed by 

 wealthy and pious patrons for the educa- 

 tion of the clergy and the upper classes, 

 intended for the support of church and 

 state, should by the nature of knowledge 

 subvert the old orthodoxy and the old social 

 and political system. It is safe to predict 



