January 30, 1914] 



SCIENCE 



163 



for the production of well-born children 

 and their preparation for the work for 

 which they are fit. 



Existing conditions would be discourag- 

 ing if they were a relapse from better 

 things; but this is by no means the state 

 of affairs. The defects of our system 

 of education, our lack of distinction in 

 science, art and letters, the shortcomings 

 of our political and social institutions, are 

 due in larger measure to the survival 

 of standards and traditions from a pre- 

 democratic world than to the difficulties 

 inherent in a democracy. We may com- 

 plain of our simplicity and crudeness, of 

 our waste and incompetence, of our selfish- 

 ness and corruption, but this only means 

 that human nature and human conduct are 

 what they are. Montesquieu was doubtless 

 correct in saying that virtue is the principle 

 of democracy, but of what social or politi- 

 cal system is it not the basis? In what 

 other nation would the people respond to 

 the call of the primitive virtues with so 

 much alacrity as here under the leadership 

 of men such as Mr. Roosevelt, Mr. "Wilson 

 and Mr. Bryan? While virtue is essential 

 to a nation, intelligence is desirable. The 

 state should not neglect the advancement 

 of science and be content to provide a 

 hereditary sj^stem of education handed 

 down from generation to generation. The 

 Chinese have learned better. 



The way to improve our educational 

 work is to make the career of the teacher 

 such that the wisest men and women of the 

 country may be drawn to it, and then to 

 give them opportunity and encouragement 

 to develop a science of education and to 

 apply it. In our universities, especially in 

 our state universities, we have laid the 

 foundations. The national government in 

 its land grants to colleges of agriculture 

 and the mechanic arts, in its bureau of 

 education and in other directions, has ac- 



complished something, but not enough. The 

 secretary of a department of education and 

 science should be the ablest man in the 

 country, the president only excepted. The 

 federal government can make the most note- 

 worthy advance by the establishment of a 

 national university at Washington to co- 

 ordinate the work of its departments, to 

 advance science and education, to set stand- 

 ards to the states. The ideals of a people 

 must be symbolized in institutions. To sub- 

 stitute a constitution for a crown is futile. 

 The ideals of a democracy can best be em- 

 bodied in a great national university. We 

 should then join with other nations in the 

 establishment of an international university. 



It is clearly impossible in a forty-minute 

 address to discuss the contents and meth- 

 ods, the objects and results, of education, 

 from the kindergarten to the university, 

 from the crib to the death-bed. It is ex- 

 actly those subjects on which we are most 

 ignorant that can be talked about most 

 endlessly. I have not hesitated to express 

 opinions on various occasions' and have in- 

 dicated some of them in the course of these 

 remarks. But my plea is that the time has 

 now come when opinions, traditions and 

 rule-of-thumb methods should yield to a 

 science of education. Feeble infant as is 

 this section of education of the American 

 Association for the Advancement of Sci- 

 ence, it has more promise of development 

 than the best organized political party or 

 the most richly endowed denominational 

 church. It is the old story; — "The harvest 

 truly is plenteous, but the laborers are 

 few." If we could only realize what it 

 would mean to have a science of education, 

 a science of health, a science of conduct, 

 surely all the resources of our civilization 



3 FoT example, in three addresses published in 

 The Popular Science Monthly, " Concerning the 

 American University" (June, 1902), "The School 

 and the Family" (January, 1909), and "The 

 Case of Harvard College" (June, 1910). 



