Novembers, 1900.] 



SCIENCE. 



663 



Is education to have for its object the 

 training of the intellect, or is it to aim at 

 the development of character, or is it to 

 undertake both objects ? And if the char- 

 acter is to be developed, what are the for- 

 mal means which are to be used in this 

 development ? 



Tliese questions have been asked anx- 

 iously since sj'stems of education had their 

 beginning. In our day they seem to have 

 settled themselves, so far as the practical 

 efforts of the universities and colleges are 

 concerned, by a process of exclusion. It is 

 tacitly assumed, at present, that education 

 — like all other training — has for its end 

 the acquisition of power. In order to ac- 

 quire power quickly the whole effort in 

 modern education is directed toward the 

 training of the intellect. 



There is no disputing the fact that the 

 educated man has in the world a higher 

 potential by reason of his education. Is it 

 equally true that he has, on the average, a 

 stronger and higher type of character ? Is 

 the college man broader in his sympathies, 

 more tolerant, more courageous, more pa- 

 triotic, more unselfish by reason of his life 

 iu the walls of a university or of a technical 

 school ? Are the men who come each year, 

 in ever-increasing thousands, from the col- 

 lege doors, prepared to shoulder more than 

 their proportionate share of the burdens of 

 the State and of the country, or are they 

 provided with a training which will enable 

 them to more easily escape its obligations ? 



Let there be no misunderstanding in this 

 matter. Whatever our system of educa- 

 tion is doing or is leaving undone in the 

 development of character among its stu- 

 dents, the State is saying in terms which 

 are becoming every day more emphatic, 

 this : 



However desirable it is to train the mind 

 when it comes to the service of the State (if, 

 indeed, the same is not true in all service), 

 character is above intellect. It is vastly 



important to the State that her servants 

 shall be quick, keen-witted, eflBcient, but 

 it is absolutely necessary that they shall 

 be honest, patriotic, unselfish ; that they 

 should have before them some conception 

 of civic duty and proper ideals of civic 

 virtue. Give me men, intellectual men, 

 learned men, skilled men, if possible, but 

 give me men. 



It is the old story, this cry. It is the les- 

 son which every age preaches anew to the 

 age about to follow. Shall we ever learn 

 it ? Will it ever come to pass that in our 

 system of education the development of 

 character will go hand in hand with the de- 

 velopment of the intellect ; when to be an 

 educated man will mean also to be a good 

 man? 



Probably no one looks upon Plato's Ideal 

 Republic as the basis for any effort in prac- 

 tical politics, nevertheless it ought to be 

 true that civic virtue should be a part of 

 the life and of the environment of our seats 

 of learning, and that men, along with the 

 training of their minds, should grow into 

 some sort of appreciation of their duties to 

 the State, and come to know that courage 

 and patriotism and devotion rank higher in 

 this V)'orld's service than scholarly finish or 

 brilliant intellectual power. 



When we look back on our own history 

 as a nation we can but realize that in the 

 crises of our national life this truth has 

 been forced home to us. In the darkest 

 hours of the revolution it was the courage 

 the never-failing patience, the unselfish de- 

 votion, in a word, the civic virtue of George 

 Washington which was the real power upon 

 which the people leaned. 



In the agony of our civil war, when the 

 fate of the nation trembled in the balance, 

 the character of Abraham Lincoln, his devo- 

 tion, his hopefulness — above all, his knowl- 

 edge of and his faith in the plain people — 

 counted more than all else in the decision. 

 Neither of these men was the product of 



