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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXVI. No. 658 



giving needed cultivation, esthetic, intel- 

 lectual and moral, to the individuals Avho 

 make up the student body of our mammoth 

 universities. 



We have yet to work our way through 

 the gaseous, centrifugal atomism of our 

 college elective courses into an organized 

 and unified national culture. 



We have not yet achieved a national 

 standard in our academic and professional 

 education, nor have we organized any 

 effective and economical cooperation among 

 our schools of graduate instruction and 

 research. 



We have not yet devised ways by which 

 public education can be definitely and ade- 

 quately focused upon the improvement of 

 our national morality. 



The list, again, is by no means complete, 

 but it is surely long enough for the pur- 

 poses of this discussion. 



I do not take a pessimistic view of the 

 situation in which these defects appear. 

 In every one of the particulars enumer- 

 ated, serious efforts toward improvement 

 are making even now, and we can not 

 doubt that full success will ultimately be 

 achieved. There have been devoted teach- 

 ers who have labored long for such im- 

 provement, and in some instances their 

 accomplishments have been great and 

 beneficent. But that our triumphs in these 

 particulars have been local and exceptional, 

 rather than permanent and national, will 

 be generally agreed, and it is well that we 

 look this unwelcome fact in the face. 



We may now attempt a direct answer to 

 the question which was asked at the begin- 

 ning. Are we an inventive people in the 

 field. of education? We are unmistakably, 

 an inventive people in this field. It can 

 hardly be doubted by any one who looks 

 upon the exuberant Americanism of our 

 elementary schools, the great expansion 

 and continued readjustment of our second- 



ary education, the growth of our universi- 

 ties and of univei'sity infiuence in ways 

 that catch so exactly our national char- 

 acteristics and turn them to academic ends; 

 nor can it be doubted by any one who 

 watches from year to year the spread of 

 our education into new fields- by new and 

 untried processes. We are inventive in 

 our education, but it is not yet clear that 

 we are preeminent in this regard, and our 

 educational invention still lags far behind 

 our invention in the domain of mechanism. 



We may be easily misled by the flatter- 

 ing reports of foreign visitors. With all 

 of their frankness in pointing out our de- 

 fects their general criticism of our schools 

 is for the most part extremely favorable. 

 But we must not forget that education 

 with us is in the sweep of a strong tide of 

 popular sentiment. Every invention that 

 we have put forth is carried forward by 

 that current and finds opportunity to do, 

 in full swing, its destined work. Not that 

 individual inventors do their work un- 

 hampered and with no discouraging de- 

 lays. That could never be. But by con- 

 trast with Europe, the way of educational 

 improvement here is direct and clear. We 

 cannot yet fairly judge what our education 

 would accomplish under greater difficul- 

 ties and in the face of closer competition. 

 It is safest for us to take the moderate 

 view, and hold that our educational suc- 

 cesses thus far, great and glorious as they 

 are, are only great enough to confirm our 

 hope and confidence, and not yet suf- 

 ficiently great to insure to us the ultimate 

 leadership. 



Our inventiveness in this field is less 

 conspicuous, as has been said, our educa- 

 tion shows less of readiness to seize obscure 

 suggestions and carry them through to un- 

 looked-for triumphs of efficiency, than that 

 which we have long disclosed in our Patent 

 Office reports. Yet this field is at least as 

 interesting as the other. It makes intense 

 appeal to widely differing minds, and 



