370 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXVI. No. 664 



While these ideas do not seem to have 

 affected the early curriculum, they are a 

 prevision of the most important contribu- 

 tion made to education by Lafayette under 

 the leadership of the great teacher, the 

 great scholar and the great man, who just 

 fifty years ago became professor of the 

 English language and comparative phi- 

 lology, and introduced into our colleges 

 the scientific study of English and Anglo- 

 Saxon. 



The Cambridge College, transplanted to 

 the new Cambridge in 1636, and later to 

 Virginia, Connecticut, New Jersey, Penn- 

 sylvania and New York, brought hither 

 its organization and its curriculum; and 

 these have been slowly and partially 

 adapted to an industrial democracy. The 

 curriculum and culture of the English Col- 

 lege were esoteric. The church of the 

 semi-reformation and the dead languages 

 were in nominal control, but they touched 

 lightly the young gentlemen destined to 

 manage their feudal estates and to extend 

 the British empire. The aristocratic Eng- 

 lish college of church and state with its 

 classical curriculum was transplanted to 

 scenes not excessively caricatured in Mar- 

 tin Chuzzlewit or by Mrs. Trollope, yet not 

 alien to men such as Franklin or Jef- 

 ferson, not lacking tendencies such as those 

 expressed by Emerson or "\ATiitman. The 

 new colleges, following closely on the foot- 

 steps of the pioneers, were naive, not 

 crud^; simple and narrow, but not philis- 

 tine; 'lacking in perspective, but rich in 

 ideals. 



The American College has performed a 

 great service. The statistics which show 

 that college graduates are more likely than 

 others to succeed in certain professions are 

 not in themselves significant. One might 

 as well argue for compressed feet, because 

 Chinese women who follow the practise are 



more likely than others to marry man- 

 darins. The ablest and most energetic 

 men have gone to college, and the coUege 

 has been the normal gateway to certain 

 careers. It was, however, a gain to bring 

 together many of the more promising 

 young men and to give them such training 

 and culture as might be. The college was 

 the natural threshold to the church, to law 

 and to medicine, so long as adequate pro- 

 fessional schools were lacking. But when 

 to these professional schools others in engi- 

 neering, education, journalism and busi- 

 ness have been added, it is not obvious 

 how the old college of liberal arts will 

 maintain its place. Technical studies 

 should begin in the high school and liberal 

 studies should be continued in the pro- 

 fessional school. The college must adjust 

 itself to these conditions. 



Nothing in our educational history, in- 

 deed nothing in our whole civilization, is 

 more hopeful than the increase of public 

 high schools from 2,500 in 1890 to more 

 than 8,000 to-day; of the students from 

 200,000 to more than 700,000. Nothing 

 is more scandalous than the circumstance 

 that seventy-five per cent, of the boys who 

 enter the high school are driven away by 

 its futility and feminization. The obso- 

 lescent culture of the college imposes itself 

 on the high-school curriculum, even though 

 of twelve boys who enter the high school 

 only one proceeds to the college. The high 

 school should and must primarily give 

 trainiag for the life work of the student, 

 but with this should be united sympathetic 

 appreciation of what is best in the past 

 and present of the world, and the impulse 

 to improve and create. We shall have 

 10,000 centers for training, culture and 

 research, as soon as we produce educa- 

 tional leaders to man them. And the high 

 school will educate its students so far as is 

 possible Avithout specialization beyond the 



