OCTOBEE 28, 1910] 



SCIENCE 



571 



Lean's prayei* was at once all embracing 

 and reminiscent; it descended from the 

 foreign powers to the heads of the United 

 States government, to the state of New 

 Jersey, through the trustees, the faculty, 

 and, in a perfectly logical manner, finally 

 reached the entering class. This naturally 

 raised a great disturbance among the soph- 

 omores, who were evidently jealous of the 

 divine blessing. The disturbance brought 

 the prayer to an abrupt close, and Dr. 

 McCosh was heard to remark: "I should 

 think that Dr. McLean would have more 

 sense than to pray for the freshmen." 



As regards the material into which 

 "productive thinking" is to be instilled, I 

 am an optimist. I do not belong to the 

 "despair school" of educators, and have 

 no sympathy with the army of editorial 

 writers and prigs who are depreciating the 

 American student. The chief trouble lies 

 not with our youth, nor with our schools, 

 but with our adults. How can springs rise 

 higher than their sources? On the whole, 

 you students are very much above the aver- 

 age American. Tou are not driven to these 

 doors; certainly in these days of youthful 

 freedom and individualism you came of 

 your own free will. The very fact of your 

 coming raises you above the general level, 

 and while you are here you will be living 

 in a world of ideas — the only kind of a 

 world at all worth living in. You are tem- 

 porarily cut off more or less from the world 

 of dollars and cents, shillings and pence. 

 Here Huxley helps you in extolling the 

 sheer sense of joy in thinking truer and ' 

 straighter than others, a kind of siiperior- 

 ity which does not mean conceit, the pos- 

 session of something which is denied the 

 man in the street. You redound with orig- 

 inal impulses and creative energy, which 

 must find expression somehow or some- 

 where; if not under the prevailing incur- 

 rent, or "centripetal s.vstem" of academic 



instruction, it must let itself out in extra- 

 academic activities, in your sports, your so- 

 cieties, your committees, your organizations, 

 your dramatics, all good things and having 

 the highest educational value in so far as 

 they represent your output, your outflow, 

 your centrifugal force. 



You are, in fact, in a contest with your 

 intellectual environment outside of these 

 walls. Morally, according to Ferrero, 

 politically, according to Bryce, and eco- 

 nomically, according to Carnegie, you are 

 in the midst of a " triumphant democracy. ' ' 

 But in the world of ideas such as sways 

 Italy, Germany, England, and in the high- 

 est degree France, you are in the midst of 

 a "tritimphant mediocrity." Paris is a 

 city where "ideas" are at a premium and 

 money values count for very little in public 

 estimation. The whole public waits 

 breathless upon the production of "Chan- 

 ticleer." That Walhalla of French am- 

 bition, "la Gloire," may be reached by 

 men of ideas, but not by men of the marts. 

 Is it conceivable that the police of New 

 York should assemble to fight a mob gath- 

 ered to break up the opera of a certain com- 

 poser? Is it conceivable that you students 

 should crowd into this theater to prevent a 

 speaker being heard, as those of the Sor- 

 bonne did some years ago in the ease of 

 Brunetiere? If you should, no one in this 

 city would understand you, and the police 

 would be called on promptly to interfere. 



A fair measure of the culture of your 

 environment is the depth to which your 

 morning paper prostitutes itself for the 

 dollar, its shades of yellowness, its frivolity 

 or its unscrupulousness, or both. I some- 

 times think it would be better not to read 

 the newspapers at all, even when they are 

 conscientious, because of their lack of a 

 sense of proportion, in the news columns at 

 least, of the really important things in 

 American life. Our most serious evening 



