OCTOBEK 28, 1910] 



SCIENCE 



579 



that the law of evolution is exemplified in 

 the intellectual quite as much as in the 

 physical worlds and as physical organs are 

 modified according to the use made of them, 

 so are intellectual powers and limitations 

 dependent, to a large extent, on the pm*- 

 poses that have stimulated and guided the 

 minds exhibiting them. The sort of knowl- 

 edge imparted and the methods of convey- 

 ing it are thus of secondary importance in 

 determining the effectiveness of an educa- 

 tional system, the far more significant thing 

 being the purposes that underlie their selec- 

 tion and employment. These purposes, in 

 turn, are the result in a given people of 

 the theory of life imposed on it by its en- 

 vironment and experiences; so that if the 

 physical characteristics and the history of 

 the "United States be examined, the ideas of 

 life's opportunities and obligations they 

 would be likely to foster can be determined, 

 and as a consequence the real inspiration 

 and guide of the American educational 

 system discovered. 



The territory occupied by the United 

 States has been inhabited by civilized 

 people only during modern times — a period 

 within which the dominant activit.y of man- 

 kind has been commerce. Commerce is a 

 secondary activity in a savage, barbarous 

 or imperfectly civilized society, where 

 hunting, pastoral or agricultural pursuits 

 direct the mental as they do the physical 

 activities of men. Commerce, however, is 

 at once the foundation and the directing 

 energ}- of our complex modern civilization, 

 and has made all simpler economic activi- 

 ties subject to its laws and parts of itself. 

 Its influence on life is thus very great in 

 modern times, but there are special reasons 

 why it is greater in America than anywhere 

 else. It was a commercial impulse that led 

 to the discover^' of America, and economic 

 pressure has impelled all but a small num- 

 ber of its settlers to its shores; while the 



virgin state of the country has made its 

 material development the engrossing effort 

 or interest of all its inhabitants up to a 

 very recent time, and its great natural re- 

 sources and advantages have created vast 

 wealth with such rapidity as to make the 

 economic activity imposed by necessity al- 

 luring as well. The philosophy we may 

 expect these circumstances to develop, then, 

 is that economic aims are the most laud- 

 able, economic pursuits the most attractive, 

 and economic achievements the most valu- 

 able in life. "We may also expect them to 

 create a disposition to regard the prin- 

 ciples of commerce as having universal ap- 

 plication, and a tendency to confuse these 

 artificial laws of limited application with 

 the eternal verities. 



Evidence of the effect of this philosophy 

 is not hard to find in the conduct of Amer- 

 ican institiitions of learning. Their com- 

 mercialism is everywhere recognized, in 

 fact, it is sometimes even recognized where 

 it doesn't exist by overzealous advocates 

 of reform. The fact is, that the American 

 colleges feel that the greatest success is 

 that which is commercially tangible, and so 

 aim frankly at it, believing that they are 

 most progressive when their methods are 

 most analogous to those of purely commer- 

 cial organizations. Publicity is courted in 

 the smaller colleges in a way that suggests 

 the philosophy, and often the phraseology 

 of the late Mr. Barnum, who, probably 

 without any knowledge of the Latin maxim, 

 Mundus vult decvpi, coined one of his own 

 to the effect that the American people like 

 to be humbugged. In the larger eastern 

 institutions there is more sophistication, 

 advertising being sought by more subtle 

 and less direct means: but commercial aims 

 are none the less the impulse behind them. 

 It is even said that it is the practise of 

 some institutions to employ scholarship 

 funds in a way that will prove to their 



