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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXII. No. 826 



ward conviction is evident to the student, 

 and is far more effective in forming his 

 opinion than any merely perfunctory ut- 

 terances that no more express personal 

 belief than the forms of common polite- 

 ness express personal regard. Such a 

 theory of education as this, of course, 

 makes no attempt to develop either the 

 imagination or the judgment, and no credit 

 is accordingly given for the possession of 

 these qualities ; so that the test for scholar- 

 ship becomes largely physical in character, 

 success in it depending on ability to apply 

 one's self without remission to the acqui- 

 sition and the retention intact of large 

 masses of minute information, a task too 

 monotonous and mechanical for any highly 

 organized mind to endure without injury. 

 The evils in the train of this theory are 

 thus numerous. It propagates intellectual 

 bigotry; it rewards mediocre intellectual 

 achievement, and discourages by its neg- 

 lect the cultivation of the higher powei-s 

 of the mind; while the excessive applica- 

 tion it imposes creates an environment in 

 which leisure and reiiection — both essen- 

 tial to true scholarship — are impossible. 



Opposed to this theory, which makes 

 anything like higher education impossible 

 in most American colleges, is another, to 

 some extent the outgrowth of it, in which 

 it is perhaps easier to trace direct com- 

 mercial influence. It is a belief that, al- 

 though education is the acquisition of in- 

 formation, not all information is of equal 

 importance, but that it must be valued 

 according to its rarity, and like many 

 articles of commerce, according to its re- 

 moteness from any possibility of use. The 

 men who hold this theory do much to 

 confirm the pedants just mentioned in the 

 control of cultural education ; for the pub- 

 lic having to judge only between the two 

 types (others being of very rare occur- 

 rence), justly regards the pedants as the 



more worthy of its respect; for they at 

 least have vigor and activity to recom- 

 mend them, and knowledge, that though ill- 

 assorted and often of ridiculous insignifi- 

 cance, is still extensive; while their op- 

 ponents have only languor, effeminacy and 

 conceit to justify their claims to leader- 

 ship. Apparently the pedants are grate- 

 ful to their foes for this support, even 

 though it is unwillingly afforded, or per- 

 haps thej^ really feel a consciousness of the 

 insufficiency of their own teaching; at any 

 rate, they show themselves extremely toler- 

 ant of their rivals, and very ready to ac- 

 cord them a certain amount of recognition. 

 Professor Irving Babbitt has pointed out, 

 in his "Literature and the American Col- 

 lege," the prevalence of either pedantry 

 or dilettantism in the teaching of literature 

 in the United States; and he has made 

 clear the further fact that there is an un- 

 holy alliance between them, and that 

 pedantry occasionally recognizes dilettant- 

 ism in order to avoid the necessity of ac- 

 knowledging the claims of seholai-ship 

 that might prove more dangerous to its 

 supremacy. The effect of this dilettante 

 theory is thus, directly, to encourage intel- 

 lectual frivolity and presumption; and 

 indirectl}^, by confirming the rule of 

 pedantry, to place a handicap on real 

 scholarship. 



Cultural education is thus ineffective in 

 this country because it has no direct eco- 

 nomic application, and all attempts to jus- 

 tifj' it on other grounds have been lacking 

 in intelligence or sincerity. Such attempts 

 are of course incapable of arousing any 

 sincere or lasting enthusiasm; so it is not 

 to be wondered at that men who can in- 

 spire enthusiasm are even rarer in Amer- 

 ica than elsewhere. It is almost impossible 

 for American colleges to find men who can 

 lecture to large bodies of students with any 

 success ; and this has led to a great deal of 



