October 2S, iniO] 



SCIENCE 



583 



insistence on the advantages of small 

 classes, and on the necessity of bringing 

 the student into close personal contact 

 with his instructors. There can be no 

 doubt of the advantage of the former ar- 

 rangement in most subjects, and of the 

 desirability of the latter relationship 

 M'herever possible ; but there can also be no 

 doubt that the prevalence of the demand 

 for small classes in American colleges is 

 largely due to a failure to understand that 

 enthusiasm can be an educational stimulus, 

 and a consequent disposition to rely on 

 compulsion alone. If a teacher lacks the 

 power to interest a large class, he will not 

 gain it by having a small one to deal with ; 

 he will, however, usiially get better results, 

 for the new arrangement will enable him to 

 police his class better. Of course there is 

 no royal road to learning, and much re- 

 sistance has to be overcome, and much 

 drudgery done before any subject can be 

 thoroughl}' mastered, especially in modern 

 times when the quantity and complexity 

 of knowledge has increased so enormousl}^ 

 On the other hand, however, unrelieved 

 drudgery imparts no creative power to the 

 mind, especially if that drudgery is en- 

 forced. A drillmaster can teach an army 

 the manual of arms, and how to execute all 

 sorts of evolutions, but only a great gen- 

 eral can inspire courage and enthusiasm in 

 it by instilling into it a sympathy with the 

 purposes of the campaign. American edu- 

 cation undertakes to dispense with the gen- 

 eral and get along with the drillmaster, 

 largely because the drillmaster is a far 

 commoner type than the general. 



The prevalence of mediocre teachers in 

 America is due to a number of complexly re- 

 lated causes: the fii-st of which is a lack of 

 emotional power, the basis alike of personal 

 magnetism and spiritual insight. This is 

 an age of rationalism, and rationalism re- 

 inforced by commercialism, in America, 



becomes pure sensationalism — something 

 which is without moral sympathies, and 

 therefore blind. No one would desire to 

 have religious dogmatism control educa- 

 tion again, but that is no sufficient reason 

 for enduring something that errs as per- 

 versely in the opposite direction. There 

 are more things in heaven and earth than 

 are dreamed of in the philosophy of sen- 

 sationalism, or in that of reason unin- 

 spired by moral instinct either. We count 

 Shakespeare our greatest seer, and no one 

 woidd dare to say that he submitted his 

 reason to the domination of dogma or 

 superetition ; he sought for truth and 

 .sought it fearlessly wherever his gaze could 

 penetrate, and the verdict after three hun- 

 dred years is that it penetrated further, 

 and perceived more justly than that of any 

 other mind. Voltaire, however, a rational- 

 ist of the extreme type, could see but little 

 in Shakespeare, whose feeling and fancy 

 were largely outside the range of his com- 

 prehension. American education stands 

 before the world's knowledge much as Vol- 

 taire did before the wisdom of Shakespeare 

 — a large part of it lies outside the range of 

 its comprehension, and therefore goes un- 

 interpreted, even unperceived by it. 



Another cause for the lack of inspiring 

 teachers is the fact that commercialism be- 

 gets a tendency to construct a criticism of 

 life entirely in accordance with surface 

 conditions, and a consequent inability to 

 perceive truth in its ultimate form. Her- 

 aclitus of Ephesus regarded the universe 

 as like a river, into which it is impossible 

 to step twice and find it the same. Her- 

 aclitus, however, knew that though the 

 waters might linger calmly in one place 

 only to rush swiftly or plunge madly in 

 others, according to the nature of their 

 channel, they are yet controlled by laws 

 that are fixed and invariable; so that it is 

 the same force that impels them on all oc- 



