NOVEMBEE 4, 1910] 



SCIENCE 



611 



ence in no small degree the trend of our 

 educational institutions is the fact that our 

 population is rapidly increasing and that 

 the public domain now at our disposal for 

 future expansion is practically exhausted. 

 It is significant in this connection to ob- 

 serve that within the last one hundred 

 years, we have four times doubled our pop- 

 ulation, and it is a conservative estimation 

 that within the next century we shall be 

 obliged to maintain a population of more 

 than five hundred million people. Should 

 our population ever reach the present 

 density of that of England, for example, a 

 state no larger than Illinois would have 

 within its borders approximately as many 

 people as were living in the entire United 

 States at the beginning of the civil war. 

 With this increased density of population, 

 there are bound to come new and important 

 problems, which it is the part of good edu- 

 cational statesmanship to anticipate. 



Certainly one of the most fundamental 

 of these problems is the question of food 

 and the maintenance of the fertility of our 

 soil sufficiently to insure a permanent agri- 

 culture. The American people have wisely 

 foreseen that to meet this condition of con- 

 tinued prosperity scientific instruction in 

 agriculture is necessary, and in most of the 

 states magnificent provisions have been 

 made for it and most excellent results have 

 already been obtained. 



It is a matter of profound congratula- 

 tion that our philanthropists and our law 

 makers have exhibited such keen foresight 

 in making ample provision for these impor- 

 tant phases of our national development. 

 It is, however, a cause for still more pro- 

 found congratulation that while providing 

 for these fields of our educational activity, 

 there has been no disposition to sacrifice 

 the opportunity for educational advantages 

 in other lines, including the time-honored 

 liberal professions of law and medicine. 



In America, at least, we have come to 

 accept as a fundamental principle that the 

 supreme test of an education is the effi- 

 ciency of the training it gives the indi- 

 vidual to meet the demands of organized 

 society, and at the same time enable him 

 to contribute most either directly or indi- 

 rectly to the general progress of national 

 life. With our changing conditions in 

 mind, we may well study, therefore, some- 

 what more closely the general trend of our 

 educational ideals, to the end that we may 

 the better judge what more, if anything, 

 can be done to more fully prepare the 

 coming generation better to meet the de- 

 mands of the future and to discover, if 

 possible, some of those things which our 

 educational institutions .should undertake 

 in a broad and comprehensive manner if 

 they are to promote our national interests 

 to the highest degree and enable America 

 to contribute its full share to the world's 

 progress. 



The most potent influence in recent edu- 

 cational movements, the dominant factor 

 which more than any other has led us to 

 modify both the content of our college cur- 

 ricula and our methods of instruction, has 

 been the growing importance of the sci- 

 ences and the development of the scientific 

 spirit. It has been of fundamental impor- 

 tance in the marvelous strides which we 

 have made in both industrial and technical 

 education and is bound to be still more 

 significant in the continued development of 

 our educational activity in these lines. 

 Significant, however, as has been our in- 

 debtedness to the sciences in the affairs of 

 everyday life and in technical education, 

 still more important, from an educational 

 point of view, is the influence which the 

 scientific spirit has exerted upon educa- 

 tional progress in general and in pai'ticular 

 upon the character of the work usually ac- 

 cepted for a liberal academic degree. The 



