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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXII. No. 829 



ent problems of higher education, not 

 merely as they affect Cornell University 

 but from the point of view of American 

 universities in general. These problems 

 have to do with the student, the professor, 

 the subjects of the curriculum, and re- 

 search and productive scholarship. To 

 the consideration of these problems the 

 larger part of the report is devoted. There 

 is, however, an introductory statement on 

 liberal and practical education. 



Industrial and technical education has 

 the great merit, not merely of not aliena- 

 ting young men from manual labor, but of 

 keeping them in constant touch and 

 sympathy with it, requiring them to prac- 

 tise the simpler mechanical operations as 

 a part of their curriculum, and training 

 them meanwhile to take up more complex 

 varieties as a life-work after graduation. 

 There can be no manner of doubt that 

 practical and technical education, while 

 giving the individual student an excellent 

 mental discipline, has also stimulated the 

 agricultural and manufacturing industries 

 of the country. And at the same time, by 

 binding together the skilled hand and the 

 educated brain, it has wrought powerfully 

 for the maintenance and diffusion of the 

 spirit of social and political democracy. 



The ideal for the college is not difficult 

 to formulate. No student should be per- 

 mitted to remain in it who does not love 

 the arts and sciences for their own sake 

 and who does not show that love by devoted 

 study, unless indeed he is earnestly pur- 

 suing courses with the definite object of 

 preparing himself for some practical work 

 or professional career. To apply the ideal 

 in practise is more difficult because of the 

 number and variety of intermediate cases. 

 Yet no one can deny that in American 

 "colleges" in general, there are far too 

 many students without serious purpose. 

 They are there because their fathers are 



alunrni, or because their mothers recognize 

 the social value of a degree, or because the 

 boys themselves regard "college" as a 

 place for "a good time." Now the col- 

 leges of the country were never designed 

 for such persons ; and from the point of 

 view of the public interest and American 

 civilization there is no reason whatever 

 why they should be admitted, or, if ad- 

 mitted, suffered to remain. Fortunately 

 Cornell has not a social prestige which at- 

 tracts this class of students in any con- 

 siderable numbers and the dean and fac- 

 ulty are inexorable in their insistence on 

 full satisfaction of the requirements for 

 admission and advancement. And this is 

 the one hopeful course to pursue at the 

 present time. Hard work is the solution of 

 most of the college problems which educa- 

 tors are nowadays discussing. 



The future of the American university 

 is with the graduate school or department 

 of research. It is by the enlargement of 

 human knowledge that progress in civiliza- 

 tion and improvements in the life and con- 

 dition of mankind are rendered possible. 

 The scientific investigator who discovers 

 new laws of nattxre does more for the re- 

 lief, assistance and uplifting of his fellow- 

 men than all the politicians wbo deafen the 

 world's ears with their panaceas — too 

 often, alas, mere sounding brass and tink- 

 ling cymbals. And the infallible lessons 

 of human experience for thousands of 

 years — does not the scholar by patient re- 

 search spell them out and write them down 

 for our instruction? These two — the sci- 

 entist with his fruitful experiments, the 

 scholar with his productive research — are 

 the seers and accredited leaders of man- 

 kind in this twentieth century. In their 

 light we shall see light, otherwise we walk 

 in darkness. And it is such scientists and 

 scholars who constitute the research de- 

 partment of the university. 



