NOVEMBEK 18, 1910] 



SCIENCE 



699 



advanced, and it is a serious question how 

 much farther in this direction, if any, it is 

 wise to go. 



The colleges and universities of the 

 United States address themselves to the 

 average student ; and in a democracy there 

 will always be a strong feeling, which is 

 also perfectly natural and just, that higher 

 education shovild be open to all the boys 

 and girls of the country who are able to 

 pass the requisite examinations. The prac- 

 tise of this theory necessarily tends to make 

 the college and university of the country 

 revolve about the average student with a 

 strong pull in the direction of mediocrity. 

 But the student of superior endowments is 

 apt to be sacrificed to the general average. 

 Why might not Cornell University become 

 the peculiar nursery of such promising 

 spirits 1 A seminary for the aristocracy of 

 talent would be the highest and noblest in- 

 stitution in the world. And no other ser- 

 vice to a democracy could compare with 

 this : for to form the mind and character of 

 one man of marked talent, not to say 

 genius, would be worth more to the com- 

 munity which he would serve than the 

 routine training of hundreds of average 

 imdergraduates. 



A destiny and function of this high char- 

 acter could not be arbitrarily assigned to or 

 artificially imposed upon any university. 

 There could be a happy issue only when the 

 germs of such possibility were already in- 

 herent in the organization and operative in 

 its activities. A claim of this sort may be 

 made for Corneir University. If it is still 

 far from the ideal seminary for the aristoc- 

 racy of talent, the beginnings of that devel- 

 opment are visible in the membership of 

 the medical college and the graduate school 

 with their enthusiastic and untiring devo- 

 tion to independent research and produc- 

 tive scholarship — an intellectual function 

 which none but superior minds can success- 



fully discharge. And, in the second place, 

 while many undergraduates, even though 

 hard-working students, may be intellectu- 

 ally torpid and remain impervioiis to the 

 force of new ideas, there is a minority, a 

 saving remnant, not only in the course of 

 liberal arts and sciences but also in the 

 courses in agriculture, engineering and 

 other technical subjects who exhibit keen 

 intellectual interest, who become enamored 

 of knowledge, and who develop an ambi- 

 tion to distinguish themselves as scholars 

 or scientists. 



A genuine university consists of able 

 professors and students devoting them- 

 selves to scholarship and science. If this 

 fact is once recognized the proposal here 

 made will be seen to be at once important 

 and promising. It is, in short, that stu- 

 dents shall be selected with as much care 

 as members of the instructing staff, at any 

 rate for the highest division of the univer- 

 sity. It will not be practicable, and in all 

 probability it would not be desirable, for 

 Cornell University to exclude the student 

 of average ability if he can pass the pre- 

 scribed examinations. But let the superior 

 student be regarded as the supreme object, 

 let the men of talent be segregated and in- 

 structed by themselves. Of course, all this 

 would involve more endowments and addi- 

 tional teachers. If endowments were 

 forthcoming to foster a qualitative devel- 

 opment of this sort at Cornell University 

 the problem of numbers would take care of 

 itself. For this high spirit would gradually 

 take possession of the entire university. 

 The criterion of excellence would be ap- 

 plied to all departments. 



The order of relative importance of the 

 sciences in America must be inferred from 

 the attention they receive in the universi- 

 ties. And figures should be given both for 

 the undergraduate and graduate depart- 

 ments. The article in Science (August 19, 



