108 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXIII. No. 838 



been noted repeatedly, nor that there should 

 be general agreement as to its main cause. I 

 should also like to add the explanation that 

 I did not aim to present novel so much as 

 significant truth, and that in writing I bore 

 in mind the maxim of Dr. Johnson to the 

 effect that men need to be reminded rather 

 than informed. 



It would also be idle to discuss the ortho- 

 doxy of my method. " Orthodoxy," a witty 

 English bishop once explained, "is my doxy; 

 heterodoxy is another man's doxy," and the 

 same definition will serve for what is sound 

 scientific method to-day. I did not aim at 

 orthodoxy of method, but at effective presen- 

 tation of truth in writing; and it seems 

 to me that this is more important than or- 

 thodox procedure. In my discussion I had 

 to treat a very large subject within very nar- 

 row limits, and there is less detail in it than 

 I should wish, but the practical result of my 

 method was to enumerate certain abuses and 

 limitations that I thought I detected in our 

 educational theories and practises, and to 

 explain them as the result of certain economic 

 and temporal conditions the existence of which 

 I indicated. Now whatever the theoretical 

 excellence and unquestioned orthodoxy of 

 Professor Woodworth's method, its practical 

 result in his criticism, if he wished to counter- 

 act the effect of what I said, should have 

 been to bring forward some reason for be- 

 lieving that the abuses and limitations that 

 I have pointed out do not exist, and that I 

 am either mistaken or malicious when I say 

 that they do. Instead of this, however, its 

 practical result is to use a great many in- 

 definite expressions as if they had an exact 

 significance, and to claim that my case fails 

 unless college presidents and members of 

 governing boards profit directly from the way 

 they administer their trust. 



The question of the consistent and accurate 

 use of language is, I know, quite as inde- 

 terminate as the two preceding points I 

 have dealt with; for experience has taught 

 me how the mobile and fluid nature of philo- 

 sophic ideas prevents their being designated 

 and differentiated with entire success by 



means of language. In an article as com- 

 pressed as mine, I had to use far fewer checks 

 and elaborations than the character of the 

 ideas demanded, but in spite of this, I do not 

 feel that Professor Woodworth has demon- 

 strated that I have been guilty of any loose 

 or inconsistent use of language. I used the 

 word commerce, I think, consistently as 

 " a gigantic business," founded as much on 

 the caprices as on the necessities of men, an ac- 

 tivity which is therefore likely to become dom- 

 inated by " a pursuit of gain " that is more 

 apparent than real which, instead of being an 

 aid to progress, becomes a corrupting influ- 

 ence by creating an indifference to or an un- 

 consciousness of much good that is equally 

 important but less tangible. I did not mean to 

 deny the value of commerce, and I did mean 

 to make clear my opinion that, as a guide for 

 human activity, it is an improvement over 

 anything that has directed society in its 

 earlier stages. My purpose was simply to 

 show that the absolute control of thought and 

 aspiration by any one activity is bound to 

 create weaknesses that it is the business of 

 education to strive to correct. In using the 

 word commerce in the sense I have given, I 

 have used it in accordance with a definition 

 at once more specific and more comprehensive 

 than Professor Woodworth's definitive one; 

 and I have also, I think, laid more emphasis 

 on its vital principle than on its visible ex- 

 terior, which seems to me a sufficient explana- 

 tion of what my meaning is when I say (as 

 ■he predicted I would) that his criticism is an 

 illustration of a very marked tendency to deal 

 with facts and to neglect principles. 



Sidney Gunn 

 Massachusetts Institute 

 OF Technology, 

 December 2, 1910 



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