Decembeb 1, 1911 J 



SCIENCE 



741 



dustrial arts, home economics (just now 

 agriculture is seeking admission), has com- 

 pelled the schools to widen their curricula 

 and strengthen their teaching force. In 

 these circumstances the idea of some read- 

 justment inevitably arises. The university 

 is in duty bound to confer with the normal 

 schools and to seek a wise solution for the 

 problem. So, too, with the private colleges 

 of the state, the university must be on the 

 friendliest terms. Close relations between 

 these colleges and the professional schools 

 of the university should be established, so 

 that there may be no semblance of com- 

 pulsion as to the place of collegiate prepa- 

 ration. The true unity of the state educa- 

 tional system consists not in official ma- 

 chinery, but in a spirit of mutual under- 

 standing, respect and good will among the 

 men and women to whom the educational 

 interests of the state are entrusted. 



The spirit of cooperation is more pal- 

 pable than another influence which should 

 radiate from the university. And that is 

 the scientific spirit. This is an attitude of 

 open-mindedness toward all truth, a de- 

 termination to get all the essential facts 

 before forming a judgment, a willingness 

 to abandon a position when it is no longer 

 intellectually tenable; a tolerance for the 

 opinions of others which are to be ac- 

 counted for rather than derided or de- 

 nounced. This spirit is free from acri- 

 mony, blind partisanship and prejudice. 

 In a world of eager activity, of personal 

 ambition, of keen group rivalry, of clashing 

 interests, with all the consequent bitterness 

 and misrepresentation, it is the duty of 

 the university both in its methods and in 

 its personnel to set a shining example of 

 that calm, fair-minded, tolerant spirit that 

 seeks the truth which makes men free. 



"The benefits the country derives from 

 the university," wrote Mr. Godkin thirty 

 years ago, "consist mainly in the refining 



and elevating influences they create, in the 

 taste for study and research which they 

 diffuse, in the social and political ideals 

 which they frame and hold up for admira- 

 tion, in the confidence in the power of 

 knowledge which they indirectly spread 

 among the people, and in the small though 

 steady contribution which they make to 

 the reverence for 'things not seen' in 

 which the soul of the state may be said to 

 lie and without which it is nothing better 

 than a factory or an insurance company." 

 There is no mention in all this of direct 

 utility through professional training or in- 

 dustrial efficiency. The editor of the Na- 

 tion would, perhaps, have repudiated these 

 things as Mr. Birrell did in an address he 

 gave to a body of London students. "The 

 education it (the university) essays to give 

 will not teach you to outgabble your neigh- 

 bor in the law courts, to unseat him in his 

 constituency or undersell him in the mar- 

 ket-place. Gentlemen, be it understood 

 once for aU, those things do not require a 

 university education. The commonwealth 

 may safely leave these to be performed by 

 the combination of the three primary 

 forces, ambition, necessity and greed. ' ' Of 

 our own Cornell University in its early 

 years the author of "Culture and An- 

 archy" wrote: It "seems to rest on a mis- 

 conception of what culture truly is, and to 

 be calculated to produce miners, or engi- 

 neers, or architects, not sweetness and 

 light. ' ' Here are pertinent questions. Can 

 the state safely leave to "ambition, neces- 

 sity and greed" the training of its profes- 

 sional men and its leaders? Has it no 

 place for culture, for what Arnold read 

 into Swift's phrase "sweetness and light"? 

 In its eagerness for valuable knowledge 

 and practical efficiency is the university 

 neglecting "the things that are more ex- 

 cellent"? Is it losing reverence for 

 "things unseen"? Of this there is always 



