July 25, 1913] 



SCIENCE 



119 



will have the right to feel that it is con- 

 ducting a study sufficiently scientific, seri- 

 ous and fundamental to be worthy of the 

 seriousness and importance of its educa- 

 tional responsibilities. Then and only then 

 will it possess a body of facts from which 

 it can gain genuine light with regard to 

 such problems as the following : 



I. The relation between (a) the college 

 course and "success in life" (however de- 

 fined), ('&) between scholarship and suc- 

 cess, (c) between particular fields of study 

 and success, etc. II. The extent to which 

 the college course modifies the student's 

 (1) character, (2) intellectual capacities 

 and characteristics, (3) social and (4) 

 moral nature, (5) life plans; with (6) the 

 general direction of such modifications. 

 III. The extent to which (a) it extends the 

 fields of interest and information brought 

 to college, and (6) adds new fields. IV. 

 The approximate comparative importance 

 as factors in these modifications of (a) 

 teachers, (&) subjects, (c) student activi- 

 ties, {d) companions, etc. V. In compari- 

 son with the college, the influence on schol- 

 arship in college and on success in life of 

 such elements of the home and preparatory 

 environment, as (a) social, economic and 

 educational status of parents (including 

 the size of the family), (&) the geograph- 

 ical location, size and chief characteristics 

 of the home town or city — especially in its 

 general educational and moral agencies, 

 also (c) the educational standards and 

 methods of the secondary school. 



Only then will every month and every 

 year and every person connected in any 

 way with the educative processes be made 

 to contribute its proper quota to the wis- 

 dom which the present should receive from 

 the past and the future demands of the 

 present, a quota of which our educational 

 generation has been cheated by an unor- 

 ganized and unscientific past. 



Only then, also — and it is to be consid- 

 ered one of the most important products, 

 if only a by-product of the whole plan — 

 will there be an organized way for making 

 evident the distinction between the college 

 and the university teacher. For if the 

 blanks coming from any one teacher are 

 found invariably to indicate a complete 

 lack of interest in, and just judgment of, 

 the pupil, it will indicate that, so far as the 

 college is concerned, that teacher has prob- 

 ably not sufficient human interest to be 

 worthy of his collegiate responsibility, 

 though he may be entirely worthy of the 

 work of interpreting his field within the 

 less broad and general channels of the 

 university.^ 



Who will attempt to estimate the value 

 of a five-year study along the line sug- 

 gested as conducted by a number of insti- 

 tutions, to say nothing of its value if con- 

 ducted simply by one institution? Since 

 President Harper proposed the plan, the 

 world has made an amazing advance in the 

 adoption of the scientific method. After 

 all, the scientific method is nothing more 

 or less than the collecting of facts and their 

 use in the accomplishment of desired ends. 

 In this use the facts are proved as weU as 

 taken advantage of. The period in which 

 we live, as the result of the spread of this 

 scientific method, may well be called the 

 "pragmatic period" — owing allegiance, 

 that is, not so much to the reign of law as 

 to the reign of results. No one believes 

 that the coUege is going to be found per- 

 manently unable to adapt itself not only 

 to life, but to development and growth in 

 such a period. But this means that it is 



^ ' ' The college is the place for the student to 

 study himself — and for the instructor to study 

 each student and to point out his weak and his 

 strong points. . . . The university is for men who 

 have come to know themselves ... to study in the 

 line of their chosen calling. ' ' President Harper, 

 "Trend in Higher Education," p. 324. 



