November 21, 1913] 



SCIENCE 



731 



changed for there is no perfection in any- 

 human agency and all are subject to the 

 charge of waste. I believe that the 

 charge of waste, so far as money waste 

 is concerned, has less foundation in con- 

 nection with education than in connection 

 with most other agencies of our American 

 life. This I believe to be true of Kan- 

 sas also. Waste in education does not 

 necessarily arise through a large expendi- 

 ture of money. It arises much more from 

 the lack of large expenditures of money, 

 for all those who are acquainted with 

 the great problems of education will 

 probably agree that there is no waste so 

 great, no extravagance so unjustifiable 

 as a false economy in education and there 

 is no use of funds so truly economical, so 

 immensely efficient as an expenditure of 

 public funds upon education as large as 

 the demands of our time and the outlook 

 for the future makes necessary. Therefore, 

 as I view it, the problem with us is not the 

 reduction in the expenditures by the state 

 for education but a large increase in the 

 expenditures of the state, and a most care- 

 ful and efficient administration of those 

 expenditures on the basis of the most ex- 

 pert and experienced advice that our most 

 expert and experienced administrators can 

 give. 



2. That there has been a change in the 

 general purpose of education there can be 

 little doubt. This was inevitable in con- 

 nection with the movement toward the 

 democratization of American life. It is 

 another aspect of the movement, whether 

 we like it or not, to achieve a real democ- 

 racy in the United States. To accomplish 

 this without the aid of the schools would be 

 most difficult for the schools are the main 

 agency by which the achievements of the 

 past are handed down to succeeding gen- 

 erations and by which fundamental changes 

 in the general operations of our life must be 



maintained. If the purpose of education 

 remained the same, if the intellectual dis- 

 cipline of our schools remained absolutely 

 rigid, progress would be almost if not quite 

 impossible. Every decade brings its new 

 discoveries. All of these accretions must be 

 added to what we are to hand down to the 

 rising generation. The modern public 

 high school, the modern public university, 

 bringing as they do within their sphere of 

 influence a vast throng of boys and girls 

 from every walk of life had to be adjusted 

 to the needs of this heterogeneous mass 

 and the institutions that were originally- 

 planned for the development of a profes- 

 sion or for a few callings in life or for the 

 more fortunate classes in our country have 

 been obliged to adapt themselves to the new 

 aspect of our national life. No change so 

 great as this may ever go on without its 

 accompanying dangers. This change has 

 been so rapid and so revolutionary as to 

 make permanent adjustment difficult. The 

 danger here lies in the possibility that the 

 basis of education may become the purpose 

 solely or largely to train for the ability to 

 accumulate wealth. In other words it may 

 become materialistic. Whatever defects 

 the old training had it was free from mate- 

 rialism. Therefore, as I view it, the prob- 

 lem in Kansas is by far-sighted wisdom to 

 secure such permanent adjustment as shall 

 make our institutions of learning hospitable 

 to all the permanent shiftings of our com- 

 munity life and at the same time to avoid 

 a materialistic purpose and basis of educa- 

 tion. 



3. Vocational education has been a nec- 

 essary outcome of the general industrial 

 development in our American life, and of 

 the change in the purpose of our education. 

 In 1889-90 there were only 203,000 pupils 

 in the public high schools in America. 

 There were in 1911-12, 1,105,000. In 1889- 

 1890 there were in colleges, universities 



