DECEMBER 10, 1897. ] 
that once delighted and instructed the high 
school pupils, the microscope and its world 
of revelations, the herbarium, the museum 
and the dissecting knife, have been aban- 
doned and in their place Latin, German and 
French have been substituted. Of all the 
subjects required for admission to the State 
University, students come best prepared in 
Latin, because the requirements in this 
subject have been made most severe and 
important. Instruction in the natural 
sciences in the secondary schools of our’ 
State is superficial and imperfect in the 
highest and most astounding degree. Of 
all those who are candidates for the State 
teacher’s certificate to teach the sciences it 
is the exception that one has as much 
knowledge of any branch as might be ac- 
quired by the diligent student in ten weeks 
of work ; rare that an examination paper is 
the equal of those offered by the second-rate 
students in our University. 
Put, however, the same emphasis upon 
botany, zoology, chemistry and geology 
that is given to Latin and the preparation 
would very soon be fully as good, fully as 
thorough. Let the high school scholar 
learn that the study of the natural sciences 
is deemed as valuable in his preparatory 
training as is language or mathematics and 
there will be no lack of good teachers. 
Were I, then, to say what the universities 
and colleges ought to do it would be this: 
Make all the ancient language require- 
ments for admission optional, and demand 
as much preparation in the physical and 
biological sciences as in the foreign lan- 
guages. The preparation in English should 
be made far more rigorous and thorough. 
In the college course, if anything besides 
English is required, and I think there 
should be, I would have the natural sci- 
ence aS necessary a part of the education 
as language and mathematics. I would 
not have it possible for a student to gradu- 
ate from the college without having studied, 
SCIENCE. 
871 
and thoroughly studied, mathematics as far 
as trigonometry, at least one foreign lan- 
guage, and at least one physical and one 
biological science. And Ido not mean a 
few weeks of study in any of these branches, 
but exhaustive, careful, critical study. 
The methods of study in all these 
branches are diverse and are absolutely 
essential for symmetrical mind-building. 
Furthermore, an indefinite, haphazard 
selection of studies in the college course 
should be impossible. The course should 
be, so far as possible, adapted to the 
capacities, tastes and abilities of the indi- 
vidual, and this does not mean an indis- 
criminate selection on the part of the stu- 
dent. A person with feebly developed 
chest muscles might naturally prefer those 
physical exercises in which such muscles 
would take little part, but he nevertheless 
needs such exercise most. 
It is through the great universities, and 
especially the State universities, that the 
solution of the problems of professional 
education must come, and in fact has come 
for some of the professions. With such 
cultural training as is best adapted to the 
lawyers’s needs, the college course should 
include all the strictly non-professional 
branches, leaving the student, after he has 
completed his course as Bachelor of Arts in 
law, to take up the work of the professional 
school and complete it in two years with 
the degree of Doctor of Laws. In the med- 
ical course there are even greater oppor- 
tunities than in law. The medical colleges 
should resign to the undergraduate arts 
course all the non-professional branches. 
And the work rightfully belongs there. The 
best chemical laboratories in the United 
States are not in the medical colleges, but 
in the universities. Nowhere are physi- 
ology, histology and anatomy better taught 
than outside of medical colleges. Asin en- 
gineering, there should be an harmonious 
course leading through the high school to 
