AIGIST 7, 1903.] 



SCIENCE. 



1(35 



It is a significant fact, also, that the sci- 

 entific method and the scientific spirit of 

 investigation have worked striking changes 

 in attitude toward their own specialties 

 among the devotees to ancient learning. 

 Tluis they speak of the science of history 

 and the science of theology, and even of 

 laboratory methods in these sciences; and 

 among themselves, teachers of the classics 

 are not infrequently referred to as scien- 

 tific or archaic, according as they ai"e ani- 

 mated by modern or mediiBval ideas. A 

 few eminent educators deplore these tend- 

 encies and write regretfully of the vanish- 

 ing monastic features of college life. A 

 few rail bitterly against what they call 

 'the materialism of science.' and charge 

 that the perfume of the Attic violet is being 

 stitled by the mephitic odors of the labo- 

 ratory. Others assert that, while science 

 may be good enough for engineers who 

 build railroads and dig canals, the classics 

 and the hunuuiities are alone fit for the 

 scholar and the gentleman. But the trend 

 of progress is clearly visible in these as well 

 as in other signs of our times. ISIediiBval 

 methods, customs and ideals are slowly 

 yielding to the reason of modern thought. 

 Once free from the bias and the restric- 

 tions of inherited opinions, education must 

 appeal to us with a broader and a deeper 

 significance. In the best sense of the word, 

 education is a process which should begin 

 in infancy and end only in advanced age. 

 Science has demonstrated that man is a 

 part of, and not apart from, the universe 

 in which we live; and education in the 

 comprehensive meaning of the word is the 

 process of development which fits us to 

 play well our parts in the infinite variety 

 of phenomena which mold us and which 

 we in turn help to mold. Hence the 

 question of education is a many-sided and 

 a far-reaching one, to the larger aspects of 

 which we even who are engaged with some 



of its formal details can only point the 

 way. Schools and colleges serve only tn 

 give the student a start, whence he enters 

 the 'University of the Universe,' from 

 which there are no graduates. Each may 

 choose his own field, and if he would be a 

 master in it he must become a specialist. 

 Of course there are those who decrj' the 

 present as an age of specialists and speak 

 and write ruefully of former times when 

 the more learned minds were able to com- 

 pass the entire domain of accepted learn- 

 ing. But those were times when accepted 

 learning was mostly of the kind called 

 'polite,' times when the rapidlj' rising sci- 

 ences and their devotees were referred to 

 with anything but terms of politeness. The 

 change from this not very remote past is 

 irrevocable, however, and it is plainly our 

 duty to make the best of the new condi- 

 tions, full as they are of novelties and per- 

 plexities. The recent great increase in the 

 quantity of indispensable knowledge forces 

 us to a hitherto unheard of division of 

 labor in the educational field. The 

 specialist is, therefoi-e, a necessity, though 

 tliere never was a time when the qualifica- 

 tions of a specialist were so numerous and 

 so exacting. In fact, it may be truly said 

 that one's training now must be broadly 

 liberal in order that it may be minutely 

 special. 



The age in which we live is preeminently 

 the age of educational opportunities. The 

 school, the college, the university, the 

 library and the museum were never so 

 numerous, so free and so efificient as at the 

 jiresent time. Hundreds of experts, in the 

 study and in the laboratory, in the office 

 and in the field, are contributing by their 

 researches to the world's stock of knowl- 

 edge. Hundreds of literary, historical, 

 scientific and other technical societies are 

 annually swelling the published volume of 

 the wmhrs best learning: while, in a pop- 



