528 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XVII. No. 431. 



who come within its walls to enjoy its great 

 privileges should, as a condition of their 

 remaining, be required to perform their 

 daily work to the very best of their ability ? 

 "Would you," I think I hear it said, 

 "make prigs and pedants of our young 

 men, and take all the joy out of their col- 

 lege days? Life has enough sadness and 

 tragedy; let those days at least be bright 

 and sunny." No true pleasure was ever 

 taken out of life by bringing a sense of 

 duty and responsibility into it. The 

 tragedies of life come from the neglect of 

 duty and from the pursuit of pleasure in 

 which no sense of responsibility abides. 

 The careless optimism which expresses it- 

 self in 'boys will be boys' may apply to 

 children in the lower schools, but is de- 

 moralizing when applied to men in college. 



This great training ground for the 

 higher service should maintain a standard 

 of robust, manly character as well as of 

 fine scholarship if it is to be a power for 

 good in the community. When the eoUege 

 shall inculcate and demand that duty must 

 come first, then all the incidentals of col- 

 lege life— its social pleasures, its pastimes 

 and its sports will take their proper place 

 and contribute normally to the symmet- 

 rical development of the whole man. 



In considering the list of distinguished 

 men who attended this great high school 

 in their youth— distinguished in the 

 learned professions and as scholars, phil- 

 anthropists and captains of industry, of 

 whom the city and state and nation are 

 proud, what conclusion can be drawn as 

 to the part which the school played in these 

 successful careers? I think the only 

 answer we can give is that in any school 

 or college the good influences exerted are 

 in direct proportion to the opportunities 

 afforded. The prodigality with which 

 knowledge is disseminated in our modern 

 high school may seem like a reckless waste 

 from the standpoint of a school board, but 



it is in virtue of the availability of these 

 great and varied resources for the pupils 

 that its great usefulness lies. Many of the 

 pupils pass through this wealth of op- 

 portunity unaffected by it, and the little 

 knowledge which adheres to them will be 

 quickly lost, notwithstanding the most 

 cunning devices of teachers to entrap their 

 intelligence and interest. But there will 

 always be a goodly number whose souls 

 will be kindled by the divine fire if the 

 right thought come at the right moment to 

 their unfolding minds. Why should the 

 science of niunbers kindle this fire in some 

 minds and extinguish it in others? Why 

 do some feel the lightning strike when 

 certain facts in science, with the general- 

 ization drawn from them, come to their 

 consciousness? We may study the child's 

 mind and prescribe the appropriate mental 

 nutriment for each stage of its develop- 

 ment, but there will always be some who 

 refuse to be classified and remain the 

 despair of the psychologist. 



Liberal and even lavish outlay in cur- 

 riculum, in equipment and, above all, in 

 teachers is needed, that the young minds 

 ^^dth their diverse aptitudes and tastes 

 shall open under the most favorable condi- 

 tions, and receive from the teacher and the 

 subject an inspiration which shall last 

 them through life. 



The opportunities in equipment and 

 curriciduni offered in this school in the 

 first decades of its history may seem to U5 

 now very humble and restricted, but there 

 were good teachers in those days, as the 

 results amply provCi To-day we have a 

 great building — a noble monument to the 

 Philadelphia Board of Education — pro- 

 vided with all the aids to teaching that ex- 

 perience has proved valuable, and a faculty 

 of instruction of which the city and state 

 may well be proud— a strong, safe and 

 scholarly president, and a live, aggressive 

 and inspiring body of teachers. That its 



