July 22, 1904.] 



SCIENCE. 



101 



in every scheme of education. It is evi- 

 dent that the secondary schools can not 

 complete this work. The entrance exami- 

 nation papers in every college show that 

 the students know very little about rhetoric 

 and composition. It is a slow process to 

 teach a student to express himself clearly, 

 concisely, elegantly. Cato said, 'Get a 

 firm grip on the matter and words will fol- 

 low fast enough.' This may have been 

 true two thousand years ago, but either it 

 is not true to-day or our students do 

 not conform to the condition. The Eng- 

 lish language should be studied from the 

 time the student enters college until he 

 leaves if he is to be master of his own 

 tongue. Modern languages, two at least, 

 should also be insisted upon. Knowledge 

 is not circumscribed by boundary lines nor 

 learning located by latitude and longitude. 

 No one country, no one language contains 

 all the educated man should know. The 

 study of literature will naturally be coin- 

 cident with the study of language. The 

 great thoughts of some of the great men of 

 all ages, should be known and understood. 

 The range of reading should be wide, the 

 critical study of style and content be con- 

 fined to a few authors. History should be 

 included in the list of necessary subjects. 

 The history of one's own country should 

 be well known; the history of other coun- 

 tries restricted to the most important 

 events. Most of our college students have 

 not studied American history since they 

 were in the grammar schools and few if 

 any of our colleges make it a required part 

 of the curriculum. Can any knowledge be 

 more important to the educated man than 

 the history of his own country, and is the 

 amount acquired in the grammar school 

 before he is fourteen years old sufficient? 

 History should not be confined to great 

 events or to the manners and customs of 

 the people, but should include past and 

 present politics. Many years ago there 



was inscribed upon the walls of the his- 

 torical rooms of Johns Hopkins University 

 the words of Freeman, 'History is past 

 politics; politics is present history.' Past 

 and present political parties, the principles 

 they have or do stand for, the success or 

 failure of their policies and their efi:ect 

 upon the welfare of nations, may well be 

 required. The study of civil government 

 is closely allied to the preceding. Very 

 few of our college students can describe 

 the government of the cities in which they 

 live or tell the names and functions of the 

 several courts of justice in their native 

 states. Economics, though not a required 

 study in most of our colleges, is one with 

 which all should be familiar. The func- 

 tions of land, labor and capital, the rela- 

 tions of labor and capital, the nature of 

 supply and demand, money, production, 

 distribution, wages, rent, taxation, tarifi^, 

 should all be tinderstood. Philosophy and 

 ethics should, I think, receive a small 

 amount of the time devoted to required 

 studies. Nor can a man be called edu- 

 cated unless he knows something about 

 art. The several schools of painting and 

 sculptiire, the great paintings, the great 

 statutes, the masterpieces of architecture, 

 should all be familiar to the student. 

 Chemistry and physics have made the 

 wealth of our modem world, have revolu- 

 tionized our mode of living, have dictated 

 the policy of nations and have changed 

 the course of history. Yet how few of our 

 institutions of higher learning require 

 either of them except as entrance subjects? 

 There is very little in mathematics which 

 is necessary for the educated man to know. 

 Arithmetic, algebra and geometry are stud- 

 ied in the secondary schools and from the 

 standpoint of knowledge nothing else need 

 be required. 



Botany and astronomy are likewise neces- 

 sary. The educated man moves among the 

 trees, the plants, the flowers, by day, and 



