August 12, 1904.] 



SCIENCE. 



201 



Scarcely less noteworthy than the win- 

 ning of a place for pure science in the uni- 

 versity has been the rise of the great groups 

 of studies classified imder political econ- 

 omy, political science, sociology and history. 

 From a very subordinate, almost insignifi- 

 cant, place in the curriculum, they have 

 risen to a place not subordinate to classics 

 or science. 



The development of these subjects in the 

 universities is destined to have a profound 

 influence upon governmental progress. In 

 the university men are trained to regard 

 economic and social questions as problems 

 to be investigated by the inductive method, 

 and in their solutions to aim at what is 

 best for the whole people rather than at 

 what is favorable to the interests with 

 which they chance to be connected. Such 

 of these men as are filled with a burning en- 

 thusiasm for the advancement of the race, 

 are capable of great accomplishment, for 

 they possess the enlightenment upon which 

 wise action may be based. Already men 

 who have studied history, economics, polit- 

 ical science and sociology in the univer- 

 sities have achieved large results in the 

 formulation and enforcement of the writ- 

 ten law, and in the growth of a healthy and 

 powerful public sentiment. Soon such 

 men will be found in every city and hamlet, 

 leading the fight against corruption and 

 misrule; but, even more important and 

 vastly more difficult, leading in construc- 

 tive advance. In these men lies, in large 

 measure, the hope of a peaceful solution 

 of the great questions deeply concerning 

 the nation, some of which are scarcely less 

 momentous than was that of slavery. 



But the western people were not content 

 with the expansion of pure knowledge. 

 They demanded schools of applied knowl- 

 edge. This demand was early recognized 

 in this and many other universities by the 

 organization of law schools, which deal with 

 subjects closely concerning each individual. 



So important is the subject of the law that 

 these schools of applied knowledge were 

 very early established and their subsequent 

 development has been uninterrupted. 



After science found its way into the uni- 

 versities, a natural, indeed an inevitable 

 outcome of its admission into the institu- 

 tions supported by the states demanding 

 both culture and efficiency was the rapid 

 growth of the applied sciences, of which 

 the more impoi-tant are agriculture, en- 

 gineering and medicine. But the people 

 of the west went even further than this 

 and demanded that language, mathematics, 

 political economy and history should be so 

 taught as to serve the man of affairs, and 

 thus there arose here the first strong 

 course in commerce in the United States. 

 Such a course has now been introduced 

 into a number of other institutions, inclu- 

 ding one of the principal imiversities of the 

 east. Whether one deplores or approves 

 the rise of applied knowledge in the uni- 

 versities, it is an inevitable movement 

 which, for my part, I expect to see ex- 

 tended. In the recognition of the intel- 

 lectual power gained by pursuit of applied 

 knowledge and its extreme importance in 

 the development of the nation, the state 

 universities of the west have been at least 

 abreast of the eastern institutions. 



From the foregoing it is plain that the 

 most important American modifications of 

 the English college system have been the 

 introduction and development of pure sci- 

 ence and applied knowledge. While these 

 modifications represented a great broaden- 

 ing of the classical college, they did not 

 produce a proportional increase in the 

 height of the edifice of knowledge. 



This leads us to another influence upon 

 the American university, which has pro- 

 foundly modified it— the German influence. 

 Some thirty years ago Johns Hopkins, at 

 Baltimore, left his fortune to found a uni- 

 versity, and Daniel C. Gilman was called 



