478 



SCIENCE, 



[N. S. Vol. XIV. No. 352. 



position to coin name and fame into money, 

 of unwillingness to use one thing that is 

 well done as a means of passing off upon 

 the public three or four things that are ill 

 done. I know the scientific men of Amer- 

 ica well, and I entertain a profound con- 

 viction that as regards sincerity, simplicity, 

 fidelity and generosity of character, in no- 

 bility of aims and earnestness of effort, in 

 everything which should be involved in the 

 conception of disinterestedness, they are 

 surpassed, if indeed they are approached, 

 by no other body of men." 



Of like import are these words from a re- 

 cent address of Hon. F. W. Lehmann, of 

 St. Louis. Speaking of the breadth of the 

 modern university, he said : 



" The university of to-day has abdicated 

 none of its old functions, but it has taken 

 on many new. Not disdaining mere schol- 

 arship, making, indeed, the standard al- 

 ways a higher one, it widens its domain 

 and adapts its teachings to the after- work 

 of life. Its graduates are not simply con- 

 ventional finished gentlemen, but beginners 

 in the serious business of life, scholars as 

 before, but artists, engineers and artisans 

 as well. The sciences lose nothing because 

 they become utilities. Physics and mathe- 

 matics gain in interest by application to 

 the building of bridges, and the very sewers 

 of a city become classic to the scholar be- 

 cause one of the means to the classic excel- 

 lence of a sound mind in a sound body." 



Perhaps the characteristic most dreaded 

 by the opponents of the new education is 

 usefulness. They have but to learn that a 

 certain branch of study, course of training 

 or line of culture is useful, and its value is 

 at once compromised. One of the few fool- 

 ish things that Lowell ever wrote or said 

 was that, ' a university is a place where 

 nothing useful is taught.' I will not dis- 

 cuss a statement which, after all, may not do 

 justice to Lowell's thought, but I will de- 

 fine a university as a place where every- 



thing useful in a high and broad sense may 

 be taught. Matthew Arnold would have 

 defined a university as a place where is 

 taught and illustrated ' the best that has 

 been thought and done in the world.' 



Supt. Gilbert, of Eochester, !N". Y., said 

 at Buffalo last month : '' The exalted char- 

 acter of a man's work is to be measured by 

 its usefulness to mankind ; I believe in the 

 universality of service." 



It has often been assumed that this new 

 education is not liberal. Liberality con- 

 sists not so much in the subject as in the 

 method of study. The liberal method is 

 broad, deep, generous, comprehensive. It 

 recognizes infinite uses, both far and near. 

 It aims at the artist rather than the arti- 

 san ; the engineer, not the craftsman ; the 

 freeman, not the slave. Liberal culture 

 deals with fundamental principles, typical 

 phenomena, general results, not special ap- 

 plications. It is liberal to study the laws 

 of manufacture, trades, commerce, finance 

 and social progress ; it is not liberal to seek 

 merely the conditions of a successful busi- 

 ness, whether it be law, medicine or manu- 

 facture. It is liberal to demand the raison 

 d'etre of dogma, canon, rule, dictum, form- 

 ula or usage ; it is illiberal to blindly fol- 

 low authority, to put facts and processes 

 above principles and reasons, to prefer 

 echoes to living voices. 



A recent reviewer said that mathematics 

 and electricity are becoming less valuable 

 for general education on account of their 

 increasing usefulness in technical pursuits. 

 The maximum of educational value (he 

 held) appertains to a sort of knowledge 

 which falls short of such a mastery as 

 makes it useful. Of course, I accept no 

 such statements. That man's notion of a 

 liberal education is not yours nor mine. 



The list of liberal branches of study is 

 ever increasing. For four years Harvard 

 compelled me to give one-sixth of my time 

 to Greek and one-fourth to Latin ; to-day 



