March 30, 1900.] 



SCIENCE. 



483 



vious generation but during a hundred 

 generations. Among the ancient Greeks 

 the body was educated by gymnastic exer- 

 cises, but this was confined chiefly to the 

 aristocracy ; for useful labor, involving 

 bodily exercise and hence muscular devel- 

 opment, was looked upon as menial and 

 degrading. Intellectual education was re- 

 garded from the same standpoint. It might 

 be a badge of gentility, but to seek useful 

 knowledge was no more an educational ob- 

 ject than to learn useful arts. Intellectual 

 gymnastics for its own sake was a source 

 of pleasure. To regard it as a source of 

 pi-ofit would be to degrade it. " Kot the 

 game, but the excitement of the chase ; not 

 the truth, but the exhilaration of its pur- 

 suit, were the mottoes of culture. Under 

 these circumstances no vulgar question of 

 economy could arise ; mental power was 

 ostentatiously wasted, and with the neces- 

 sary consequences, — truth unsought was 

 not found ; the ends of culture being ig- 

 nored, there was neither conquest of nature 

 nor progress of society." 



Such ideals have continued potent to the 

 present day. In mediaeval times they were 

 cultivated in the monasteries. It was for 

 the support of them that universities grad- 

 ually became organized. They are still 

 dominant at Oxford and Cambridge in 

 England, and in the universities of Ger- 

 many, France and Italy. Their great value 

 is readily conceded. If they constituted all 

 that could be included in modern education, 

 they would still be worth preserving and 

 fostering. Under such ideals were educated 

 some of the greatest men whose labors have 

 advanced physical science, such as N"ewton, 

 Huyghens and Laplace. The craving of 

 humanity for intellectual exercise without 

 reference to bread winning is as natural as 

 the craving for food, or bodily activity, or 

 companionship, the love of home, of family, 

 or of country. The love of literature, of 

 art, of science for its own sake, is conspicu- 



ously worthy of all commendation and en- 

 couragement. To know the best that has 

 been thought and spoken and written, to 

 appreciate the noblest and purest that the 

 painter's brush has left upon canvas, to be 

 capable of taking in the ideas and complex 

 emotions that are convej'ed in song and 

 symphony, to apprehend the order and har- 

 monj' that pervades a universe that is con- 

 tinually undergoing evolution in accordance 

 with law — these are objects well worthy of 

 our best eiforts, irrespective of the remuner- 

 ation that can be expressed in money or 

 material power. 



But the culture so eminently worthy of 

 our seeking is not all that the world is 

 justified in holding to be valuable. Why 

 should such training be given in youth? 

 It is not merely because the young are non- 

 producers in society, but because they are 

 more capable of modification than after 

 maturity is reached. That the education 

 to be given in youth should be a prepara- 

 tion for manhood is an idea that does not 

 seem to have been well grasped by the edu- 

 cators in ancient or even comparatively 

 recent times. Education was long reserved 

 for the priesthood, rather than for the man- 

 hood of the people. Its underlying idea 

 was the preservation of scholastic authority 

 rather than the development of intellectual 

 independence and moral power. It was in- 

 tended to be a luxury for the few, while the 

 masses were expected to keep on toiling in 

 ignorance as had been done throughout un- 

 told centuries. The education of the Eng- 

 lish universities, even of this year 1900, 

 is essentially aristocratic. Great stress is 

 laid upon certain subjects, not because they 

 afford the best culture, but because they 

 are traditionally genteel, not because they 

 confer power, but because they have long 

 been fostered by the nobility. Even the 

 army, officered by aristocrats who substi- 

 tuted gentility for military knowledge, has 

 been this winter betraying its organic weak- 



