April 20, 1900.] 



SGIENGE. 



621 



discuss the purpose of education, without once 

 alluding to the only motive that animates the 

 genuine scientific investigator. I am not guilt- 

 less in this matter, myself ; for in my youth, I 

 wrote some articles to uphold a doctrine I 

 called Pragmatism, namely, that the meaning 

 and essence of every conception lies in the ap- 

 plication that is to be made of it. That is all 

 very well, when properly understood. I do 

 not intend to recant it. But the question arises, 

 what is the ultimate application ; at that time, I 

 seem to have been inclined to subordinate the 

 conception to the act, lino wing to doing. Subse- 

 quent experience of life has taught me that the 

 only thing that is really desirable without a 

 reason for being so, is to render ideas and things 

 reasonable. One cannot well demand a reason 

 for reasonableness itself. Logical analysis 

 shows that reasonableness consists in associa- 

 tion, assimilation, generalization, the bringing 

 of items together into an organic whole — -which 

 are so many ways of regarding what is essen- 

 tially the same thing. In the emotional sphere, 

 this tendency towards union appears as Love ; 

 so that the Law of Love and the Law of Reason 

 are quite at one. 



There was a simple fellow who, in a be- 

 nighted age and land, wandered about uttering 

 appreciations of the elements of human life 

 which have made an extraordinary impression 

 upon most of us. Of all his sayings, there is 

 none whose truth has been brought home to 

 me more strongly by what I have been able to 

 detect in successful men and women than this : 

 Whoever makes his own welfare his object will 

 simply ruin it utterly : o evpuv -rjv ilmxfiv av-ov 

 awoUasi avTijv. American education, for the 

 most part, is directed to no other object than the 

 welfare of the individual scholars ; and thereby 

 incites them to pursue that object exclusively. 

 A great university bears upon its seal the re- 

 mark of its founder : "I wish to found an insti- 

 tution where any man can learn any thing. ' ' It 

 was a noble idea ; and it would be mean to pick 

 flaws in it — especially as he did not say what 

 ulterior purpose he might have in view. But 

 the university which parades this casual re- 

 mark as its motto, seems to proclaim to its stu- 

 dents that their individual well-being is its only 

 aim. Our scientific schools distribute circulars 



which dwell chiefly upon the handsome incomes 

 their alumni are making, thereby calling up 

 such images as a handsomely laid table with a 

 pair of HS,vre-de-grace ducks and a bottle of 

 Ch&,teau Margaux. What comes of such a con- 

 ception of education and of life, for surely, the 

 purpose of education is not different from the 

 purpose of life? The result is that, notwith- 

 standing all the devices and tricks of the Amer- 

 ican teachers' art, it may be doubted whether 

 any teaching ever anywhere did less to make 

 happy men and women. At any rate, the 

 spiritual meagerness of the typical American 

 school-book is extreme. The great medieval 

 universities, the modern German universities, 

 the new science colleges of England, which did, 

 and do, great things for their students person- 

 ally, were never in the least founded for their 

 students' individual advantage, but, on the con- 

 trary, because of the expectation that the truths 

 that would be brought to light in such institu- 

 tions would benefit the State. This end was, 

 and is, so constantly in view that the scholars 

 are led to regard their own lives as having a 

 purpose beyond themselves. 



Yet even this is a low view of learning and 

 of science. No reader of this Journal is likely 

 to be content with the statement that the 

 searching out of the ideas that govern the uni- 

 verse has no other value than that it helps 

 human animals to swarm and feed. He will 

 rather insist that the only thing that makes the 

 human race worth perpetuation is that thereby 

 rational ideas may be developed, and the 

 rationalization of things furthered. 



No other occupation of man is so purely and 

 immediately directed to the one end that is 

 alone intrinsically rational, as scientific investi- 

 gation. It so strongly influences those who 

 pursue it to subordinate all motives of ambi- 

 tion, fame, greed, self-seeking of every descrip- 

 tion, that other people, even those who have 

 relatively elevated aspirations, such as theo- 

 logians and teachers, altogether fail, in many 

 cases, to divine the scientific man's simple mo- 

 tives. The Clark University, in recognizing 

 the pursuit of science as its first object, with 

 teaching, — of course, an indispensable means of 

 securing continuity of work, — as only a subordi- 

 nate, or at most a secondary object, has perhaps 



