Editorial Comment. 37 
To present the subject under a concrete aspect, let us consid- 
er the educational work in the averag^e university. The student 
of law feels that he is preparing himself for the acquisition of a 
respectable livelihood. He is thinking of fees and fame and 
the prizes of the political arena. These ends, either immediate 
or more remotely j^rospective, are ever before him. They are 
living motives; they centralize his thoughts and his efforts. He 
works with zeal ; his fellow-students actuated by the same mo- 
tives, are numerous; the department of law, so respectable in 
numbers, must be made respectable in outfit; the controlling 
powers feel that it is a department of the university to be specially 
fostered, and it is so fostered. The student of medicine, in like 
manner, feels that he too is acquiring the means of material ad- 
vancement. He is thinking of fees, honorariums, comfortable, 
and then luxurious,establishments. He is looking to rapidly 
made fortune, and middle life repose. The student of pharmacy 
is a student of the means of lucrative business. The practical and 
profitable aims before him command his steady attention and 
sustain his unflagging energies. The dental college is a scene 
of similar assiduity and expectation. All work, all hope, all 
desire centre in the generous income which educated and com- 
petent practice is sure to bring. Here, as in other professional 
schools, an external motive sustains industry, unites numbers in 
a common interest and pushes it to a conspicuous position and 
commands the respect and care of the ruling authorities. 
If we turn to the schools of civil and mechanical engineering, 
w^e discover similar stimuli acting on minds perhaps more cul- 
tured, but therefore more suscejotible to motives drawn from the 
possible succeeses of a future career. The young engineer will 
acquire fame for his skill. He will come into profitable request; 
he will plan great and novel bridges; he will carry railway lines 
in seemingly imjDossible places; great undertakings will demand 
his services, and great rewards will requite them. Else if his 
ambition is moderate, he will superintend some workshop or 
some great industrial establishment, and earn in salary two or 
three dollars in the same time as his late professor earns one. It 
is understood without saying, that the school, in its diversified 
adaptation to the needs of various seekers for means of livelihood 
is thronged with devotees. There is no interest so moving as a 
