annual Report—Convention. 
53 
important subject. The old course of classics and mathematics, 
by several hundred years of trial, has proved itself an excellent 
one. It has been a mighty power for good in the world, and to¬ 
day, able, earnest and good men believe it to be the only true 
course of study. 
But gradually old landmarks are being removed. Old methods 
are by degrees being replaced by new ones. Natural science and 
modern languages are forcing themselves into the college course, 
not to replace the classics, but to share with them in the educa¬ 
tion of men. 
The advocates of the old system may writhe under the change 
that is going on, they may cry out the danger of depreciating the 
standard of education, by these innovations, but it appears to be 
all to little purpose. 
The change is still called for, more loudly than before, and col¬ 
leges and universities, being created for the people, are yielding 
to the public demand. The old boundaries of the college course 
are being enlarged to embrace a greater range of studies, and to 
adapt it to the diversified wants and tastes of those for whom it 
exists. This demand for the introduction of more science into 
the college curriculum has even affected the old English Univer¬ 
sities, Oxford and Cambridge. Their “middle class” examina¬ 
tions were established to meet this requirement. By this change, 
the halls of these grand old seats of learning have been opened 
to many who were before excluded. Yet the demand for more 
concessions is still made by the English public. 
In our own country, great changes have also taken place in the 
oldest and best colleges in the land. But perhaps the wants of 
this new education have been more fully met by establishing in¬ 
dependent schools of science, or connecting scientific departments 
with classical colleges. 
The conflict between the old and the new education is not, in 
this country at least, an ’“irrepressible conflict.” The earnestness 
and truthfulness of science, its accurate methods of investigation, 
and its peculiar fitness for training men in methods of investiga¬ 
tion, have won for it the support of many, and the tolerance of 
all, even though they consider it of little value as a means of edu¬ 
cation. 
