PARASITIC CULTURE 257 
from the channels of vital usefulness. Nature is sternly and rigidly 
utilitarian, and yet she is splendidly idealistic. Her aim is always an 
enlarged, and ever enlarging, life, and to this end she can tolerate 
nothing in her economies that is functionless and therefore an obstacle 
to progress. 
Here, then, is the clue that modern education is beginning to accept 
for its guidance. As a result, the ideal of general culture in education 
is being subjected to standards of criticism that are as new as is our 
better understanding of the nature of life. Men have believed for cen- 
turies that certain studies, or forms of discipline, have the peculiar 
virtue of generating in the mind, or the body, a power, or wealth of 
resources, that may subsequently be available for any purpose to which 
mental or physical energy is applied. From the days of the renaissance 
to the present time, universities and colleges have contended for this 
ideal of general culture. Mathematics and the classical languages have 
been regarded as, in a special sense, indispensable to such culture. In 
the organization of secondary schools, these institutions have been sub- 
ordinated to university and college entrance requirements. And s0 
throughout our educational system, above the elementary schools, and 
frequently in the elementary schools themselves, the culture ideal has 
largely determined the subject-matter and methods of instruction. 
Thus it is that in our very midst, every boy and girl who looks towards 
higher education in our standard institutions of learning is compelled 
to have certain courses in mathematics and the classical languages. 
Greek has at Jast been made an optional entrance requirement, but 
Latin and mathematics still hold their distinctive places. No difference 
what the ulterior life-purpose of the adolescent boy or girl may be, no 
difference what their tastes or aptitudes may be, Latin and mathematics 
they must have; and Latin and mathematics they must look forward to 
pursuing even after they enter college. All for the sake of the general 
culture these subjects are supposed to give! 
In the light of the biological law of wasted energy and disease, in 
connection with organs that are parasitic on the life, we are now pre- 
pared to estimate this ideal of general culture from a new point of view. 
And first of all, as being more obviously amenable to this biological law, 
let us consider the ideal of physical culture. Now it has been con- 
tended for generations, in accordance with the general culture ideal, 
that certain courses of discipline will give a fund of physical energy 
that may be available for all the demands of subsequent life. Thus 
physical culture has been separated from the natural, every-day func- 
tions of life, and made a matter of general courses of training in the 
gymnasium. yen since the play-idea of physical culture has come to 
the front, and the gymnasium has had to share its prerogatives with 
the athletic field, much of the justification of the undue absorption of 
VOL. LXXVII.—18. 
