526  The  Significance  of  Education.        { AlAuJgust  ^Y"1' 
ridicule  of  the  next,  and  the  little-regarded  of  one  generation  have 
been  not  seldom  advanced  by  its  successors  at  other  times  to  positions 
of  supreme  importance  as  matters  of  belief,  and  it  has  even  gone  so 
far  in  history  that  the  sins  of  one  generation  have  been  the  virtues 
of  the  next. 
The  history  of  education,  accordingly,  as  I  desire  to  use  the 
term,  shows  a  constantly  changing  concept,  even  generation  after 
generation,  of  the  means  of  attainment  and  of  the  actual  ultimate  re- 
sult to  be  attained  to  accord  with  the  time  and  place,  which  shall 
constitute  a  man  in  the  eyes  of  his  generation  as  one  with  a  sound 
mind  in  a  sound  body,  or,  as  we  may  choose  to  phrase  it,  with  an 
education  that  shall  fit  him  to  play  his  part  on  its  recognized  stage 
of  action. 
In  a  recent  English  essay  on  the  need  of  educational  reform, 
although  in  a  wholly  different  connection,  I  find  this  matter  stated 
much  more  clearly  and  concisely  than  I  have  done.  "A  new  age,"  it 
says,  "postulates  a  new  education,"  and  it  is  explained  that  "the 
traditions  which  have  dominated  hitherto  must  one  by  one  be  chal- 
lenged to  render  account  of  themselves ;  that  which  is  good  in  them 
must  be  conserved  and  assimilated,  that  which  is  effete  must  be 
scrapped  and  rejected."  An  education,  I  would  add,  that  does  not 
fit  into  the  life  of  the  time,  not  necessarily  to  subordinate  itself 
supinely  to  it,  but  at  least  to  recognize  in  is  content  and  in  the  organ- 
ization of  its  methods  the  inherent  necessities  of  the  day,  is  useless 
where  it  should  be  most  useful  as  the  very  foundation  of  an  advanc- 
ing civilization. 
If  all  these  things  are  true,  and  I  think  in  the  main  they  are,  the 
thought  that  readily  occurs  is  what  should  be  the  nature  and  content 
of  education  at  the  present  time,  and  what  is  its  true  significance  in 
the  life  of  the  individual  and  in  that  of  the  community  of  which  he, 
whether  he  will  or  not,  is  a  constituent  and  participating  part.  For 
my  present  purposes  I  shall  assume  that  a  system  of  formal  education ' 
that  has  any  just  claim  to  recognition  as  logically  conceived  and  con- 
sistently carried  out  takes  due  account  of  a  sound  mind  and  a  sound 
body  as  coincident  factors  of  educational  development.  One  of  my 
colleagues  at  Columbia  University  a  number  of  years  ago  wrote  a 
book  with  the  somewhat  amazing  title  of  "Why  the  Mind  has  a 
Body,"  and  he  went  on  to  question  the  rather  natural  inference  that 
mind  and  body  are,  in  respect  of  action,  on  a  footing  of  equality ;  in 
other  words,  that  the  temptation  lies  very  near  the  surface  to  set  up 
