162 MY AMERICAN FRIENDS

on their gaining the credits needed to pass them
into college. By the time they leave it their
minds have become devitalized, crammed only
with the "book-knowledge needed to get their
degrees, and they have lost everything we gave
them."

Statements of this kind have been made to me
so often, in so many different places and by
persons of such weight, that I can hardly avoid
interpreting them as signs of a coming revolt
against the domination of the colleges. At all
events the phenomenon is one which the student
of American education cannot afford to over-
look. Once more we need to remember the
rule, " Judge nothing in America by the point
at which it has arrived; judge all things by
the direction in which they are moving." At
this point they seem to be moving in the direction
of revolt against a system even more pernicious
in America than in Britain. And more pernicious
for this reason; that whereas the habit of valuing
a college education in terms of its helpfulness
towards getting a job and making money is by
no means unknown in British universities, it
seems to be much more clearly stamped on the
American variety and to spread more widely
through the whole system of public education,
The fatal idea that nothing is worth learning
except for its economic utility has certainly
got a firm hold on the minds of all who participate
in it from the governors of universities to the