Ofco I 5^-3^T~^ BOOK 060. INS v.8 <=-1 .RTS 3 1153 00057768 M 0) THIS FIRST EDITION DE LUXE, printed from type, is limited to five hundred sets, of which this is copy No *?.. INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF ARTS AND SCIENCE #1 * Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2010 with funding from Boston Library Consortium Member Libraries http://www.archive.org/details/internationalcon08cong gniinhl 9iiT ini sdi \o 9no ■- • >;bnid rob on ,9iadi has %sublA -oiO ■ lo slsbora 8£ behragsi eta ijsdj n^iasb bms t9Dii9*eixs at Uiie s idw lo. ,89rau[ov 000,8 b9do£97 yxjndil a'tsil 939iiJ lo yizie GROLIER IN THE PRINTING HOUSE OF ALDUS Photogravure from the Painting by Francois Flameng The Printing House of Aldo Manuzio, known to fame as Aldus, became one of the intellectual centres of Europe. It stood near the church of St. Augustine, in Venice, and the Aldine Press was noted for its first editions of Greek, Latin, and Italian classics, many of them adorned with the richest bindings. Jean Grolier, while in Italy from 1510 to 1535 as treasurer and ambassador of Francis I, was a frequent visitor to the Printing House of Aldus, and there, no doubt, talked over some of the bindings of his own design that are regarded as models of the bookbinder's art to this day. Gro- wer's library reached 3,000 volumes, of which 300 are still in existence, and sixty of these are in the National Library at Paris. INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF ARTS AND SCIENCE EDITED BY Howard J. Rogers, A.M., LL.D. DIRECTOR OF CONGRESSES VOLUME VIII EDUCATION RELIGION " UNIVERSITY ALLIANCE LONDON NEW YORK Copyright igo6 by Houghton, Mifflin & Co. all rights reserved Copyright 1908 by University Alliance N Nx x v ''-■■-. ILLUSTRATIONS VOLUME VIII FACING PAGE Grolier in the Printing House of Aldus . . . Frontispiece Photogravure from the painting by F. Flameng Mental Education of a Greek Youth 1 Photogravure from the painting by Otto Knille Dr. Arthur T. Hadley . .16 Photogravure from a photograph University of Edinburgh 46 Photogravure from a photograph Taking the Doctor's Degree 156 Photogravure from the painting by K. Storch ORGANIZATION OF THE CONGRESS PRESIDENT OF THE EXPOSITION: HON. DAVID R. FRANCIS, A.M., LL.D. DIRECTOR OF CONGRESSES: HOWARD J. ROGERS, A.M., LL.D. Universal Exposition, 1904. ADMINISTRATIVE BOARD NICHOLAS MURRAY BUTLER, Ph.D., LL.D. President of Columbia University, Chairman. WILLIAM R. HARPER, Ph.D., LL.D. President of the University of Chicago. R. H. JESSE, Ph.D., LL.D. President of the University of Missouri. HENRY S. PRITCHETT, Ph.D., LL.D. President of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. HERBERT PUTNAM, Litt.D., LL.D. Librarian of Congress. FREDERICK J. V. SKIFF, A.M. Director of the Field Columbian Museum. OFFICERS OF THE CONGRESS PRESIDENT: SIMON NEWCOMB, Ph.D., LL.D. Retired Professor U. S. N. VICE-PRESIDENTS: HUGO MUNSTERBERG, Ph.D., LL.D. Professor of Psychology in Harvard University. ALBION W. SMALL, Ph.D., LL.D. Professor of Sociology in the University of Chicago. TABLE OF CONTENTS DIVISION G — SOCIAL CULTURE Social Culture in the Form of Education and Religion ..... 1 William Torrey Harris DEPARTMENT XXIII — EDUCATION Educational Methods and Principles of the Nineteenth Century . . .19 Arthur Twining Hadley The Development of Educational Ideas in the Nineteenth Century . . 27 John Lancaster Spalding Section A — Educational Theory. The Place and Office of Pedagogy in the University ..... 49 Wilhelm Rein Present Problems in the Theory of Education ...... 64 Elmer Ellsworth Brown Short Paper 83 Section B — The School. The School in its Relation to Social Organization and to National Life . 89 Michael Ernest Sadler Present Problems of the School 102 William H. Maxwell Section C — The College. The College 119 William De Witt Hyde The College 133 M. Carey Thomas Short Papers 151 viii CONTENTS Section D — The University. Present Problems of the University . . . . • • . .159 Edward Delavan Perry The Professional Training of Teachers in France 176 Charles Chabot Section E — The Library. The Library in Relation to Knowledge and Life 203 William Edward Armytage Axon The Library — Its Past and Future 216 Guido Biagi Works of Reference for the Department of Education ..... 230 Works of Reference relating to the Section of Educational Theory . . 234 Works of Reference relating to the Section of the School .... 235 Special Works of Reference for the Section of the School . . . .236 Special Works of Reference relating to the Section of the College . . 237 Works of Reference relating to the Section of the Library .... 238 DEPARTMENT XXIV — RELIGION The Fundamental Nature of Religion 243 Henry Churchill King The Expansion of Religion 256 Francis Greenwood Peabody Section A — General Religious Education. The Reason and the Functions of General Religious Education . . . 271 George Albert Coe How may the Teaching of Religion be made potent for Morality ? . . 282 Walter L. Hervey Short Papers 294 Section B — Professional Religious Education. The Teaching of Theology 301 Charles Cuthbert Hall Professional Religious Education: the Trained Layman . . . .314 Frank Knight Sanders Short Papers 326 CONTENTS ix Section C — Religious Agencies. Religious Agencies ........... 330 Washington Gladden The Press as a Religious Agency 344 James Monroe Buckley Short Paper 359 Section D — Religious Work. Religious Work 365 Floyd Williams Tomkins Elements in Christianity which adapt it to be the Universal and Absolute Religion ............ 376 Henry C. Mabie Section E — Religious Influence: Personal. Religious Influence: Personal 397 Hugh Black Personal Religious Influence . 404 John Edgar McFadyen Religious Influence 410 Samuel Atkins Eliot Religion and Personality . .417 Edward Bagby Pollard Section F — Religious Influence: Social. The Educated Man and Social Problems 430 Joseph Swain The Social Aspect of Religion . 440 Emil G. Hirsch The Secular Life as the Expression of the Religious Spirit . 446 Edward Caldwell Moore Social Religious Influence 457 Josiah Strong Works of Reference for Department of Religion 468 Works of Reference for the Section of General Religious Education . . 469 Additional Works of Reference for the Section of General Religious Educa- tion ... ... 470 x CONTENTS Works of Reference for the Section of Religious Work .... 471 Additional Works of Reference for the Section of Religious Work . . 472 Works of Reference for the Section of Religious Influence: Personal . . 473 INDEX ■ . . . 475 CONTENTS OF THE SERIES ...... 495 DIVISION G — SOCIAL CULTURE. MENTAL EDUCATION OF A GREEK YOUTH Photogravure from the Painting by Otto Knille Greek youths were carefully trained by educators who gave equal attention to the physical and the mental needs of their charges, severity of ordeal being characteristic of both. The picture opposite is a reproduction of a section of a frieze painted by Knille for the library of the Berlin University, in which by a series of four pictures the artist very admirably depicted the prime features that distinguished the process of Greek education. DIVISION G — SOCIAL CULTURE {Hall 5, September 20, 10 a. m.) Speaker: Honorable William T. Harris, United States Commissioner of Education. SOCIAL CULTURE IN THE FORM OF EDUCATION AND RELIGION BY WILLIAM TORREY HARRIS [William Torrey Harris, Educator and Commissioner of Education of the United States, since 1889. b. North Killingly, Connecticut, September 10, 1835. A.M. Yale, 1869; LL.D. Universityof Missouri, 1870; Ph.D. Brown, 1893; LL.D. Pennsylvania, 1894; ibid. Yale, 1895.; ibid. Princeton, 1896; Ph.D. Jena, 1899. Teacher, Principal, Assistant Superintendent of Public Schools, St. Louis, 1857-67 ; Superintendent, ibid. 1867-1879. At Paris Exposition, 1878, was tendered honorary title of " Officier de l'Academie ;" represented United States Bureau of Education at International Congress of Educators, Brussels, 1880, and at Paris Exposition, 1889; received from French Government, 1889, title, " Officier de PInstruction Publique." Member of Washington Academy of Sciences; American Social Science Association; American Philosophical Association. Author of Introduction to the Study of Philosophy; The Spiritual Sense of Dante's Divina Commedia; Hegel's Logic: a book on the Genesis of the Categories of the Mind; Psychologic Foundations of Education. Editor in chief of numerous compilations, notable among which being Webster's International Dictionary of the English Language and International Education Series (55 volumes).] According to the ingenious and suggestive scheme of classification of Arts and Science adopted by the Director and Administrative Board of this International Congress, social regulation forms the sixth division and social culture the seventh division of the entire pro- gramme. Social regulation is made to include as sub-topics, politics, jurisprudence, and social science, while social culture includes educa- tion and religion. Politics and jurisprudence have to do with the state, while social science is conceived as including for its objects the civil community in its industrial, municipal, and family groups, and in its providential and protective aspects. Social culture, on the other hand, is the common name or title for the two branches of theory and practice that deal with the self- development of the individual under the direction of the church and the school. This is our division, — the seventh and last in the entire scheme of classification, — and it is the topic of this hour's discussion to consider the unity of education and religion. 2 SOCIAL CULTURE II I shall announce as my thesis, that: Social culture is the training of the individual for social institutions. Man by his social institutions secures the adjustment of the in- dividual to the social whole, the social unit. The person or indi- vidual comes into such harmony and cooperation with human society as a whole that he may receive a share of all the production of his fellow men, be protected against violence by their united strength, given the privilege of accumulating property and of en- joying it in peace and security in such a manner as to escape from sudden approaches of famine and penury by reason of seasonal ex- tremes or by reason of the vicissitudes of infancy, old age, disease, or of the perturbations affecting the community. And finally, there is participation in the wisdom of the race, the opportunity of shar- ing in the knowledge that comes from the scientific inventory of nature in all its kingdoms, and of human life on the globe in all its varied experiments, successful and unsuccessful; the oppor- tunity of gaining an insight into the higher results of science in the field of discovery of laws and principles, the permanent forms of existence under the variable conditions of time and place. Finally we may share through our membership in the social unity in the moral insights that have resulted from the discipline of pain, the defeat and discomfitures arising from the choice of mistaken careers on the part of individuals and entire communities. The sin and error of men have vicariously helped the race by great object-lessons which have taught mankind through all the ages, and now teach the present generation of men all the more effectively because of the devices of our civilization, which not only make the records of the past ac- cessible to each and every individual, but institute a present means of intercommunication by and through which each people, each individual, may see from day to day the unfolding of the drama of human history. The good of this unity of the individual with the social Whole by means of institutions may be summed up by saying that it reen- forces the individual by the labor of all, the thought of all, and the good fortune of all. It takes from him only his trifling contribution from his trade or vocation and gives in return a share in the gigantic aggregate of productions of all mankind. It receives from him the experience of his little life and gives him in return the experience of the race, a myriad of myriads strong, and working through millenniums. What Thomas Hobbes said of the blessings of the political whole, the state, is true when applied to civilization as an international combination of states. IN THE FORM OF EDUCATION AND RELIGION 3 " Outside of the state/' said he, " is found only the dominion of the passions, war, fear, poverty, filth, isolation, barbarism, ignor- ance, and savagery; . while in the state is found the dominion of reason, peace, security, riches, ornament, sociability, elegance, science, and good will." With this point of view we see at a glance the potency of the arts of social culture, fitting as they do the individual for a cooperative life with his fellow men in the institutions of civilization. Ill My thesis proceeds from this insight to lay down the doctrine that the first social culture is religion and that religion is the foundation of social life in so far as that social life belongs to the history of civil- ization. Religion in the first place is not merely the process of an individual mind, but it is a great social process of intellect and will and heart. Its ideas are not the unaided thoughts of individual scholars, but the aggregate results of a social activity of intellect, so to speak, each thought of the individual being modified by the thought of his community, so that it comes back to the individual with the substantial impress of authority. There is a religious social process, the most serious of all social activity. In it the religious view of the world is shaped and delivered to the individual by authority such as cannot be resisted by him except with martyrdom. Each modification in the body of religious doctrine has come through individual innovation, but at the expense of disaster to his life. He had to sacrifice his life so far as his ordinary prosperity was concerned, and his doctrine had to be taken up by his fellow men acting as a social whole, and translated into their mode of viewing divine revelation before it effected a modification in the popular faith. It was a process of social assimilation of the product of the individual comparable to the physiologic process by which the organs of the body take up a portion of food and • convert it into a blood-corpuscle before adding it to the bodily structure. So in the living church of a people goes on forever the great process of receiving new views from its members, and its members include not only the Saint Bernards, but also the Voltaires. The church receives the new views, but does not by any means adopt them until it has submitted them to the negative process of criticism and elimination, and finally to the transforming process that selects the available portions for assimilation and nutriment. This is certainly the slowest and most conservative spiritual process that goes on in civilization. But it is by all means the most salutary. The individuals that suggest the most radical modifications are swiftly 4 SOCIAL CULTURE set aside, and their result is scarcely visible in the body of faith transmitted to the next generation. It is clear this conservatism is necessary. Any newwnodification of doctrine gets adopted only by the readjustment of individuals within the communion or church. All the inertia of the institution is against it. Again, it is not only necessary but desirable, because it is a purification process, the transmutation of what is individual and tainted with idiosyncrasy, into what is universal and well adapted for all members within the communion. The church must prove all things and hold fast to that which can stand the test. The test is furnished by what is old, by what is already firmly fixed in the body of religious faith. If its foundations could be uprooted so that religion gave up the body of its faith, all authority would go at once to the ground, and with it the relation of the institutional whole to the individuals within it. Such an event can scarcely be conceived in a realizing sense, but a study of the Reign of Terror in the French Revolution aids one to gain a point of view. When a citizen finds himself in a social whole in which all the principles that have governed the community have become shaky, he gets to be unable to count on any particular set of social reactions in his neighbors from day to day, or to calculate what motives they may entertain in their minds in the presence of any practical situation. He is forced into an attitude of universal suspicion of the intentions of his fellow men, and he is in his turn a general object of suspicion himself. The solution forced on the community is the adoption, by the committee of safety, of death for all suspected ones. But the more deaths the more suspicion. For the relatives of the slain, those who yesterday were with us, but who endeavored to dissuade us from guillotining their parents, brothers, or cousins, — as to those we are warranted in suspecting that they to-day are planning a new revolution and to-morrow may put us to death. We may by this, after a sort, realize the situation when the founda- tions of religious belief are utterly broken up. Fortunately for us our civilization carries with it even under varying creeds, sects, and denominations, the great body of religious belief unquestioned. Only the Nihilists offer a radical denial to this body of Christian doctrine, and we can see how easily we might come to a Reign of Terror if it were possible to spread this Nihilistic doc- trine widely among any considerable class of our people. For the Nihilistic view would extend its death-remedy after the destruc- tion of its enemies, to its own ranks, and guillotine its own Robes- pierres by reason of suspicion and distrust entertained toward one's accomplices. The substantiality of the view of religion is the basis of civilization. It holds conservatively to elementary notions of an affirmative IN THE FORM OF EDUCATION AND RELIGION 5 character, such as the monogamic marriage, the protection of helpless infancy in certain fundamental rights, the protection of women, the care for the aged and the weaklings of society, private ownership of property, including under property land and franchises as well as movable chattels. The church includes in its fundamentals the security of life against violence, and makes murder the most heinous of crimes. It insists on respect for established law and for the magistrates themselves. It even goes so far as to protect the heretic and to insure the private right of the individual to dissent from the established or prevalent religious creed so far as church worship or dogmas of theology are concerned. It is obvious that the community as a social whole would be obliged to limit its toleration of private creeds were there a great extension of Nihilism possible or were there to arise sects that attacked the sacredness of the family institution — by polygamy, for example, or by the abolition of marriage; or sects that attacked civil society by attempting practically to abolish the ownership of property (Proudhon said: " All property is robbery "); or by the denial of the right of laborers to contract with employers for their labor. When we study these fundamental ideas common to the different confessions of our composite church, we see at once how powerful is the established doctrine of the prevailing religious ideal in our civilization in exerting an authoritative control over individuals as to belief and practice. IV Many people have come to believe, in this age of greatly extended religious toleration, that the church as an institution is moribund and that its authority is about to disappear wholly from the earth in an age of science, of the ballot-box, and of universal secular educa- tion at public expense. It would seem to them that public opinion is sufficient or about to become sufficient by means of the newspaper and the book to secure life, personal liberty, and the peaceful pursuit of happiness without the necessity for a religious provision for social culture. Only the culture that comes from the secular school is adjudged to be necessary for all. For the proper consideration of this question it is necessary to take up more fundamentally the origin and real function of religion. We shall find two fundamental views of nature and man the foun- dation of two opposite religious movements in the world's history — the Christian and the Oriental. According to one of these views our free secular life, our science and the arts, our literature and our productive industry and our commerce, are utterly perverse and not to be tolerated on any terms. 6 SOCIAL CULTURE A year ago or more there was published a letter written by an Arab sheik of Bagdad to the editor of a Paris newspaper (La Revue, for March, 1902), in which he expressed admiration for certain ex- ternal characteristics of European civilization, but found no words bitter enough for his detestation of the Christian religion professed by all European nations. To him it was all a horrible blasphemy. The pure One as preached in the Koran is sovereign and transcend- ent, and to speak of it as divine-human, or as triune in the Christian sense, is to the Mohammedan an act of unspeakable sacrilege. Therefore, if our triumphs in science and art flow from our religion, the worshiper of Islam must regard them as his mortal foe.1 And yet the Arab sheik is much nearer to the Christian view than is the Buddhist or the Brahmin. The East Indian view holds a first principle that repudiates or shuts out from its attributes conscious- ness and will and feeling — all the elements of personality. But the Allah of the Koran is personal and in an important sense ethical, having the attributes of righteousness and goodness borrowed from the Old Testament by the Hanyf preachers of the Ebionitic sect of Old Testament Christians who proselyted Mohammed, as shown by Sprenger.2 But Brahma is above the ethical distinctions of good and evil, and goodness and righteousness are as naught to him and to the Yogi who seeks by mortification to get rid of his selfhood. 1 Le Dernier mot de V Islam a V Europe, par le Sheikh Abdul Hagk de Bagdad, Paris, La Revue, no. 5, March 1, 1902. Passage translated from the beginning: " Christian Peoples: The hatred of Islam against Europe is implacable. After ages of effort to effect a reconciliation between us, the only result to-day is that we detest you more than ever. This civilization of yours and its marvels of progress which have rendered you so rich and so powerful, be it known to you, that we hate them and we spurn them with our very souls. . . . The Mohammedan religion is to-day in open hostility against your world of progress. . . . We explain how it is that we spurn with horror not only your religious doctrines but all your science, all your arts, and everything that comes from Christian Europe. ... I, the humble Sheik Abdul Hagk, member of the holy Panislamistic league, come with a special mission to explain clearly how this comes to be. . . . Our creed is this : There is in the universe one sole being, God, source of all power, of all light, of all truth, of all justice, and of all goodness; He has not been generated; He has not generated any one. He is single, infinite, eternal; alone, He wished to be known ; He made the universe, He created man. He surrounded man with the splendors of creation and imposed on him the sacred duty of worshiping Him alone. To worship continually this only God is man's only mission on earth. Man's soul is immortal; his life on earth only a probation; . . . the supreme duty of man to worship the only God and to sacrifice himself to Him without reserve; the sum of all iniquity to renounce the only God and to worship a false God. . . . For us Mussulmans there is a world containing only two kinds of human beings, believers and infidels (mecreants) ; love, charity, brotherhood to the believers; contempt, disgust, hatred, and war for the infidels. Among the infidels the most hated and the most criminal are those who worship God but ascribe to Him earthly parents, or fatherhood, or a human mother. Such monstrous blindness seems to us to surpass all measure of iniquity; the presence among us of infidels of this kind is the plague of our life ; their doctrine is a direct menace to the purity of our faith; contact with them is defilement, and any relation with them whatever a torment to our souls." 2 Das Leben und die Lehre des Mohammed, Berlin, 1869, chapter i, pp. 16-27, 37-47, 60, 69, 70-77, 101-107. IN THE FORM OF EDUCATION AND RELIGION 7 Let us endeavor to find, by the well-known road taken by the philosophy of history, the twofold root of all human experience which gives rise to the religious insights which in their first form of exter- nal authority govern human life before the advent of the stage of reflection and individual free thought — religion before secular education. V Examine life and human experience as we may, we find our attention drawn to two aspects, or opposite poles, so to speak, of each object presented to us. The first aspect includes all that is directly perceivable by the five senses, sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch. This is the aspect of immediate existence. But experience begins at once to go beyond the immediate aspect and to find that it is a product or effect of outlying causes. We are not satisfied with it as an immediate existence; it now comes to be for us an effect or mediated existence. If we call the first aspect an effect, we shall call this second aspect a causal process. Each immediate object, whether it be thing or event, is an effect, and beyond it we seek the causes that explain it. The first pole of existence is, therefore, immediate existence, and the second is the causal chain in which the object, whether it be considered as thing or as event, is found. Since the causal process contains the explanation of immediate existence, the knowledge which is of most importance is that know- ledge which includes the completest chain of causation. It is the knowledge of primal cause which contains the fullness of explanation. And the mind of the human race has devoted itself chiefly to the question of first cause. In this search, as already suggested, it has been the mind of the social whole of a people that has done the thinking rather than the minds of mere individuals. Even the most enlightened individuals and the most original and capable ones have borrowed the main body of their ideas from the religious tradition of their people, and their success in effecting modifications and new features in the ex- isting creed has been due to the cooperation of like-minded contem- poraries which assisted the utterance of the new idea so far as to make it prevail. Again the collisions of peoples settled by war and conquest have brought about new syntheses of religious doctrine, which have resulted in deeper religious insight and more consistent views of the divine nature. It has been the long-continued process of pondering on the second 8 SOCIAL CULTURE aspect of things and events, the second pole of experience, that has reached the religious dogmas of the greater and greatest religions of human history — a process of social units in which whole peoples have merged. This process has been a study of the question how the perfect One can be conceived as making a world of imperfect beings. For im- perfect or derivative beings demand another order of being, an or- iginating source, as a logical condition of existence. But this source must explain not only the efficient cause of the imperfect, but also the motive of purpose, the final cause or end of the creation of the imperfect being. There are two great steps which religion takes after it leaves an- cestor-worship and other forms of animism, in which disembodied individuals as good or evil demons reign as personal causes in an order above the natural order of things and events which are im- mediately present to our senses. As the intellect of man became developed, socially and individually, the great step was taken above all secondary causes to a First Cause transcending nature and also transcending time and space, the logical conditions of fmitude and multiplicity. The transcendent unity, in which all things and events lost their individual being and mingled in one chaotic confusion, is conceived as a great void into which all things and events are resolved when traced to their first principle. Transcendence was in the first stage of religious contemplation the important attribute to be kept in mind when thinking of the First Cause. To halt in this thought of mere transcendence of the world meant pantheism in the sense that the One is conceived to possess all being and to be devoid of finitude. It exists apart in an order above all fmitude as found in our experience. To deny all relation to finitude comes as a result from this abstract thought of the infinite. It is the nothing of the world of experience and is to be thought of as its dissolution. The philosophy of Kapila in the Sankhya Karika, the religion of both the Yoga doctrines, the Yoga of complete asceticism (of Patanjali) as well as the Karma Yoga expounded in the Bhagavad Gita, reach a One not only above things and events and above a world-order, but also elevated even above creatorship, and above intellect and will, a pure being that is as empty as it is pure, having no distinctions within itself nor for others — light and darkness, the widest distinction in nature, are all the same to Brahma, and so also are good and evil, sin and virtue, " shame and fame," as Emerson names these ethical distinctions in his poem of Brahma, — they are all one to Brahma. IN THE FORM OF EDUCATION AND RELIGION 9 VI. Theism When the social mind had reached this insight of the transcendence of the great First Cause we see that it lost the world of things and events and had annulled one of the two poles of experience which it was attempting to explain. And it had left in its thought only a great negative abstraction, pure being or pure naught, with no positive distinctions, not even consciousness nor the moral idea of ethics, goodness, and righteousness or mercy and justice. It was obliged to deny the creation altogether and conceive the world as a vast dream, a maya. Asia's chief thought is this idea of transcendence of the one First Cause, above the world and above creation and creative activity. But in the Old Testament we have the last word of Asia; it reveals an insight which reacts against the thought of this abstract oneness as transcendental Being and sets in its place the idea of a creator. God as creator makes the world, but does not lose his sovereignty by this act. He also retains consciousness, inward distinction; he is personal, having intellect and will and also feeling. The pantheistic idea which conceived God only as the transcendent One followed its thought out to the denial of all creative activity and even to the denial of all inward distinction of subject and object. It ended its search for a First Cause (following out the causal line which it began with) by denying causality altogether and finding only a quiet, empty being devoid of finitude within itself and annihilat- ing objective finitude altogether. Hence its search ended with the denial of true being to the world and to man. But this self-contradiction was corrected by the Israelitic people, who felt an inward necessity — a logical necessity — of conceiving the First Cause as active, both as intellect making internal distinctions of subject and object, and also as a free will creating a world of finite reality in which it could reveal itself as goodness. The essence of goodness, in the Old Testament sense of the idea, consists in impart- ing true being to that which has it not. God creates real beings. Goodness not only makes others but gives them rights; that is to say, gives them claims on its consideration. While Orientalism with the single idea of transcendence or sover- eignty arrived at the idea of a One without the many, and at a con- sequent destruction of what it set out to explain, theism found a First Cause that could explain the world as created by an ethical being, a personal One that possessed what we call " character," namely, a fixed self-determination of will, of which the two elements were goodness and righteousness. This doctrine conceived ethics as a fundamental element in the character of the Absolute, a primordial form of being belonging to the First Cause. 10 SOCIAL CULTURE Time and space according to the first form of religion — that is to say, according to the first completed thought arrived at by the social intelligence of the race — are illusions and producers of illusions. All illusions arise in the primordial distinction of subject and object which constitutes the lapse into consciousness out of primeval unity which is not subject and object.1 This thought of Kapila becomes the basis of the religion of Buddhism, the religion founded on the simple idea of transcendence of the one First Cause above all causality. This is opposite to the religion of the Bible, which reveals the divine as a One that is goodness. Goodness is so gracious as to create and give independent reality to nature and man, in short, to make man able to sin and to defy the First Cause his Creator. Here emerges for the first time the idea of sin. Man, as may a or illusion, is not created nor is he a creator of things or events; his deeds are only seeming, for he does not possess true reality himself. But with the doctrine of theism, man has an eternal selfhood given him and is responsible for the acts of his will ; he can sin and repent. He can choose the ethical and form in himself the image of God, or on the, other hand he can resist the divine and create an Inferno. While theism commands man to renounce selfishness, pantheism commands to renounce selfhood. Theism contains in it as a special prerogative the possibility of meeting difficulties insoluble to pantheism. It has solved the great difficulty of conceiving a First Cause so transcendent that it is no cause of the world and man. For theism sees the necessity of good- ness and righteousness in the First Cause, and hence finds the world and man in the divine mind. But it, too, sees divine sovereignty and does not lose that thought in its theory of man and nature. Nature is full of beings that perish, notwithstanding the fact that they come from a perfect Creator. The history of man is full of sin and rebellion against goodness and righteousness. But our theistic insight knows that God is holy; that he possesses perfect goodness and righteousness. The exclusive contemplation of the imperfec- tions of man and even of his best works leads to the pantheistic denial of the world and to despair as to man's salvation before the sovereign First Cause. The religion of theism often lapses towards Orientalism in its condemnation of nature and history as empty of all good. Whenever it has gone so far that it blasphemes the First Cause by limiting divine goodness, the church has given a check to this tendency and ushered in an epoch of missionary effort, wherein the true believer leaves off his excessive practice of self-mortification and devotes himself, like St. Francis, to the work of carrying salvation to the lost. It goes out like St. Dominic to save the intellect and to have not only pious hearts but pious intellects that devote their lives 1 Memorial verses of the Sankhya Karika, nos. xxi, xxii, xxiv, lxii, lxiv. IN THE FORM OF EDUCATION AND RELIGION 11 to the study of the creation, trying to see how God works in his goodness, giving true being to his creatures, and lifting them up into rational souls able to see the vision of God.1 VII The piety of the intellect contains in it also another possibility of lapse into impiety of intellect, namely, through lack of power to hold to the sovereignty of God. It may go astray from the search of the First Cause and set up secondary causes in place of a First Cause. This is the opposite danger to pantheism, which gets so much in- toxicated with the divine unity that it neglects nature and history and discourages intellectual piety and loses the insight into the revela- tion of God's goodness and righteousness in the creation of the world. There are two kinds of intellectual impiety, one kind that goes astray after a secondary cause in place of a First Cause, and the other that passes by secondary causes as something unworthy of the true First Cause, not seeing that the true First Cause makes the world with its three orders of being: the lower ministering to the higher and the higher to the lower, — an inorganic below an organic realm, — and within the organic realm creating the animal below the man, and among the races of man making savages below civilized peoples. It does not see that in all these divine goodness has its own great pur- pose — to make the world of time and space an infinite cradle for the development of spiritual individuality. The Christian God is not an abstract One, delighting only in abstract ones, but a Creator delighting in creators, commanding true believers to engage in the eternal work of the First Cause, namely, by multiplying his creative and educative work. Thus from one or another form of impiety of the intellect there arise collisions with the church from age to age. A closer and closer definition of the dogma arises out of the struggle. One of the greatest epochs of struggle in the church arose in the time of the importation of Arabian pantheism into Spain, and thence into the other parts of Europe by reason of resort of Christian youth to the medical schools established by the Arabs. The great commentators on Aristotle, Avicenna and Averrhoes, came to notice and caused great anxiety by their interpretation of Aristotle's doctrine of the active reason (vovs tj-oi/tikos), which they held to exist only in God; and upon the death of the individual, the passive soul or reason (vovs Tra.6rjri.K6s), which is conceived by them as a temporary manifestation of the active reason, withdrew, and was absorbed into the deity, losing its individual being. 1 See Goethe's Faust, " Scene in Heaven " (part n, act v, scene 7), Pater Pro- fundus and Pater Seraphicus. 12 SOCIAL CULTURE To Christianity the doctrine of individual immortality is vital. Without it the world-view of the church would suffer dissolution. The publication of the pantheistic version of Aristotle forced Christian scholars to study seriously the Greek philosophy. Piety of the heart and piety of the will did not suffice. Piety of the intellect was needed, and it came in a series of thinkers who wrote the expositions of Christian theology of which the Summa theologiae of Thomas Aquinas is the great exemplar. Piety of the intellect over- came the dangers of religious heresy. After an epoch of rapid philosophical development — a period of a too exclusive devotion to the piety of the intellect — there came a decadence in the piety of the will and the piety of the heart, and when this began to have its visible effects in the neglect of the secular interests of the church a reaction set in, which culminated in the triumph of the pestilent doctrine of nominalism through the dialectic skill of William of Occam, and as a consequence the great philosophy of Saint Thomas of Aquino fell into neglect. But this gave an op- portunity for the triumph of the study of secondary causes. Natural science began new inventories of nature and new studies of mind which set forth theories almost mechanical in their results. With nominalism no speculative investigations into the nature of a First Cause are permissible. All that is left is an empirical study of things and events, — an inventory and a classification, — theories of forces, mechanical composition and decomposition of bodies, the transformation of sensations into ideas. Ideas were regarded as of the nature of mere opinions and of less truth than the sensations which furnish the only vivid certainty esteemed to be of real worth. There is bound to arise a reaction against religious authority whenever the church itself neglects the exposition of the intellectual insights which are the most vital part of its contribution to civiliza- tion. For if the Christian world- view is rendered untenable, the piety of the will and the piety of the heart will soon decay. A series of skeptical reactions not only against the church, but against the authority of the state, have taken place as a result of this movement away from theology and towards an exclusive study of secondary causes. The German word Aufkldrung, or clearing-up of the mind, has become more or less familiar to us as including the phases of this revolt against authority. It holds to the study of secondary causes and the neglect of the First Cause. VIII There has been only one great Aufkldrung, the French Revolution, which swept together all the negative tendencies into one move- ment of destruction to church and state. But there are numerous, IN THE FORM OF EDUCATION AND RELIGION 13 very numerous minor movements. In every department its influence is felt.' In the last half of the nineteenth century Herbert Spencer occupied, and still occupies, much attention. It is interesting to note that in his generalizations of science he adopted the agnostic view of his system from Hamilton and Mansell. Back of that view is Hume's skepticism especially with regard to the category of causality, and it would not be difficult to trace his extreme nominalism to the stream of influence that William of Occam set flowing within the church. Herbert Spencer's theory of the world resembles in a marked man- ner the doctrine of the Oriental mind that the world-process finally comes to nothing. One after another, things and events appear and then vanish again and all remains as at first.1 It is a Sisyphus movement with no permanent outcome and no worthy result. It begins with the homogeneous, undifferentiated condition of matter and moves towards heterogeneity, individuality, and complexity of function. Evolution is this process of individualization. But all evolution is to be followed by dissolution, a return to the chaotic and unindividualized state of the homogeneous which Spencer considered to be unstable and, so to speak, impelled to evolution, but which in the end becomes unstable again and seeks its equilibrium in chaos. One of the chief leaders of the Aufkldrung has thus returned to Orientalism, and his infinite and eternal is only an unknown and unknowable power — he calls it " unknown and unknowable," though he lets us clearly see that there is a shuttle motion produced 1 " Evolution," says Spencer, in that concise statement of his system found in his Avtobiography, vol. i, pp. 650-652, " Evolution ... is a movement (6) not simply from homogeneity to heterogeneity, but from an indefinite homogeneity to a definite heterogeneity; and this trait of increasing definiteness, which accom- panies the trait of increasing heterogeneity, is, like it, exhibited in the totality of things and in all its divisions and subdivisions down to the minutest. (7) Along with this redistribution of the matter composing an evolving aggregate, there goes on a redistribution of the retained motion of its components in relation to one another; this also becomes, step by step, more definitely heterogeneous. . . . (13) Dissolution is the counter-change which sooner or later every evolved aggregate undergoes. Remaining exposed to surrounding forces that are unequilibriated, each aggregate is ever liable to be dissipated by the increase, gradual or sudden, of its contained motion; and its dissipation, quickly undergone by bodies lately animate, and slowly undergone by inanimate masses, remains to be undergone at an indefinitely remote period by each planetary and stellar mass, which since an indefinitely distant period in the past has been slowly evolving, the cycle of its transformations being thus completed. (14) This rhythm of evolution and dis- solution, completing itself during short periods in small aggregates, and in the vast aggregates distributed through space completing itself in periods which are immeasurable by human thought, is, so far as we can see, universal and eternal — each alternating phase of the process predominating, now in this region of space and now in that, as local conditions determine. . . . (16) That which persists, unchanging in quantity but ever changing in form, under these sensible appear- ances which the Universe presents to us, transcends human knowledge and con- ception, — is an unknown and unknowable Power, which we are obliged to recognize as without limit in space and without beginning or end in time." 14 SOCIAL CULTURE by it out of chaos into individuality and from individuality back again into chaos. A creative goodness which lifts into being an infinity of other selves of animals and men, only to swallow them up again by a jealous reaction, drawing them down into the homogeneous ocean of chaotic matter, deserves rather to be called, as Plato in the Timaeus and Aristotle in his Metaphysics called it, envy and jealousy (\(/$6vo<;), a quality of mind which they thought not possible to find in the idea of God as Creator. The only effective counter-movement against the Aufkldrung is the return to a study of the First Cause. This does not mean the neglect of secondary causes, but their proper adjustment. It is an application of the great results of religious thought — a social institutional kind of thinking that should be gone over by every individual for his enlightenment. The church should elaborate its application of the thought of the First Cause to all secondary causes, showing in each case how the divine goodness connects and explains the entire movement from the mechanical to the chemical, and from these to the crystal, the plant, the animal, and to man. IX I review, in concluding my paper, the line of argument based on the second or causal aspect of experience: (1) The first religious step is taken when all secondary causes are aggregated into one group and included in the world-order, in what we have called the first pole of experience. Ancestor-worship with its infinite series of finite spirits belongs only to a world-.order. A true originating causality, a first cause, belongs to a second and higher order, to a self-determining or originating order of being which transcends the world of things and events; all things and events depending upon a being derived from beyond, and not in themselves possessing self-existence; and the true second order possessing independence, self-existence, and the power to produce duality by consciousness, will, or some other form of self-determination. (2) The first thinking of this transcendent being becomes absorbed in the contemplation of its transcendence, or its sovereignty over the first order. While the first order is dependent and must derive its support, all that it has, from a higher order of being; the second order is independent and can exist by itself. The religious con- templation is absorbed in this fact of independence or transcendence; it searches the origin of the dependent order in the sovereignty of the independent order; but it does not find at first, in the independent, the motive for the dependent. It halts in the thought of transcend- IN THE FORM OF EDUCATION AND RELIGION 15 ence and denies reality to the world of things and events; it becomes pantheism or Orientalism; it denies creatorship in the first prin- ciple. (3) The result of the first insight into the presupposition of de- pendent being has reached an independent being which is devoid of true causality and which does not impart its true being to a derived world; this is pantheism. But, again, this result contradicts the presupposition on which the insight into the second order is based. For unless there is presupposed a true originating causality, a self- determining One, the higher order of being exists only in itself and not for itself; its causality is not real to itself; if its causality pro- duces only a world of phenomenality and illusion, then the result of its causality is only to reveal to the independent being its own inefficiency as a cause; it is a cause which cannot produce anything real, hence it is not a true cause. (4) The history of the religions of Asia is a history of the discovery of the self-contradictions of pantheism — of a true causal being which does not truly cause. It is also a series of attempted solutions to introduce true causality without destroying the transcendence or sovereignty of the First Cause. For to introduce any finite motive, that is to say, any motive depending upon another underived being, would destroy the perfection of the first original cause and reduce it to a secondary cause and thus throw back the entire investigation to the stage of ancestor- worship. The escape from this dilemma, which offers a choice between the destruction of the imperfect world and the destruction of the perfect world, i. e., its renunciation by philosophic thought, is found in the doctrine of the Logos and its complete exposition in the Christian doctrine of the Trinity. (5) True causality is the self-revelation of the highest order of being. But it does not in its pure self-determination reach second- ary causes. Its action in itself is the revelation of a perfect in a perfect; this is the doctrine of the Logos. Perfect self-determina- tion results in perfect revelation in another, an eternal object becomes an eternal subject whose thinking and willing are one, and hence goodness and righteousness. Through this thought it is explained how the primary causality in the Logos becomes secondary causality through the contemplation of goodness and righteousness as the inner essence of causality. (6) The Christian view of the world, therefore, does not com- promise its idea of the transcendency or sovereignty of the First Cause, but preserves it perfectly and at the same time introduces transcendency into the world-order by the doctrine of the immortal- ity, freedom, and responsibility of the human soul who, through religious insight, interprets the entire world-order as a process of creation and salvation; the process of creating souls with inde- 16 SOCIAL CULTURE pendent individuality and infinite powers of self-development in will and intellect, in goodness and righteousness. Consciousness proceeds through science and philosophy and theology everlastingly towards a completer comprehension of the divine method of creation of real being, that is to say, of moral beings through the inorganic and the organic processes in time and space and through the discipline of moral beings by means of their historic experience of life. This development of consciousness makes possible the cooperation of the human will with the divine will. This is the ultimate cause presupposed by secondary causation. It is the second aspect of experience in its fullness and perfection. (7) This view of the world elevates it into the highest significance, not through its secondary causes, but through its first cause as the divine self-activity in its goodness and righteousness. It is infinite grace. (8) This view of the world makes secondary causes significant in the light of the First Cause. It makes the history of nature thus interpreted a part of the book of divine revelation. (9) With the pantheistic interpretation the divine purpose dis- appears from the realm of secondary causes, and with this there vanishes all true causality and high significance to science. For the objects of science, namely, material nature and human history, when separated from the divine and devoid of a share in the causal activity of a transcendent being who is a real cause, become a chaos or illusion, the East Indian maya. (10) In the ruder forms of religion, the varieties of ancestor- worship and fetichism, science has no place, because all secondary causes become capricious activities of spiritual beings not subor- dinated to a first principle of goodness and righteousness. (11) It follows from these considerations that social culture in the form of the church and the school as independent institutions becomes possible only on the basis of the religious world-view of Christianity; and that the perennial continuance of the world- view of Christianity through the special form of social culture which belongs to the church is a necessary condition presupposed by the forms of social culture intrusted to the school. ABTHUB T. HADLET, LL.D., President of Yale University. (Second incumbent of the Cliair of "American History and Institutions " in the University of Berlin.) DEPARTMENT XXIII— EDUCATION DEPARTMENT XXIII — EDUCATION (Hall 2, September 20, 4.15 p.m.) Speakers: President Arthur T. Hadley, Yale University. The Right Rev. John L. Spalding, Bishop of Peoria. EDUCATIONAL METHODS AND PRINCIPLES OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY BY ARTHUR TWINING HADLEY [Arthur Twining Hadley, President of Yale University, b. New Haven, Con- necticut, April 23, 1856. B.A.Yale, 1876; LL.D. Harvard, Johns Hopkins, Columbia, et al.; Post-graduate, Berlin, 1878-79. Commissioner of Labor Statistics of Connecticut, 1885-87; Professor of Political Science, Yale, 1886-99; one of the original members of the International Institute of Sta- tistics; lately President of the American Economic Association. Author of Railroad Transportation; Economics; Education of the American Citizen; Freedom and Responsibility. American Editor-in-chief of Encyclopaedia Britannica. This is hardly the time or the place for a discussion of £he general theory of education. The subject is too broad to be handled in forty minutes, too abstruse to be made the theme of a popular ad- dress. It will, I think, serve our purpose better if in place of any such general discussion of educational principles and methods we content ourselves with seeing what has been most distinctively characteristic in the principles and methods of the nineteenth cen- tury as contrasted with those of the ages which have preceded. A feature that has distinguished that century, in almost every department of human affairs, has been its emphasis on the rights and powers of the individual. We have seen a growth of individual liberty in politics and economics. We have witnessed a develop- ment of individual methods in science and in art. In all the varying fields of human activity we have tried to give each man the chance to form his own conceptions of happiness and success and pursue them in his own way. It was inevitable that the same tendency should have shown itself in our educational ideals and methods. Where earlier centuries strove to establish types of character or of thought or of conduct, and make individual boys and girls conform to these preconceived types, we have tried rather to take actual boys and girls, actual men and women, and make the most of their several capacities. Psychologists, with methods as diverse as Froebel on the one hand and Spencer on the other hand, had agreed in this cardinal principle of educational theory. Practical organizers 20 EDUCATION the world over, from Horace Mann at one end of the century to Levasseur at the other, however different the problems with which they had to deal, shaped them toward this common end. We came to regard the development of the individual as the goal of education. Some of us have even come to regard it as an axiomatic and self- evident goal; to be surprised that people in other times or countries could have sought other ends than this ; to misjudge the educational systems of the past on account of their failure to conform to nine- teenth-century standards. Many a writer on education is prone to treat the schools of previous ages as though they represented a very bad attempt to do what we are doing to-day, instead of a tolerably good attempt to do something totally different. Let us see, if we can, how this pursuit of individual development manifests itself in different kinds of schools at the present time. We may well begin with the matter of professional training. This is the field of education where the aim is plainest. This is where the variety of the problems is least. This is, therefore, the point where we can see the distinctive features of the school system of any age or country most sharply exemplified. The first difference that strikes us in the new professional training as compared with the old is the vastly greater amount of time which is accorded to it and of emphasis which is placed on its importance. In earlier ages there was no well-developed system of technical schools except for the three so-called learned professions — clerical, legal, and medical; and even in these callings the student obtained most of his real training in the actual experience of the office or the forum rather than in the preliminary work of the classroom. To-day all this has changed. In the learned professions what was formerly a brief and somewhat profitless course of study has been greatly extended in length and animated by new life and new methods. Preparation for medicine, for instance, involves not only a longer course of study in the medical school than it once did, but a time of combined study and work in the hospital, which is now recognized as an essential element in thorough training. In other professions, like the different departments of engineering or technology, special schools of a character hardly known at the end of the eighteenth century have multiplied themselves during the nineteenth until they have become more numerous and more largely attended than the old schools of theology or law or medicine. The soldier has learned that he cannot despise the theory of his trade; and this has led to the establishment, first in France and then in other countries, of military or naval academies of a high order. The success of these schools in training military engineers has led to the establishment of other colleges of engineering for men who intended to apply mathe- matical science to the arts of peace rather than of war. From these METHODS OF NINETEENTH CENTURY 21 engineering colleges it was but a step toward the establishment of technological instruction in every line where a profound knowledge of physics or chemistry is necessary to fit a man for the most success- ful prosecution of his work. We have seen the establisnment of schools of art in its various forms. We have in more recent years witnessed the extension of the principle of professional education so as to afford training for the more purely mechanical pursuits which involve no profound knowledge of mathematics or chemistry and no long-continued or exhaustive study such as is necessary for the pursuit of art or letters ; schools which take people who are under the necessity of earning a living and have little time to spare in education, in order to give them, in this little time, the opportunity to earn that living more honorably and more successfully. And this brings us to another point which distinguishes the pro- fessional education of the nineteenth century from that which pre- ceded it. I refer to the character of the modern technical school as a place where the individual learns to achieve success. The earlier professional colleges were occupisd with the creation and maintenance of standards of thought and of conduct rather than with the practical end of fitting the student for his life work. The old-fashioned school of theology was chiefly concerned to uphold orthodox traditions and to maintain a spiritual atmosphere favorable to the perpetuation of such traditions. Nor was the old-fashioned school of law or medicine very different from this. The student was brought under the influence of a code of professional ethics which helped to uphold the dignity of his calling. If the teacher could inspire the pupil with this class spirit and these special standards of honor inherited from past ages, it was regarded as somewhat im- material whether he taught him anything else. Not a few of the scientific teachers of past centuries have made it their boast that they never did anything so commonplace as a dissection or an ex- periment in their classrooms. To-day the case is far different. We no longer seek to maintain standards; we seek to accomplish results. We try to fit the pupil to do something. If our ideals are high, we wish to enable him to do something to benefit his fellow men. If they are a little lower, we teach him to do something which will increase his reputation. If they are on that low plane which always characterizes a certain proportion of our professional teaching, we are chiefly concerned to prepare him to make money. But whether its purpose be high or low, the nineteenth-century technical school, whether for learned professions or unlearned, is occupied to an overwhelmingly large extent with the teaching of things which will lead each man to accomplish tangible success for himself; and most of them have let the duty of maintaining public standards sink somewhat into the background. 22 EDUCATION Less definitely perhaps, but still quite clearly, we see the same change of character in our colleges and secondary schools. In the place of a common course of study adapted to meet real or supposed public needs, we have witnessed the gradual development of elective courses intended to meet individual wishes at the moment or in- dividual necessities for the future. "We no longer lay our emphasis on developing that general attitude of mind toward intellectual questions which made the gentlemen or the scholars of the past. We are concerned rather with developing many kinds of education to suit the needs of many types of intellect and calling. The old- fashioned idea of scholarship as an end of secondary education has given place to the modern idea of science. Where the old-fashioned course made masters of arts, the modern course looks upon doctors of philosophy as its bright consummate flowers. We try to educate our college students as intellectual producers and not as intellectual consumers. I hold no brief for the old system. I shall not under- take to consider how far the great and unquestioned gain in private efficiency which has attended this change is offset by any loss in public advantage. It is sufficient to point out the difference of point of view which the change connotes, a difference which has mani- fested itself not in America alone, but in England and France and Germany and in every country where the old traditions of university and college life are being modified under the influence of modern theory and practice. At the beginning of the nineteenth century a boy's course of study in the high school or the college was not determined by his individual aptitudes; it was determined almost entirely by his social standing and social aspirations. If he belonged to the trading class, he re- ceived one sort of education; if he belonged to the military class, he received another sort; if he belonged to the professional class, he received a third sort. The collegiate education one hundred years ago was based chiefly upon the supposed needs of this professional class. Whether it was obtained in the Lycee of France or the gymna- sium of Germany, the public school of England, or the college of America, it gave the student a large amount of training in Latin and Greek, a somewhat smaller amount of training in mathematics and moral science, and practically no training at all in modern languages or natural and physical science. Save for the fact that it involved a good deal of hard work and enabled the teacher to know whether the pupil was really doing his work or not, this course had little practical bearing on the needs of the individual. It served rather as an in- itiation into the learned society of which that individual was to be a member. It stamped the professional man, or the gentleman who expected to associate with professional men, as a scholar; as one who had gone through those distinctive rites which allowed a man METHODS OF NINETEENTH CENTURY 23 to enter the mysterious portals of learning. The degrees or certi- ficates which were obtained in the prosecution of this course of study were, as a French critic well says, social rather than pedagogical institutions. To-day all this has changed. This change has gone further in America than in Germany, and further in Germany than in England or France; but in every one of these countries, in greater or less degree, there has been an alteration in the underlying principle and object of college training. When class lines in business broke down, as they did at the close of the eighteenth century, it was no longer possible to maintain in their former rigidity class lines in matters of education. When careers were thrown open to ability instead of being determined by birth, each man was anxious to have the ability of his children developed instead of remaining content with those traditional studies which had once seemed a birthright and a class privilege. So long as one parent had to send his son to a college and another to a military school or else let them go altogether without education, each perforce took whatever the college or school chose to give. But as soon as he had the opportunity to select the kind of education which seemed best fitted for his son's needs, each group of schools was in a measure brought into competition with the others, and was compelled to arrange its course of study to meet the desires of the parents. We find in the progress of the nineteenth century a growing interaction and mutual influence exercised by schools and colleges of different classes upon one another. The German gymna- sium and the German Realschule have not preserved the sharp dis- tinctions which characterized them of old, but modifications and combinations have been introduced into their courses of study which make the line of demarcation between them gradual instead of sharp. The American college has borrowed so much from the American technical school, and the American technical school has borrowed so much from the American college, that it is impossible to say where one class of institutions ends and the other begins. In England and France the change has not gone so far, but there is quite sufficient evidence to show that the same tendency exists for breaking down class lines and adapting college courses to individual needs. The time is past when a high school was but a high school, an academy an academy, a classical school a classical school. Almost every institution now has alternative courses of study, calculated to develop the powers of the individual pupil rather than to promote a common school life and school discipline. Nor does this change stop short with college and high school. It makes itself felt in common school and in kindergarten. It trans- forms our Whole understanding of the purpose of public education. In old days we taught reading and arithmetic because without 24 EDUCATION reading and arithmetic the pupil could not perform his duties as a citizen. We taught obedience and respect for authority because we thought that obedience was a good habit, authority a good thing to recognize. Even in this free country of America we were content to teach pupils to spell in the accredited way, simply because it was the accredited way. To-day we have departed from all this. We have tried to see what the child wants or supposes it wants rather than what the community needs or supposes it needs. We have substituted nature study and observation for arithmetic and de- portment. We have trained up a generation of children which has been brought in contact with many things, useful and otherwise, of which our children of previous ages never dreamed. But they have lost that respect' for standards which is seen in accurate writing or ciphering. We need not go so far as did that pessimist who said reflectively, " School-children are not beaten so much as they were when I was a boy, but neither are they taught so much, so that what they gain at one end they lose at the other." But we may all express concerning modern school-children as a class that regret with which Artemus Ward qualified his otherwise favorable criticism of Chaucer: " Mr. C. had talent, but he could n't spell." To-day more than ever we need to insist on the importance of this work of maintaining public standards, as compared with that of developing individual tastes and powers. This is especially true where schools are supported with public money instead of being maintained by the tuition-fees of the pupils. If a boy pays for his education, it is logical and right to give him the kind of education that he himself wants; but if the public pays for his education, it seems logical and right to give principal emphasis to the things the public wants. The public end of education is to teach the pupil to do his duty as a member of a free community. It is a purely private end to teach him to make as much as he can out of his fellow members in that community. If we use public money for private as distinct from public ends, we are adopting educational measures and principles which are socialistic in the bad sense; measures which use collective effort for the benefit of individuals instead of trying to enlist indi- vidual effort for the benefit of the community. I do not wish to seem like a pessimist. That great good has re- sulted from our nineteenth-century emphasis on individual rights- and individual activities in education I firmly believe. But I also believe that in the pursuit of this good we have lost sight of some other ends which past systems of education subserved; and that in trying to provide the rising generation with the fullest capacity for enjoyment we have fallen somewhat short of giving them that capac- ity for discipline on which the educational systems of earlier periods laid too exclusive stress. It is an excellent thing to develop indi- METHODS OF NINETEENTH CENTURY 25 vidual powers of work and means of happiness as fully as we can; but it is a bad thing to encourage the individual to think that his success and his happiness are the ultimate ends for which he is to work. We do not exactly teach this in so many words; but we teach it in deeds whenever we make it a principle to regard the thing which is agreeable and playful to the pupil as presumably useful, and the thing which is disagreeable or fatiguing to the pupil as presumably useless. We are not far enough away from the nineteenth century itself to get it into right historic perspective or judge how the good and the evil of its educational movements may balance. But I will venture the prediction that the educational principles and methods of the nineteenth century will have the same kind of fate which befell the political and economic principles of that century. The introduction of the idea of liberty in politics and in economics did great and overwhelming good. The Declaration of Independence,, with its emphasis on man's rights where older documents had spoken ex- clusively of man's duties, with its assertion of the claim of liberty where others had spoken only of the claim of authority, and with its glorification of the pursuit of happiness where previous writers had preached nothing but self-subordination, marked the opening of a great era of political development and was the starting-point for the success and prosperity of almost every nation that adopted its prin- ciples. In like manner the publication of Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, with its cardinal principle that self-interest in trade, instead of being wicked or obnoxious, might be made an unrivaled means of public service, marked the opening of a new era of industrial effi- ciency and physical welfare. But there came a point when people thought so much of their rights that they forgot the existence of such things as duty, a point when the pursuit of liberty resulted in anarchy, a point when men sought to obtain their own happiness at the sacri- fice of the happiness of others. There came also a point when in- dustrial self-interest could not be made a means to the public welfare, and when those who preached its universal beneficence found their previsions unfulfilled. We have so many of these instances before our eyes that we no longer rely with the childlike optimism of our fathers on the universal beneficence of liberty in politics or in in- dustry. We have learned that the ideals of the nineteenth century, though far better than those of the eighteenth, could not be regarded as goals of all effort or postulates of all thinking; that there was yet a word for the twentieth century to speak in a different sense from that of the nineteenth, and perhaps in a language different from that which those who had most to do in accomplishing nineteenth-century progress would have understood. So I believe it will be in matters of education. I believe that our present-day emphasis on the develop- 26 EDUCATION ment of the individual represents an incident in educational progress rather than a fundamental principle which will underlie and control all the intellectual activity of the future. Without in the least detracting from the great and untold value of educational liberty, we may yet feel that the present moment is one for caution in apply- ing this principle rather than for emphasizing its universal beneficence; and for laying our chief stress on the teaching of those ideas and methods, the training of those habits and emotions, which are es- sential to the well-being of the body politic. THE DEVELOPMENT OF EDUCATIONAL IDEAS IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY BY JOHN LANCASTER SPALDING [John Lancaster Spalding, Roman Catholic Bishop of Peoria since 1877, Peoria, Illinois, b. Lebanon, Kentucky, June 2, 1S40. B.A. Mt. St. Mary's College, 1859; S.T.L. University of Louvain, 1864; LL.D. Columbia University; ibid. Western Reserve University. Author of Life of Archbishop Spalding; Essays and Reviews; Lectures and Discourses; Education and Higher Life; Means and Ends of Education; Opportunity; Religion and Agnosticism; Things of the Mind; God and the Soul ; and many noted works on religion.] The history of the education of a people or an age is the history of its civilization, of its intellectual, moral, and religious life, its material progress being incidental and subordinate. Intelligence, virtue, and industry give man power over himself and all things; and it is education that makes him intelligent, virtuous, and industrious. The riches of nature and the wealth of human life are inexhaustible, but only those whom education stimu- lates to persevering self-activity make them their own. The con- trolling idea of the nineteenth century in philosophy and science is that of organic unity, implying a world-wide process of develop- ment. Hence the point of view is that of history. To understand what anything is, it is necessary to know how it has come to be what it is; for whatever exists is the outcome of an evolution which reaches back indefinitely to ultimate origins. To perceive, all the facts in this process is to see things as they are. This principle is of universal validity, and its application to all the subjects and interests to which the mind can turn made possible the marvelous achievements of the last century, during which mankind grew in knowledge and in power more than in the whole historic past. The secret and the law of progress had been discovered. Heaven and earth have become what they are. All things are interdependent, and God reveals himself as his work is unfolded in the mind of man and in nature. In learning to know how things have become what they are, we have gained insight into methods by which they may be made better than they are. In our hands a key has been placed which opens doors that from the beginning had shut man out of Nature's most richly stored treasure-house. The subconscious efforts to advance, determined by the instinctive love of life, by a still increasing crav- ing for the sensation of life, became, in the nineteenth century, the deliberate purpose, not of individuals merely, but of whole peoples. What the multitudes had for ages felt, they now became able to think. The self-activity which in earlier times had manifested itself in exceptional minds and in isolated groups now stirred the masses. 28 EDUCATION Education was seen to be a human need and a human right; the one means whereby a man, whether as an individual or as a citizen of an earthly or a heavenly kingdom, may fit himself to lead a noble and helpful life. It is, therefore, the need and the right not of a class nor of a sex, nor of a profession merely, but of all. Belief in the equality and kinship of men became a passion; and whatever laws or institutions are a denial of this faith were to be abrogated and abolished. Old things must pass away or re-live in the new spirit. It is the advent of the whole people, coining with mad riot and battle and celebrating its triumph in the glare of burning palaces, amidst the ruins of a falling world. Universal education is a postulate of democracy which now first becomes self-conscious and understands that its rule is incompatible with privilege, slavery, and every kind of oppression and injustice. The people are the whole mass of men and women and, if they are to rule, they must have the knowledge and wisdom which nothing but education can impart. As all have the same divine origin and end, all must be permitted to drink at the same eternal fountain-head of truth, goodness, and love. Hence it is the duty of individuals, families, states, and churches to bend their thoughts and energies to open ways and to provide opportunities for the education of all, that all may become intelligent, free, strong, and self-controlled. Social organizations are for the sake of men, and only the virtuous and en- lightened can properly cherish and maintain the domestic, political, and religious institutions, which consecrate and protect equal rights and liberties. The sense of the need of universal education was awakened by the growing consciousness that henceforth government was to be controlled more and more by the popular will, which, to be beneficent, must be enlightened. As the ideal of life became more comprehensive, the idea of education widened until it embraced the whole people and every interest. The aim is first of all practical, — the formation of individuals and citizens, whose character and in- telligence shall fit them to do well, each in his own sphere, the thou- sand things which civil society implies and requires. But if education is to be made universal, it must be organized and supported by the state through a system of free schools brought within the reach of all, which it alone has the means to establish and maintain. The belief that education should be universal and the recognition of the fact that it can be made so only through a system of public schools, for which all are taxed, have given the impulse to the most characteristic developments of educational ideas during the nineteenth century. The ancient ideals of intellectual culture and moral discipline it did not transcend, but sought to give them general application; and the success with which this has been accomplished is largely due to the influence which those ideals have exercised on the modern mind. DEVELOPMENT OF EDUCATIONAL IDEAS 29 What higher wisdom on this subject have we than Plato's when he says that the training which aims at the acquisition of wealth or bodily strength or mere cleverness, apart from intelligence and justice, is mean and illiberal and not worthy to be called education? But the pagan ideal was aristocratic; it was that of the freeborn dominat- ing slaves, whose nature was supposed to be servile and incapable of true culture. It considered but a class and ignored humanity. Christ is the first humanitarian, and from Him and His followers the world has received its faith in the brotherhood of men and in the right of all to liberty and opportunity; and hence we call our civil- ization not Grecian or Roman, but Christian. It has sprung from the enthusiasm for humanity, the fire which Christ kindled, to burn the dividing and imprisoning walls, that all men and women might have unimpeded access to the truth and freedom which make right life possible. It is to Him, and not to the philosophers of Greece, nor to the calculating moralists of Rome, that we owe our faith in the Father in heaven and in the divine rights of man; His child, which is the master light of all our seeing, and the fundamental principle of our life, individual and social. This principle lies at the core of modern consciousness, even in the minds of those who doubt or deny; and from it our civilization, if it is to advance and endure, must develop, as of it belief in democracy and in the need of popular education is born. The unprecedented expansion and diffusion of life and knowledge which took place in the last century are not a creation, but a develop- ment. That past still keeps us company, and what has been makes what is. He who first lit a fire, he who first used it to cook food or to render metal malleable, made a forward step with which all the advancing races have kept and still keep pace. We do not owe to the nineteenth century the alphabet or Arabic numerals, or architect- ure or painting, or sculpture or music, or poetry or eloquence; we do not owe to it the mariner's compass or the telescope, or the Coper- nican astronomy or the printing-press, or gunpowder or the circum- navigation of the Cape of Good Hope, or the discovery of America or the steam-engine. We do not owe to it philosophy or science or true religion, or the doctrine of political liberty or of equal rights; nor do we owe to it the principles of the theory and practice of edu- cation. It was an era of culmination, in which the tree of life flowered and bore more bountiful fruit; but it could not have flourished at all had not its roots been struck deep into the soil of the past which the labors of countless generations had tilled and made fertile. It was an age of progress because there had been progress from the begin- ning. It did not create the home or civil society, or the state, or the church, or the school, or any of the institutions that educate. It was 30 EDUCATION an era in which mankind came to fuller self-consciousness, an era of more rapid expansion and diffusion of the powers which make for life, in which the passion for freedom and knowledge that is inborn found an environment exceptionally favorable to its exercise. Men became aware of the universal applicability of the forces they had inherited. They invented new and more perfect machinery, and by their aid attained a marvelous power, enabling them to fly rapidly over continents and oceans, to write their thoughts with a pen that reaches thousands of miles, to talk to one another despite forbidding space, to make the lightning illumine their homes and cities with a steady glow, the sun to impress the images of all things on solid matter, and types quickly to multiply the printed page in millions of copies. It was an epoch in which the human mind applied itself with irresistible energy to the intelligible universe. Nothing escaped observation. It measured the velocity of light, it weighed the suns and determined the elements of which they are composed, it de- ciphered the story of the earth's evolution from a molten mass till it became the dwelling-place of man, it established the theory of organic evolution, the germ theory of the zymotic diseases, the molecular theory of gases, the theory of the conservation of energy and of the uniformity of nature. It was a century in which not single minds alone, but whole peoples, were stirred to a higher and more persistent self-activity. The marvelous advance in science, in the arts, in control over the forces of nature, enlarged the thoughts and aspirations of men, giving them a self-confidence which made them quick to believe and be certain that what had been achieved was but a token and promise of the infinite possibilities which the persistent intelligent efforts of multitudes striving for truth, liberty, and power should and would make real. Its victories were victories of mind over matter, triumphs of enlightened nations over the ignorant; and the whole course of events tended to confirm popular faith in the might and worth of education, which ceases to be the concern of scholars merely, and becomes the chief interest of govern- ments and states. The democratic spirit, compelling faith in equal opportunities for all, brought about a general recognition of the truth that the first and greatest of opportunities is opportunity to educate one's self; that the most effectual help a man can render his fellows is to teach them to become intelligent, self-controlled, and self-sufficient. They are mockers who will talk of the brotherhood of men and yet consent that any should remain in ignorance. It is God's will that his children know and love, and they are not Christians who refuse to cooperate to make his will prevail. The mightiest powers which manifest themselves in his universe are intellect and will, and it is a law that to act rightly they must be educated to act rightly. Work DEVELOPMENT OF EDUCATIONAL IDEAS 31 is a blessing, but to be condemned to work ignorantly and stupidly is misery and degradation. A man walks securely and does well only where the light of the mind shines along his path; and if he walks by faith, he still walks in the light of the mind. Imagination, which so largely controls human life, is a will o' the wisp unless it be illuminated and directed by the educated intellect. All genuine popular movements are inspired by sympathy, by a desire to go to the help of those who suffer, who are wronged, whose burdens are too heavy, to whom opportunity is denied. It is this that has provoked and sustained the revolutions which have liber- ated, which have given new hope and courage to the oppressed. It is this that impressed on the nineteenth century its most distinctive feature. It was an era of emancipation, of enlargement of the life of the whole people. Faith in the worth of liberty, of equality of rights, of universal enlightenment, became a passion. New insight was gained into the truth that ignorance is slavery, and that where the masses are permitted to remain ignorant, tyranny and oppression are inevitable. Hence the faith in liberty and in equal rights grew to be an enthusiasm for the spread of knowledge. As the beneficence of science, its power to prevent or cure disease, to develop the trea- sures of nature, to minister to human needs in a thousand ways, be- came more and more manifest, public opinion turned with increasing force to the advocacy, establishment, and maintenance of systems of free schools in which the minds of all might be prepared to adjust themselves to an environment created by widening thought and more accurate knowledge. The recognition of the indispensable need and paramount worth of universal education led to a higher appre- ciation of the dignity of the teacher's office. He is no longer a pedagogue, but a cooperator with God for the regeneration of the world. Teaching evolves into a learned profession, is seen to be the supreme function of all learned professions through which, if it were rightly performed, there would be little litigation or disease or sin or ignorance. When men came to understand that the teacher is the school, their love for the school issued in respect and reverence for the teacher; and he who through the ages had been a slave, or treated as one, is now honored of all the wise and good. The best things — religion and culture, morality and art — are propagated, and they can be propagated only by those in whom they are a vital power. Hence the teacher should have a liberal education, should make his own the highest faith, the truest knowledge, the purest and most generous love that have thrilled a human brain and heart, and then acquaint himself with the theoretical and practical details of his work. The first requisite is to be a genuine, fair, brave, intelligent man or woman. It is his business to further 32 EDUCATION life, to heighten its power and quality, and he can do this only when he himself is what he would help others become. A message of the nienteenth to the twentieth century is this: " So mold public opinion that it shall lead the best men and women to choose teaching as a vocation." Let the buildings be full of light and pure air, let the classes be small, let the hours of study be few, let the pupils gain knowledge as industriously as bees gather honey. Let the atmosphere be that which only cheerful, strong, and loving souls can create. There is nothing beautiful or fair but the mind makes it so; and where there are luminous minds there will be will- ing hearts, there will be interest, self-activity, and effort. The young grow stupid with the dull, tired with the weary, heedless with the indifferent. Their chief faculty is that of imitation and, if we would educate, we must place in the midst of them those into whose like- ness they will find it a delight and a blessing to grow. There is not a pebble lying on unvisited shores but is held by indissoluble bonds to the universe of matter and of spirit too; and there is no subject so seemingly remote from human need but the right teacher will show it to be near and akin to us. He will take the empty forms of thought and fill them with truth as gracious as the presence of friends. To know how to interest is the teacher's great secret. It is an open one. If he himself is interesting, he will easily show that he is so, will hold his pupils to his words and to their work. All our wisdom comes of experience, and our most fruitful ex- perience is of noble personalities, whether in life or in literature; and since the end, of education is the acquirement of wisdom, its method must be contact with teachers, acquaintance with whom is experience of virtue and culture as bodied forth in men and women we may rightly admire and love. The most important development of educational thought in the nineteenth century was the fuller recognition of the principle that education is a universal right, that consequently it is the duty of society to provide the means of education for all, and that the one indispensable and sufficient means is the personal influence of en- lightened and loving teachers. From this sprang the irresistible impulse to diffuse knowledge, to suffer none who might be taught to know, to live and die in ignorance; from this arose systems of free schools, made accessible to all; of this was born a truer appreciation of the worth of the teacher's office, an increasing desire to induce the ablest and the most sympathetic to assume it, to procure for them the best culture, together with the discipline and training needed to give them tact and skill in the performance of their work. If the greatest minds of the nineteenth century gave most serious thought to the subject of education, considering it from the points of view of philosophy, of history, and of science, it was because the DEVELOPMENT OF EDUCATIONAL IDEAS 33 world had come to perceive that education, which is conscious evolution, is the method the Eternal employs to produce and perfect all that is brought forth in space and time. In developing whatever is potential in human endowment man cooperates with God to raise life to higher and higher efficiency and quality. The value of all things was seen to lie in their power to educate, for mind is the creator of values. Strength is good only when it is controlled by the rational will; obedience is a virtue only when it is enlightened and free. The young are compelled to obey that they may learn that liberty is obedience to law. It is education that makes man strong and reasonable, obedient to law, which is the ex- pression of the mind and authority of the Creator of all things. To assert that education is for freedom and not for authority is to wish to separate things which are inseparable. They who recognize not the authority of reason and conscience, and of the institutions in which they are embodied, live in worlds where there is no right or wrong, and are necessarily slaves. The more the subject of education was studied, the more all-inclusive it was seen to be. The evolution of the material universe had meaning, because it was the preparation of a dwelling-place wherein beings capable of knowledge and love might live and educate themselves. In this lies the significance of history, which is valuable chiefly as a record of the education of the human race. By this standard the worth of work, of religion, of science, of art, of literature, of political and civil institutions, is measured. If criminals are to be reformed, if the blind and deaf and dumb are to be enabled to enter into intelligent communion with Nature and their fellows, if a more wholesome, rational, and moral life is to be fostered in communities and in individuals, the processes and methods of education give the surest hope of success. Faith in education is faith that reason and conscience are the mightiest forces; it is faith in God. This deeper insight into the significance and value of education led not merely to its general diffusion throughout the civilized world, it led to more humane and just views in all that relates to the nurture and discipline of the young or to the improvement and cor- rection of the unfortunate or perverse. Love guided by wisdom was perceived to be the supreme educational force. Socrates has said : "We can teach only those who trust and love us; " and He who lifted the race of man to higher levels and diviner aims and hopes made love the test of discipleship. The only fear which is salutary is that which springs from love. To make the young unhappy is to arrest or pervert their spiritual growth. From the joys of childhood well the waters which make life's deserts bloom, which refresh and strengthen the heart in the midst of the trials and struggles that none can escape. The house which children approach 34 EDUCATION unwillingly and with dread is neither a home nor a school. For the criminal even the chief hope is in the power of those to whom they are committed to inspire them with respect, admiration, and love. The glory of the nineteenth century was its greater capacity for sympathy with the poor, the wronged, and the disinherited; and if the history of the twentieth is to be a record of progress, it will be due to a still greater capacity for sympathy with those who need it most. The meaning and end of civilization is the conversion of Nature's struggle for existence into man's cooperation for higher and holier life. Here, and not in devices, methods, and policies, we touch the fountain-head of educational wisdom and inspiration. Struggle is born of brutish instinct and appetite; cooperation, of reason and conscience; and the great aim of education is to establish the supre- macy of reason and conscience over appetite and instinct. The domination of the animal in man had kept woman in subjection, had made her a slave, a drudge, or a plaything, but faith in education as a human need and right revealed to the nineteenth century the duty of providing for the education of women as of men. Oppor- tunity should be given them to upbuild their being, to become all that their endowments permit, to do whatever thing is worth doing, to make of themselves not merely wives and mothers, but individual souls clothed with the liberty and the strength of the children of God. In nothing is the present age superior to all others more than in the intelligence and influence of its women; and this distinction it owes to its readiness to accept and apply educational truth in its fullness, not giving heed to those who doubt or deny or tremble for the safety of a world in which all women are invited to acquaint themselves with the best that is known and to take part in whatever concerns human welfare. In developing educational ideas in the nineteenth century the Germans were the leaders, but the Americans were the first to per- ceive and welcome the truth that there cannot be an enlightened, free, and high-minded people where the women are not enlightened, free, and high-minded. We have accepted this as a principle, and our action has done more to further progress in education than all the speculations of all the philosophers. It is an implication of all our democratic faith. It is folly to imagine that the people will be wise and virtuous if the wives and mothers are not wise and virtuous. The family is the true social unit. Upon it both the state and the church must rely for the inculcation and preservation of the truth which makes man social and religious. In the family the father is the head, the mother the heart; and great thoughts, true inspira- tions, and generous deeds spring from the heart. Shall we put our trust in the calculating intellect, and suffer the fountain-head of life's waters to be choked by noisome weeds? DEVELOPMENT OF EDUCATIONAL IDEAS 35 If right education is a sovereign thing, its highest efficacy shall be shown in developing woman's power of love, sympathy, and self- devotion, giving her at the same time a wider outlook on the world of human achievement and a firmer grasp of intellectual truth. In the nineteenth century the business of school-teaching was largely intrusted to women, and it was the willingness of the most intelligent to undertake this task that made the rapid spread of popular instruction possible. When it was found that as teachers women were the equals of men, it was not difficult to believe that they might compete with them in other fields of activity, and so it came to be understood that for woman, not less than for man, America means opportunity, inviting to larger, freer, and worthier life. She who had been the world's all-suffering drudge, who even as wife and mother had been held in subjection and denied the joys of awakened souls, stood forth self-conscious and thinking, to do her part to make truth and love, which is God's will, prevail. In a century in which the mind and heart of the people had been more powerfully stirred by noble passions than ever before, progress was intensive as well as diffusive. While there was among the civilized portion of mankind a general advance toward greater liberty and intelligence, there was developed in exceptional minds an un- quenchable thirst for knowledge. While for the multitude the means of information were provided, the more serious and far-seeing spirits were busy seeking to throw a purer intellectual light on all the thoughts and ways of men. Standing on the vantage-ground pre- pared by the discoveries, inventions, and wisdom of the past; they moved forward, permitting nothing in the heavens or on the earth to escape their keen and inquiring gaze. Philosophy, religion, history, language, law, government, with whatever else may be the concern of man, were reexamined and submitted to the test of the most searching criticism. Whatever the line of research, all felt that by increasing the store of knowledge they were enriching the race and creating opportunities for the progressive prevalence of mind over matter, of reason over instinct, and of free will over passion. At the bottom of all the feverish, persistent activity of the nineteenth century there lay a deep enthusiasm for human progress; a passion- ate belief that truer and wider knowledge cannot but lead to more intelligent, larger, and freer life; that it is the tendency not merely of vital religious truth, but of all truth, to emancipate. As the field of man's activity was made more fertile by more skillful culture and yielded more and more precious and abundant harvests, new hope of making the world glad, beautiful, and wholesome beyond the dream of past ages sprang within the heart. It was joy to be alive and bliss to be young. A spirit of optimism which refused to see, or at the least to be discouraged by the darker side of things, 36 EDUCATION blew like a creative breath on the face of the people awakening to self-consciousness. The meaning of earthly existence seemed to grow deeper and more glorious. The past faded from view and the future glowed like the sky of dawn. The marvels of material pro- gress became a symbol and a promise of a coming race illumined by science, strengthened by a higher faith, and purified by a diviner love. As everything was investigated, the study of man could not be neg- lected. The light which science threw upon his physical constitution but made it plainer that his true being and world is the mind, that by the soul alone can he be great and free and strong. Hence thinkers were drawn to investigate the instrument of thought, to inquire into the nature of mind, to analyze its faculties, and to determine the order and method of their development. Anthropology became psychology, the practical value of which was found to consist in its application to pedagogy; and so the most subtle and the most ener- getic spirits were compelled by the intellectual evolution of the age to a more thorough study of the meaning and methods of education, which became a vital concern of philosophers, theologians, poets, statesmen, and philanthropists. Pedagogy is not a science or an art which the nineteenth century created. The word is Greek, and the earliest thinkers understood that man's educ ability is his most characteristic distinction. Peda- gogical problems preoccupied Socrates, Plato, Xenophon, Aristotle, Cicero, Seneca, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, Plutarch, and Quintilian. They received consideration from Gerson and Vives; from Erasmus, Montaigne, and Charron; from Descartes, Bacon, and Locke; from Comenius, Leibnitz, and Lessing; from Thomas Reid, Dugald Stew- art, and Rousseau. But in the nineteenth century education became a matter of social interest, engaging the thought of statesmen as well as the meditations of philosophers. Kant draws up a system of pedagogy, and when Germany lay prostrate beneath the victorious armies of Napoleon, Fichte proclaims in words of burning eloquence that, if it is to rise again, recourse must be had to a more genuine and thorough education of the people. From the enthusiasm and de- votion of Pestalozzi modern popular education received a powerful and enduring impulse. He breathed a new spirit into the school and enlarged its scope. He believed and made many believe that education is the chief means by which the masses may be redeemed from degradation, misery, and vice. He insisted that all should be educated; that the methods should be gentle and kindly; that the affection, the conscience, and the will naed cultivation not less than the intellect; that the young should be taught not only to think but to do, and that the school should be a workshop as well as a class- room. He had a profound love for children, and held that to teach DEVELOPMENT OF EDUCATIONAL IDEAS 37 rightly one must have the mother heart. His aim was to educate for freedom; but he failed to see with sufficient clearness that liberty involves authority, though as men become more enlightened they grow more critical and appeal with increasing emphasis from author- itative organizations to the aboriginal seat of conscience in the individual soul. Hence the school, where the people are free and intelligent, strives to make its pupils self-reliant, self-controlled, and rationally obedient. Herbart was influenced by Pestalozzi, and though his philosophy is unsound he applied psychology to the theory and practice of teaching with true insight. He made it plain that the mind does not gain strength and wisdom by seeing or perceiving, but by react- ing on the impressions received through the senses, and by relating apparently separate objects to the whole of experience, until each is understood to be part of all, made what it is by causes that reach back to eternity, itself a cause whose effects shall in turn become causes in an unending process. This is Herbart's doctrine of apper- ception which the teacher cannot meditate too attentively. It is a process, not merely of identification or classification, but one in which the mind sees things becoming and follows them in an endless course of evolution, until the interrelation of all things is perceived, and within and beyond all, the Supreme Spirit who makes, guides, controls, and harmonizes all. The teacher's effort must be to make his pupils understand rather than to see and remember. Herbart's doctrine of interest and of educational values is sug- gestive and has compelled attention to questions which contributed to the development of educational ideas during the last century. Not less helpful is his recognition of moral life as the end of all educa- tion, and of the dependence of character on thoughts and dispositions which it should be the purpose of education to make habitual. FroebePs doctrine that education is conscious evolution, to promote which the whole environment, spiritual and physical, should be made to contribute, has had a wholesome influence on pedagogical thought. His kindergarten idea, however, while it springs from a real view, easily leads to the employment of methods which stimulate pre- cociousness, make genuine work distasteful, and by confining the attention of children to the things immediately about them, enfeeble the imagination. There is also danger of impoverishing the sources of life by too early and too persistent appeals to self-conscious- ness. The democratic movement which gave to the nineteenth century its most distinctive feature sprang from an increasing sense of the worth of the individual and led to more comprehensive notions of his rights and duties. Individualism in the matter of education found its completest expression in the writings of Goethe. Nature 38 EDUCATION lays the foundation, and it is each one's duty to erect upon it the noblest possible structure. Education is not merely or chiefly a scholastic affair, it is a life- work, to be carried on with unwearying patience until death bids us cease or introduces us into a world of diviner opportunities. The wise and the good are they who grow old still learning many things, entering day by day into more vital communion with truth, beauty, and righteousness, gaining more and more complete initiation into the life of the purest, noblest, and strongest who have thought, loved, and accomplished. Self-education, as a life-duty, rests on the idea that personal worth is the measure of all values and the indispensable condition of genuine success; on the conviction that whatever a man may think or do or suffer is to be considered good or evil as it in- creases or diminishes his personal worth. It is indeed the ideal of philosophers and saints rather than that of men engaged in the ordinary business of the world. It may, nevertheless, and doubtless does help to raise the thoughts and aspirations of many above the ordinary demands of their occupations or professions, and so to stimulate them to strive not merely to gain a livelihood or a reputa- tion, but to live in the mind, in the conscience, in the heart, and in the imagination. It may lead them to reflect on the common ways of men and to gain insight into the fact that their failure to continue to cultivate and improve themselves, when they have quit school, is due not so much to want of time and"opportunity as to lack of will and energy. It is the result of the natural disinclination to make effort, to foster interest in knowledge and virtue simply because it is good to know and to be true and strong; of the tediousness of cease- lessly trying to surpass one's self, to know one's self, to refine taste, to purify affection, to control desire, to see things as they are, to judge not by opinion, but by evidence; to turn from present enjoy- ment in the hope of winning higher capacity to enjoy, to prefer the society of the immortal minds who live in books to games and gossip. It is so much easier to run after pleasure, to labor to get riches or position than to devote one's self first to the upbuilding of one's own being, not doubting but whatever else may be needful shall be had, that it is hardly to be expected that the ideal of culture and pure religion shall strongly appeal to the many. A man's real world, nevertheless, the world in which he lives nobly or miserably, is not that which lies round about him, but that which he creates and fashions within his soul. He may wear a beggar's rags, be a slave, an outcast, a prisoner, and yet, in virtue of the truth and love which are the substance of his being, excel in worth and dignity, as in the affection and reverence of the wisest and best, the favorites of fortune and the children of success; and it is this ideal that must be made to gleam along the path of the young, to throw its heavenly light about DEVELOPMENT OF EDUCATIONAL IDEAS 39 the home and the school, if there is hope for better things, if we are to have not merely improved machines, but godlike men and women. The individual is at once an end and a means. He exists first for God and himself and then for his fellow men, and he becomes valu- able to the society by which he is so largely formed and fashioned in the degree in which he makes his own life complete and perfect. He is a whole and a part of the whole, and he must continue to im- prove himself, if he is rightly to perform his functions as a social being. This principle applies universally and determines the end and aim of all true education. It must underlie the theory of elect- ive studies, or the result will be fragments of men; fine parts of men rather than great and noble personalities. The young will be en- couraged to move along the lines of least resistance, and the heroic temper and the divine spirit which convert obstacles into opportun- ities will be wanting. They will become impatient and strenuous, eager and reckless, but they will not be made capable of knowing and loving the highest truth and beauty. We shall have experts, but no philosophers, poets, and saints. If the purpose be to train for freedom, we must understand that they alone are freemen who free themselves from within; if for social efficiency, we must recog- nize that the vital, not the mechanical, individual is able to render the best service; if progress and the improvement of the race be the object, it is evident that success is to be hoped for from men rather than from measures. The development of educational thought in the nineteenth cen- tury has made plain the absolute worth of the individual, and at the same time the vital union of the individual with the social organism, and his consequent duty to labor for the general welfare. It has also brought into fuller evidence the fundamental truth that human values are moral values, that character, which is the aim and end, is the result of right doing far more than of correct thinking. The world each one should labor to fashion within himself is primarily and essentially a world of righteousness. To educate, therefore, is not merely or chiefly to inform the mind; it is to strengthen, direct, and confirm the will; to foster habits of conduct, to fashion to the practice of virtue, to accustom the young to take delight in all that is good and beautiful, to feel the joy and happiness there is in over- coming passion and appetite, in triumphing over the inborn love of ease and idleness; to taste the sense of power there is in the play of the higher faculties, in the self-activity which illumines the mind, purifies the heart, and raises the imagination; to win them to believe and to know that the best and most useful things are not material but spiritual, — justice, honor, magnanimity, truthfulness, purity, .gentleness, and love. Moral culture should dominate, direct, and control the whole process of education. Whatever the pupil does 40 EDUCATION should make him wiser and better. His increasing knowledge should become the basis of larger and nobler life. Each new truth he comes to understand should teach him respect for all truth. As he gains deeper insight into science, literature, and art his reverence and ad- miration for the mind of man should grow profounder and more real. The triumphs and sufferings of.heroes and saints should give him higher aims and nobler ambitions. Whatever, in a word, be the subject of his study, the end and result should be increase of moral worth, improvement of character. As he will make little progress unless he be a lover of knowledge, knowledge will render him poor service unless he be a lover of virtue. But he cannot be a true lover of virtue unless he believes and feels that to be virtuous is the greatest possible good of man, whatever may be his temporal environment. " The end of a liberal education," says Plato, " should be to enchant the soul of children, while it is yet tender and innocent, with the frequent repetition of beautiful maxims. And to embrace them all in a single one, let us say to them that the life which is the most just is also the most happy in the judgment of God; and not only shall we speak truth, but what we say will enter more easily than aught else into the minds of those whom it is im- portant that we should persuade." " The insight," says Dr. Harris, " that God is a free person and essentially righteous and gracious is the arrival of man at absolute knowledge. For so soon as one discovers that absolute being must be self-active or personal and that to be absolute person it must be just and gracious, he has arrived at the highest possible insight — a knowing which must at the same time be true objectively." Since ideas of education are ideas of life, they neither emerge nor become effective as isolated thoughts or fragmentary theories, but they spring from a world-view and are involved in philosophic systems which are spiritual or material, theistic or pantheistic, Christian or pagan, secular or religious. Since education is for life, notions of life determine its processes and methods. What kind of man is the highest? What kind of effort is most worthy of encourage- ment? What is each one's first and most urgent business? Is the individual a means, or an end, or both? Shall the chief stress be laid on the present or on the future? Does man exist for this world alone or is it his duty to look beyond and labor to fit himself for the diviner existence to which faith, hope, and love point? Is the true ideal that of pleasure, or that of virtue and power? These are questions which whoever is interested in education must strive to answer if he wishes to go deeper than its devices and technicalities and to gain insight into the fundamental truth that human values are moral values, and that success or failure is not a matter of profit and loss, but of inner growth or decay. DEVELOPMENT OF EDUCATIONAL IDEAS 41 The school is for the sake of a higher, richer, better life, for the sake of conduct, and conduct is inspired and nourished, not so much by- knowledge as by feeling, by faith, and love, by the habitual contem- plation and performance, not of what is pleasant or profitable, but of what is right and holy. Hence, if the school is to promote a higher life it must appeal to the consciousness of God's living, loving pre- sence within the soul. It must enable the pupil to look beyond the brutal fact and present advantage to truth and final results, to project his efforts and longings into the future in which alone he can hope to make his ideal real. In all progressive movements man is impelled to lay stress not on what is, but on what ought and is to be. The future dominates the present, as the infinite the finite, the eternal the temporal ; and the future for which we hope and strive, whether consciously or not, is not a condition of body, but a disposition of soul — the ideal being not abundance of possessions, but a heavenly kingdom in which truth, justice, and love shall prevail; in which men shall be godlike, free, wise, and blessed. It is not economic and social, but spiritual and personal; not the complete exploitation and distribution of material things, but illumination of mind and eleva- tion of soul. The supreme interests are those of the spirit, for the loss of which a universe of matter could not compensate. This is a fundamental principle of life and, therefore, of education. Could some mighty genius reduce all knowledge to a system and firmly grasp the whole, for him, as for the common man, the question of vital and infinite moment would still be matters of faith and hope, not of knowledge. The highest human good, therefore, is not intel- lectual but moral — a disposition of soul in which a divine faith and hope beget perfect love, manifesting itself in the fulfillment of righteousness. It is the purpose of education to make able men, to develop capacity to see true and do right, to educe faculty from endowment, will from impulse, intelligence from instinct, but the ideal and end must be sought not in the doctrines of materialism, commercialism, or secularism, but in faith in God and in the absolute worth of life when illumined and controlled by the truth and love which are his being. In vain shall we seek to prepare a more and more favorable environment and to give opportunity to increasing numbers, if man himself be a creature of circumstance, an excrescence on a dead universe, a disease, a phantom, with nothing at the core of things to correspond with his highest thoughts and deepest yearning ; if his end is as the end of a dream and all that made him is senseless and void. If the religious view of his life is not true, nothing is worth while, and whether he take for his guide utility or worldly wisdom or appetite, it matters little. Religious consciousness lies at the heart of all human consciousness, and to it we owe the deepest insights 42 EDUCATION and the divinest efforts of the race, as by it the evolution of civiliza- tion has been inspired and controlled. The predominant influences in history have been and are religious and economic, and whenever conflict has risen between economic welfare and that of loyalty to God and the soul, the highest, the noblest, and the mightiest have preferred truth and right to temporal success, and in doing so have become pioneers in the cause of freedom and progress. As it is a chief purpose of the school to acquaint the individual with the profoundest experience and the purest wisdom of the race, religion and the conduct it inspires must continue to be its central theme. The great human interests are maintained, protected, and furthered by institutions, by the family, the state, the church, and the school, and subordinate to these and in cooperation with them, by innu- merable forms of association which the ever-increasing specializa- tion of civilized life calls into existence. The home of the modern world is the outgrowth of Christian ideals and principles. It has been fashioned and safeguarded by the church, whose teachings establish its rights, its sacredness, and its mission to form citizens capable of freedom and self-devotion, who, while striving to build here a kingdom of heaven, live for a higher world which shall not pass away. It is only in such homes that the true children of God are bred and reared; and they need to be reinforced by the school not less than by the state and the church. If the school ignore the principles which inform the home, the state, and the church, these institutions are undermined. As the modern state is conscious that without the school it cannot have intelligent, capable, and patriotic citizens, so the church in the modern age understands that it requires the co- operation of the school, if the spirit of religion, which is faith, rever- ence, obedience, self-sacrifice, purity, righteousness, and love, is to remain vital. As it is the tendency of the free school to weaken the sense of responsibility in parents, it is the tendency of the religiously neutral school to suffer faith, reverence, self-devotion, purity, and love to perish of atrophy; and a church which is severed from the school loses its influence on the home and ends by becoming a club for ethical culture or social advantage, as a state which is content to exist without and apart from the school condemns itself to weakness and inferiority. It would be as reasonable to maintain that the state has no need of the school as to hold that the church does not need the school. Without the assistance of the home and the school neither the state nor the church can prosper. To a life of virtue, freedom, and progress the church is as indis- pensable as the state. " The church," says Dr. Harris, " announces the divine plan of the universe, the fundamental ideal by which all things are to be DEVELOPMENT OF EDUCATIONAL IDEAS 43 understood, the final standard by which all things and events are to be measured. This is the most educative of all institutions, because the person who harbors a religious ideal puts himself into the process of applying its standard to every experience of life." This standard must be applied to the school, which furnishes to all who pass through it an experience that shapes and colors the subsequent course of their lives. The Christian religion is educa- tion, — the deepest and most far-reaching educational force in the world, — the power which more than all else originates and sustains the impulse to conduct, which is three fourths of life. " The first condition of responsiveness to religious influence," says Professor Peabody, " is the recognition that in their fundamental method and final aim, religion and education are essentially consistent, coordinate, mutually confirmatory, fundamentally one." If education means, as President Butler affirms it does, a gradual adjustment to the spiritual possessions of the race, is there doubt that the wealth of truth and love revealed in Christ is the most precious and the most vital of these possessions? Does He not furnish the highest incentive and the most effective aid to all who would grow into completeness of life, into the perfect image of God? If intimate acquaintance with the noblest who have lived, with their spirit and work, be a chief aim of education, shall we exclude Him who more than all heroes, philosophers, and poets has stirred the minds, raised the thoughts, and purified the affections of mankind? If in our democratic world all the institutions that educate are impelled by the force of public opinion to train to social service, to emphasize the truth that no one can be wise or good or great or happy for himself but only in loving, helpful association with his fellows, where shall we find an example so high or an incentive so strong as in the life of Him who came not to be ministered to but to serve; who made the love of others the test and proof of spiritual kinship with himself? If our sympathy for children, for the multitudes who are still con- demned to drudgery, to sacrifice the sweetness and joy of life that the few may be surfeited with luxuries, is genuine, how is it possible that in the formative and decisive period of human existence we should deliberately shut them out, in any of the processes of educa- tion, from the mind and heart of Him who is the world's great lover of children and of the poor? Shall we in our schools set aside days to commemorate some medio- cre patriot, poet, or orator, and make it an offense there to do homage to Him who has given His name to our civilization, who has up- lighted morality with an unexampled splendor, who has inspired a sympathy and love for man which has transformed the life of the race, who has made childhood sacred, and raised woman to a throne whereon the noblest must forever do her reverence, in whom great- 44 EDUCATION ness of thought was wedded to greatness of soul in a supreme degree, who in Himself more than in the doctrines He teaches is truth and goodness and beauty? Education is the soul's response to God's appeal to make itself like unto Him, self-active, knowing, wise, strong, loving, and fair; and the permanent example of the most complete hearkening to this appeal is the life and teaching of Christ. He moves on the plane on which the lot of the lowliest is cast, and He lives on heights to which saints and philosophers can attain but at momentary intervals. The infinite power of the brave and the good to dare and to suffer reveals God to us more than the unimaginable force and splendor of millions of suns ; it manifests to us that the spirit of man is of higher quality and greater worth than a universe of atoms. It is forgetful- ness of this that makes us victims of schemes and devices, gliders over the surfaces of things, incapable of thinking or loving or doing what has everlasting value, become as traders for whom the market fixes the standard of worth, for whom success is more than the soul, who lack the spiritual mind which is the highest educational force and influence. Teachers who fail to see all things in the light of eternity and in the omnipresence of God are but servants of idols. They drift toward mechanical methods, appeal chiefly to the arithmetical and calculating understanding, leaving the faculty for divine thoughts and infinite hopes to perish of atrophy. They form tradesmen, artisans, schemers, and politicians, not men who live in the inner sanctuary of conscience and draw sustenance from the eternal un- seen world of truth and love, where commercial standards have no significance or application. To educate is to labor for the greatest happiness of each and of all in the sense in which happiness is indistinguishable from wisdom, holiness, and love. It is to accustom to think, to meditate, to give heed to the voice of reason and conscience, to withdraw from the noise of life and the tumult of passion, that this voice may be heard in all its depth and purity. It is to store the mind with true principles of conduct and to create habits of right thought and action. It is first of all a work of religion and morality, of intelligence and wisdom, of sympathy and love. The ideal of utility certainly is applicable to human life in a thou- sand beneficent ways, and may illumine the path of the noblest. It adds a general principle to knowledge and is of advantage to the whole world. But it is only an aspect of the truth. All things exist for those who know how to make use of them, and their true and highest use is to minister not to appetite but to reason, not to instinct but to conscience, to the human, not to the animal. Right is higher than might, goodness than success, love than lust. There is no more doubt that falsehood, dishonesty, and impurity are wrong than DEVELOPMENT OF EDUCATIONAL IDEAS 45 that bodies are controlled by the law of gravitation, or that moral truth is of infinitely greater import to the spirit which is a man's self than is the physical fact. No one really believes that a bad man can be happy here or hereafter, and the highei our view of life the less we think of our pleasures and interests. It is only when he walks in the light of this ideal that the teacher is uplifted by a profound and abiding enthusiasm for his work, which he feels to be a cooperation with God for the salvation of men. The greatest of educational problems is how to induce the best men and women to make teaching their life-calling; and it is the most difficult. If considered merely as a career many more inviting ways open before the eager eyes of the young who have brave hearts and lofty aims. For the most part the teacher's task begins and ends with drudgery. It is monotonous, wearisome, ungrateful, and obscure. He must himself create the taste and the ability in those he instructs to appreciate the good he does them; and when appreciation comes it is like hope deferred. He is tired and outworn and no longer cares. His very soul has become subdued to the crude brains he has so long labored to suffuse with light and to open to all the glories of heaven and earth. How shall he persevere, how shall he become daily self-surpassed, how shall he retain the freshness and elasticity of youth in the dull air and routine of the schoolroom? Will it be possible for him to keep alive faith in the potency and beneficence of education? Will not the power to vivify, to create life unde,: the ribs of death, depart from him, and he be degraded to the function of an attendant upon a machine? Surely this will be the result if freedom of the soul is denied to him, if he is forbidden to impart the fruits of his holiest and most helpful experience, the thoughts he most loves, the hopes he most cherishes, the very life which is his strength and joy. The great educators have not striven to make earth a lubberland, but to found here a kingdom of heaven wherein truth, justice, and love should prevail; wherein men should do the will of God, as in unseen worlds it is done by higher beings unhindered and untempted by human weaknesses and passions. They are the world's guides, the saviors, the inspirers of the multitude, the leaders out of cap- tivity and bondage. An infinite hope has descended upon the world, undreamed of by the philosophy of Greece, and like the memory of most blessed days, or like remorse, it cannot die. Individuals may become atheists and materialists, but the mind and heart of Christendom can never abandon faith in God who knows and loves and is good, and in the immortal soul of man. The wisest and the best will not cease to yearn and to labor for the coming of His kingdom on earth. In the growth of science, in the spread of knowledge, in the increase of 46 EDUCATION liberty and opportunity they will see the fuller manifestation of the divine purpose. But as the life of the individual would be empty and meaningless if this world were all, so the race itself becomes insig- nificant, if beginning on a cooling spall it is . to be extinguished utterly on a frozen rock. It is in the power of individuals, and of classes of people even, to smother the soul in sensual indulgence, or to stifle the voice of conscience in the mad struggle for gain, but the summit on which Christ lived and died and re-lived, once having been attained, mankind can never again in contentment and tranquillity satisfy themselves with lower things. This faith lies at the root of modern civilization. It is the vital principle of the Christian home and the Christian church; and if the state and the school organize themselves on a purely secular or utilitarian basis, our social and political life will undergo a radical change. We may increase our commercial efficiency; may so manipulate the natural resources of our continent that the markets of the world shall pay tribute to us; we may heighten the level of intelligence and raise the standard of living for the multitude, but little by little we shall lose the power to believe in the absolute worth of truth and goodness and beauty, of justice and purity and love. We shall become the richest of nations, but shall have no supreme men and women. The poet's vision, the saint's rapture, and the patriot's lofty mind shall be made impossible. Existence will cease for us to have a spiritual content, and we shall come to hold that a man's life consists in the abundance of the things he possesses, and not in the faith, hope, and righteousness which make him a child of God and a dweller in eternal worlds. I THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH Photogravure from a photograph. SECTION A — EDUCATIONAL THEORY SECTION A — EDUCATIONAL THEORY (Hall 12, September 24, 3 p. m.) Chairman: Professor Charles DeGarmo, Cornell University. Speakers: Professor Wilhelm Rein, University of Jena. Professor Elmer E. Brown, University of California. Secretary: Dr. G. M. Whipple, Cornell University. THE PLACE AND OFFICE OF PEDAGOGY IN THE UNIVERSITY BY WILHELM REIN (Translated by Dr. Percy Hughes, of Columbia University) [Wilhelm Rein, Professor of Pedagogy, University of Jena, since 1886. b. Eise- nach (Thuringen), August 10, 1847. Graduated, University of Eisenach, 1866; student, Jena, Heidelberg, and Leipzig; Ph.D. University of Rostock; Litt.D. Victoria University, Manchester, England. Teacher, Real-gymnasium, Barmen, 1871-72; Professor and Director of Normal at Eisenach, 1872-86. Author of Theory and Practice of Teaching in Primary Schools; Encyclopedic Handbook of Pedagogy; System of Pedagogy; and other works on pedagogy.] Centuries have passed since Bacon, in inspired words, foretold the empire of philosophy and of scientific knowledge. In these days that empire has been realized. It has spread over all civilized peoples, binding them together with some invisible power. And hand in hand with this growth there has gone on, as in a tree, an inner development that has knit ring to ring, while it has produced also continually new extensions of the roots, so that the gold of scientific knowledge might be won even from the most secret veins. Within this immense empire, which the mind of any one man no more can comprehend, pedogogy, to the present time, has lacked recognition as one link of the great chain of interconnected sciences. Only in isolated instances has it won for itself a place. Is its fate, then, that of the poet in Schiller's Teilung der Erde, who appeared on the scene only when Jove had assigned every seat to the dwellers of Olympus? If so, why fared it thus? This result is the effect of several causes, which on closer inspection must be adjudged the work of mere prejudice. In the first place it is often urged that pedagogy is not a science but an art. Perhaps the thought here is that expressed by Gregory of Nazianz: " The education of man is the art of arts; of all crea- tive activities it has the greatest variety of aspects, and is the richest in problems." Or perhaps the thought is that of Melancthon's 50 EDUCATIONAL THEORY epigram: " The training of youth is a task greater than the conquest of Troy." Then, too, we often hear it said that the power to teach cannot be imparted, resting as it does on natural endowment; for all educa- tional efficiency turns on personality, which is dispensed by God alone; it is a matter rather of inspiration than of knowledge. Now no one is so foolish as to deny the power of personality in education; but neither can we question that everywhere true talent must be sustained by definite knowledge. Great artists, whether poets or musicians, painters or sculptors, never have despised knowledge, but rather have felt the necessity of devoting themselves to the scientific foundations of their art. Why should this be less true of the artist in education? Art as a sum of capacities, combined for the attainment of a definite result, is judged by the performance. But artistic activity would ground itself on scientific principles; true power seeks the support of precise knowledge. The art of education, in like manner, points to the science of education. This is the meaning of Kant's dictum: " If education is to achieve consistent practice it must transform its routine methods into science." This transformation has been effected by sciences more ancient than pedagogy, the practice of an art having led to systematic re- search and to the scientific formulation of its results. Thus in the domain of theology the art of preaching and of religious instruction is sustained by the sciences of homiletics and catechetics; in that of medicine, the art of surgery rests on the sciences of anatomy and physiology; in husbandry, the practice of agriculture as an art rests on chemistry and mineralogy, etc. Every type of activity that would be rational and that would keep in touch with the active life of the nation seeks secure foundations in science. Here let us recall a saying of Cicero: " To insist that in matters of most weight there is no science, though no trivial matter can dispense with it, is to speak with little reflection, and to spread error in things of the greatest importance." But how could this error creep in with regard to the education of man? It is likely enough that it occurred through paying too exclu- sive attention to the efficiency of particular educators. In so doing each observer received the general impression that native endow- ment is the chief requisite for productive effort. Then the well- known proverb came to mind, Poeta non fit, nascitur; and so it came about that very little value was assigned to what can be acquired through scientific, systematic methods. This conclusion is the result of a twofold error. In the first place, men ignored the fact that natural endowment, to achieve its full perfection, stands in need of clarification and deepening by means OFFICE OF PEDAGOGY IN THE UNIVERSITY 51 of knowledge acquired concerning the highest aims of human pro- gress and the best ways of securing them. The artist needs such training no less than the educator; indeed, the latter needs it the more in that he has to do, not with formless matter, but with a natural organism, which furnishes the laws of its own development. This organism the artist-educator must examine scientifically if he would enter on its development with a definite plan, and not follow vague impressions. The thoughtful educator will systematically seek to determine how far a certain result is attainable, when it is best sought, and how it is best secured. He assumes responsibility as to whither he would lead his pupil. On this point, too, he must get his bearings scientifically, both as to the alternatives present and as to the choice between them. In this way he is impelled irresistibly to scientific investigations. In the second place we must remember that in considering the special problems that confront any one educator we touch on but a small section of the wide domain of pedagogy. The great and im- portant field of the educational system, — school organization, ad- ministration, inspection, the training of teachers, etc., — all this has nothing to do with the art of education; but it is just here that the purely scientific problem comes to the front, that consists in deriving from the economic and political conditions of the country, as well as from the religious, the moral, the scientific, and the artistic tenden- cies of the people, the organization of the general scheme of education appropriate to it, and the formulation of its underlying principles. When it has gained an insight into the past, pedagogy can turn its gaze upon the future of the people, not yielding of course to mere prejudice or fancy, but standing on the basis of scientific convic- tion. When we thus study the educational system, our attention turns from the individuals that are to be educated to the society to which they belong. This forces on our notice the conception of the process of civilization. To this great process the rising generation must be conformed, so that it may in due course carry on the work, clearly conceiving the tasks that the future shall present, and bringing them to completion. In this connection we must remember that the future of a people is not dependent on its wealth, but on its productive energy. That is the pillar (Kapital) on which rests the political, scientific, economic, and artistic greatness of a people. So long as a people retains undiminished its productive energy, so long will it hold an inde- pendent position in the family of the nations. The greater the productive capacity it can develop, the greater the portion it will win in cultural development. For this reason all who hold dear the welfare and the progress of their race will direct their efforts towards 52 EDUCATIONAL THEORY the strengthening and the increase of this national " capital " on which the permanence and extension of the people depends. Now this productive energy of a people is active in many fields. On the one hand it is directed towards the preservation and the in- crease of our spiritual possessions, towards art, and science, morality and religion. On the other it turns to the exploitation of the riches of the earth, to their preparation and distribution as raw products, to manufacturers also and to commerce. To what extent fundamental principles can here be laid down it is the task of the science of political economy to establish. This may- be defined as the science of the proper organization of the material possessions of a people. At its side stands pedagogy as the science of the organization of the spiritual possessions. Both, moreover, are in the service of the science of statecraft, which is devoted to setting forth along well-marked lines the aim and mission, the ways and means for the people's advance toward civilization. Above all, that science would prepare the future progress of the people, bringing influence to bear on the generation that is now coming to maturity, whereby the march of civilization maybe led always to still nobler ends. Thus the work of education and of culture is part of a great system. It is an important factor in the life of a people. It stands out from an impressive background. Hence it is of great importance to organize it in the right way and so to carry out its design that the bodily and spiritual health of the people shall be preserved and aug- mented, and thereby its productive efficiency. It is this task that the science of pedagogy adopts as its own. Therefore the same place is to be accorded it among the sciences as to the science of political economy. The further objection has been raised that pedagogy stands on uncertain ground, that its results are so questionable that we cannot assign it a place among the sciences. But this objection also must be abandoned. In addition to uncertain and disputable results there are to be found in pedagogy assured possessions, just as is the case in other sciences, for example, political economy. Here, too, one lights on opposed points of view, and often wanders in a maze of contra- dictions and unverifiable statements ; yet no one denies that political economy possesses the character of a science. The lot of pedagogy is closely connected with the development of ethics and psychology, just as the science of medicine is closely connected with those of physiology and anatomy. To the extent in which uncertainties appear in those fundamental sciences they will appear also in the science of education. So, too, just so far as verified mateiial that has survived the purifying fires of scientific investigation is to be found in these sciences, to the same extent pedagogy may boast of fixed foundations. OFFICE OF PEDAGOGY IN THE UNIVERSITY 53 Let us now consider more closely the relation of pedagogy to these two sciences, and at the same time its relations to physiology. At the close, moreover, let us consider the thread that binds together the science of pedagogy with the sciences of politics and theology and with the philosophy of religion. (1) The relation of pedagogy to ethics. While theoretical philosophy treats of the standards of knowledge, practical philosophy or ethics investigates the standards of human action. It explains not what is, but what should be. It establishes criteria for the evaluation of things; it embraces the appreciation of all that is. No one can tell whence we came or whither we go. But here we are, and since we are here we try to give our presence significance. This we effect in so far as we do not spend our days without purpose, but rather set ourselves goals to strive for. Practical philosophy would point out the supreme end of human existence, that in which supreme contentment may be found. For this reason, it is urged, it takes the lead among philosophic disciplines. In it every Weltanschauung finds its centre of gravity, inasmuch as it determines the rational basis of human conduct. Moreover, since we men are essentially volitional, we cannot cease from the delineation of some such supreme goal. We seek to pro- duce through toil a condition of things in conformity with man's noblest purposes. We would direct the life of man towards its proper end in accordance with its nature. Only thereby do we attain the solution of the riddle of our existence here. As the result of speculation concerning the purpose of human existence practical philosophy now submits to us a scheme of moral ideals, to the level of which we must rise if we would comprehend our problem. In these ideals are to be found the exemplars both for the individual and for the social will. They form a system of pre- cepts which, as precipitate of the flow of moral development, can claim an independent and an absolute value. Ethics presents to us such a scheme, but it cares not how much or how little its ideals can be realized. It is not at all concerned with the difficulties, small or great, that attend the introduction of those ideals into daily life. Therefore ethics needs supplementation by a science whose province it is to show how the demands of the ideal can be brougnt near to daily life, and be firmly established therein. This is the work of pedagogy, since it investigates how, through the proper education of youth, we may make ready the way for the dominion of moral ideals. Thus ethics inevitably leads to pedagogy, which is applied ethics, in that it brings ethics into the actual life of man, bridges the gap between the ideal and the real, and makes theoretical ethics a force in civilization. For the realiz- ation of moral ideals meets many obstacles, both from without and 54 EDUCATIONAL THEORY from within, due to the nature of our daily life and to the course of the world's routine, obstacles that can be overcome only by strenuous activity. To this end that education is efficient which proceeds on rational lines in accordance with the dictates of pedagogical science. It is concerned with the molding of the race that is now coming to maturity, and therefore prepares the way for a state policy which shall, in like manner, seek to apply the principles of ethics to its modes of influencing the immature. Though educational activity is in the first place directed toward the minds of individual youths, yet it turns its glance at the same time toward the social conditions amid which those individuals later must move. Therefore it is always carried on in connection with investigations into social phenomena. Because of this close connection between ethics and pedagogy it is necessary for the latter to consider with care what ethical standpoint it should adopt. For the character of a pedagogical system is deter- mined by its ethical foundation. This raises the question, what ethical system should serve as the foundation for pedagogy. Only a brief consideration can be given to the difficulties involved. The well-known skeptical attitude of Schleiermacher, who refused allegiance to any particular ethical system on the ground that there is none that all accept, has recently been revived, e. g., in Dilthey's essay published by the Akademie der Wissenschaften: it is urged that ethics cannot define an end of life that shall be valid for all, for such ends always appear under historical conditions that make them of only relative validity. They vary with the successive epochs of civilization; and the educational purpose that depends on such life purposes must in consequence suffer from the same historical conditions. This skeptical ethics is without doubt right in urging that an end which is conditioned historically cannot claim to be universally valid; but no less certainly is it wrong in failing to mark amid the transient ideals of education the elements that persist through all. And it is just those elements that evolution presents to us with a character of inner necessity, that a positive ethics must bring to light, sharply distinguishing between the absolute and the merely relative. Throughout the several historical epochs relativity has clung to the changing ideals of education, to the several applications within the actual world of those values that ever remain the same. But the absolute is to be found in those successive evaluations which have maintained their fundamentally identical character throughout the past, — in the decalogue, for example, and in the moral teachings of Jesus. From such constituent elements ethics constructs a system of all that is valid for morality. To appreciate that system we must listen to the inner voice, whereby we may appreciate the truly good, OFFICE OF PEDAGOGY IN THE UNIVERSITY 55 the crown of our spiritual life, where dwells the real self. If we attain this knowledge, we must also have the courage and the steadfast will to esteem these spiritual goods the very essence of existence, and to direct our lives accordingly, with firm faith in the unending, upward evolution of spirit. An ethical system that sets forth these supreme moral standards, both for reflection and for action, that presents them as a system of moral ideals, must serve as the spiritual basis of educational doctrine. As in the progress of mankind these ideals are brought forward with increasing clearness, they should also with increasing clearness count as decisive factors in that individual development which education effects. (2) The relation of pedagogy to psychology. Essentially different is the relation of pedagogy to psychology. When we have determined the purpose that pedagogy has to achieve there still remains the diffi- cult question how those ends are to be attained. Ethics contributes the goal for which education should strive, but it has nothing to say either concerning the relation this task sustains to the individual that is to be educated, or concerning its feasibility. These matters are to be decided by what psychology shall teach us about the pos- sibilities of mental development. So we turn now to consider the means which the educator employs to attain his ends. And let us note that it is not a question of what means in general lead to that end, but it is of the first importance to know in what order, in what combinations, under what circumstances, with what in- tensity we must employ those means to attain the given end. To these questions the only science that can offer a solution is that which treats of the laws that govern the inner life of man, — psychology. This science, then, decides what methods shall be employed, and what their efficiency is. It informs us of the mental character of the individual; for it is the individual that is the material on which the artist in education has to work. This material is never laid bare in all its peculiar features, nor does it admit of a priori construction. Rather we have to search for it in the heart of each individual, and, also, in the environment that is natural to him. This is to be done with the help of psychology. Every artist must have a minute acquaintance with his material if he would produce a work of art. In like manner the educator will achieve nothing with his pupil unless he knows those psychical laws that govern his inner life. This is of the greatest significance. For in education we are con- cerned with the excitation and the fashioning of psychical life as a result of external influences. These influences are only possible in so far as there are invariable laws controlling our inner life. A theory of education is conceivable only on the assumption that our psychical activities and states follow universal laws determined by 56 EDUCATIONAL THEORY man's inner nature. We start from the assumption that in the con- stitution of the psychical process there can exist no cause that acts one way at one time, and another at another time. The laws accord- ing to which ideas enter into varied associations in our consciousness, developing in those associations all the remarkable phenomena of our widely ramifying soul-life, are natural laws, as rigid and unvary- ing as those under which the heavenly bodies describe their mighty 01 bits. But, while the latter continually unfold their secrets to the inquiring eye of man, the peculiarities of human personality still veil themselves in mystery. Psychology would bring the light of knowledge into this obscurity. It would reveal within the rise and the development of psychical life those uniform processes from which result the inner life of the indi- vidual, as each moment it is manifested, — a unity characteristic of him alone. Psychology, then, is conceived as a theory of self-knowledge. But not in the sense that man brings to light therein, out of peaceful seclusion, his most secret thoughts and desires, in order to line them up before the judgment-seat of conscience; rather in the sense that he turns his eye upon the course of his inner life, upon its pregnant, manifold, and interwoven complexity, that he considers the play of forces, their contending influence, their strife for mastery, that he seeks for those laws that govern the rise of psychical states and their disappearance. Now the more clearly psychology apprehends the uniform charac- ter of the mental life, and the more manifest its expositions of particular occurrences become, the more precise and the more cer- tain are those measures which pedagogy can adopt for its ends. Therefore, the bond between psychology and pedagogy is so close that progress in the latter depends upon the advances made by the former. The fate of pedagogy is bound up with that of psychology. Pedagogy is, in respect of the means it employs', applied psychology. Every advance in psychology must have its effects on the progress of pedagogy. In Herbart we have a good example of this. His reform in psych- ology originated in the pedagogical necessity of treating ideas like forces, and of deducing the phenomena of mental life from the uni- form relations of these forces to each other. Since that time peda- gogy has preserved its close connection with psychology; but it is in our own times that this connection has become still closer owing to the discovery of new methods in the field of physiological psycho- logy and in the study of the infant mind. It is from psychology that pedagogy learns how particular events in mental life affect one another. . In consequence we are enabled to influence that causal nexus through precise methods which have a OFFICE OF PEDAGOGY IN THE UNIVERSITY 57 definite educational end in view, even though we cannot expect that every mental state of the pupil will become so well known that we can predetermine every possible influence. (3) The relation of pedagogy to medicine, 'physiology, and hygiene. Special importance should also be attached to the relation between pedagogy and medicine, for from the latter pedagogy receives the basis on which rest the measures and the laws that pertain to the foundations of the mental life, to the material organism, i. e., of the pupil, to his bodily growth and well-being. As to the intimate relationship between mind and body we have the oft-quoted and illuminating saying of Juvenal, mens sana in corpore sano. The continual interaction between soul and body makes itself manifest in the impeding of the mind whenever the body gets into bad con- dition, and in the mental advance that takes place immediately proper attention is paid to bodily welfare. Under no circumstances can bodily and mental development continue in disregard of each other. Therefore education must always keep in mind the physical well-being of the child. And in this matter education not only does not proceed independently, but it cannot do so without grievous error. On the contrary, it has to recognize the right of physiology and hygiene to dictate the proper course. Hence we see that these sciences are auxiliary to pedagogy, inasmuch as the correct and natural nurture of the child, from the physical aspect, can be under- taken only through their contributions to the subject. But, after all, they are only auxiliary and not constituent sciences, as are ethics and psychology. For pedagogy deals with mental training. To adopt a physiological instead of an ethical and psychological basis would be to lay aside its real character. The ends and the means of mental culture maintain an independent existence; educa- tional theory and the ideal of an intellectual life have an independent development coordinate with that of physiology and hygiene. The latter lend their aid to the educator, but they cannot define for him the fundamental principles of his occupation. No doubt for psychological materialism physiology would be a constituent science; for the reason, however, that the former does not recognize the independent existence of the soul. But, so long as we must needs cling to a definite distinction be- tween the mental and the physical, — and this is the thesis of the parallelism of physical and psychical states, — just so long pedagogy will take its basal principles from ethics and from psychology. It can and should accept from physiology and hygiene only certain practical maxims to be followed by those who would carry on the intellectual life. Pedagogy, therefore, must avoid claiming to be a branch of natural science. We cannot speak of a physiological pedagogy until natural 58 EDUCATIONAL THEORY science is in a position to lay down ethical maxims. And that is a task which its very nature forbids it to attempt; for no empirical investigation of what is can inform us what should be. When we speak of physiological pedagogy all we can really mean is that one science suggests certain methods to the other. In all matters of proper care and nourishment pedagogy must turn to medicine. In cases of disordered nervous systems, or where the mind seems to be overburdened, there medicine offers a helping hand. Wherever we are concerned with the provision of all those external conditions, both in the home and in the school, that make for physical well-being, there we wait on the physician's word. A wide and important field in education belongs to medicine, but with that it must remain content. No more than theology can it claim all education for its province. At this point let us briefly consider. (4) The relation of pedagogy to politics, theology, and to the philo- sophy of religion, (a) Referring to the close relations between pedagogy and politics, Kant used these words: " Two human inven- tions there are that one may well esteem the most difficult of all, — the art of government, and the art of education." In this saying he referred undoubtedly only to domestic politics, not to external politics or diplomacy. With regard to this latter it is a doubtful and much-contested point how great a part ethical principles can and should play in it. There is no such question as regards domestic statecraft. And it is just that fact that discloses the inner relation- ship that subsists between pedagogy and domestic politics, namely, that they pursue a common purpose. They form as it were a circle, the radii of which have morality for their centre. In both cases the end is indicated by practical philosophy, and psychology informs us of the aids and obstacles. Without practical philosophy and psycho- logy, both are nothing but guesswork; and though even then great artists of exceptional genius might practice them, yet they could never aspire to the rank of scientific knowledge. Both pursue an ideal, a certain type of social ideal. The art of education is hand- maid to the art of politics. It is the most important instrument of domestic politics, which could achieve no permanent results without its aid. For these reasons the education of the people has the im- portant claim on the statesman that we have already indicated. Politics and pedagogy have the same field. For an important part of the province of politics, which may be called state pedagogy, is to cultivate the idealistic tendencies in the life of the people and to provide for the dissemination of the treasures of civilization among those approaching maturity, while so confirming them in the practice of virtue that the work of. civilization may continue. State pedagogy, therefore, extends not only to the world of adults, but OFFICE OF PEDAGOGY IN THE UNIVERSITY 59 also to the sphere of the immature. The physical and the moral health of both is its constant employment. And in the sphere of adult life this includes: the direction and inspiration of the press, since that influences the range of thought among the citizens; the nurture and maintenance of art, which molds the taste; the super- vision of all those public performances that affect the manners. But though the actual range of the activities of state pedagogy may be very great in this direction, yet its effect will naturally be propor- tionately less, since adults are not easily moved from their settled course of thinking by the educational activity of the state. On the contrary, among those still approaching maturity state pedagogy can work with great effect. And this it has done in Germany to a very considerable extent. A great host of officials direct the course of the educational and scholastic administration, leading the youth onwards, step by step, from one examination to another, until they stand on the threshold of some life vocation, entering thereby the society of adults. This course has assumed, during the nineteenth century, an ever more rigid and more definite form. State pedagogy has not been satisfied with organizing the system of schools and the general char- acter of instruction, but has also taken active charge of the schools and of the instruction even to the point of sketching the lesson-plans and the methods. It superintends the execution of an effective body of statutes, and issues volumes of printed instructions. Is there room, then, for a scientific pedagogy at the side of this state pedagogy ? From the standpoint of the latter one might be disposed to contest the validity of the former, indeed even to regard it as a menace to the state, inasmuch as it might set up in opposition to the traditional usage and to the powers that be a scheme of ideal education, judged by which the existing conditions are grievously backward. And this might lead to the further conclusion that from this relation there could arise nothing but discontent, while a false conception of educational conditions might prevail. Every error in educational theory would be a menace to the state system of education. This view of the matter, however, is untenable. History is far from testifying to the destructive effects of systems of educational theory. Certainly Rousseau's pedagogy was radical enough, but in the several nations the educational world has taken no great interest in it. The conservatism of the existing order offers sufficient resistance to insure society against hasty innovations. It is far truer that scientific pedagogy has in its relations to state pedagogy a great and splendid mission to perform. For it may render most real service by keeping state pedagogy from becoming inert, and in bringing to its attention new ideas and purposes, so that it may be neither text-ridden nor 60 EDUCATIONAL THEORY dominated by red-tape. Hence scientific pedagogy plays the role of contributor, state pedagogy that of recipient. It remains entirely free to take just as much as it pleases of the results scientific pedagogy has achieved. It is obvious that a more real peril lies in the fact that state peda- gogy is too much influenced by political considerations, since it has the actual power to carry out its purposes. Pedagogy can wield only an ideal power, through the conclusiveness, i. e., arid the con- secutiveness of its reasoning. It is only too easy for the political point of view to obscure the comprehension of the social character of education, since it partly overlooks and partly underestimates other elements that cooperate with the state in education, — the family, i. e., the district and the church. Herice pedagogy can serve as umpire here, and indeed; not merely in the matter of the educa- tional system, but also as regards the actual work of instruction. At this point freedom must preside over scientific activity; here is to be found the peculiar task of pedagogy, which state pedagogy cannot take away. In school legislature, in superintendence, and in the general plan of education where they cooperate, politics is all too dis- posed to claim the whole field for herself. But in hodegetics and in didactics pedagogy finds its immediate problem, into which politics neither can nor wills to enter. Pedagogy, however, is placed in an entirely false position when it is regarded as in the service of politics in the sense that education is forced into the service of a particular clique or policy that is but a part of the entire fabric of the state, so that that particular policy demands the support of pedagogy. Compliance with such a demand is the surrender of dignity, of all self-respect; it means the renuncia- tion of principles universally valid in favor of the varying points of view of successive governments. On the contrary, philosophical pedagogy maintains in the face of such influences its own independ- ence, rendering thereby to the state as a whole far greater service than if it sought always to point the way of the prevailing political breeze. Pedagogy is only too susceptible to political corruption. Hence the necessity of developing a pedagogy that is coordinate with politics, independent of it, objective and impartial, so that it may be the source of purification and rejuvenation wherever politics has become debased. It were prudent, therefore, for the state to take good heed lest scientific pedagogy suffer from restricted growth, to the end that in the higher institutions of learning, the centre, that is, of mental life, its importance may be appreciated and its development furthered. (6) Relation of pedagogy to theology. Finally, let us consider the relation of pedagogy to theology and to the philosophy of religion. It is possible to approach pedagogy either from the standpoint of OFFICE OF PEDAGOGY IN THE UNIVERSITY 61 philosophy or from that of theology. One is not to be preferred to the other; and to meet the situation we must approach the field from both sides. Between them there is a profound and permanent dissimilarity. As regards the theological starting-point we meet a restriction in the fact that there we must needs adopt as our basal science and as our point of departure a definite religious system, which includes also an ethical system; thereby pedagogy takes a definite imprint which holds only for a particular religious society. On the other hand, philosophical pedagogy has a surer basis, since it starts out from such common ethical and psychological tenets as the civilized nations feel to be essential to the maintenance of their character. It may be suggested, however, that there is a tendency to turn away from those religious associations that come down to us from the past, and to adopt as a basis a common religion for all men, the product of the philosophy of religion. And then one can ask, as in- deed it is asked, whether to the above-mentioned constituent sciences, ethics and psychology, we must not add a third, that of the philo- sophy of religion. Just as the theory of ethical ideals would set up a standard by which different peoples and different epochs may judge their dispositions and their actions, in order to learn what has moral value and what has not, so, it is thought, the universal theory of religion may systematize and establish as ideas of universal validity what presents itself to the religious needs of human nature as the deepest religious conviction. But where shall we find this universal religion? Where shall we discover the totality of religious truths — which are accepted by all cultured peoples — so systematically arranged that they can serve as the proper foundation for an educational system? Or where is that philosophy of religion which, on account of its ideal value as the supreme product of the historical development of religion, can, in its own province, direct the minds of men? And would it have the power to assimilate those convictions that live in religious com- munities; in which, too, our children are reared? So long as these difficulties exist it will be well for pedagogy to confine itself to ethical principles. In carrying out its educational designs it will find itself compelled to start from the basis of some established religion, unless it would build in the air. In the face of any philosophy of religion with its subjective construction, pedagogy must ever bear in mind that it has to deal with a complex product of evolution which involves many and varied ethical outlooks. These ethical implications can be unraveled and receive systematic and independent treatment. By this means pedagogy acquires an essential foundation for its system, — in ethics, that is, — a founda- tion well able to support the superstructure. 62 EDUCATIONAL THEORY In closing, let us consider the relations in which pedagogy stands to other sciences. It clearly is indebted to several constituent and auxiliary sciences, the results of which it makes effective in a manner adapted to its own sphere of investigation. Hence we must describe it as an applied science, classing it with medicine, with agricultural science, etc.; it is erected on the basis of ethics and psychology. It has close relations also with medicine, and points of contact with politics and theology. As an applied science it also has many opportunities to enrich the disciplines on which it is founded. Not only can it suggest new lines of investigation to ethics and psychology; it can also make independent contributions thereto; for example, in research that seeks the foundations of morality as they are revealed in the develop- ment of children, or in investigations into the physical and psychical growth of children. It can offer valuable assistance to theology in a practical way, in so far as it provides a method of instruction that is based on psychology, one that should give new interest to catechetics. Because of this close relation between pedagogy and several other sciences it has been denied that it itself has an independent existence, and its field has been split up in the following fashion. The history of education is assigned to the history of civilization; educational organization is a matter of politics; the determination of the ends of education is the concern of ethics, since that would establish the end of human existence in general; the investigation of the human mind, of its knowledge, and of its activities, — that is the work of psychology; hygiene deals with the care of the body; while the method of instruction in the several sciences is best left to the several sciences themselves, since they are most competent to point the way in the field of knowledge with which they deal. No doubt it is practicable thus to apportion the field. But no one acquainted with the subject will maintain that it would aid the educational progress of the nation. Through such a division we necessarily should lose sight of the mental unity which embraces the several factors that are associated in education, and which so regu- lates their reciprocal influence that they do not hinder each other. It is just because the field of education is so full and extensive, and because in it there cross so many of the threads of individual and social life, that there is pressing need for a philosophical reflection upon it, so that we may secure unity in so much multiplicity, and cooperation amid so much opposition. When we consider that the subject of pedagogical science is man as a being susceptible to consciously directed influences, we find the requisite material in his physical and psychical constitution. When we consider the end for which man must strive we must turn to men OFFICE OF PEDAGOGY IN THE UNIVERSITY 63 in their ethical and social connection. Thus is revealed precisely the limits of pedagogical activity: it is the broad field that extends fromthe point of departure — the child with all its educational needs — to the goal, the trained man grown to individual and social independ- ence. This is beyond dispute its field. I present, in closing, this comprehensive outline : o o o < Q W B a o o, a r_; g-<" O-tlhSiHfc-'gO O fa Ph 03 PL, i-t ji "m a in .SH — > o o & 1-3 _JsfH d'S' -s •J a 1 ■go 2 ^PhHPh Si- § .2 g > >> g OOPh bW faS SH OQ ' _o-§HHi •o ^ bP. 3 .2 m r 0! « o C X ^ ts 2 " « a o -^ - -£S os o a — ■2-.2"& a S ■£ 1$ "3 Sw &^-- m a » o • o ft '43 SB a "f .2 o c .■£ +j 3 en o . o u m a> ra 3 +3 a> £ .S J3 a C - r- « - o o S ««« >>>> P ° S^^ i— < — 03 L_i C_i i fi «"" a o o 3 O fa ft — ft o t-t o o ,d o o m fa 00 3 '-' 3 *a ti Ph a 5 • rH 0) n — «P t,T) o a fa 03 a ^ o t^ e3 o 3 13 _o fa — -3 ^ tH 03 o a fa o +3 CO 3 -^ -^ M a 03 . ~~a £■3 J- 3 03 O -3 fa a Ph iO ,_; , 03 _a . o © 4> ~ P^2 ■* sl —J .3 ft >» tH 03 o> t. a g -d . c s -1 — V "a -O I j a O o3 < n o o^ -9 M 3 ' cfa a> B id « !*> ^ "£ o - 2 fa ® S ^ - 3S§.S . ;K o +- h ai 3 O ^ 03 p0J .2 § .5 !"S & S 6 g «« 2 os --"S o^ ^i 'g— o P ° 03 OS'S a e la ceo OC^O^ :« o-ij ^ 8 ►2^ PRESENT PROBLEMS IN THE THEORY OF EDUCATION BY ELMER ELLSWORTH BROWN [Elmer Ellsworth Brown, Commissioner of Education, United States, 1906; Professor of Theory and Practice of Education, University of California, 1898- 1906. b. Kiantone, Chautauqua County, New York, August 28, 1861. Gradu- ated, Illinois State Normal University, 1881; University of Michigan, 1889; Ph.D. Halle-Wittenberg, Prussia. Principal of public schools, Belvidere, Illinois, 1881-84; Asst. State Secretary, Young Men's Christian Associations, Illinois, 1884-87; Principal High School, Jackson, Michigan, 1890-91; Acting Assistant Professor, Science and Art of Teaching, University of Michigan, 1891-92; Associate Professor, University of California, 1892-93; Professor, ibid. 1893- . Author of Notes on Children's Drawings; Making of Our Middle Schools; Origin of American State Universities; and other various addresses and articles.] It would be gratifying if we might speak of educational theory as the system of positive knowledge in the domain of education. . But if we limited the term to things known and the sure interpretation thereof, there would be little to tell in any account of what that theory covers. We must extend our use of the word to include not only established truths, but also hypotheses which have been worked out with a good degree of care, on the basis of some knowledge of the facts involved, — hypotheses which may accordingly be regarded as fairly started on the way to a place in the body of established truth. It is better, however, that we should stop here and not include, under the term theory, the whole body of unsifted educational suggestion and sudden educational sentiment which men commonly have in mind when they speak of educational theories. Any well-rounded theory of education must include an orderly survey of the results of educational experience and the interpreta- tion of that experience in terms of philosophical system. The empirical and the philosophical elements are both indispensable. It is impossible, however, to devote equal consideration to both elements in so brief a paper as this, and the emphasis will accordingly be thrown on the empirical side, with only occasional reference to the ultimate conceptions of philosophy. Because of its instrumental relation to the solution of all other problems, the methodology of educational inquiry may be regarded as the first of present problems in the theory of education. It seems advisable, accordingly, to begin our examination of problems with some consideration of this preliminary problem.1 1 It is hardly to be supposed that any one will confuse the methodology of research, here referred to, with the methodology of training and instruction, which receives much more attention in pedagogical treatises. There is, in fact, a real and highly significant connection between the two. PROBLEMS IN EDUCATIONAL THEORY 65 I. The Method of Educational Research Roughly speaking, we find at least four methods of educational theorizing already in use: The philosophical, the historical, the natural-scientific, and that proceeding directly from experience in the art of education. So complex a subject must necessarily employ somewhat different methods in its different branches. Even within a fairly homogeneous science this is the case. Much more must it be so in a subject which is not a well-marked-off science, but rather the congeries of knowledge with which an institution, a profession, is concerned. It may be that a wholly new method will not be needed; but there is urgent need of a sharpening of the several methods already employed, each of them highly diversified within itself. There is need, too, of a closer application of those methods to the specific facts which they are to collect and explain, and of an adequate correlation of those methods and of the results arrived at through their use. And new developments of method which promise actual increase of knowledge are to be sought and welcomed and employed. A few notes on these several modes of procedure should be added. Historical research has a highly elaborated method of its own. Any adequate history of education must stand the severe tests of this method. Only such educational history can offer lasting contribu- tions to our educational theory. We must seek in historical facts, as interpreted with historical insight, a knowledge of those social ideals, convictions, purposes, which determine the direction and the con- tent of the education which any people will provide for its young. In democratic countries, in particular, this historical knowledge leads up to an understanding of public opinion, by which public education is fashioned and inspired. These things reveal the informing spirit of education. The knowledge of what is and has been in human institutions cannot, like a knowledge of natural laws, enable us to forecast future events with anything like certainty. Nor can it alone give guidance in the choices of the future. It does not of itself furnish us with any adequate theory of education, but it does contribute much that is indispensable in the framing of such theory. Classical examples will occur to every one, such as may be found in the writings of Aristotle and of Montesquieu. In their widely different ways, such men as Letourneau, Rashdall, Lexis, Balfour, have, in recent years, been making notable contributions to this side of educational theory. And vast collections of material for future work of this kind are made by the English Education Department, the Gesellschaft fur deutsche Erziehungs- und Schulgeschichte at Berlin, and other agencies. 66 EDUCATIONAL THEORY The extension of the methods of the natural sciences into several sciences contiguous to education offers a hope of measured and objective certainty in wide reaches of educational territory. For educational purposes the representative natural science is psycho- logy. That indeterminate science has spread over new fields, em- ploying a variety of methods, and in many instances its problems are such as are of vital concern to education. Here, again, it should be remarked that no psychology can permanently serve the purposes of educational theory which does not satisfy the severest standards of psychological research. So long as " educational psychology " is less than psychology, it is less than educational. Even among stanch friends of educational research there is still a disposition to accept as " pedagogical " some forms of psychological study which are not sufficiently scientific to be called " psychological." It is not to be forgotten, on the other hand, that the results of pure psychological study are not ready-made and finished materials of educational theory. There is undoubtedly much intermediate work to be done in order that psychological methods may render their full service to education; but such work should be intermediate in its scientific position only, and not in the excellence of its quality. It would be easy to find examples of good work in the psychology of education, but difficult to pick out any few examples for special mention. Numerous studies in the several aspects of fatigue have provided matter for educational application which has not as yet been fully utilized. Studies in memory, along lines made classic by Ebbinghaus, are of considerable educational significance, chiefly as showing the limitations of training in this field. The studies of James and Baldwin in the subtle workings of the mind on the side of its motor activities, overlap the field of education, and the treatment by Dewey of problems immediately educational gives striking illustration of the relation of psychological to educational method. So far, the contributions of historical and natural science. But this is not all; and when we have surveyed what history and natural history have to offer at the present time, we are left with the sense that a vital centre of educational theory still has not been covered. Education is an art which addresses itself to the attainment of social ideals, subject to conditions discovered by natural science. It is precisely in the formation of correct and comprehensive judgments relative to this art that our educational theory finds its place and use. How, then, are such judgments formed? As a matter of fact, in this as in other arts, they commonly arise out of individual taste and opinion; and that in turn is an outcome of individual experience thrown on a background of traditional doctrine. The vexing ques- tion is how to sift and correct that opinion, how to elevate that taste PROBLEMS IN EDUCATIONAL THEORY 67 into something having universal validity; how, in a word, to make educational judgments conformable to truth. Such sifting and correction have not been wholly wanting in the past. The tradi- tional background of individual opinion itself has served in some rough fashion as a corrective; for that which it has offered has already survived more tests than the ordinary experience of one lifetime can apply, and is likely accordingly to be wiser than the independent wisdom of most individuals. But the more wise among writers on education have supplied their own corrective of individual caprice, in their broad knowledge of contemporary life, as well as of contemporary education, in their judicial temper, their wide sympa- thies, their moral elevation and sense of the fitness of things. The opinion of some unusually gifted individual has now and again rallied about it many followers, making a school of educational thought. The varied judgment and experience of the members of such a group, cooperating, comparing views and results, criticising one another, have led to conceptions which are presumably nearer to truth than those even of the leader himself. In recent years, governments and educational bodies have sought systematically to correct the judg- ment of individuals through conferences of many individuals, chosen from different schools of thought, with reference to their recognized and varied abilities. In this way there have been added to our edu- cational literature such valuable papers as the reports of the Dezember Konferenz and of our own Committee of Ten. This enumeration of correctives is not exhaustive, but it is suffi- cient to show that in the past a serious endeavor has been made to render empirical judgments relative to the art of education more free from the caprice of individual opinion, more nearly universal, more accordant with the truth of things. But such procedure at the best has left much to be desired. The resulting doctrines have been full of assumptions the correctness of which is doubtful; assump- tions which, at the same time, are capable of being tested as to their correctness by psychological, historical, or other scientific research. The more the scientific spirit comes abroad in the field of education, the more clear becomes the demand that, wherever possible, the results of such research shall replace the naive pronouncements of even the finest unscientific insight. So far as we can foresee, education must continue to offer free play to the creative spirit of teaching, without which the teaching art cannot be true art; and at the core of educational theory must still be that personal sense of personal and social values, that discrim- inating appreciation of excellence in things done, which is needed to guide, interpret, and criticise the finer products and processes of the human spirit. The offerings of sociology, psychology, and the physical sciences are not contributions to our knowledge of educa- 6$ EDUCATIONAL THEORY tion till they have been appropriated and organized at this vital centre of educational doctrine, where we are immediately concerned with the processes, products, and ideals of education as an art. In this attempt to get at the characteristic methods of educational theory we find that we are dealing with processes closely related to those employed in the science of politics. But it may now be added that both political judgments and educational judgments are very vitally related to judgments in the field of esthetics.1 The methods which we have been considering are paralleled by some of those with which, for example, modern movements in literary criticism have made us familiar. We find here the same endeavor to correct subjective opinion by every means which may give it a wider validity: by the appeal to the findings of broad experience and slow-sifting time; by the appeal to history, to anthropology, to psychology and sociology. In education as in literary criticism it is impossible, by any amassing of exact scientific data, to dispense with the large-minded discrimination of men whose cultivated taste and moral sense are weighted with full knowledge of their kind and of their time. We may make use at this point of the distinction made by De Quincey between the literature of knowledge and the literature of power. Placing the line of demarkation where De Quincey did not place it, but where the development of natural science since his time might suggest that it now be drawn, we may say that much of the better literature of education, as we have it now, is literature of power rather than of knowledge. Writers of genius — publicists, moralists, and teachers — have contributed works of undoubted influence and value to our body of educational doctrine. Even when a lack of fully ascertained fact is apparent in such writings, and when the lack of scientific system and completeness is equally noticeable, they often go straight to the heart of education as a problem of con- temporary life. Some of the educational writings of Matthew Arnold, of M. Fouillee, of President Eliot, of Sir Joshua Fitch, may be mentioned as widely different examples of the literature here referred to. In these instances we have a literature of power, weighted with much of accurate knowledge. It must be the aim of improved method in our educational theory to make the literature of power in education increasingly a literature of knowledge and power. Having in mind such considerations and examples as have been brought forward, we may now partially describe this central, charac- teristic, correlating method of educational knowledge as the method of educational criticism. The term is not a happy one, and one more adequate can doubtless be found. If used, it should be under- 1 The treatment of ethics by Herbart as a division of esthetics will be recalled. PROBLEMS IN EDUCATIONAL THEORY 69 stood as meaning criticism in the larger and more vital sense — appreciative, constructive, creative criticism. However closely affiliated with esthetic criticism on the one hand or with political science on the other, it can draw nothing finished for its purposes from these or any other sources. It must make its own way, deter- mine its differentiae, establish its peculiar canons, with all patience and persistence. The distinct need of the immediate future is that by all possible means the literature of power in education, including the literature of educational experience, be rendered more scientific.1 In the foregoing discussion several different methods of educa- tional research have been mentioned. It should be noted that no sharp distinctions are drawn between them. They are overlapping and cooperating methods, and to render their cooperation effective, to prevent the waste of a working at cross-purposes, is a prime consideration in educational theory. Certain elements of good method reappear wherever we go. The method of comparison is one of these. Another, overlapping this, is the statistical method so satisfying in the sense of exactness and finality which it brings, and so misleading oftentimes with the appearance of explanation where it has merely arranged materials preparatory to a possible explanation. These are modes of procedure which cannot be dis- pensed with in our educational research, and must be employed in their most perfectly developed modern forms. Quite as important are the objective observation and accurate description of phenomena, which must always be a first consideration in any method which aims at being scientific.2 It should now be added that no educational theory can be fully scientific till it has been made to take its place in the ordered system of philosophy. The principles of psychology and the related sciences, the social purposes revealed in history, and the standards of excel- lence in the art of teaching, are to be brought within the scrutiny of philosophical method, and made to show the ultimate grounds of their scheme of values and of personal influences. The tendency of some students to approach educational theory as a branch of a philo- sophic system, while neglecting any close examination of the facts of education with which it has to do, is certainly at fault. But equally faulty and inadequate is the procedure which is content with the mere generalization of educational facts, and fails to see those facts and generalizations in just perspective in the organic whole of human 1 It may be found that the theory of other professional and institutional sub- jects shares, along with that of education, in this character of art criticism; and as the sciences and the arts become more intimately bound together, the method- ology of the sciences even may be in a measure influenced from this side. 2 Something of this sort is, I think, what Professor Hanus has in view in his papers on the formulation of educational doctrine; and in a different way, what Dr. J. M. Rice has in view in his recent articles in The Forum. 70 EDUCATIONAL THEORY knowledge. Empirical judgments, as they become clarified and organized, reveal implications which can be adequately explained only in the full light of philosophy. The approach may be from the one side or the other, according to the student's predilection, and the emphasis of attention be placed at one point or another, but no partial view of the relations of education can wholly satisfy. Still further it should be clear that no philosophy of education is worthy of the name which is not an integral part of a rounded philosophical system; and no lower grade of philosophizing will serve for the pro- blems of education than that which is demanded for the solution of the other capital problems of philosophic speculation. In other words, a philosophy of education must be the work of a philosopher. Notable examples of such work are at hand. To say nothing of ancient masterpieces, it is sufficient to refer to the pedagogical writings of Herbart, the Pddagogik als System of Rosenkranz, and the work by Commissioner Harris entitled Psychologic Foundations of Education. In a rather more fragmentary way, the educational implications of the doctrine of organic evolution have been worked out by Herbert Spencer, by M. J. Guyau, and by numerous other writers, and in one form or another that doctrine has influenced very profoundly the most of recent studies in this field. Coming now to a consideration of problems calling for solution in the near future, we are embarrassed by the fact that such problems crop up everywhere, and choice among them for the purposes of this brief paper is extremely difficult. For many reasons, however, which need not be enumerated, the part which education has to play in bringing up men and women fitted for cooperative freedom in our modern societies, seems to offer the most significant and interesting themes. We proceed accordingly to take account of some of the problems of this group, viewing them as central to the present edu- cational situation and immediately bound up with present-day prac- tice of the art of education. They are problems that must be attacked by such methods as we have at hand or can make available for use. We shall very soon find that the solution of these central problems depends upon the solution of certain related problems in contiguous fields, to which various special methods, already fairly well ascertained, may be applied. The small group of problems with which we begin determines then the choice of subjects for consideration in those related fields; and the whole set of questions here proposed, in their relations one with another and in the various handling which their varied character suggests, may serve to illustrate the composite method of educa- tional research which has been roughly sketched in the preceding paragraphs. PROBLEMS IN EDUCATIONAL THEORY 71 II. The Central Group of Problems: Relating immediately to the Art of Education. In this group we may note' three problems, all of which are living questions in the education of different peoples to-day, all of which are, moreover, intimately interwoven one with another. They are those of: (1) The relation of election to prescription in studies; (2) The relation of studies for general culture to vocational studies ; (3) The relation of guidance to spontaneity in the methods of instruction. The elective system, under some very broad limitations, has long held sway in the German universities. During the past half-century and more it has been making steady progress in the colleges and universities of America. In the higher institutions of other lands its influence is present, and it is working itself out in a great variety of forms. By degrees it has made its way downward into the second- ary schools, and we have even seen something of it in the higher grades of the elementary schools. This is a movement in the direction of a larger freedom for the personal development of the individual and of every individual who rises to the higher stages of education. According to different points of view it tends, on the one hand, to the dissolution of some of the best of social bonds; or, on the other hand, to the fitting of men for a higher service of society. Closely connected with the problem of electivism is the problem of the relation of general to vocational training. The principle of election has always been recognized, where permanent castes have not been established, to this extent at least, that a man's vocation has been chosen by him or for him from the several which may have been open; and that some part of his training has been specialized in accordance with this choice. A current tendency runs toward a stronger emphasis on the importance of vocational training, of train- ing for arts and trades as well as for the " learned " professions, and toward the demand that the profession shall be chosen to fit the man even if choices made in earlier years be freely changed as the learner's character and aptitudes become better known. With the growth of election in studies pursued for general culture, the distinction between culture courses and vocational courses has become obscured. In their spirit and methods and subjects of study, general and technical schools have become in a measure assimilated to each other. The implications of this tendency, its advantages and dangers, pre- sent a large problem for theoretical solution. The emphasis on individuality and freedom in the choice of course and of studies is accompanied, especially in Anglo-Saxon lands, by 72 EDUCATIONAL THEORY a like regard for individual choice and initiative in the processes of instruction and of training. Our schools tend to become institutions of cooperative self-education. The implications and limitations of this movement and its permanent relations with the organic whole of educational thought and practice, furnish another important range for theoretical inquiry. The current discussion of these questions, in so far as it rises above the mere iteration of commonplaces, belongs mainly to the litera- ture of power rather than that of knowledge. It embodies the opinion of many large and forceful personalities, with their differing estimates of educational tradition, of personal and social values, of the changing needs of our time. It shows various degrees or creative daring on the part of men who are the makers as well as the apologists of our modern education. In a word, it is literary art, reflecting and interpreting the art of education. As such it is of very great signi- ficance. It is not at all the business of educational theory to brush aside such discussion, if that were possible. This literature of the art of education may serve rather as a base for the movement toward making this part of our theory of education more thoroughly scientific. This is far from saying that nothing has yet been done toward a scientific examination of such subjects. It must be admitted that adequate objective and critical treatment of them is generally lacking or has appeared only in fragments and beginnings; yet one who appreciates the positive excellence of some of the art-literature of these questions, with its occasional appeal to scientific and philo- sophical knowledge, will venture only with extreme diffidence to offer his suggestions of improvement. The chief improvements to be suggested are a more adequate definition of the questions at issue, which shall take account of their place in the historical tendency and development to which they belong; and the substitution, wherever possible, of accurate state- ment of facts, objectively determined, for easy assumptions and mere personal opinions. The actual working and results of different systems should be examined with greater thoroughness, and more than superficial comparisons should be instituted among them. Where such facts admit of it, they should be subjected to statistical treatment, and all care should be taken to see that the things enumer- ated and compared are of the same denomination — are comparable — the attendant circumstances which give to every fact its full significance being taken fully into the account. It is not unlikely that ways may be devised of adding systematic experiment to our observation of that which comes to pass under ordinary conditions, and so of reducing- somewhat the number of distracting variable elements and defining more exactly the play of calculable influences. PROBLEMS IN EDUCATIONAL THEORY 73 It is evident, however, that there can be no adequate solution of any of these problems without adequate related knowledge of psycho- logical fact and historical tendency; and the ultimate insight of philosophy is equally indispensable, if interpretation is indeed to interpret. III. The Second Group : Institutional Problems The problems which have been brought forward as constituting a central group are clustered about thetideal of individual freedom in education, the ideal of Lernfreiheit. But this Lernfreiheit is con- ditioned by Lehrjreiheit. To understand the present significance of such academic freedom, it is necessary to know somewhat intimately the history of educational institutions, and particularly to know the history of their relations with the other great institutions of human society since the latter half of the eighteenth century, that is, since the time of the American and French revolutions. Studies in this field should lead to an understanding of: (1) The institutional relations of the modern school; (2) The educational significance of modern democracy; and (3) The internal relations of modern educational systems, and particularly the relation of institutions of higher education to insti- tutions for the education of the people. These are very broad questions, but they are such as admit of objective investigation. Such investigation should make clear the meaning and tendency of that individualism which has so deeply affected our modern schools by making clear the dominant ideals of modern civilization and the related bearings of the modern con- ception of academic freedom. It will be seen at once that these problems are interwoven with one another as well as with those designated as the central problems of this discussion. The great change through which the institutions of education have passed in coming under the general control of the civil power after long domination by the church has not been by any means a simple process, which could be set forth in a formula. It has been, instead, an extremely complicated movement, and one well worthy of such painstaking historical inquiry as has been devoted to other relations of church and state. Out of this shifting and conflict has arisen a somewhat clearer consciousness of the functions of the school. In changing from an organ primarily of ecclesiastical propaganda to an organ of political propaganda, the school has tended to throw relatively greater emphasis on those parts of instruction which are not in the nature of propaganda at all — those parts in which it works directly for the betterment of human life instead of working to that end mediately, through the inculcation of principles 74 EDUCATIONAL THEORY peculiar to any other institution. What effect on this movement the rising power of industrial organization will have is problematical. It is not unlikely that in some ways the educational demands of industrial institutions may be thrust in between those of church and state. Knowledge of industrial and commercial history is in- creasingly needed for an understanding of educational movements, now barely begun, which loom large in our future. In the mean time, the institutions of education have been passing through a notable internal development. Education has come to be regarded as itself a centre of manifold but unified interests; it has become conscious of a far-reaching mission; already it has its own highly-developed ideals, traditions, and loyalties. Such sentiments were abroad in the early universities. With the upgrowth of pro- vision for universal elementary instruction, educational systems commonly appeared in two grades or divisions, pursuing somewhat diverse ends, and with a considerable rift between them. More recently this divergence has been disappearing. Universities and lower schools have drawn nearer to each other; university ideals have come to animate schools of every kind and grade; the ideals of popular and technical education in turn have influenced the universi- ties; the manifold institutions of education have, in a word, become knit together in spiritual unity, making in effect one great world- institution. And this has ceased to be a merely subordinate and tributary institution. It has virtually taken its place alongside of the other great human institutions as one of the cardinal concerns of human society. No one could hope to characterize in a paragraph the informing spirit and ideals of this great institution of education in its modern development. But some brief indication of its nature should be attempted. Its first principle would seem to be that of free service of the commonwealth. This is the familiar principle of " academic freedom; " only it is now seen that such freedom cannot permanently be the prerogative of a single and separate division of our educational system, as of a university, but must inhere in educational institutions as such. This free school is closely allied with a free press, free science, and free art; its rise is closely connected with the wide dissemination of modern vernacular literatures and the wide accept- ance of modern natural science, and it is coming in halting and uncertain fashion to show some connection with modern art other than literary art. In its relations with modern science it tends to spread abroad some measure of that spirit of suspended judgment and impartial acquiescence in the teachings of objective evidence which belong to that science at its best. In its relations with art it tends to promote that self-restraint which belongs to the truly artistic achievement of every age. In some degree it furthers, PROBLEMS IN EDUCATIONAL THEORY 75 too, that finer realism which modern art shares with modern aspira- tions in the field of morals, a realism which aims at essential rather than merely conventional truth and righteousness. Even where most secular it is mildly religious, with that pervasive religion which is an overflow from creeds and rituals. It enjoys a fine catholicity of human interest, a neighborliness to which no man is a foreigner nor a Samaritan. It disengages itself from the partisanship of the sects and sections of other institutions ; for even where most bound by ecclesiastical or other dependence, it is influenced by that rising respect for the personality of the learner which in our day restrains those who would do violence to the honest convictions of even a little child. . The great movement in education here referred to has gone forward in unison with the other great movements in human culture which have made our civilization what it is to-day. Only patient and critical and clear-sighted historical research can reveal the real trend and significance of these movements, but they are plainly connected with those views of human life which in the eighteenth century were ushered in with the doctrine of the rights of man, and with a demo- cratic conception of social relations. Education in modern schools seems to tend toward democracy everywhere, even in lands where every effort is put forth to prevent such an outcome. It accents the tendency toward democracy which it finds already at hand — a tendency not necessarily toward a democratic as opposed to a monarchical form of government, but toward the democracy of fair opportunity for every man. It is out of this play of currents, strivings, and ideals that the individualism of our time has arisen — an individualism more sharply conscious of itself because of its inter- play with a new spirit of collectivism which has arisen along with it. It has come to pass that as our education has become less narrowly institutional, more widely universal, it has come to lay new emphasis on the responsibility of individuals, each of whom is to render his peculiar service to society. It seeks to discover in each his best aptitude for such service, and to raise that aptitude to its highest efficiency through training. The fine adjustment of individualism to collectivism, in a school intended to perpetuate and promote the best things of our time, is a problem of educational theory as well as of educational practice, and calls for a much more searching inquiry into the place and meaning of modern scholastic freedom than any that has yet been made. The growth of such freedom, in making way for the individual in the training of the schools, has made way also for a psychological treatment of educational problems. In the modern school such approach to educational doctrine from the side of psychology is an indispensable accompaniment of the attempt to make education 76 EDUCATIONAL THEORY real for every person educated. Because the art of education is making in plain honesty this attempt to find the real pupil and to address the appeal of education to his real possibilities and make it serve his real needs, it must have, in common with those other arts with which it is allied, — with the arts of government, of guid- ance, of persuasion, — the help of science, and the help, particularly, of psychology. We pass now to a consideration of certain psychological aspects of the questions that have already been reviewed. IV. The Third Group: Psychological Problems The psychological problems most obviously involved in the problems of Lehrfreiheit and Lernfreiheit which have thus far been considered, are those entering into the problem of psychological or educational diagnosis, which stands in intimate connection with certain forms of physiological diagnosis. By such diagnosis is meant a determination of the normal and typical human characteristics and characters with which education has to do, the ranges of normal variation among them, and the demarkation of their pathological accompaniments. A little more definitely, this may be considered under the three divisions of: (1) The determination of the successive stages of normal human development, with especial reference to the ripening of instincts and to manifestations of accelerated and arrested development; (2) The relation of the generic to the specific in mental develop- ment, with especial reference to possibilities of general or " formal " culture; and (3) The relation of motor tendencies to general culture and to the processes of development, particularly under the forms of imi- tation and suggestion. In discussions of prescription and election, frequent reference is made to the cultural or disciplinary value of studies. It is held that the intellectual and moral gain from any single bit of instruction spreads, as it were, over a considerable area of the mental life — over the whole of that life in all of its aspects, it may be; or over all mani- festations of one or more " faculties," as it is more commonly stated. This assumption, if not wholly incorrect, is very greatly overdrawn, yet it has persisted in educational discussions long after psychologists have abandoned the doctrine on which it is seen to rest. Recent psychology has shown that mental traits and activities which are so related that they may conveniently be grouped under a single designation are not commonly found to be so related that the im- provement by training of one member of the group bearing the common name results in equal improvement of all members of that PROBLEMS IN EDUCATIONAL THEORY 77 group. An improvement in " memory " or " discrimination " or " attention/' for example, usually turns out on examination to be improvement in memory or discrimination or attention as applied to some single class of impressions or some particular set of ideas, with much less evidence, or none at all, of improvement in the same function as directed toward different objects. This fact has led numerous theorists in education to an opposite extreme. They have concluded that no general improvement of the mind through training is possible — that any such improvement which may be apparent is simply the reappearance in new situations of some elements of a situation in which an educative process was originally carried on. According to this view, general culture, except in so far as it consists of habits and conceptions that are in general use, is a delusion and nothing more, and all discipline and training must be narrowly specific. Some recent studies, however, seem to point to relationships among mental traits and functions which would call for a more moderate statement than this. It seems clear enough that the spreading or transference in the mind of the good effects of any course of training is much more narrowly circumscribed than has commonly been supposed, but it may still be doubted whether such spreading influence is altogether wanting or is limited to the trans- ference of definite ideas. Moreover, it seems not improbable that the freedom with which the gains of culture circulate among our mental functions and contents may differ greatly in different indi- viduals and may increase in the same individual as he matures in life and advances in his course of training. So the psychological determination of the possibility and the range of formal discipline is necessary to render the discussion of elective studies more precise and true to fact, and the scientific study of this question may even yet yield vital and unexpected results. Very much has been done already in the more general blocking-out of the stages of our mental development. Such investigations, of which we have notable examples in the work of Preyer and Hall and Sully and Miss Shinn, have provided working hypotheses that are of extreme interest, but these, for the most part, have not been critically and adequately tested, and have not been organized into a complete system of developmental psychology. When we have more definite knowledge of the relation of different functions one to another, not only in cross-section, but also in their successive unfolding, we shall be able to replace many of the subjective opinions expressed in discus- sions of prescription and election, with ascertained facts set in their rightful relations. To this end it is extremely desirable, as Thorndike has pointed out, that the cases studied be adequately representative; that the actual development of individuals be directly studied in- 78 EDUCATIONAL THEORY stead of being inferred from the showing of different individuals of different ages at one given time; and that the whole range of variation be noted, whereas common practice neglects the extremes and concentrates attention on the median line. The motor-psychology, if the term may be permitted, or let us say the situation-psychology, of which we have heard so much in recent years, is highly significant in the theory of education. Its bearing on the relation of general to vocational studies in particular is far- reaching and intimate. Still more significant in its bearings on such problems as are here proposed is the special study of imitation and suggestion, which we associate with the names of M. Tarde and Professor Baldwin, and which other psychologists have carried far in other directions. Further researches in this fascinating field are needed for the clearing-up of our problem of studies and the method of dealing with studies. To what extent is the real and permanent result of studies and methods, in the mind of many a learner, obscured by the very fact that as an imitator he seems to share in the good that his fellows get from them? Can we not, in the spirit of our finer scientific and ethical realism, separate the actual from that which arises through conscious or unconscious mimicry? Yet it is to be remembered that pupils in the schools not only live under a constant play of suggestion-influences, but are preparing for a life which is to be lived under similar influences. Such influences are to be reckoned with accordingly as a constant factor in human life, but incalculably variable in kind, direction, and amount. These facts call for further psychological study in order that we may know more accurately how they enter into the problem of school-training, and particularly what bearing they have on the momentous transition which the learner sooner or later must make from the little life and much training of the- school to the larger life and more diffused culture of the great world beyond the school. If the solution of these psychological problems one by one will do much toward the clearing-up of the problems of education with which we have set out, much more will the organization of the results of such psychological studies in a system of psychological or educa- tional diagnosis. For it will give us a vastly better understanding of the common nature and the individual characteristics of pupils, and of the relation of these one to another. It is such an understanding that we need in order to deal wisely, on the psychological side, with the questions under discussion. And the study of these psychological doctrines not only has a direct bearing on our doctrine of education, but affects it indirectly through its bearing on the study of institutions. For our history and social science are undoubtedly becoming more psychological. A study of the mental processes of individuals reveals in new guise PROBLEMS IN EDUCATIONAL THEORY 79 the fact that every man becomes what he is in great measure through his social relations. In unexpected and immensely significant ways psychology is illustrating and amplifying the saying of Aristotle that man is a political animal. The meaning of the individual in his relation to institutions receives accordingly a psychological in- terpretation. We may not say simply that the history of the in- dividual is a history of progress from status to contract. We see it as a history of individuals who constantly realize their individuality in institutions, but with this progressive change greatly accented in our day, that institutions are becoming much more plastic and in- dividuals more conscious of a power and right and duty to react upon their institutional environment. Modern institutions are safe from violent and revolutionary change not through their rigidity, but through a certain fluidity of their constitution — through capacity for continuous change and betterment under the varied influence of many individuals who live their lives and make their characters in new and more vital relations with society. These things must be taken into the account when we frame our educational doctrine with reference to individual aspects of instruction. V. The Central Group of Problems : Further Consideration It has been the business of this paper to formulate some of the more urgent present problems in the empirical theory of education. The topic assigned to me seems to call for the statement rather than the solution of such problems. Moreover, the solutions are not ready and could not be given even if they were called for. Yet it may not be amiss to indicate the general character of the solutions to which the methods we have discussed seem likely to lead us. Summarily stated, they seem to lead to a demand for the further extension downward of the elective system, of vocational pursuits, and of the methods of spontaneous self-education, together with an extension upward of organizing prescription in some of its forms. This statement is not simply paradox. It presupposes an organic view of educational institutions, which in their ideal connection one with another serve cooperatively the aims of modern education. At every stage, and in every one of its members, this great educational system is seeking to prepare its pupils for real participation in the civilized life of their time. Every one is to participate in that life as giver and recipient, as learner and maker; and his learning and his making should be all of one piece. He is to participate as under forms and laws and authorities, yet as contributing in a larger or less measure to the shaping of laws and forms and as exercising some share of social authority. So in all parts of educa- tion, though in widely varied proportions, the coordinate elements 80 EDUCATIONAL THEORY of direction and self-direction must be present. That each, person may participate in the same civilization is the aim of prescription, of uniformity; that each may participate in the way that is most real for him, that is the care of the elective system and the methods of spontaneity. The two procedures are correlated in thought, and are to be correlated in practice. To be a little more specific, let us note the bearing of some such general solution of these problems upon the conduct of instruction in colleges and universities. Such studies of the actual working of the elective system as have thus far been reported, very fragmentary at best, seem to indicate that student choices are made for the most part with serious purpose, but, except under some sort of group sys- tem, with too little coherence and with far too much of hit and miss. If these choices are to be of the sort contemplated in this paper, they must represent as nearly as possible the student's own way of getting into right relations with his world. Many different lines of approach may lead to this desired end. But mere random election of studies is hardly a mode of approach; it is rather a skirting about the edge of things. The question arises whether student choices can be made a real way to the heart of things, and it seems reasonable to conclude that this can be done. It is more likely to be accomplished if the students shall have been brought up under a system of educa- tion in which their spontaneous choices shall have been all along in active and progressive cooperation with the directive leadership of their teachers. The system under which there is a sharp break between secondary school and university — the former being under close prescription, the latter offering sudden and unqualifiedf reedom ■ — is unfavorable to the making of real power of choice in either one of its members. Then, the mere election of incoherent courses in a variety of subjects at the university is vicious and misleading. The group system, by massing the work of any one student on courses relating to different aspects of one subject, yields a better result, for the value of the group is much greater than the sum of the values of its several parts. But the group system, too, is liable to abuse; for even a large group of courses, all of them pretty much the same in kind, all on about the same level, may not carry the student very far into the heart of things. What is to be desired is that as the student adds course to course in any given subject, he shall steadily rise to more adequate conceptions, to the mastery of more searching and rigorous methods. The danger-points in educa- tion are those plateaux where the student spreads out and ceases to rise. The elective system presents peculiar dangers of this sort, and calls accordingly for special precautions. Under such administration as has been proposed and under the guidance of philosophic teachers, the student who enters the world PROBLEMS IN EDUCATIONAL THEORY 81 of knowledge from any side is carried forward toward the centre and heart of things. The further he goes the more evident becomes the connection between his principal subject and other subjects, some of which are instrumental to the higher pursuit of his own special studies and some of which carry him on to more comprehensive views. The guidance and prescription which predominates in earlier years must be mixed with spontaneity and freedom; and the larger election of later years calls for the personal direction and assistance of more than formal teachers. On the whole the system proposed calls for more of real teaching. If it requires fewer set lectures and class lessons, and leaves the learners rather more to themselves than the practice we are familiar with, it makes such personal help and guid- ance as are given more real and vital and indispensable. It calls, too, for a much wider differentiation of the processes of education in our educational systems. The elective system, in fact, presents the double danger of scattering superficiality and of intense narrowness. A little more should be said concerning the second of these. Here again a safeguard is to be found in the better handling of the lower grades of instruction. If adequate attention is paid in those grades to the successive rise of a variety of instincts and interests on the part of different pupils, if against a background of prescription there is free play permitted to the individual change and difference manifested in these things, the pupils will have been warmed to many kinds of scholastic pursuit, each undertaken at the most favorable moment for happy and lasting impressions. Such procedure must go far toward preventing nar- rowness in later years. The conception of the nature of general discipline to which we are coming emphasizes this view; for if we can count on but little of undistributed and universally transferable mental power, it is so much the more important that in his earlier years the pupil should have been introduced to many and varied special pursuits, and that each of them should have been pursued at such time and in such manner as might join to it the full energy of spontaneous activity. The vital integration of things learned with things done should reenforce the several stages of this process. It should do more: for, by uniting the art impulse with the interest of knowledge, it should tend to liberalize the later pursuit of a vocation, as well as any later pursuit of special studies. We may not pursue the subject further at this time. I have tried to indicate, with the utmost brevity, one probable outcome of the study of the small group of problems proposed, by such methods as have been indicated. It all comes to this, in short, that these prob- lems cannot be solved for the college or the university, nor for a school of any other grade, without reference to the comprehensive view of 82 EDUCATIONAL THEORY education as a whole; prescription and the freedom of the learner should be regarded as concomitants in education of every grade; they should work together in varying combinations to insure the highest participation of the learner in the life of his people, in the civilization of his time; and only through such combination may education hope to prepare men for activity guided by real, personal choice and inspired by the full sense of individual responsibility. Such activity alone is moral; and by promoting such activity in the cooperative life of this age education makes its contribution to brotherhood, the supreme end, for this world, of human endeavor. But such education as is here contemplated is possible only in the hands of better teachers — better selected, better trained, better supported — of many teachers as good as the few, the best, who are already found in the schools. If society would attain, through education, such high ends as have been pointed out, it must seek and find such teachers and make them the high stewards of its will. BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE The works to which reference has been had in the preparation of this paper do not form any compact group but are scattered over many fields. Accordingly no attempt has been made to list them in the form of a bibliography. The fol- lowing are mentioned as among the more recent publications dealing specifically with the subject of present-day problems and tendencies in education: Dewey, J., The situation as regards the course of study. In Educational Re- view, vol. xxn, pp. 26-49, June, 1901. Eliot, C. W., Educational reform; essays and addresses. New York: The Century Company, 1898, pp. 9 + 418. Hughes, R. E., The making of citizens; a study in comparative education. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1905, pp. 405. Munch, W., Zukunftspadagogik, Utopien, Ideale, Moglichkeiten. Berlin, 1904, pp. 4 + 269. Payne, Bruce Ryburn. Public elementary school curricula. New York: Silver, Burdett and Company, 1905, pp. 200. Ribot, A. F. J., La reforme de 1'enseignement secondaire. Paris, 1900, pp. 12 + 308. Young, E. F., Some types of modern educational theory. (Contributions to edu- cation, no. 6.) Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1902, pp. 70. SHORT PAPER Professor H. H. Horne, of Dartmouth College, presented the following interesting paper on " A Science of Education." It is the purpose of this brief paper to reach a conception of the nature and method of a science of education, if indeed such a science is possible. The term science means, in this connection, as usual, organized and verifiable knowledge. Such a body of knowledge may be one of two kinds, either a descrip- tion of what is, or a prescription of what ought to be. The term education in this connection means the school processes whereby human individuals are developed into the maturity of their powers. Is a science of education possible? There can be no question that a descriptive science of education is possible. Careful students of education can gather, classify, and verify knowledge of the school processes. There can be scientific knowledge of existing educational agencies. The unorganized data for such a descriptive science are already largely at hand in all the various school reports of each country. Such a descriptive science of American education was really partially attained in the volumes entitled Education in the United States, prepared for the Paris Exposition.1 Still more exact and comprehensive knowledge of the nature of educational experience may be confidently expected; indeed, it is already being gathered. And such descriptive knowledge of past and present educational methods and results may be our best preparation for the answer to the next question. A prescriptive or normative science of education, is it possible? Is it possible to say at all how men ought to be educated? If so, is such knowledge organizable and verifiable? Here we may turn profitably to the history of educational theory. Every educational reformer from Socrates to Eliot has known something about how youth ought to be educated. That their ideas differed from each other was but natural under the changing conditions of their age. Each generation has always known something about how the next generation ought to be educated. Such knowledge it has always derived from its own experience and from its con- ception of what man himself is and ought to become. The history of educational theory, then, presents not a static but a developing normative science of educa- tion. Since education became an object of serious study in Plato, there has always been a relatively valid, but never a universally valid, pedagogy. And it may further be observed that, so long as life grows and society changes, we have no need for an absolute pedagogy. Sufficient unto the educational generation is its own theory. The impossibility of a universally valid pedagogy, clearly shown by history, was also clearly announced by Professor Dilthey of the University of Berlin in 1888, before the Berlin Academy of Sciences. Such a declaration was doubtless necessary to limit the overleaping ambition of young scientific pedagogues. It would misconstrue this real service to suppose that Professor Dilthey has shown the impossibility of a relative and growing science of education. When the Educational Review was established in America, Professor Royce found himself in agreement with Professor Dilthey, as thus expressed: " There is no universally valid science of pedagogy that is capable of any complete formula- tion and of direct application to individual pupils and teachers. Nor will there 1 Under the editorship of Dr. N. M. Butler. 84 EDUCATIONAL THEORY ever be one so long as human nature develops, through cross-breeding in each new generation, individual types that never were there before; so long as history furnishes, in every age, novel social environments, new forms of faith, new ideals, a new industrial organization, and thus new problems for the educator.1 Here is needful warning that no abstract formula in itself is adequate to the new pupil come to school. All old principles of education must ever be newly interpreted and newly applied; old formulas must grow or become outgrown. They must not master, but obey, the teacher's spirit. It would again be to misunderstand the real service of Professor Royce's contribution to suppose he had denied the possibility, or even the desirability, of formulating into principles our present knowledge of how education ought to proceed. It would be a self-contradictory extreme of pedagogic skepticism to say that nobody knows anything about what education ought to be. The organization of present knowledge concerning normative educational procedure is analogous to the manuals of practice in medicine, law, and the ministry. Out of their general medical, legal, and theological knowledge, the physician, lawyer, and minister meet the needs of the individual cases. So out of what general knowledge of right educational method he may possess, the teacher is enabled more efficiently to forward the individual pupil's growth. The lack of a universal science of pedagogy is no more crippling to the art of teaching than the lack of universal therapeutic prescriptions to the practice of medicine, but the presence of a relative, adjustable, modifiable science is serviceable in both cases. In short, all principles of all sciences that apply to live organisms are subject to continual modification in the application, and the lot of pedagogy is the lot of all the organic normative sciences. We cannot deny the foundations of the young- est of the learned professions without similarly involving the foundations of the three oldest. Concerning the effect on a science of education of its changing data, which is the real problem of Professors Dilthey and Royee, I find in a valuable recent discussion of Professor O'Shea the following: " The social environment to be dealt with changes in character with the evolution of the race, and varies with the different races; the physical environment is modified by the locality, and so on. But our general principle, as a type of educational propositions, is none the less scientific because it has not just the same application in all instances, though it may be less mathematical, less perspicacious, more complex and indeterminate on this account." 2 The looseness now evident in our conception of a normative pedagogical science is, of course, due to the hitherto rather haphazard methods of observing and collecting educational experience, as well as to the indefinite variety of human individuals to whom the general maxims must be applied. This looseness is considerably tightened in Thorndike's new book on Educational Psychology. This is perhaps the largest attempt so far to apply the methods of exact science, measurement, and statistics, to educational problems, and will do more than volumes of opinion to bring pedagogy into good repute among scientists. Pro- fessor Thorndike writes in his concluding chapter, concerning " The Problem of Education as a Science," the following: " The true general theory must be the helpless one that there can be no general theory, or be made up of such extremely vague conclusions as the features common to all human natures and the changes everywhere desirable allow. ... A true educational science must be inductive, must be made up from the study of the particular facts in answer to thousands of different questions. . . . The science of education when it develops will, like other sciences, rest upon direct observations of and experiments on the influence 1 Educational Review, vol. i, " Is There a Science of Education, ' p. 24. 2 Education as A djustment, p. 1 3. SHORT PAPER 85 of educational institutions and methods made and reported with quantitative precision. Since groups of variable facts will be the material it studies, statistics will everywhere be its handmaid. The chief duty of serious students of the theory of education to-day is to form the habit of inductive study and learn the logic of statistics." * The time is ripe now for this inductive study; the " psychological moment " has arrived. As well-wishers to the science of education, we must welcome the child and adolescent study movement, the pedagogical experiment institution, the work of the committees for " the organization of educational experience," and the methods of exact science in educational study. But we cannot agree that the inductive method alone, even supplemented by exact measurements, is adequate for a science of education. We know too much about men already through biology, physiology, psychology, logic, esthetics, ethics, sociology, and anthropology, to neglect it all for the sake of new observa- tions. We must not fail to enter into the deductive labors of the educational thinkers of the race, and particularly of the modern men like Alexander Bain, the English and American Payne, Hinsdale, and others. Deduction must still conserve what induction discovers. Only, I would say, in our deductions we must look to all the sciences of man, and not, as we are too prone, to psychology alone. Educational science is no longer applied psychology. For example, " anthropologists have discovered that, in human childhood, whether of race or individual, the hand leads the mind, so that the seat of intelligence is best reached through manual training." 2 Without recapitulating, here then briefly is our conception of the nature and method of a science of education: a body of growing and adjustable knowledge concerning how education ought to proceed, continuously derived deductively from all the sciences of man and inductively from all the experience of the school. Of such a science of society's chief undertaking, men will some day say with Mackay: " Blessings on Science! When the earth seemed old, When Faith grew doting, and our reason cold, 'Twas she discovered that the world was young, And taught a language to its lisping tongue." 1 Educational Psychology, pp. 163-164. 2 W J McGee, " Strange Races of Men," World's Work, August, 1904, p. 5188. ' SECTION B — THE SCHOOL SECTION B— THE SCHOOL {Hall 12, September 23, 10 a. m.) Chairman: Dr. F. Louis Sold an, Superintendent of Public Schools, St. Louis. Speakers: Dr. Michael E. Sadler, University of Manchester. Dr. William H. Maxwell, Superintendent of Public Schools, New York City. Secretary: Professor A. S. Langsdorp, Washington University. THE SCHOOL IN ITS RELATION TO SOCIAL ORGANIZATION AND TO NATIONAL LIFE BY MICHAEL ERNEST SADLER [Michael Ernest Sadler, Professor of the History and Administration of Educa- tion, Victoria University of Manchester, b. Barnsley, Yorkshire, England, 1861. M.A. Oxford (Trinity College and Christ Church) ; Post-graduate, Uni- versity of Jena, 1895; LL.D.; Columbia University. Omcier de l'lnstruction Publique; Secretary of the Oxford University Extension Delegacy, 188,5-95; Student and Steward of Christ Church, Oxford, 1886-95; Director of Special Inquiries and Reports to the Board of Education for England and Wales, 1895- 1904. Author of special reports on educational subjects; reports on secondary and higher education.] Were it possible for some eighteenth-century observer of men and manners — say, for Addison or Bishop Butler or Dr. Johnson — to return to life in order to study the educational principles and practice of the more democratic communities of the present day, he would probably dwell on six things as being (apart from those changes in courses of instruction which are due to the progress of physical and historical science) the most conspicuous points of difference between the old order as he knew it and that which now prevails. He would note, first of all, that the public schools open up for the children of the masses of the people a range of individual opportunity which in extent and in stimulating variety goes beyond any precedent in history. Secondly, he would observe, with surprise though not necessarily with approval, that school discipline, especially on its physical side, has lost its former severity of application. Thirdly, he would stand amazed at the effective recognition which has been given to the claims of women to intellectual self-development. Fourthly, he would find, in all grades of education from the kinder- garten to the university, the teacher's calling regarded with greatly increased honor and consideration. Fifthly, he would be impressed by the successful assertion by the secular state of the right to impress an ideal of life upon the consciousness of the rising generation. And 90 THE SCHOOL sixthly, he would justly conclude from the amount of our educational discussion and from the scale of public educational expenditure that the present generation attaches to the school, as a factor in social culture, an importance which was foreign to the habitual thought of his own time. In bringing about this great change of opinion four nations have borne an especially brilliant part — France, Germany, Switzerland, and the United States of America. Without Rousseau and the ethical and social ferment of the Revolution; without Kant, Fichte, and Humboldt, not to speak of Froebel and of Herbart; without the genius of Pestalozzi and his self-sacrifice at Stanz; without the high Puritan tradition of New England; without the illumination of Franklin's common sense; without the logical audacity of Jefferson; without Washington's measured warning; without Horace Mann's missionary enthusiasm; without Emerson's profound insight into the deeper obligations of democracy, the world would have won its way far more slowly to the modern conception of the public school. The value of these confluent forces and the subtle outcome of their inter- action upon one another impress themselves upon the mind of the student of the history of educational ideals, and of the struggle of those ideals to get themselves realized in institutional life and in public administration. Not least is this so when the work of the student lies, as does my own, in a country which is under heavy obligation alike to French, to German, to Swiss, and to American educational effort, and which nevertheless has found in no one of them singly the precise formula of a remedy for its own special educational needs. Is there not often a delusive simplicity in too highly generalized discussions of the worth of the elementary school? The elementary- school problem in the modern state is not one problem, but a con- glomerate of problems. May we not say that educational progress will lie in the direction of differentiation of schools with definite regard to different types of future calling in the body politic, and to different kinds of social need, rather than in the assimilation of all the public elementary schools in a community to one general form, whether in respect to discipline (some schools need a stricter discip- line than others), to balance of studies or to internal organization? Differentiation of schools within a general framework of administra- tive unity seems necessary if the elementary schools are to grapple with the complex needs of modern and especially with those of city communities. (This view is confirmed by the fact that in the sphere of high-school education there is a similar tendency towards differentiation of aims.) Another obstacle to educational progress has lain in the too com- mon habit of regarding the school as if it were almost an end in itself, RELATION TO SOCIAL ORGANIZATION 91 and in artificially separating our study of the specifically school prob- lems from the study of the other sociological and economic questions which are in fact intimately connected with it. The study of educational science stands in very close relationship to sociology, to biology, to physiology, to the science of public health, to economics, and to politics, as well as to psychology, ethics, and religion. Nor can it dispense with the aid of political and economic history as throwing light upon the course of the development of various forms of corporate life, while the comparative study of racial characteristics is needed in order to a judgment concerning the type of education which is likely to be more appropriate to the particular group or people under review. But school problems have been too rarely regarded in relation to their social context. Different branches of social effort and of social administration have been kept too often in an unfruitful and un- scientific separation from one another. There has been a false kind of specialization of thought and of practical treatment in the common handling of school problems. Too little synthetic thought has been devoted to the relationship between specifically school problems and the general social welfare of the community, including the life-needs, other than individualistically economic, of the different categories of pupils in the schools. The result is that in educational investigation we have failed to make the most profitable use of much already ac- cessible social experience, and many workers in other parts of the sociological field have, in their turn, omitted to give the necessary special study to the technical problems of the school. There has bsen too much undiscriminating generalization and too little scien- tifically planned analysis of the diverse problems which lie concealed under the apparent unity of the elementary-school question. Special- ization within arbitrary limits has defeated its own object and has held "us back from the course of conjoint investigation over the whole field of action which must precede successful synthesis and which alone can lead us to the attainment of more precise social aims in administrative and educational reform. Happily, there is now noticeable all over the world a distinct movement towards less separatism in our treatment of the school problem. We observe everywhere, and not least in America, an effort in the direction of more synthetic inquiry into the relationship between school work and other departments of social activity. But so little has yet been done to bring our knowledge of educational history into its true re- lation to the history of economic and social development, and we are still so far from having brought into the common stock our educational experience and observations and the experience and observations gained in other departments of sociological inquiry, that we are not yet in possession of the materials upon which alone we 92 THE SCHOOL could venture to build up a consistent and accurately classified theory of educational aims and practice, adjusted to the diverse and per- plexing needs of modern life. Hence it is prudent to regard much of our present practice as provisional and as likely to require con- siderable revision when more has been done to coordinate the experi- ence already gained in our own and other related branches of social effort, and when the time has come to draw confident conclusions from a wide range of skillfully planned educational experiments. From this point of view, the highest significance of the current modern conception of the public school seems to lie less in what it has already achieved, great though that achievement has been, than in the certainty of the further changes to which it promises to lead. In few parts of the field of social regulation must the student- administrator feel himself further from his final conclusions than in the matter of public education. The subject of his study is vast, iridescent with incessant change, and still largely unexplored. Some of the factors are hidden in their operation, elusive of exact analysis, and necessarily slow in producing their effects. The sciences from which he must derive some of his guiding principles are themselves germinating afresh. Moreover, education, in any full sense of the word, involves a social ideal. It postulates a stable social structure. It operates through a variety of influences, only some of which are, or can be, concentrated in the work of the school. But at the present time we are but feeling our way toward some firmer and less fluctuating form of social organization. It is im- possible to predict the outcome of the stupendous forces, economic and emotional, which are now stirring the world to its depths. Educational organization follows great intellectual and social move- ments after an interval, and attempts to carry out their main idea. It was so at the time of the Renaissance and at the Reformation. At the present time educational thought faithfully reflects the welter of conflicting ideas in which we live. During the past half century the most characteristic achievement of the public elementary school, in its best democratic form, has been its work of social liberation and of social encouragement. It has opened new avenues of hope, new opportunities of self-realization. Its economic service to the world, at a period when individual buoyancy and initiative were especially needed, has been immense. But still greater has been its service in stimulating a belief in ideals among great multitudes of people, who would otherwise have been in grave danger of falling into a state of intellectual indifference bordering upon materialism. At a period of rapid intellectual and social transition it has furnished new motives of action, new hopes for the future. It has helped forward those who were economically and morally strong enough to avail themselves of the new opportun- RELATION TO SOCIAL ORGANIZATION 93 ities to which it opened the door. It has scoured away many pre- judices and obsolete distinctions. It has cleared the ground for new foundations. But its work has been least successful among the morally weak and among those lacking vigor of personal initiative. Its influence has been first assimilative and then selective, but not in the highest sense socially coordinating. It has drawn forth from the masses the most vigorous individuals and given them an en- tirely new start toward personal independence and prosperity. But it has left a great residuum, and for the educational treatment of that residual social deposit it seems desirable that measures should be taken very different from those which have proved themselves appropriate to the needs of the more vigorous. In dealing with the residual deposit which consists of the physically or mentally de- teriorate, the time seems to have come, especially in the great centres of population, for a more deliberate or far-reaching attempt to re- construct for them a new social order upon the basis of a more scientific organization and of a more provident discipline planned in the interests of collective, or at least of corporate, well-being. In our educational policy we seem to have reached the point at which it is necessary to discriminate between the needs of the vigorous and of the deteriorate. For the former it is sufficient and prudent to provide an educational system which postulates a good home environment, adequate nutrition, and a healthy physique, and which, therefore, relies with confidence upon methods which stimulate in- dividuality and open the windows of new and varied opportunity. But for the residuum of deteriorates a very different and more' com- prehensive course of treatment seems necessary. One danger of the situation is lest there should now begin in some countries a too sweeping reaction against the individualizing tend- ency of the best democratic elementary education and lest, with the needs of the deteriorates too exclusively in their mind, some administrators should attempt to curtail the freedom and intellectual activities of the elementary schools as a whole (eminently well suited as they are to help forward those children who are fitted by natural endowment and other circumstances to take advantage of them), in order to impress upon the whole elementary-school system a form more appropriate to the needs of the physically and intellectually deteriorate. This danger is increased by the fact that many earnest social workers have, in the nature of things, been absorbed in their labors among the deteriorates, and have been impressed by the fre- quent failure of the present school system to supply the kind of moral and physical discipline which the deteriorates require. Such workers, while speaking with just authority about the needs of that section of the population with which their labors have been concerned, have often had comparatively little time to observe with equal thorough- 94 THE SCHOOL ness the very different effects of the schools upon the numerically larger aggregate of vigorous children and families. Hence it is possible that some devoted and high-minded philanthropists might, with the best intentions, favor a change in educational policy which would be hurtful to the interests of the community as a whole, though well calculated to supply a more formative discipline for the physically and intellectually deteriorate. Is there not need for the most careful discrimination between the educational needs of different classes of the community, which are sometimes spoken of too much in the lump? Equally careful should be the discrimina- tion exercised in judging the different educational needs of members of the same family. It is perilous to allow a great mass of deterior- ates to form itself in our modern cities, but in the long run it would be far more perilous to deprive the whole elementary-school system of its strong individualizing power. Let us deal with the deterior- ates as a problem which, though appalling in its magnitude, is never- theless the problem of a minority. For the non-deteriorate that system of public elementary education will, in the long run, continue to produce the best results, which stimulates individuality and which, while laying great stress upon the inculcation of social duty, relies in the last resort upon the moral and intellectual vigor of the child itself. The highest aim of a great system of popular education is not to mold multitudes of men to one pattern. Its ideal is not blind submission to rules imposed from without, but willing and intelligent obedience to a noble and self-chosen way of human life. From this point of view an ideal of educational uniformity, in any stratum of national instruction, is (I would submit) a wrong ideal, whether it be set up by ah ecclesiastical organization or by the secular state. Within the broad framework of allegiance to the state we need abun- dant variety of educational tradition and experiment. The chief task of the school is, surely, to bring about, through the quickening of individual powers, a greater readiness to give each his best to the common good, and yet so to shape for each the ideal of public welfare as to enhance men's reverence for the rights of the individual con- science and to give them a clearer understanding of the worth of sturdy personal character, of stability of moral principle, and of brave initiative. From this point of view the course of training which popular education should endeavor to provide is one which would jealously guard the exercise of the individual judgment without which no real progress is permanently possible, while at the same time insisting on due obedience to the teacher's authority and fostering a desire to subordinate selfish aims to public interests and to corpor- ate needs. All true education is thus a combination of opposites. It seeks neither to absorb men's minds in mundane or material things, nor yet to shut them out from bearing a vigorous part in the practical RELATION TO SOCIAL ORGANIZATION 95 activities of the modern world. It would teach men to be true to both sides of the truth. If it fosters an untempered and arrogant individualism, it is false to its trust, but not less false if, rushing to the other extreme, it were to seek to inculcate passive obedience to some social or intellectual theory, imposed dogmatically by rulers who, however scientific, yet denied the right of criticism, of protest, and of practical dissent. II The enormous difficulty of accomplishing this educational task in the circumstances in which the work has to be done, and with the in- struments available for the purpose, must fill every student of the subject with some misgiving and concern. Nor is the difficulty materially lessened when we take into account the fact that all that the school in its specific sense can at best be expected to accomplish is to set its pupils on the road to getting for themselves intellectual and moral benefit from the much longer course of education which awaits them, when school days are over, in the real tasks of life. Yet at the very time when the student of education has come to realize more vividly than ever before the intricacy and incalculable difficulty of the higher work of the school, the great mass of every free people is evincing to a degree hitherto unparalleled its belief in the value of popular education and its readiness to make large sacrifices for its extension and improvement. Such confidence as this has not been lightly won. That it should be thus displayed with evident sincerity, and on so vast a scale, is in itself a proof that popular education has already achieved a colossal work. At a period of unexampled economic development it has furnished to the strong and energetic (to take the matter as it should be taken, at its best) with a keener perception of personal opportunity, with some of the means of seiz- ing those opportunities, and (what is of high economic and often of moral worth) with self-confidence and bright hopes for the future. To have done this, at such a crisis and on so vast a scale, is an epoch- making work and one of which the benefits far transcend the accom- panying disadvantages. To many thousand humble homes on either side of the Atlantic there has come after long and bitter discourage- ment a ray of bright hope from the American public school. But this quickening sense of new economic opportunity does not alone explain the modern belief in the virtues of public education freely open to the masses of the people. Does there not also lie behind that belief a more subtle cause? Shall we be wrong in trac- ing it back in part to something not less fundamental than eagerness for new economic opportunities, namely, to an instinctive sense of need of something which may fill the place of those traditional and less conscious processes of social education now in swift decay? 96 THE SCHOOL The critical movement in thought and the revolution in economic processes have profoundly shaken the old order of ideas, and with them the various established traditions of social conduct which in considerable measure rested upon them and had grown out of them. To the great majority of human beings the firmest kind of educa- tion is that which results from the impalpable but steady influence of a stable social environment. The silent pressure of such an environ- ment molds the thoughts, directs the sympathies, shapes the purpose, upholds the will, and fixes the way of life. Such an environment embodies a long tradition. It is venerable with precedent and tough with habit. At its best it is consecrated by a thousand pictures, and means brotherhood, loyalty to a beloved tradition, and memories hallowed by death. But much of this educational inheritance the stress and changes of our modern life have weathered away. The disappearance of the old order in its thousand different forms and implications was inevitable. Often its disappearance was a boon, but sometimes an incalculable loss. And much of the great develop- ment of popular education from the time of Pestalozzi onwards has been due to an effort, often conscious, sometimes instinctive, to repair, if it be possible, this loss of the old upholding environment by the more deliberate efforts of the school. The relative importance of the school has grown through the decay of other forms of virtually educa- tional tradition. If the aim of education is to prepare a child for the life which he will have to live, increase of schools does not necessarily mean a proportionate increase of real education. What existed before may have been in a true sense education, though less intel- lectual in form and less organized in its presentation. Ill If we examine the great educational traditions or school systems of the medieval and modern world, we find that they fall into six main groups according to their dominant purpose. (1) The chief design of some of them has been to initiate their pupils into the manners, the tone of thought, and the point of view, as well as into the necessary accomplishments, of some fairly well- defined class or profession. Such, for example, was the business of the knightly education of the Middle Ages. Such, again, was the aim of Madame de Maintenon's school at St. Cyr, and a similar, though not precisely formulated purpose has influenced the educational tradition of great schools like Eton. (2) A second group is formed by those schools which were intended to maintain the tenets and the intellectual presuppositions of some great section of the com- munity. Such, for example, were the schools founded under the influence of Luther and Melancthon, the schools of the Jesuits, Calvin's school at Geneva, Sturm's at Strasburg, the schools of the RELATION TO SOCIAL ORGANIZATION 97 Puritans in Massachusetts and Connecticut, and the Nonconformist academies in England. Such, too, are the schools under the control of the Holy Synod in Russia. Such school systems are, in the nature of things, rarely coterminous with the whole area of national life. In some cases the range of this influence extends over parts of more nations than one. (3) A third group has had for the dominant purpose the training of competent recruits for the service of church or state, whether as administrators, secretaries, officials, diplomatists, or members of the clerical and other learned professions. When church and state have been in close alliance, this group has been virtually identical with that jus>t mentioned. This training of com- petent recruits for the church or public service was the aim of the clerkly education of the Middle Ages — the educational ladder up which climbed so many brilliant boys of humble birth. This was William of Wykeham's intention when, after the depletion of the ranks of the English clergy by the Black Death, he founded St. Mary's College at Winchester. Such was the far-seeing purpose of the makers of New England in their policy with regard to secondary and higher education, and such, too, was, in great measure, the motive for the reorganization, under the influence of Humboldt and his successors, of the higher schools which have ever since been one of the institutional glories of Germany. (4) A fourth group of school systems has aimed at what may be called rescue-work, at saving the neglected classes from moral and educational destitution. Such was the intention of the schools for poor children instituted by Catholic piety in France in the seventeenth century; and of the schools of industry established by benevolent social reformers in England during the reign of Queen Anne, a movement which drew part of its inspiration from the work of Francke at Halle. Such, too, was the first aim of Pestalozzi and the purpose of the most distinguished supporters of Lancaster and of Bell in England in the early years of the nineteenth century. (5) The dominant aim of a fifth group has been the opening up of new social and economical opportunities for the children of all classes, in the belief that it is to the interest of the whole community to multiply opportunities of self-advancement for strenuous individuals possessing intellectual grit and persistence of purpose. This has been the most character- istic note of the democratic educational movement which draws its philosophy and inspiration from the more individualistic theories of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. (6) The sixth group aims more definitely at the consolidation of the national life by impreg- nating the masses with national feelings. Such, rather than the more individualistic aim, was advocated by Mazzini, and such has been the chief purpose of those who have developed the state primary school system in France under the Third Republic. In 98 THE SCHOOL more than one country at the present time we can watch, within the compass of what is technically a single school system, a conflict between the dominantly individualistic and the dominantly national- izing aim. Now may we not say that each of these six motives may reasonably be expected to persist, though with different degrees of intensity, according to circumstances, throughout the course of educational development of a great people? Is it not expedient to take account of each of them and, with due guarantees for national unity, to permit each of them to have its influence and to find its characteristic expression? As against this view and its administrative implications, it may be urged that the essential thing is to secure at any cost national unity of means as a practically homogeneous school system. But, while fully admitting the indispensable importance of national unity, I would raise the doubt whether after all national unity in any true and permanent sense is to be secured by the elimination of differences in the educational traditions through which the rising generation is permitted to pass. National unity is the outcome of a complex variety of causes and is not the mechanical outcome of a school system. To believe that school-teaching by itself can secure it is an exaggeration of the actual power of the school. To eliminate, in pursuance of such a belief, fruitful varieties of school tradition seems likely to cause an educational injury which would far exceed any benefit that might reasonably be expected to follow from the administrative convenience of greater uniformity. The ground upon which I would chiefly support this view (and in advancing it I readily admit that in certain circumstances it may be necessary to suspend educational freedom as an act of political necessity) is that in the case of great numbers of children the moraliz- ing, character-forming, and socializing influences of a school are most effective in their operation when the school is intimately associated with the life and tradition of some homogeneous social group. As illustrations of this point I would cite the Little Schools of Port Royal, and the schools connected with the Society of Friends. It seems to me to be the true interest of the nation to recognize the educational possibilities of these various group-connections, and instead of attempting to give an educational monopoly to a uniform system of state institutions, to permit a part of the work of national education to be done through different social groups, provided that the efficiency of their work is periodically tested by methods of in- spection approved by the state. In some cases the municipality or township would form such a group. In other cases the unit would be a group of families or of individuals, voluntarily united on a basis of intellectual or religious agreement. RELATION TO SOCIAL ORGANIZATION 99 IV By way of practical comment upon some of the points submitted for your consideration in this paper I will venture to conclude with a brief reference to the present educational situation in England. At no earlier time in her history has England been so deeply stirred on the subject of national education as she is to-day. No one can yet foresee the final outcome of the movement which is now in progress; but it is already clear that in future the organized work of the school will play a much more important part in English life than, in spite of the immense advances which have been made since the passing of Mr. Forster's Act in 1870, has yet been the case. There is a wide- spread conviction that greater efficiency in the intellectual side of school training is vitally important to the civic well-being of the nation as well as to its industrial and commercial interests. The history of popular education in England has been at bottom (class selfishness and ecclesiastical prejudice apart) the history of a conflict between two ideals, the ideal of the education of the people mainly through a public school system, and the ideal of education mainly through the influences of an established social environment and through the faithful discharge of appointed duties in life; or in other words, the ideal of education mainly through free scholastic oppor- tunity and the ideal of education mainly through social discipline. Each ideal had its share of truth. But the one side believed that the school could do more than schools alone can ever do. The other side greatly underrated the service which efficient schools can render to a nation, and at the same time failed to see how far the actual social environment was from furnishing the kind of training which their argument presupposed. But the new trend of educational thought is bringing these two ideals into union. The conception of the school organized in close relationship to an improved social environment combines the thoughts for which each side contended. Those who really care for educational progress in England are thus, in respect of essentials, less divided than they have ever been before. There has never been so good a chance of their uniting their forces in order to overcome the widespread indifference which still exists, and to thrust aside the actual opposition to popular education which still lingers here and there, but is no longer a serious obstacle to reform. The fact that, to a degree unprecedented in England, the value of an efficient school system is now so widely appreciated among us is due in no small measure to our study of the educational methods and organization of Germany, Switzerland, and America. In this connec- tion I would ask to be allowed to pay a tribute of gratitude to the labors of Commissioner Harris and of his colleagues in the Bureau of Education at Washington. While it is generally understood that each 100 THE SCHOOL nation must develop its educational system on its own lines and with due regard to its own history and special needs, there is a hearty admiration for the great educational work which has been done else- where and a desire to attain, though perhaps in different ways, to a corresponding excellence. What is most needed among us, in order to overcome inertia, is a strong movement of national feeling and a motive to make our schools less sectional in temper and more definitely part of the national life. The problem will be how to combine such a strong national feeling with the preservation of fruitful variety of educational traditions. In respect of the elementary schools there is every sign that our progress will be in the direction of greater differentiation of type. The great increase of well-being in England among the artisan popu- lation has virtually produced a new class. For this class a superior type of elementary school is necessary, and is, in fact, already being provided. The English artisans are steadily pressing for elementary schools of a high order, with smaller classes, highly-trained teachers, well-equipped buildings, and spacious playgrounds, and supplemented by further courses of continuative instruction. Their requirements are in the way of being met, though very much still remains to be done. It is perhaps in this grade of English education that the ex- ample of America has been most potent, though the influence of our class distinctions is too strong for the parallel to be complete. But the economic changes which have raised the artisan class to so high a point of well-being have also had the effect of stratifying the population and of concentrating in the slums masses of people who are poor, ill-nourished, ignorant, badly housed, and only to a small extent benefited by our present methods of training. In re- spect of this part of the social problem, ameliorative action on a com- prehensive scale is urgently required. Palliatives and patchwork are inadequate to the urgency of the need. If the conditions in which these slum populations live were drastically reformed, and if the state, acting in cooperation with local authorities, took charge, in labor colonies, of the lives of those adults who showed them- selves incapable of independent existence up to the standard of decency which it might impose, the welfare of the children of the slum districts could be effectively provided for; their enfeebled con- stitutions might be reestablished through suitable and regular feed- ing; their self-respect might be established through the enforcement of cleanliness; and they might be given a course of school training based to some extent on that which has been successful in our in- dustrial schools. In elementary schools of this differentiated type very careful attention would be given to physical training, and man- ual instruction, inculcating a respect for the dignity of thorough work, would form an important feature of the curriculum. Were com- RELATION TO SOCIAL ORGANIZATION 101 prehensive measures of this kind adopted, there is reason to believe that in one or two generations all the ground which has been lost would be recovered.1 What, in short, is wanted is a resolve to attack this slum problem under scientific guidance, on a well-considered plan, with the help of great resources, and with the thoroughness, energy, and persistence which are displayed in great works of modern en- gineering. And in such a plan the labors of the school-teachers and the educational influence of a new type of elementary school would play an important part. Our third great educational need is a better system of secondary day-schools. It is almost impossible to exaggerate the social and economic value of the service which will be rendered to the nation by such schools when they are made more generally accessible and more intellectually efficient. The cost will be great; it will be necessary to raise the salaries of the teachers, which are now too often on a quite inadequate scale, if we are to draw in sufficient numbers into the service of the schools men possessing the attain- ments, the skill, and the personal influence which are necessary for the efficient discharge of the duties of a secondary schoolmaster. It would seem desirable that the course should begin at latest at twelve years of age and extend till fifteen at earliest. Pupils of exceptional capacity should be drafted into these schools from the public element- ary schools at not later than twelve years of age, with scholarships covering the cost of the fees, and, when necessary, maintenance allow- ance should be granted in addition. The curricula of the schools should be of different types, but it is probable that the study of English, Latin, and mathematics would, in a considerable proportion of them, form the backbone of the course of studies. Their aim would be to give a thorough and searching intellectual discipline, to develop through the corporate life of the school a healthy sense of comradeship and of public duty, and also to turn the thought of the pupils toward intelligent reflection on social problems, and to arouse in their minds a desire to throw themselves with vigor, when the time should come, into tasks of public usefulness and of social amelioration. In all this reorganization of our English schools I trust that we shall refrain from going to extremes in pressing sudden changes of aim and practice. Our best hope for educational progress lies not through contention but through conciliation and mutual agreement. Richard Baxter's words may be cited as applicable to the present educational situation in England: "Greater light and stronger judgment are usually with the reconcilers than with either of the contending parties." 1 See report of Committee on Physical Deterioration. London, Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1904. PRESENT PROBLEMS OF THE SCHOOL BY WILLIAM H. MAXWELL [William H. Maxwell, City Superintendent of Schools, New York City. b. March 5, 1852, Stewartstown, County Tyrone, Ireland. B.A. Queens Uni- versity, Ireland, 1872; M.A. 1874; Hon. Ph.D. Saint Lawrence University; Hon. LL.D. Columbia University. Associate Superintendent of Public Instruc- tion, Brooklyn, New York, 1882-87; Superintendent of Public Instruction, 1887-98. Fellow of Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences; President of National Educational Association. Author of Introductory and Advanced Lessons in English Grammar.] Because parents do not in all cases desire education for their children, or, desiring it, do not know what good education is, or, knowing what it is, cannot afford to procure it for their children, the state is compelled, as a measure of self-preservation and a means of progress, to assume the responsibility of establishing and maintaining schools. A despotic government may establish schools for the purpose of developing a particular type of subject, — the soldier, for example, — as was the case in Sparta. In a democratic society, however, the object is, not to develop a particular type of citizen, but to develop the fullest efficiency, individual and social, of each citizen. In the light of this fundamental truth, the following propositions regarding the functions of the state and the functions of the school in providing education will, I believe, be generally accepted. (1) The public schools should provide such an education that the opportunities of all citizens to make a living and to lead happy and prosperous lives shall be equal, as far as education can make them equal. (2) The public schools should provide the highest quality of edu- cation, not only for the purpose of equalizing the opportunities of all, but in order that there may be a " perpetual succession of superior minds, by whom knowledge is advanced, and the community urged forward in civilization." * Even if comparatively few can avail themselves fully of such education, it is still invaluable to the many by supplying intelligent leadership and expert counsel. The field of human activity is so enormous that, in the more complicated affairs of life, each man, outside a necessarily limited field of experience, needs and should learn to accept the guidance of experts — the specialists in the various departments of law, medicine, surgery, sanitation, engineering, agriculture, and the like. Moreover, as Professor Marshall has pointed out, at least one half of the best natural genius born into a country belongs to the manual-labor classes. Without opportunities for the higher culture the greater 1 John Stuart Mill, Principles of Political Economy, book v, chap, xi, sec. 8. PRESENT PROBLEMS OF THE SCHOOL 103 part of this " best natural genius " would be fruitless. Communities that do not provide facilities for the training of genius born in ob- scurity are on the high road to decadence. These are the reasons why in all states of the Union high schools, and in many states colleges and universities, are maintained at the expense of the taxpayers. (3) The school, as distinguished from the college, provides training for childhood and youth. The period of childhood, from the point of view of the school, extends from the third or fourth year to the twelfth; and the period of youth from the thirteenth to the eighteenth. (4) The state should require that the primary elements and means of knowledge should be taught to all children. (5) The school should provide training for the body as well as for the mind, because the physical nature is the foundation of all life, including the mental; because for good or ill the condition of the body influences the mind, and the condition of the mind influences the body; because without due coordination between the mind and the body, no person is thoroughly equipped for the battle of life; and because a race of men and women capable of enduring the labors of peace and the hardships of war is necessary to the safety of society. (6) The intellectual training given in the schools involves, in the first place, the adjustment of the mind to its spiritual environment through gaining some knowledge of the intellectual inheritances of the race, and, in the second place, the development of the qualities of industry, energy, helpfulness, and devotion to duty — qualities necessary both to individual and to social progress. These six propositions are, I think, fundamental. They give rise, however, to a host of most difficult problems in practical adminis- tration. The limit of this paper permits me to discuss briefly only a few of the most important. First among these problems is the problem of physical educa- tion. For the purposes of training the body directly and the mind indirectly four agencies are more or less employed in some schools and should be extensively employed in all schools: play, gymnastics, athletics, and manual training. Play has been defined as " the spontaneous physical expression of individuality; " 1 it is " nature's way of preparation for later serious living." In the school its use is imperative as affording relaxation and reaction from work and as preserving the individuality of the pupil by affording him an oppor- tunity to follow his own bent. Gymnastics is exercise directed to curing physical defects and to making the body strong and graceful. Athletics consists of organized play involving feats of strength, skill, and agility, performed by several persons in competition. In addition to the physical qualities developed by gymnastics, athletics 1 Home, The Philosophy of Education, p. 74. 104 THE SCHOOL develops the intellectual qualities of alertness, self-knowledge, executive ability, and " presence of mind," or the ability to think effectively in a crisis; and the moral qualities of self-control, self- reliance, courage, endurance, humility in victory, fortitude in defeat, and loyalty to one's fellows through working together for a common end. Manual training specifically trains the hand as the executive of the mind; it gives opportunity for self-expression in material forms — raffia, paper, pasteboard, cloth, wood, and metal; it gives facility in the manipulation of the simplest and most generally used tools that have aided man in his ascent from savagery; it cultivates the mental and moral habits of accuracy and truthfulness, and it induces a realization of the dignity of labor. Without these four forms of physical culture — play, gymnastics, athletics, and manual training — no school is doing its perfect work. Only in very recent years has the conception of physical education as an essential part of a child's training found its way into educational theory and practice. Hence the people's schools in our large cities are, as a rule, very inadequately equipped for any of the forms of physical education. A most serious difficulty in the way of providing such equipment is raised by the congestion of population in our large cities, caused partly by the ever-increasing immigration and partly by the con- tinuous movement of population from rural to urban life. The result is a deplorable lack of space in which children may play. This condition exists in nearly all our large cities, and particularly in New York, where the huge tenement, crowded to suffocation, full of nerve-racking noises, abominable stenches, and woeful sights, is the home, if home it may be called, of hundreds of thousands of children. With no place to play but the streets, boys, so deep-seated is the instinct for play, form organizations of their own for street games. The organization is the gang, and the games are gambling, stealing, fighting, and sometimes even stabbing or shooting. With no comfort or privacy in the rooms they call home, girls show a constant tendency to degenerate both physically and morally. Moreover, the poorer classes are in these days invariably the most prolific. If, as Prime Minister Balfour recently pointed out, the chief burden of perpetuating the race falls upon the poor in urban communities, then it is essential to the well-being of society that the school should labor incessantly for their physical improve- ment. The physical-education problem of the school is, therefore, twofold: To secure equipment for gymnastics and manual training in school buildings, and to provide space for athletics and free play, in which the child's individuality may have scope to develop amid pleasant and healthful surroundings. PRESENT PROBLEMS OF THE SCHOOL 105 A partial solution of the problem is to open the school buildings and yards in the afternoon and evening throughout the school year and during the summer vacation for purposes of manual training, gymnastics, athletics, and free play. The New York educational authorities are using the school buildings in this way. The result is that thousands of children find rest, recreation, and improvement in the school buildings; that the " little mothers " find peace and quiet for their infant charges; and that hundreds of street gangs are converted into boys' clubs earnestly seeking self -improvement. Even, however, if every school-house in the city were used at all reasonable hours for purposes of recreation and improvement, the measure would still fall short of counteracting the tenement-house evil. The tenement-house destroys the home; and without the well-ordered home and its influences the school can accomplish comparatively little. Nothing short of a revolution in the existing tenement-house system will restore the life of the poor in the city of New York to something like normal conditions. And how is this to be accomplished? I answer unhesitatingly that the tenement-house, as it has been known in New York City, must be eradicated. University and other social settlements are doing good, small parks afford some relief, and the public schools are doing a good deal and may do much more, but none of these instrumentalities goes to the root of the matter. The central evil of the crowded tenement is that it destroys home and family life, and no cure will be complete except a cure which restores to the poor man in cities the possibility of making a home for his wife and children. To this end the munici- pality should lay down strict rules, determined by experts, as to the height, floor-space, air-space, and number of families to be accommo- dated, according to which all tenements built by private owners shall be constructed. New York took a considerable stride in this direc- tion by its tenement-house law of 1901, but the remedy is far from being sufficient. The municipality should employ its credit to purchase tracts of unoccupied land upon which to erect model homes for workingmen amid pleasant and sanitary surroundings, and rent, or sell them, at a moderate profit. To such a scheme the objection will be made that it is rank paternal- ism. I answer that paternalism is justified when private initiative fails to root out an evil that is sapping the vitality of the nation at its root — the home life of the people. Again, it will be objected that municipal management is often, if not generally, characterized by carelessness, extravagance, and fraud. The all-sufficient answer is, first, that no amount of plundering and blundering on the part of municipal authorities could equal in its bad effects the evil wrought by the heartlessness and rapacity of tenement landlords; and, in the second place, that the experience of municipal authorities amply 106 THE SCHOOL demonstrates that committees of citizens, serving without remune- ration, through salaried experts, manage vast undertakings and enormous properties with economy and efficiency. The essential condition is that the undertaking should be large enough to warrant the employment of experts of first-class ability. The school should and must at all waking hours do all that its resources permit to supply what the home, even under the most favorable conditions, loses by moving from agricultural to urban life; but if the home and its wholesome influences are not to be obliterated among the city poor, the city must see to it that the so-called working classes are enabled to live in homes where homely virtues have a chance to flourish and where children have space to play. But there is still another aspect of physical education. Education, whether physical or mental, is seriously retarded, if not practically impossible, when the body is improperly or imperfectly nourished. The child of poverty, with body emaciated, blood thin, and nerves on edge, because he has not enough to eat, grows up stunted in body and in mind. What a farce it is to talk of the schools providing equal opportunities for all when there are hundreds of thousands of children in our city schools who cannot learn because they are always hungry! The schools of Paris provide a simple, wholesome midday meal for their hungry children. In many places in the British Islands the same thing is being done. Should we do less in the cities of democratic America? In no other way can we be sure that the schools will, as far as education may, provide equal oppor- tunities for all. Another of the very serious problems of school administration confronting us at present is the division of time as between the elementary school and the high school. The customary division assigns two years, from the ages of four to six, to the kindergarten; eight years, from six to fourteen, to the elementary school; and four years, from fourteen to eighteen, to the high or secondary school. If it is true, as is now generally believed, that the period of childhood closes at twelve, that the period of youth begins at thirteen, and that the child and the youth need different subject-matter and different methods of teaching, it is obvious that a distribution of time which requires two years of the period of youth to be spent under school conditions fit only for the child, is open to most serious objections. Specifically stated, these objections are as follows: First, the present arrangement causes the loss of valuable time by prolonging for two years a method of teaching that is fitted only for children; second, it unduly defers and therefore unjustly abbreviates the time devoted to foreign languages, to the higher mathematics, and to science; and third, in cities where school accommodations are limited in proportion to the number of children, it is wasteful because, PRESENT PROBLEMS OF THE SCHOOL 107 while the classrooms occupied by grades of the first six years are crowded, those devoted to the seventh and eighth years are often partially empty. In order to obviate the waste of effort, of time, and of space involved in the present organization of schools, I suggest the following arrangement : (1) School life, above the kindergarten age, should be divided into two equal periods — the elementary, corresponding to the epoch of childhood; and the secondary, corresponding to the epoch of youth. Each period would provide for six years of school work — the elementary, from six to twelve; the secondary, from thirteen to eighteen. (2) For economic reasons, inasmuch as children leave school rapidly after they are of age to go to work, the secondary schools should be of two kinds, which might be called the pre-academic and the academic. The pre-academic schools would provide three years of work, from thirteen to fifteen, and would be established at con- venient points selected with a view to accommodate the children promoted from the elementary schools. The academic schools, which would be comparatively few in number and established only in crowded centres, would provide another three years of work for youths from sixteen to eighteen. In this way space would be economized, much more work would be accomplished, and it may be reasonably anticipated that our young men and young women, before leaving the high school or academy, would have covered most, if not all, of the work that is now accomplished by the end of the sophomore year in the average college. A beginning of this plan has been made in several cities by the enrichment of the last two years of the ele- mentary course of study, through the introduction of a foreign language, algebra, and elementary physics. The gradually extending use of the departmental system of teaching, by which one teacher, instead of teaching all subjects for a year or half a year, teaches one subject through two years, is also contributing to the same result. Teachers who teach subjects for which they have special talent and preparation, and in which they are interested, to pupils thirteen and fourteen years of age, are almost certain to adopt methods suitable to the period of youth rather than to the period of childhood. After the problem of the distribution of time comes the problem of the elementary curriculum. What studies shall be pursued by children between the ages of six and thirteen? The answer to this question is found in the fundamental assumption that mental educa- tion is the gradual adjustment of the child to his spiritual environ- ment. President Butler was probably the first to advance this view of education as a development of Mr. John Fiske's discovery that the 108 THE SCHOOL prolonged period of infancy in the human race lies at the foundation of family life. President Butler defines our spiritual environment as " the spiritual possessions or inheritances of the race." x These spiritual inheritances he classifies as our scientific inheritance, our literary inheritance, our artistic inheritance, our institutional inher- itance, -and our religious inheritance. As education is the work of the school, it is obviously, then, its function to introduce the child to his spiritual inheritances. As a recent writer has well expressed the thought : " This production from within the mind of its own world in response to the stimulating effects of the world without is education as a process, as an activity. . . . What his race has produced he (the youth) reproduces, and thus universalizes his individual nature and socializes his private impulses." 2 This philosophic view of education which calls, as far as may be, for the reproduction in the individual of what has been produced by the race, is responsible for large additions to the elementary curriculum. At the same time, and in entire harmony with the philosophic view, there has been a constantly growing demand on the part of the people for the teaching of such subjects as carpentry, sewing, and cooking. Hence there has arisen the problem of the curriculum. Since we can teach but a small fraction of our spiritual inheritances, on what principle shall we make the selections? How shall we avoid giving teachers more to teach than they can teach well, and pupils more to learn than they can learn well? How shall we prevent what is popularly known as the " overcrowding " of the elementary curriculum? Twenty-five years ago the average elementary school in America taught reading, writing, spelling, grammar, geography, arithmetic, United States history, and what was called civics. In order to fill in the time, arithmetical rules of no possible use in life were taught, and the children's wits were exercised or blunted by outlandish mathe- matical puzzles; a manual of United States history and the Con- stitution of the United States were learned by heart; long lists of meaningless names were memorized in geography; parsing with the utmost detail was continuous; drawing, where drawing was taught, was exclusively from flat copies; and the crowning glory of the school was held to be the ability to spell sesquipedalian words whose signification had never dawned upon the childish intellect. The lack of intelligence in this work is to be accounted for by two facts: first, that teachers were not as well educated or trained as they are to-day; and second, that in the absence of interesting subject- matter they required their pupils to commit to memory dry and useless details in order to fill up the prescribed time. The additions 1 Butler, The Meaning of Education, p. 17. 2 Home, The Philosophy of Education, p. 100. PRESENT PROBLEMS OF THE SCHOOL 109 that have been gradually made are nature-study, which is intended to train what President Eliot calls " capacities for productiveness and enjoyment " through the progressive acquisition of an elementary knowledge of the outside world; algebra, chiefly as an aid, through the equation, to the solution of arithmetical problems; inventional geometry; literature, studied as such, distinct from the ordinary reading-lesson; language and composition, as the art of expression; drawing from objects; and manual training and other physical exercises. This seems a long list of subjects, and yet every subject is justified and required by the fundamental assumption that the school exists for the progressive adaptation of the child's mind to its spiritual environment. In other words, each child has a right to the acquisition not only of the tools of knowledge, but at least to the beginnings of a knowledge of literature, of science, of art, of institu- tions, and of ethics, so that when he leaves school he may be able to continue along the road on which he has started. Educators throughout the United States are now practically agreed that each of these great divisions of knowledge should be represented in some way in each year of the course. How, then, has room been made, or may room be made, for the new subject-matter and the new activities? In the first place, through the correlation of studies, the reinforcing of one study through other studies, as the correlation of history with geography, and of composition with literature. In the second place, through improved methods of teaching, so that more work is accomplished in a given time. The early introduction of the idea of ratio in arithme- tic, and the use of the phonetic method in teaching reading, are cases in point. It is safe to say that when reading is scientifically taught the average child reads better at the end of the first year in school than twenty-five years ago he could read at the end of the third year and that he actually reads five times as much matter during the first three school years as he read during the same period a quarter of a century ago. In the third place, time may be saved by lopping off useless and wearisome detail in all subjects. To a considerable extent this pruning process has been applied in the best schools. That the memorizing of unnecessary details has not altogether gone out of fashion, however, is shown by the recent exposure of methods of teaching history in the high schools of one of our most enlightened states. One hundred students who entered a state normal school were asked to write answers to the question: " How were you taught history in the public school? " Of the one hundred, sixty-two answered that they had " memorized the text-book and recited it word for word as nearly as possible." x But history is not the only subject in which children's time is wasted and their interest 1 Educational Review, May, 1904. 110 THE SCHOOL destroyed by memoriter methods. In, geography, in grammar, in arithmetic, even in nature-study, it is still not unusual to find teachers consuming their pupils' time in memorizing unessential details and a vast redundancy of technical terms. Mr. Frank McMurry lays down the following plain rules for the rejection of superfluous subject- matter in teaching: " (1) Whatever cannot be shown to have a plain relation to some real need of life, whether it be esthetic, ethical, or utilitarian in the narrow sense, must be dropped. " (2) Whatever is not reasonably within the child's comprehension, likewise. " (3) Whatever is unlikely to appeal to his interest; unless it is positively demanded for the first very weighty reason. " (4) Whatever topics and details are so isolated or irrelevant that they fail to be a part of any series or chain of ideas, and therefore fail to be necessary for the appreciation of any large point. This stand- ard, however, not to apply to the three R's and spelling." 1 The intelligent application by teachers of these four rules, together with the more general dissemination of improved methods of teaching, will gradually solve the problem of the " overcrowding of the ele- mentary curriculum." The elective system, which has obtained so firm a footing in American colleges and universities, has spread to the secondary schools, while there are not wanting those who argue in favor of introducing it into the elementary schools. Some would go so far as to say that a youth of fourteen should be permitted, while in high school, to pursue as many studies or as few studies, for as long a time or for as short a time, as he pleases. Though there are few who take this extreme view, yet the elective principle has found a firm lodg- ment in the secondary school. For the most part it takes the form of a choice between a college preparatory course, a commercial course, and a manual-training course, or a choice between two or more related subjects of study. If we assume, as I think we must, that the principle of election has been firmly established in the secondary schools, the problem which at once arises is: How shall the student be guided to a wise choice of courses and of subjects? Obviously, when he enters, the teachers of the secondary schools cannot advise him, because when he presents himself at their doors they know nothing of his special aptitudes and little of his previous studies. In the great majority of cases parents are quite as incompetent as his new teachers to give him useful counsel. How is the boy, at the age of fourteen, to determine whether he shall take the college preparatory course, or the commercial course, or the manual-training course? Here is a problem of the first importance. It is of the first import- 1 Educational Review, May, 1904. PRESENT PROBLEMS OF THE SCHOOL 111 ance to the boy himself, because his future happiness and success in life depend in no small measure on the prudence with which he makes his selection. It is of the first importance to society, because there is no economic waste comparable in its proportions to that occasioned by setting people to work for which they have no natural aptitude. How, then, is the problem to be solved? I fear we must lay the burden in the first instance on the elementary school — a burden which that institution has hitherto made but little effort to assume. That the elementary school has not done more to guide the future academic work of its pupils is generally attributed to one or other of two causes, neither of which I believe to be tenable. In the first place it is claimed that the elementary school presents the same subject-matter and the same activities to all pupils and therefore turns out a machine-made — I believe that is the term generally employed — a machine-made product that is alike in all its parts. The answer is that the elementary school must of necessity present the same subjects and the same activities to all its pupils, because these subjects and these activities constitute the necessary food and the necessary training of the child mind; that the use of the same studies and the same exercises does not result in producing the same type of mind and disposition, because different minds, according to inherent capacities, react in different ways upon the same stimuli; and, finally, that the intellectual capacities, dispositions, and tend- encies of the graduates of the elementary schools are actually not alike, but as various as there are individuals. The second criticism is that the bright pupil is made to keep step with the dull pupil. " Marking time " is the phrase used in the educational cant of the day. To properly administered schools this criticism does not apply. Even if it did, however, the pity lavished on the particularly bright pupil is largely wasted. He can generally take care of him- self. Our sympathy is needed, not for the bright, precocious pupil, but for his duller, though not on that account less able, associate. The problem really is, not how to drive the bright pupil through the grades at railroad speed, but how to give the slower pupil the assist- ance — but little will be needed in the majority of cases — that will help him over obstacles and enable him to keep up with his more brilliant companions. Any school which lavishes the time and energy of its ablest teachers on the more brilliant, to the neglect of the duller pupils, falls far short of its duty. The fault, then, lies neither in the sameness of the curriculum nor in the retardation of bright pupils, but in the failure of elementary- school principals and teachers to realize their responsibility for the future welfare of their pupils. Where, on the other hand, all pupils have equal opportunity and equal advantages, there the teachers, if they take an interest, may note the different reactions produced by 112 THE SCHOOL identical stimuli on different minds, and advise the boy of literary ability to take the college preparatory course, the one with business instincts to take the commercial course, and the one with a turn for mechanics to pursue the manual-training or mechanic-arts course . In this way the elementary school may become of much greater benefit to society than it is at present. The elementary school can, however, guide only the first steps of the student. After he has fully entered upon the work of the secondary school it becomes one of the chief duties of that institution to train him to make intelligent selection among courses and subjects of study. There remain to be considered three problems of the highest importance in the administration of the American school — the problem of compulsory attendance, the problem of the supply of teachers, and the problem of finance. Most of the Northern States of the Union have enacted com- pulsory-education laws, more or less stringent in their nature. These laws are not, however, strictly enforced. In the South there is not even a pretense made of compulsory school attendance. Several reasons may be assigned for the laxity that undoubtedly exists in the enforcement of compulsory-education laws: a wide- spread repugnance to state interference with the supposed liberties of parents; the opposition of the employers of child labor, such as the cotton manufacturers of the South, the coal-mine owners of Penn- sylvania, the glass-makers of New Jersey, the sweat-shops of New York, and the small traders in all large cities; the opposition of private schools which dread a diversion of their children to the public school; the opposition of some foreign-born, non-English-speaking communities, founded on the fear that their children would, in the public school, lose the use of their native tongue; and, lastly, the lack of adequate administrative machinery for the enforcement of existing laws. Gradually to overcome this widespread opposition to compulsory school attendance the following measures are suggested: (1) Governmental registration and inspection of all private and parochial schools, to the end that no school may be permitted to exist which does not teach its pupils the English language and the elementary duties of citizenship. There should be no interference — public opinion in America would not tolerate any interference — with endowed, proprietary, or sectarian schools, if such interference would in any way limit the liberty of teaching or the rights of parents to determine the schools in which their children shall be trained. Such interference on the part of the state should be forbidden for educational as well as political reasons, because the competition of private schools is essential to the well-being and the growth of public PRESENT PROBLEMS OF THE SCHOOL 113 schools. On the other hand, the state owes it to society, and society owes it to itself, to see to it that all its future citizens, either in public or in private schools, are taught the English language and at least an elementary knowledge of American history and institutions, and that they are taught by persons who are qualified to teach. (2) The registration of all children in large cities. If such a measure is necessary in the comparatively stable population of Paris, in order to secure a strict enforcement of a compulsory-educa- tion law, how much more necessary is it in a city like New York or Chicago, in which population is constantly shifting over a widely extended urban territory, and to which is added annually an enor- mous influx of non-English-speaking foreigners? (3) The education of society to a realizing sense of the necessity on social grounds of a strict enforcement of a reasonable compulsory- education law. The great truth must be brought home to all that the man who fails to educate his children commits a twofold sin — a sin against his children, whom he deprives, as far as his power goes, of the ability to live happy and prosperous lives; and a sin against society, which suffers and deteriorates in proportion as its members fail to participate in the spiritual inheritances of the race and fail to receive that training for citizenship which springs from association in the exercises of the school. On the other hand, I may justly claim for my country that there is no other in which education is more generally appreciated, or in which it is pursued with greater zeal. The enthusiasm of the many will not, however, atone for the indiffer- ence of the few. The problem of the supply of teachers presents three principal phases: (1) How shall teachers be trained? (2) How shall teachers be appointed? (3) Shall women teachers continue in the vast majority in Ameri- can schools? There are two prevailing types of method in training teachers, whether in the university, the normal school, or the city training- school: that which regards the study of the science and art of teaching as incidental to the acquisition of scholarship, and that which looks upon it as a pursuit requiring the undivided attention of the student. Just as the professions of medicine, law, theology, and engineering now require that the intending licentiate shall devote some years to the exclusive study of the technique of his future work, so it may be confidently predicted that in the not distant future every person who is to teach our children shall be required not only to reach a high standard in scholarship, but to devote from two to four years to special preparation for the most delicate and difficult of all arts — the art of training children. 114 THE SCHOOL Up to forty years ago the conception was widely prevalent through- out the United States that any one who knew enough to keep ahead of his pupils in their lessons was sufficiently well instructed to be appointed a teacher. The natural result of this generally accepted view was the appointing of teachers by citizen committees who were too often swayed by prejudice, favor, or political and religious con- siderations. As a higher conception of the school and its functions and of the teacher and his duties has gained ground, we are slowly, but surely, realizing the necessity of a method of appointment and promotion that will relieve the teacher from humiliation and the schools from the incubus of political management. Two plans have been somewhat widely tried: appointment by a single expert, super- visor, or superintendent, and appointment as the result of competitive examination. Appointment by a superintendent has been known to lead to the displacement of an honest and fearless official and the substitution of one who is subservient to political control, and is not likely to be extended. Appointment by competitive examination, on the other hand, while it may not always attract the right persons to the right places, is slowly, but surely, gaining ground. It has raised the standard of scholarship and professional equipment among teachers. As a general rule it selects the best from among a mass of applicants for a given position; and it preserves the self-respect of the individual teacher, because it frees him from the necessity of begging or cringing for a position and enables him to feel that he obtains appointment or promotion solely upon his own merits. As communities awake to the necessity of delivering their schools from the abhorrent influences of political and ecclesiastical patronage, we may look to see a more rapid spread of this method of appointing and promoting teachers. Attention has recently been attracted by the report of the Mosely Commission to what has been called the feminization of American schools, because the great majority of public school teachers are women. It was an economic reason, in the first instance, — the fact that women work for smaller wages than men, — that led to the present preponderance of the feminine element in the teaching force. It is more than doubtful, however, whether American schools and American education have deteriorated in consequence. It is quite certain that the refined woman of to-day who has been thorough^ trained is a much better teacher than the coarse, ignorant, pedantic schoolmaster of fifty years ago, who excited no feeling but con- tempt, hatred, or terror in the breasts of his pupils. We all believe in the salutary influence of the masculine mind in teaching, par- ticularly in the case of older pupils, but we also believe that the influence of a strong woman is better than that of a weak man; and that a woman teacher of ability who is devoting her life to educational PRESENT PROBLEMS OF THE SCHOOL 115 work is apt to be a better teacher than the male fledgeling who takes up teaching as a makeshift, and whose mind is set, not upon education as a career, but upon law or medicine. In short, to increase the efficiency of the public school-teaching force by increasing the number of efficient men teachers — men who would devote their lives to the work — would involve a largely increased expenditure of money in order to induce such men to make teaching their life-work. And this brings me to my last problem — the problem of finance. If we are to have school-houses properly equipped for the training of the body as well as the mind — for manual training, play, gym- nastics, and athletics; if all children are to enjoy their God-given right to education; if schools are to be equipped for scientific as well as literary studies; if salaries are to be paid to teachers that will attract men and women of breeding and refinement to the teaching profession; and if all the teachers are to be thoroughly trained, so that they will be models to imitate and persons capable of arousing interest and inspiring effort — if all these things are to be accom- plished, it is evident that the sums devoted to education in America, enormous as they are, must be very greatly increased. For effective purposes, the revenue of a public school system ought to possess two characteristics: first, it should be ample; and second, it should be stable. It should be sufficiently ample in each community to pro- vide schooling for all children in classes not to exceed forty to a teacher, and in adequately equipped buildings; to pay teachers reasonable salaries, so that they may be able to live in refined sur- roundings and take advantage of opportunities for self-improvement; and to provide pensions after retirement, so that while in active service they may be relieved of anxiety regarding provision for old age. It should be stable, so that the educational authorities may be able to carry out a consistent and progressive policy. It should not be subject to the whims and caprices of the politicians who control the municipal administration of our large cities. It should not be fluctuating from year to year, and thus lead to the establishment of activities one year which must be abandoned for lack of funds the next. I have selected from among the innumerable problems in school administration which now confront the people of the United States those that seem most important and most urgent, and I have ventured in each case to suggest a solution. Every solution proposed involves an increased expenditure of money. Immeasurably more effective, however, than money — vital though money is — to uplift the school, are the love and skill of the devoted teacher. Love for children and teaching skill are the greatest things in the school. SECTION C— THE COLLEGE SECTION C — THE COLLEGE {Hall 12, September 23, 3 p. m.) Chairman: Chancellor W. S. Chaplin, Washington University. Speakers: President William De Witt Hyde, Bowdoin College. President M. Carey Thomas, Bryn Mawr College. Secretary: Professor H. H. Horne, Dartmouth College. THE COLLEGE BY WILLIAM DE WITT HYDE [William De Witt Hyde, President of Bowdoin College and Professor of Mental and Moral Philosophy, b. September 23, 1858, Winchendon, Massachusetts. A.B. Harvard University, 1879; DD. and LL.D. Pastor of Congregational Church, Paterson, New Jersey, 1883-85. President of Bowdoin CoUege, 1885. Author of Practical Ethics; Practical Idealism; God's Education of Man; From Epicurus to Christ ; The College Man and the College Woman; and other works.] The best approach to a definition of the college is by closing in upon it from the two sides of the institutions between which it stands : the school and the university. And as in the mariner's compass not only is there a northeast between north and east, but several in- tervening points, so we shall find between the school and the college a school-college, and between the university and the college a uni- versity-college, which for our more accurate purposes we shall have to take into account. Before defining the college, let us define in the order the school, the university, the school-college, and the uni- versity-college. The school imposes the symbols of communication, together with the rudiments of science, literature, and art, on the more or less unwilling child. I know the words " impose " and " unwilling " sound hard and harsh, and will evoke a protest from the advocates of the sugar-coated education. But with all due respect for what kindergarten devices, child-study, and pedagogical predigestion can do to make learning attractive, the school must be essentially a grind on facts and principles, the full significance of which the child cannot appreciate, and which consequently must appear hard, dry, and dull. The world is so big and complex, the mind of the child is so small and simple, that the process of the application of the one to the other can scarcely be effective without considerable pain. Con- sequently in the school there must be rigid discipline, judicious appeal to extraneous motives, and a firm background of unquestioned authority. I appreciate most highly all that has been done in the 120 THE COLLEGE ways above referred to in the direction of mollifying this discipline. But in a brief definition of a great institution the essential, not the accidental, elements — the enduring features, not the latest phases of it — must be emphasized. The university, including in that comprehensive term graduate, professional, and technical training, is the exact opposite of the school. The school brings together the large world and the child's small mind, involving the pain of mental stretching to take in materials of which there is no conscious want. The university pre- supposes the enlarged mind, which it applies to some small section of truth, such as law, medicine, architecture, engineering, dentistry, forestry, Latin, history, astronomy, or chemistry. This, too, is a somewhat painful process, but its pains are of the opposite nature, due to confining the enlarged mind, full of varied human interests, to the minute details of a narrow speciahy. Of discipline the university has practically nothing. It requires only intellectual results. Such moral and spiritual influences as it affords are offered as opportunities rather than imposed as requirements. Its atmo- sphere is absolutely free. Its professors are specialists. Its stu- dents are supposed to be men. Having briefly defined the two institutions on either side, it might seem the proper time to present the definition of the college. But on both sides intermediary types have been evolved, which must be carefully distinguished from the college proper, — the school-college, and the university-college. The school-college admits its students poorly prepared, and gives them in the school-college the work they ought to have done in the school. Its professors are schoolmasters, teaching several subjects, mainly by the school method of recitation from the book or repetition of dictated lectures. Laboratory work is confined chiefly to pre- arranged illustrative material. The conduct of the students is minutely supervised by the faculty. Little or nothing inside or outside of the recitation-rooms is left to the initiative of the students. A considerable proportion of the so-called colleges of the United States are of this school-college type. They are inexpensive; and curiously enough, the less endowment they have, the less it costs to attend them. Their graduates, unless by virtue of native wit, hardly have the breadth and initiative necessary for leadership in commercial, professional, and public life. By the university-college I do not mean necessarily one connected with a university. A college connected with a university may be a real college, and a university-college may be connected with no university. Its distinctive mark is the application to immature students of methods of instruction and discipline which are adapted only to the mature. Its instruction is given in large lecture courses, THE COLLEGE 121 with little or no personal interest in his students on the part of the lecturer, or required reaction on the part of the hearer. This per- sonal contact is sometimes supplied vicariously in the person of a graduate student, or recently fledged doctor of philosophy, who quizzes fractions of the mass at stated intervals. The information imparted is the best and most advanced. The fame of the lecturers is unsurpassed. But the appropriation of the material presented- is largely optional. As the personal element in teaching is largely vicarious, learning in turn tends to become vicarious also. Printed notes, expert coaches, improvised " seminars," reduce to compara- tively few hours the labor of those who register themselves as students. Affording splendid and unequaled opportunities for the earnest and studious few, these university-colleges afford the wealthy idler the elegant leisure that he craves. For the great majority of the students in a university-college, even athletics becomes likewise vicarious, the exertions of the elegant idler in this direction being confined mainly to the lungs and the pocketbook. In so vast a body the opportunity for social leader- ship and prominence in college affairs is confined to the exceptional few; impossible for the average many. The average boy of eighteen or twenty soon drifts into the irresponsibility of an unnoticed unit in the preponderating mass. Discipline in the university-college becomes practically limited to the requirement that the student shall exercise sufficient control over his animal and social instincts to maintain intense intellectual activity for two periods of two or three weeks in each college year. By thus closing in upon the college from both sides, and marking off the institutions which come so close to it that they are often confounded with it, we have made the definition of the real college comparatively easy. We are now ready to describe its characteristic marks. It requires as a condition of admission that the work of the school shall have been thoroughly done. Either by examination before entering, or by elimination at the first opportunity afterward, it strictly limits its students to those who have had a thorough school training. It does this because it is impossible to give a college educa- tion to an untrained mind. It is even more essential that a student shall have done hard work before coming to college than that he shall do hard work while in college. The previously trained mind can get a great deal out of college with comparatively little work. The mind that has not been previously well trained can get very little out of college, even by hard work. This may be a stumbling- block to the school man, and foolishness to the university man; but the college man knows that in spite of these criticisms from below and from above, an amount of leisure can be well afforded in college 122 THE COLLEGE which would be fatal in either academy or university. In order to be profitable, however, it must be the leisure of a mind previously subjected to prolonged and thorough discipline. The method of teaching in the college is on the whole different from that of either school or university. In the school the abstract facts and principles, as laid down in approved and authoritative books, are transmitted by the teacher to the student. The indi- vidual reconstruction of those principles and facts in the mind of teacher and student, though important, is relatively less essential. If by gift of genius you get this element of individuality in either teacher or student, you are profoundly grateful; but the school can, and in a vast majority of cases must, get on without the interpreting individuality of the teacher and the reconstructive unification of the student. I am speaking not of ideals, but of facts. Now there is room for the schoolmaster in the college, but his sphere is very limited. In formal studies like mathematics, and the elements of such languages as have not been previously acquired, every college ought to have two or three thorough drillmasters on its faculty. There is nothing about a college atmosphere that can make analytical geometry easy, or the irregular French verb fasci- nating, or German prose sentences intelligible without grammar. Such school work as our requirements for admission permitted to be postponed until after admission to college must be done there in the hard, exacting school way. In the university it is the individuality of the student that counts. Not the facts in the text-books; not the insight and interpretation of the professor; but the initiative of the individual student is what the university is after. The college in the more advanced courses must introduce also a moderate degree of this university element. Most of our colleges, by the group system, or by the requirement of major and minor subjects as a condition of taking the bachelor's degree, insist that something like a fourth or a third of a student's courses shall lead up to and culminate in such comparatively inde- pendent work. In this way we give every college student a taste of real scholarly work; and discover the comparatively few who are fitted to prosecute it to advantage in the university. The college professor, the type to which the majority of the college faculty should belong, is very different from either the schoolmaster or the university specialist. He is a man who grasps his subject as a whole; deals with each aspect of it in its relation to the whole; is able to make the subject as a whole unfold from day to day, and grow in the mind of the student into the same splendid proportions that it has assumed in his own; and who can put it to the test of practical application in matters of current interest. If he is a chemist he is able to give expert testimony in court. If a geologist, THE COLLEGE 123 he is able to take part in government surveys, or lead in exploration. If an economist, he is able to contribute something to the settlement of labor troubles. If an historian or professor of government, he must be able to bring ancient precedent and remote experience to bear on current complications. If a professor of the classics, he must love the masters of English prose and verse all the better for his familiarity with the ancient models; and show how much more the modern things mean when thrown on the ancient background. College students despise a professor who is so lost in his subject that he cannot get out of it, prove its worth by some concrete application, and make life as a whole the larger and richer by the contribution he makes from his special department. He must be human; intensely interested in individuals; eager to see his favorite authors, his beloved pursuits, kindle into enthusiasm the minds he introduces to them. The college professor must know his subject; he must be a competent investigator in it, and a thorough master of it. If as a badge of such mastery and aptitude for investigation he has the degree of Ph.D., all the better. But this is not essential. He must know men and the large movements and interests of the world out- side. He must present his subject, lit up with the enthusiasm of a great personality; an enthusiasm so contagious that the students cannot help catching it from him, and regarding his subject for the time being as the most compelling interest in life. He must be genial, meeting students in informal, friendly ways outside of lecture rooms, either in general social intercourse or in little clubs for the prosecution of interests related to his subject. He must have high standards of personal character and conduct, and broad charity for those who fall below them. In short, he must be first of all a man whom young men would respect, admire, and imitate, and love, and then in addition he must know the subject he professes in the broad, vital, practical, contagious way described above. The course of study in a college covers in a broad way the main departments of language and literature, science and art, history, economics, and philosophy. At least four languages besides English: Latin, Greek, French, and German; mathematics; at least four sciences: physics, chemistry, biology, and geology or astronomy; history, both ancient and modern, both American and European; both orthodox economic theory and current economic heresy, to- gether with special study of such subjects as banking, taxation, trans- portation, trust and labor problems; the principles and problems of government, both national and municipal; literature studied as literature and not merely the corpse of it, in the shroud of grammar and coffin of philology; philosophy as the attempted answer to the perpetual problems of ontology, cosmology, conduct, and human aspiration; enough of fine art to make one at home in the great 124 THE COLLEGE buildings and galleries of the world — these are the essentials of the college curriculum. Each of the leading subjects should be presented in at least three consecutive courses extending over a year each: one elementary; one or more broad, general, interesting, practical; at least one specific, intensive, involving research, initiative, and a chance for originality. These broad middle courses are the distinctive feature of the college, and they are the hardest to get well taught. For one man who can teach a college course of this nature well, you can find ten who can teach a university specialty, and a hundred who can teach the elementary-school course. But if you dare to leave out these broad, comprehensive college courses, or if you fail to get men who are broad and human enough to teach them, you miss the distinctively college teaching altogether; you have in place of the college one or another of the four institutions previously described. These real college professors, — these men who can make truth kindle and glow through the dead cold facts of science; who can reveal the throbbing heart of humanity through either ancient or modern worlds; who can communicate the shock of clashing wills and the struggle of elemental forces through historic periods and economic schedules; who can make philosophy the revelation of God, and ethics the gateway of heaven, — these men are hard to find, infinitely harder to find than schoolmasters on the one hand, and specialists on the other. Yet unless you can get together at least half a dozen men of this type you must not pretend to call your aggregation of professors a college faculty; you cannot give your students the distinctive value of a college course. The discipline of a college is different from that of either a school or a university. The true college maintains a firm authority; and will close its doors rather than yield any essential point of moral character or intellectual efficiency to student clamor and caprice. Yet this authority is kept well in the background, delegated perhaps to some form of student government, and is used only as a last resort when all the arts of persuasion and all the influences of reason fail. Not more than once or twice in a college generation of four years will it ever be necessary to draw the lines sharply and fight out some carefully chosen issue on grounds of sheer authority. On the other hand, the college has much of the liberty of the university; yet in such wise that it cannot be perverted into license to do whatever may seem for the time being right in the eyes of immature and inexperienced youth. Spies and threats, and petty artificial penalties are as foreign to a true college as to a university. Yet the college does make the way of the transgressor hard — much harder than the university even attempts to do. THE COLLEGE 125 What, then, is the secret, what is the method of true college discip- line, which avoids both these extremes, yet secures the advantages at which both school and university aim? It is personal friendliness, intelligent sympathy, appealing to what is best in the heart of the college student. By intimate appreciation of all worthy student interests, ambitions, and enthusiasm the college officer comes to understand by way of contrast whatever is base, corrupt, and wanton in the life of the little community, and to know by intuition the men who are caught in the toils of these temptations. Any com- petent college officer can give you, if not offhand, certainly after a half-hour's consultation, an accurate account of the character of any student in his institution; his haunts, his habits, his companions, his ways of spending time and money, and all that these involve. Where it seems to be needed, either some professor or the president has a friendly conference with the student, bringing him face to face with the facts and their natural consequences, but making no threats, imposing no penalties, simply calling the student's attention to principles with which he is already perfectly familiar, and offering him whatever help and encouragement toward amendment friendly interest and sympathy can give. Usually the whole matter is strictly confidential between officer and student, though when this proves inadequate the aid of students likely to have influence is secured, and in extreme cases the cooperation of parents and friends at home is invoked. Information that is directly or indirectly acquired through this close sympathy with student life is never made the basis of any formal discipline whatever. A student may persist in evil ways, and be known to persist in them, and be treated by the college in no other way than he would be treated in similar circumstances by his father and mother at home. If he performs his work and avoids scandal he may go on and graduate, precisely as he might continue to live under his father's roof. If his evil courses lead to failure in his work, or if they bring scandal upon the college through overt acts, or obviously injurious influence, then he is asked to withdraw. Such, in brief, is the spirit of college discipline. It fits neither the immature nor the mature, but youth who are passing from imma- turity into maturity. It appeals to the highest and best motives, and scorns to deal with any others. It brings to bear the strongest personal influences it can summon, but deigns to use no others. It sometimes fails, but is usually in the long run successful. It presupposes absolute sincerity, perfect frankness, endless patience, infinite kindliness on the part of the college officer. It is sure to be misunderstood by the general public. It takes the average student about half his college course to come to an understanding of it. It lays those who employ it open to the charge of all manner of partiality, 126 THE COLLEGE weakness, inefficiency, from those who look at the outside facts and do not comprehend the inner spirit. But it is the only discipline that fits the college stage of development; it does its work on the whole effectively; it turns out as a rule loyal alumni, moral citizens, Christian men. In its religious life the college should be as little as possible de- nominational. The narrowness of sectarianism and the breadth of the college outlook are utterly incompatible. Denominations may lay the eggs of colleges; indeed, most of our colleges owe their in- ception to such denominational zeal. But as soon as the college develops strength it passes inevitably beyond mere denominational control. Church schools are often conspicuous successes. Church colleges are usually conspicuous failures. A church university is a contradiction in terms. It is equally necessary that the college should be intensely Christian. The administrative officer should believe in the power of the best motives over the worst men and the application of great principles to little things. He should know that persons are more than the acts that they do. He should believe what most people practically deny, — that a sinner can be saved and that he is worth saving. It is only on such a profoundly Christian basis that a college can be suc- cessfully conducted. A college which is not Christian is no college at all. For the faithful, hopeful, loving treatment of persons as free beings of boundless capacity and infinite worth is at once the essence of Christianity and the distinguishing mark of the true college. Christianity in the college, as everywhere else in the world, pre- sents the two aspects which Jesus contrasted in the parable of the two sons whom the father asked to work in his vineyard. There is the conscious, professed, organized Christianity, which joins the church and the association, attends and takes part in meetings, and casts about to find or invent ways to make both the world and one's self better than they otherwise would be. Sometimes, un- fortunately, the Christian of this type neglects that devotion of himself to such forms of good as are already established, — the in- tellectual tasks, the athletic interests, the social life, of the institution. In that case the result is that, good as it means to be, good as in many respects it is, this type of Christianity fails to be appreciated by the majority of the students; the leadership of all forms of college life passes into other hands, and this avowed, expressed, organized Christianity lives at a poor dying rate, by faculty assistance and student toleration. People who forget the lesson of the parable that there are two types of Christianity, and confound this type with the whole of Christianity, sometimes take a very discouraged view of the condition of Christianity in our colleges. THE COLLEGE 127 What, then, is the other, the relatively unconscious, unprofessing type? Who is the Christian who, as Jesus says, in the judgment day will be surprised to find that he was a Christian at all? He is the man who lives for something bigger and better, loses himself in something wider and higher than himself. He does his work with a sense of responsibility for the honest improvement of his powers and opportunities; or, better still, with devotion to some aspect of scientific truth or human welfare that has gotten hold of him. He enters heartily into the sports and enthusiasms of his fellows, sacri- ficing comfort and convenience to the promotion of these common ends. He shares his time and property with his friends, and sup- ports generously their common undertakings. He stands up for what is right, yet always has a helping hand for the fellow who has fallen down. He looks forward to life as a sphere where he is going to serve public interests and promote social welfare, at the same time that he supports himself and his family. Now, if this is Christianity, if the cultivation of these traits and aims is growing in Christian character, then our colleges are mighty agencies for the spread of Christianity. No man can go through one of them and catch its spirit without becoming a better Christian for the remainder of his days. Of course it is highly desirable that these two types of Christianity should understand and appreciate each other. Especially fortunate is the college where these two types coincide; where the most promi- nent members of church and association are at the same time the best fellows, and where the best fellows give their influence and support as officers and workers in distinctively Christian organiza- tions. In some men's colleges, and in most women's colleges, this is happily the case. If, however, we can have but one of the two types, as often happens, we must agree with Jesus that good work and good fellowship on a basis unconsciously Christian are better than a con- scious profession which remains self-centred and self-satisfied, outside the more genial and generous current of the life of the community. The last feature of the college, but by no means the least signifi- cant, is this genial, generous, social life. Even if nothing were learned save by absorption through the pores, the intimate association with picked men of trained minds for the most impressionable years of one's life would almost be worth while. To take one's place in such a community, to bear one's share in its common interests and common endeavor, to take the social consequences of one's attitude and actions in a community which sees clearly and speaks frankly, re- wards generously, and punishes unmercifully, is the best school of character and conduct ever yet devised. This is the leading consideration in determining the desirable size of a college. As Plato says of the state, we mayjsay of the 128 THE COLLEGE college, — it should be as large as is consistent with organic unity. If some types of life and character, the rich or the poor, the independent or the conservative, the high scholar or the good fellow, the athlete or the man of artistic temperament, are left out, then it is too small. If, on the other hand, a man can be a mere unit in a mass toward which he feels little or no definite responsibility; if his specific contri- bution is not needed and his individual opinion does not count ; if the games are played, and the papers are edited, and the societies are managed, and things generally are conducted by experts whom he merely knows by sight and reputation; then that college is too large for him; he will probably come out of it as small as he went in. For the most enjoyable and profitable social life the college com- munity inevitably breaks up into little groups, — fraternities, musical associations, athletic teams, and clubs for scientific, literary, historical and philosophical study. Extension and intensity are inversely proportional; and a man who misses the closer contact and warmer fellowship of these smaller groups misses much that is most valuable in college life. Athletics are carried to excess, as is everything else in which youth take a leading part. But the incidental excesses of a few individuals are much more than counterbalanced by the in- creased physical health, moral tone, and freedom from asceticism and effeminacy in the college community as a whole. Cut off as they are from the natural outdoor tasks and sports, from chores and workshops, from hunting and fishing, from sailing and riding, some artificial outlet for physical vigor is absolutely essential. Some object for community enthusiasm, community loyalty, and com- munity sacrifice is equally a moral and social necessity. The worst evil of athletics is not the effort put forth by the athletes them- selves, but the extent to which these interests absorb the time and conversation, the thought and aspiration, of both combatants and non-combatants. Even this evil, great as it is, is small in comparison to the moral evils which would infest a group of vigorous young men from whom some such outlet was withheld. The fraternities and societies likewise have slight possibilities of evil, but accomplish an overwhelming preponderance of good. It is through them, directly or indirectly, that the most effective per- sonal and social influence can be brought to bear on those who need it. Occasionally a fraternity drops to the level of making mere good-fellowship an exclusive end, to which scholarship, morality, efficiency, are merely incidental. A college is fortunate which at any given time does not have one or two fraternities that are tending in this direction. But the contempt of their rivals, the influence of their graduates, the self-respect of the better members themselves, together with direct or indirect faculty remonstrance, serve to bring a fraternity to its senses in a quarter of the time it would take to THE COLLEGE 129 straighten out an equal number of isolated individuals. Isolated good and isolated evil are more nearly on an equality. But good influence can be organized and mobilized a hundred times as quickly and effectively as evil influence; and where the moral forces in faculty and students are alert, the fraternities serve as rallying- points for the concentration of the good and the dispersion of the evil. Departmental clubs, in which one or two members of the faculty meet informally with a few of the more interested students for con- ference on some phase of their subject, are perhaps the consumma- tion of the college spirit. Modern methods of instruction, however, make contact in the laboratory over experiments and in the library in research so close that many of the regular classes assume more the aspect of a club than a class. The newest and best college libraries provide small rooms for the use of books by professors and students together in each literary and historical department; and regard such rooms quite as indispensable as the room where books alone are stored. There is one serious danger, and only one, that besets the college. The ordinary objections, hazing, excessive athletics, dissipation, lawlessness, idleness, are due either to exaggeration of exceptional cases, or the unwarranted expectation that large aggregations of youth will conduct themselves with the decorum that is becoming where two or three mature saints are gathered together for conference and prayer. I grant that a man who cherishes this expectation will be disappointed; and if he chances to be a college officer, and under- takes to realize this expectation, he will be deservedly miserable. With all its incidental follies and excesses, college conduct is more orderly, college judgment is more reasonable, college character is more earnest and upright, than are the judgment, conduct, and character of youth of the same age in factories, offices, and stores, or on farms or on shipboard. As far as these matters go, college is physically, mentally, and morally the safest place in the world for a young man. The one serious danger is so subtle that the public has never sus- pected its existence; and even to many a college officer the statement of it will come as a surprise. It is the danger of missing that solitude which is the soil of individuality and the fertilizer of genius. College life is excessively gregarious. Men herd together so closely and con- stantly that they are in danger of becoming too much alike. The pursuit of four or five subjects at the same time tends to destroy that concentration of attention to one thing on which great achievement rests. The same feverish interest in athletics, the same level of gossip, the same attitude toward politics and religion, tend to pass by contagion from the mass to the individual, and supersede independ- 130 THE COLLEGE ent reflection. The attractiveness and charm of this intense life of the college group tends to become an end in itself; so that the very- power which wholesomely takes the student out of himself into the group invites him to stop in the group instead of going on into those intellectual and social interests which the college is supposed to serve. This devotion to college rather than to learning; to the fellows rather than to humanity; to fraternities and teams rather than to church and state, is a real danger to all students, and a very serious danger to the exceptional individuals who have the spark of original- ity hidden within their souls. The same forces that expand small, and even average men, may tend to repress and stunt these souls of larger endowment. To guard against this; to make sure that the man of latent genius is protected against this deadening influence of social compulsion toward mediocrity, is one of the great duties of the wise college professor. He must show the student of unusual gifts that he is appreciated and understood; and encourage him to live in the college atmosphere as one who is at the same time apart from it and above it. The formation of little groups, temporary or permanent, among the more earnest students for mutual recognition and support, groups which actually do for a student while in college what Phi Beta Kappa attempts to do in a merely formal and honorary way afterwards, may help these choice minds to stem this tide of gregarious mediocrity. Wherever the faculty is alert to detect its presence, even genius can thrive and flourish in a college atmosphere. Such is the college. It is an institution where young men and young women study great subjects, under broad teachers, in a liberty which is not license, and a leisure which is not idleness; with un- selfish participation in a common life and intense devotion to minor groups within the larger body and special interests inside the general aim; conscious that they are critically watched by friendly eyes; too kind ever to take unfair advantage of their weaknesses and errors, yet too keen ever to be deceived. The function of the college follows so obviously from the concept that it requires but a word to draw the inference. It makes its gradu- ates the heirs of all the wisdom and experience of the ages; placing, if not within their actual memories, at least within the reach of their developed powers and trained methods any great aspect of nature or humanity they may hereafter wish to acquire. It gives each one of them a sense of achievement and mastery in some one subject of his choice, giving him, in that one department at least, the impulse to read its books and study its problems as long as he shall live. It places its alumnus on a plane of social equality with the best people he will ever meet, and gives him a spirit of helpfulness toward the lowliest with whom he will ever come in contact. It makes him the servant of the state in wise counsel and effective leadership. It THE COLLEGE 13 1 gives to the church ministers who can do more than turn the cranks of ecclesiastical machinery and repeat ritualized tradition — prophets who gain first-hand contact with the purposes of God. It prepares men who will bring to the study and practice of law ability to apply eternal principles and ancient precedents to the latest phases of our complex civilization. It trains its graduates who practice medicine to give every patient the benefit of whatever science is developing of healing efficacj^ for his particular case. It trains men who are to be engineers, bankers, manufacturers, merchants, to put the solidity and integrity of natural law into the structures that they rear, the institutions they control, the fabrics they produce, and the transac- tions they direct. It trains men and women who will give to do- mestic and social life that unselfishness and geniality which comes of having the mind lifted above the selfish, the artificial, the petty, into sincere and simple intercourse with the good, the true, and the beautiful. The function of the college, then, is not mental training on the one hand nor specialized knowledge on the other. Incidentally it may do these things at the beginning and at the end of the course, as a completion of the unfinished work of the school, and a prepara- tion for the future pursuits of the university. The function of the college is liberal education; the opening of the mind to the great departments of human interest; the opening of the heart to the great spiritual motives of unselfishness and social service; the open- ing of the will to opportunity for wise and righteous self-control. Having a different task from either school or university, it has de- veloped a method and spirit, a life and leisure of its own. Judged by school standards it appears weak, indulgent, superficial. Judged by university standards it appears vague, general, indefinite. Judged by its true standard as an agency of liberal education; judged by its function to make men and women who have wide interests, generous aims, and high ideals, it will vindicate itself as the most efficient, the most precise means yet devised to take well-trained boys and girls from the school and send them either on to the university or out into life with a breadth of intellectual view no subsequent specialization can ever take away; a strength of moral purpose the forces of materialistic selfishness can never break down; a passion for social service neither popular superstition nor political corruption can deflect from its chosen path. I cannot sum up the function of the college better than in words formerly used in reply to the question of a popular journal, " Does a College Education Pay? " To be at home in all lands and all ages; to count nature a familiar acquaintance, and art an intimate friend; to gain a standard for the appreciation of other men's work and the criticism of one's own; to 132 THE COLLEGE carry the keys of the world's library in one's pocket, and feel its resources behind one in whatever task one undertakes; to make hosts of friends among the men of one's own age who are to be leaders in all walks of life; to lose one's self in generous enthusiasms and co- operate with others for common ends; to learn manners from stu- dents who are gentlemen, and form character under professors who are Christians — these are the returns of a college for the best four years of one's life. THE COLLEGE BY M. CAREY THOMAS [M. Carey Thomas, President of Bryn Mawr College since 1894. b. Baltimore, January 2, 1857. A.B. Cornell University, 1877; Ph.D. University of Zurich, 1882; Johns Hopkins University, 1877-78; University of Leipzig, 1879-82; Sorbonne and College de France, 1883; LL.D. Western University of Penn- sylvania, 1896. Dean of the Faculty of Bryn Mawr College and Professor of English, 1885-94; Alumni Trustee of Cornell University, 1895-99; Trustee of Bryn Mawr College, 1903 to present date. Author of The Association of Collegiate Alumnce in its Relation to Women's Education; College Entrance Requirements; The Future of Women in Independent Study and Research; Should the Higher Education of Women Differ from that of Men? Education of Women.] No one of the other subjects selected for discussion in the seven divisions, twenty-four departments, and one hundred and twenty- seven sections of the Congress of Arts and Science seems to me so vitally connected with the future well-being of the American people as the American college which we are to discuss to-day. The college does indeed need eloquent defenders, such as the speaker who has preceded me, for the executioner's ax is at its throat. The school, however badly planned, taught, and administered, has an assured existence; the university, however amorphous and inchoate, is to be fostered and extended; but the college, the centre of all our culture for the past century, is sore beset, and has more to fear from the Judas-like kisses of its friends in high places than from the mob of the illiterate and sordid, who always cry " Loose us Barabbas " when the powers of evil are in the ascendant and any mighty influence for good is brought to the judgment seat. Let us this afternoon mount the tribunal and try the case. As the accused is on trial for his life, plain speaking will be in order. We are told first of all that the prisoner cannot be identified, that his personality is all abroad, that his very age is not certain, and that even his name is not his own, but that he is often caught masquerad- ing under the name of " university " or " high school." It is true that his adversaries have striven mightily to destroy the character and moral stamina of the college course through the foolish dissipations of unrestricted electives, but, thanks be to the powers that make for righteousness, they have striven in vain. Everything now indicates a return to the old educational standards of strenuous intellectual discipline, and to better than the old standards. It cannot be denied that other enemies of the college, working in dark- ness, have insidiously set out to hew off one year of his age, the very flower of his maturity, in order to enrich the professional school; and that still other enemies, working openly in the eye of day, have 134 THE COLLEGE deprived him outright of the last and supreme year of his growth; and that even now a howling pack of high schools is at his heels, snatching at the first year of his budding strength. It is too true that within the past decade two mighty university foes have come up against him — one from the greatest city of the East, and one from the greatest city of the West — menacing his life itself with whirling swords, to cut him asunder at the belt-line, leaving him a two years' torso, casting the last two years, the heart and brains of him, in part to the professional school, but in greater part to outer darkness and destruction; and yet, although all this is true, and although the combat is still raging, it is not, I think, too soon to assert that the prisoner at the bar will continue to be in the future, as he has been in the past, four years of age, four whole, happy, fruitful college years — no more, no less. Finally , as to the name of the accused. His name is " the college," the name that has come to be applied by universal consent to a four years' course of liberal, non-professional study, superimposed on the course of the high school, private school, or academy, pursued by young men (and, since 1870, by young women) from eighteen or nine- teen to twenty-two or twenty-three years of age, who have, as a rule, left their homes and come to reside in the college itself, or in the town or city in which it is situated. The name and the thing are purely Anglo-Saxon, brought over by our forefathers from the mother country. The college as an institution is unknown outside the United States and Great Britain and her colonies. The name is ingrained in our thought and history and should be retained so long as the thing itself remains. It is a real obstacle to clear thinking to call a " college course " a " university course," as is constantly done in the West. There is absolutely no difference in the methods of instruction of a properly organized college, whether it be detached like Amherst or Bowdoin, or part of a group of professional and technical schools, like Michigan or Chicago. Even eminent university presidents have been betrayed by this loose terminology into assum- ing that the instruction in the detached college and in the college of a university should differ essentially, forgetting that the mind of the boy or girl does not change with the change of name, and that students of the immaturity of the American student between eighteen and twenty-two years of age cannot with advantage to themselves pursue college subjects by university methods.1 It seems to me vain to hope to displace the term " university," which is now so firmly established throughout the entire West, and recently also in the East as well. And, after all, is there any good reason why we should use the word in its foreign German or French, 1 See, e. g., President's Report, University of- Chicago, 189S-99, reprinted in the decennial publications of the University of Chicago, series i, pp. 94, 95. THE COLLEGE 135 and not in our own English, sense? Oxford and Cambridge have been composed of numerous undergraduate colleges from the begin- ning of their history. The Scotch and Irish universities are so organized. The new universities of Manchester and Birmingham and Liverpool correspond precisely to our state universities, with college departments and undergraduate technical and professional schools. " University," in English and American usage, means, and has always meant, a group of schools, all undergraduate, of which the undergraduate college usually is, and always should be, the most important. However low in grade is the instruction offered, a variety of technical and professional courses seems to constitute the claim to the name " university " in Anglo-Saxon countries. But if it is vain to displace the term " university," let us see to it that the word " college " is used correctly, and let us sharply distinguish by the preface of the word " graduate " the true graduate schools of medicine, law, and theology, and also the true graduate philosophical school from the ordinary low-grade non-graduate professional schools of the majority of American universities.1 Let us accustom ourselves to speak of the graduates of Harvard College, Michigan College, Chicago College, or of graduates of the college of Harvard, Michigan, or Chicago, just as we speak of graduates of the Medical School or Law School of Harvard, Michigan, and Chicago. The term university graduate is too broad, and may mean anything from a doctor of philosophy to a farmer or horse-doctor, without even a high-school education. It should not be used for college graduates. Unless this rule is followed by college and university authorities, all our detached colleges will inevitably be compelled in self-defense to call themselves universities — a real pedagogical misfortune, and a break with tradition and culture. But let us proceed to trial. Why should the prisoner lose his head, or his feet, or be sawn asunder in the middle? Is it because, as indicated above, our American university professional schools are not university schools in the French or German sense? Already in 1884 the far-seeing president of Harvard University had begun to urge the shortening of the college course and the raising of require- ments for admission to professional schools; in 1893 the Johns Hop- kins University opened its school of medicine, the first graduate, or true university professional school, in the German sense, in the United States. Also in 1893 Professor Von Hoist, in his oration before the first Convocation of the University of Chicago, sounded a clarion note of awakening to American universities, and in 1900 Professor Perry's lucid and admirable monograph on American Universities drove 1 The only graduate professional schools in the United States are the Medical School of the Johns Hopkins University, the Medical, Law, and Theological Schools of Harvard, and the Law School of Columbia. 136 THE COLLEGE home the conviction of sin. Since 1893 university presidents, like all other American scholars, have realized that our American univer- sities are not universities in the German sense of an assemblage of graduate professional schools, and it is in order to reform this con- dition of affairs that many of them have joined President Eliot in endeavoring to shorten the American college course. Obviously one way to make our professional schools graduate schools (in name, if not in fact) is to lower the standard of the degree we require for admission. This is the method adopted by Harvard, which since 1902 has required the B.A. degree for admission to its schools of law, medicine, and theology, but has reduced the time requirement for its bachelor's degree from four to three years. Another and more rapid method of producing graduate professional students has been in operation at Chicago University since 1898. The college course has there been cut in half, and a certificate of what we may call " im- maturity," but which Chicago calls a diploma of " University [sic] Associate/' has been given at the end of the sophomore year, and it is hoped to require this certificate for admission to the professional schools of the university.1 The president of Columbia is now urging still more radical action which, if generally adopted, will, in my opinion, sound the" death-knell of the college. He proposes two B.A. degrees, one to be conferred at the end of the sophomore year for those who take up professional study, and one to be conferred at the end of the present senior year for such other students as may chance to linger to receive it.2 Graduate professional schools obtained by such a sacrifice of culture and efficiency will, it seems to many of us, be graduate schools only through the quibble of a misused name. Another and even more insidious plan for securing graduate students in professional schools is now in operation in many uni- versities. The last year of college work is permitted to be taken in the law or medical school, and is counted double, — once as the senior year of the B.A. course, and twice as the first year of the professional course. The student himself also counts double, once as an under- graduate senior, and twice as a graduate member (which he is not) of the graduate professional school. Nothing more disastrous to honest standards of academic work can be conceived of. Yet 1 See the decennial publications of the University of Chicago, series I, pp. 8o, 86, 92, 93, 95, 96. 2 [I greatly regret that I should have overlooked President Butler's suggestion (see President's Report, Columbia University, 1902, p. 44) that these two B.A. courses should be differently lettered, although I confess that to my mind the substitution of an M for a B in the degree conferred at the end of the present four undergraduate years will do little, or nothing, to avert the disastrous conse- quences to be feared. The sentence in question should have read as follows: He proposes hi reality two undergraduate courses, one to be known as the B.A. course, ending with the present sophomore year for those who take up professional study, and one to be known as the M.A. course, ending with the present senior year for such other students as may chance to linger on to complete it. — Author.] THE COLLEGE 137 Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Cornell, Pennsylvania, and many other Eastern and Western universities are now educating ministers, doctors, and lawyers under this shifty and canny arrangement. But why, then, apart from the desire of some universities to inflate their professional schools, should the college course be shortened and its content lessened? For let us squarely face the fact that this is the issue involved. It is idle to assert, as has been asserted repeatedly in official Harvard publications (see President's Report for 1901-1902, p. 27, and many earlier reports), that the content and quality will not be lessened by a shortened college course; or, in other words, that four years' work can be done in three years' time. All practical teachers know that the professor must adapt his pace to the average of his class, and that if the majority is doing four years' work in three years' time the majority will see to it that three years' work, and not four years', is done. Harvard itself is a case in point. In 1880 twenty-one courses were required for the Harvard B.A. degree; in 1904 only seventeen and one half courses are required, of which one and one half may be passed off at entrance, or in reality only sixteen courses are required in the present three years' Harvard B.A. course as against twenty-one courses required for the former four years' Harvard B.A. course. A recent report of a " Committee on Improving Instruction in Harvard College," appointed in May, 1902, whose membership of nine included some of the best known senior professors of the Harvard faculty (see Harvard Graduates1 Magazine, June, 1904, pp. 611-620), states that " the average amount of study in Harvard College is discreditably small ; " that " the average amount of work done by undergraduates (more than one half of whom have obtained the grade of A or B) in connection with a three hours' course is less than three and one half hours a week out- side of the lecture room ; " and " that the difficulty of raising the standard is seriously increased by students taking six courses each " (in other words, by students taking the college course in three years) . If under the unrestricted elective system the college course has lost tone and become too easy by one fourth for the ordinary student, the remedy would seem to be in stiffening up the already emasculated course, not in lopping off a year of it.1 President Eliot (President's Report for 1902-1903, p. 24) says: "Nobody doubts that at present the degree of Bachelor of Arts can be obtained in Harvard College, or in any other [sic] American, English, or Scotch college or university by any young man of moderate parts with a small expenditure of force during not more than one half of each of the years of nominal residence." Professor W. E. Byerly (Harvard Graduates' Magazine, December, 1902, p. 186) says: " It is commonly, and I believe correctly, asserted that a student of fair ability, entering college from a good preparatory school, choosing his courses with discretion, using borrowed or purchased lecture notes, and attending one or two coaching ' seminars ' for a couple of evenings before the mid-year and final examinations, can win our A.B. degree without spending more than half an hour a day in serious study outside of the lecture and examination rooms." 138 THE COLLEGE Why should the college course be shortened? Because in France and Germany a boy completes his course in the lycee or gymnasium at twenty years of age, and enters upon his professional course at the university without anything that remotely resembles our college course. But is this a reason? How do we know that the German or French boy is better off without a college course? After sitting side by side with the German gymnasium graduate in Leipzig for three years and hearing him blunder through his pro-seminar recitations, and after listening in the Paris International Congress of 1900 to prolonged discussions of the limitations of the lycee graduate and the misfortune of his choosing a career with only the school-boy's outlook given by the lycee course, — discussions in which he was incessantly compared by Frenchmen themselves to the English and American col- lege graduate, greatly to his disadvantage, — I have come to the con- clusion that he is much worse off. If it were possible, and if possible desirable, to enforce over the whole United States two or three cast- iron high-school courses, so difficult and rigid that private schools would be practically annihilated by the impossibility of reaching their standard, and to require the completion of one of these courses not only for admission to all the colleges, but also to all the law, medical, and theological schools, in the United States; and above all to every lucrative and distinguished position, whether civil or military, in the gift of the general or state governments, including, of course, the position of teacher in these same high schools, and in the primary schools as well; and if, furthermore, completion of six out of the nine years in these high schools were made the condition of escaping one year's hated service as a common soldier in the army, and the escaping of such service, furthermore, were made, as in Germany, a primary social necessity for gentlemen — if all this were possible, perhaps our American boys too would be able to learn as much by twenty years of age as German or French boys; and perhaps such tremendous financial and social bribes would buy the silence and cooperation of American parents in the German and French deliberate and unwavering sacrifice of youthful joy and sports before the Moloch of future success. Even if all these impossible conditions were to come into existence in the United States, it is at least an open question whether we should not have lost in education far more than we should have gained. In all comparisons between German and American higher education it ought never to be forgotten that the German and French universities do not profess to teach systematically and to examine the ordinary college student who is preparing himself for the life of affairs. They deal primarily with professional students, whereas the reverse is coming to be true in the United States. But it is unprofitable to contrast one country with another when educa- tional conditions are so radically different. THE COLLEGE 139 Our opponents ask us what there is sacred about the number four, and remind us that some few early American colleges had a three years' course, as have Oxford and Cambridge to-day. But our con- ditions are wholly unlike those of colonial America, and Oxford and Cambridge. In England, as in Germany, the would-be honor student who goes up to Oxford and Cambridge from the great Eng- lish public schools — which are in themselves residential colleges in our sense, giving the social and educational stamp of the American college, and teaching far more of classics and mathematics than any American high school or academy — has everything to gain or lose in his after-life, both financially and socially, from his success or failure in the most rigid examinations the world has ever known. Perhaps if in our American colleges we could select by the most strenuous competition the best tutors and employ them at high salaries to teach our college students in small groups of two, three, and four students, and all our ablest students by themselves; and if we too could make so much depend upon the grade obtained by these stu- dents at the end of a three years' course of study in an examination so rigorous and searching as to be without parallel in our educa- tional system, we might be able to obtain as good results in three, as in four years. But in Oxford and Cambridge, as in Germany, it is only the " honor," not the " pass," men who attain this educa- tion. The education of the average man is neglected. There is, of course, nothing sacred about a four years' course as such, except in so far as the experience of seventy years has proved it to be adapted to the needs of successive generations of college students. The college department of the Johns Hopkins University is often re- ferred to as an example of a three years' college course, but in reality it is composed of the usual four college classes, the first-year students being known as " candidates for matriculation," and a real freshman, or preparatory, year being maintained under the name of a " class for non-matriculants." The standard of admission to the three years' college course has been set so high that since the opening of the college, in 1876, this class of non-matriculates, or freshman, has formed 21.5 per cent of the whole undergraduate body of students, and in the year 1903-1904 these non-matriculates numbered 38, and the matriculates 104; in other words, the non-matriculates were not less than the number of freshman one would naturally expect in an undergraduate college numbering 142 students. Moreover, the undergraduate department of the Johns Hopkins University is so small and unimportant as compared to its graduate school that, even if the course of study were not practically a four years' course, it could not be used to prove that a three years' college course will satisfy the needs of the community, especially as an immensely greater proportion of the graduates of the college of the Johns Hopkins Uni- 140 THE COLLEGE versity (over one fourth) enter the graduate school than is the case elsewhere. For the past nineteen years I have acted as adviser to the students who have studied at Bryn Mawr College, and I have been consulted by them in their freshman, sophomore, junior, and senior years. If my experience proves anything at all, it proves that the first two years, or the first three years, of a college course do not really count as equal in value to one half, or three fourths, of four years, because the junior and senior years are usually years of such intellectual awakening, and furthermore that the senior year has a value far greater than that of the other years. It is the culmination of the whole college course, and a student who leaves college at the end of three years suffers, it seems to me, incalculable loss. As the entrance requirements of Bryn Mawr are at least as high as those of any college in the United States, and as its college course, organized under the group system, is really strenuous and difficult, and as girls are supposed to be more mature than boys of like age, and admittedly at present study more faithfully, my observations could not, I think, have been made under more favorable conditions for the shortened college course. Why, then, should this priceless senior year be omitted, or taken in the law or medical school? Is it because those high in authority have told us that boys are entering college from one to two years older than in the past, and that, therefore, this lost year must be re- covered? But four careful statistical studies of age on entering col- lege have proved beyond a shadow of doubt that such statements are not supported by fact, and that for the great majority of colleges the median and average age of admission has not varied three months in the past fifty years, the median age showing a net reduction of two months in fifty years for all colleges, and the average age having fallen one and one half months in the past forty years.1 1 President E. Benjamin Andrews, " Time and Age in Relation to the College Curriculum," Educational Review, February, 1891, pp. 133-146. S. C. Bartlett, " Shortening the College Course," Education, June, 1891, pp. 585-590. Professor W. Scott Thomas, " Changes in the Age of Graduation," Popular Science Monthly, June, 1903, pp. 159-171. (The arguments of above three papers are summarized by Professor Elmer C. Brown in Addresses and Proceedings of the National Educational Association, 1903, pp. 492-493.) Professor Henry P. Wright (Presi- dent's Report, Yale University, 1901-1902, pp. 43-44, and 47-50) has shown that, in spite of the very great gradual increase in the amount required for admission the average age of Yale classes at graduation has increased less than four months in the forty years from 1863 to 1902, and only nine months in the past eighty years. In studying the age of admission during the past forty or fifty years, care should be taken to consider only the statistics of those colleges which have main- tained a genuine college course during this time, whose standards have developed gradually, and not colleges situated in large cities that have developed from com- paratively low-grade institutions into really high-grade colleges within the past few years. For example, the age of graduation at New York University has risen thirteen months in the past fifty years (see Popular Science Monthly, June, 1903, p. 160). Since 1860 the age of graduation at Columbia, and the work done, have risen two whole years according to careful estimates, and according to actual THE COLLEGE 141 We are told by these same special pleaders that in maturity and acquirement the college student of to-day is two years above the college student of thirty years ago. This statement does not admit of the same disproof, but as the age of the college student of to-day remains the same as thirty years ago, we may be permitted to doubt it. Maturity and acquirement are more a matter of age than we realize. Were it not for this it would be easy for American fitting- schools to prepare boys and girls for the highest American college- entrance requirements at seventeen, or even at sixteen, but the majority of colleges do not wish such young students. Immaturity of mind would make them undesirable. We have been told repeatedly in the course of this discussion that college attendance in the United States was falling off, and that, unless our colleges were to be deserted by students, we must shorten the course in order to attract the sons of practical men. Again, statistical investigation has proved this statement also mistaken. On the contrary, practical men are sending their sons and daughters to college in such overwhelming numbers that all our best colleges are growing in students out of all proportion to the population.1 Recently a novel and equally fallacious argument has been brought forward by President Eliot. We are told that the college course must be shortened to three years because an examination of the marriage statistics of a certain college for men shows that the children of married graduates are not numerous enough (in the classes graduat- ing from 1870 to 1879, for example, not over 1.95 children per Har- vard father) to enable college men to reproduce themselves, and that the children are so few because the four years' college course has unduly delayed the beginning of professional and business life, and has thereby prevented such men from marrying until so late in life that their power of reproduction is limited — presumably by old age. It is almost needless to point out that before drawing any such far- reaching conclusion in regard to the shortening of the college course it would be necessary to know many other factors in each particular statistics the age of admission has risen one year between 1880 and 1902 (see President's Report, Columbia University, 1902, p. 39). It is only recently that colleges situated in cities have been able to maintain standards of admission and class work such as the best-known New England colleges, Harvard, Yale, Am- herst, etc., have maintained for the past five decades. 1 Professor Arthur N. Comey, "The Growth of New England Colleges," Educa- tional Review, March, 1891; and " Growth of the Colleges of the United States," Educational Review, February, 1892. Mr. Talcott Williams, " The Future of the College," Proceedings of the Association of Colleges and Preparatory Schools in the Middle States and Maryland, 1894, and also " College Entrance Examina- tions," Proceedings of the same association, 1896, — an admirable statistical paper, showing not only that college students have greatly increased, but that at Amherst during the last fifty years the percentage of those students graduating in each entering class has risen from 70 per cent to 72 per cent, and that at Yale during the past thirty years the percentage has risen from 63 per cent to 72 per cent. 142 THE COLLEGE case, such as the average age of marriage of these college graduates, the age and other qualifications of the women they marry, and, above all, whether there is the slightest ground for supposing that the post- ponement of marriage one year by a man presumably in his prime could materially affect the number of children he is able to beget, if he and his wife wish for the largest attainable family. But a reference to well-known statistics will dispose of the whole argument. In the case of the alleged increase of the age of graduation, and the assumed decrease of college students, the facts themselves were incorrect; here the conclusions are wholly unjustified. The failure of Harvard students to reproduce themselves is not a peculiarity of Harvard graduates as such, but seems to be a characteristic of our American stock, and, above all, of our native Massachusetts stock, to which two thirds of Harvard graduates belong. It seems to be as true of native American factory operatives, farmers, and artisans as of Harvard graduates, and has, therefore, nothing what- ever to do with the length of a college course, or, indeed, with a college education at all.1 Should, then, our college course be shortened because our profes- sional courses are long? There were in the year 1902, according to the report of the United States Commissioner of Education, 88,879 1 See President Eliot, President's Report, Harvard University, 1901-1902, pp. 31-32. For additional statistics of the marriage-rate and size of families of college graduates of Yale College see Mr. Clarence Deming, Yale Alumni Weekly, March 4, 1903. Professor Thorndike, " Decrease in Size of American Families," Popular Science Monthly, May, 1903, gives similar statistics for New York University, Middlebury, and Wesleyan. Dr. George J. Engelmann, " Education not the Cause of Race Decline," Popular Science Monthly, June, 1903, prints tables for Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Bowdoin, and Brown, and compares them (favorably for college graduates) with similar statistics for other classes of the population. President G. Stanley Hall and Dr. Theodate L. Smith, " Marriage and Fecundity of College Men and Women," Ped. Sem., vol. x, September, 1903, pp. 275-314. President Stanley Hall, Adolescence (Appleton & Co., 1904), vol. n, pp. 590-606, discusses the question of the marriages and children of college men and women, but draws conclusions apparently unjustified by existing data in the case of men college graduates, and certainly wholly unwarranted in the case of women college graduates. These statistics may be compared with similar statistics for Massachusetts and the rest of the United States, Dr. Nathan Allen, " The New England Family," New England Magazine, 1882; F. S. Cram, " The Birth-Rate in Massachusetts " (1850-90), Quarterly Journal of Economics, April, 1897; S. W. Abbott, " Vital Statistics of Massachusetts from 1856-1895; " Dr. Ellis, " Deteri- oration of Puritan Stock and its Causes," privately published by author, New York, 1894; Kuczynski, " The Fecundity of the Native and Foreign-Born Popula- tion in Massachusetts " (period from 1835-1897), Quarterly Journal of Economics, November, 1901, and February, 1902; Dr. Fred. A. Bushee, American Economic Association Publications, May, 1903; Dr. John S. Billings, " The Diminishing Birth-Rate in the United States," The Forum, June, 1903; Dr. Fred. A. Bushee, " The Declining Birth-Rate and its Cause," Popular Science Monthly, August, 1903, " These statistics put the whole native population of Massachusetts in the same position as college graduates, and the question accordingly seems to be one of the upper class, or of the older part of the population, and not simply a question of the educated classes" (see p. 357); Joseph Korosi, "An Estimate of the Degree of Legitimate Vitality, Drawn from Municipal Statistics, Budapest," with comments by Francis Galton, Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, vol. 55, December, 1894. THE COLLEGE 143 students pursuing college courses in the United States, and 49,076 students studying law, medicine, and theology, and of these only 7189 had received the bachelor's degree. Only two medical schools, the Johns Hopkins and Harvard, and only two law schools, Harvard and Columbia, now require a bachelor's degree for admission. It was estimated by a special committee of the Board of Overseers of Har- vard University that in 1890 only 8 per cent of the medical students, 18 per cent of the law students, and 23 per cent of the theological students of the United States had received the bachelor's degree (see Report, p. 12). In the law and medical schools of Yale, Colum- bia, Pennsylvania, and Cornell, which, together with the purely graduate schools of the Johns Hopkins and Harvard, may be as- sumed to be the best-equipped and most advanced professional schools of the East, the bachelors of arts and science did not average 31 per cent of the whole body of professional students in 1902 (see President's Report, Harvard University, 1901-1902, p. 29). Only 11 per cent of college graduates of twenty-seven of the most advanced colleges in the United States study theology (see Professor Francis G. Peabody, " The Proportion of College-Trained Preachers," The Forum, September, 1894, pp. 30-41). Clearly, then, the answer is emphatically, No. The college course must not be impoverished in the interests of a few thousand holders of the bachelor's degree pursuing professional study, and forming scarcely 7 per cent of the total number of college students, and not even one third of the professional students, in the most advanced professional schools in the East. Moreover, even as it is, these college graduates in professional schools are not a year older than the non-college gradu- ates in these same professional schools, according to the age-tables of the Harvard Law School covering twenty years (see President's Report, Harvard University, 1893-1904, p. 127). Yet most dis- cussions on the length of the college course begin gravely with the statement: " Since it is admitted by common consent that the practice of the professions begins too late in life; therefore, the college course must be shortened." But who has admitted it? Surely a study of the whole subject affords us no reason for admitting it. Quite the reverse. Before we repeat over like parrots such phrases as this, let us investigate the actual conditions. For example, let us first find out what the non-college graduates who form two thirds of professional law students have done with the three years during which the other one third are in college, and why they are only a few months younger than college graduates in law schools. How do we know that, if we shorten the college course in the interest of this college third, they will spend the year thus saved in the pro- fessional schools? May not they also dissipate it like the two thirds who do not go to college? 144 THE COLLEGE And, surely, the college course should not be shortened because of our graduate schools of philosophy. So few students are grad- uated from these schools that they are a negligible quantity. In the past five years, from 1898 to 1902, only 1566 men and women have received the degree of Ph.D. from the thirty-four graduate schools of the United States, and most of these graduates have been bribed by scholarships and fellowships to take this degree. During these five years over 54,900 bachelor's degrees have been conferred.1 Also the age-tables of the Harvard Ph.D.'s, kept during the past seven years (see President's Report, Harvard University, 1902-1903, p. 139), prove that the greater number of Harvard Ph.D. graduates (and presumably other Ph.D.'s) are twenty-eight years of age and over, and do not, therefore, take up graduate study immediately on graduation, and are not directly affected by the length of the college course. Shall we shorten the college course because the college has proved itself inefficient in the past? No, a thousand times, No ! It has been the glory of our past, the source of stability and sanity, the radiant centre of all our gallant action and liberal thought. And since its integrity has been so seriously threatened, we have become aware by numerous statistical investigations that the college has also been in the past the nursing mother of statesmen and men of affairs, and the lavish bestower of fame and of all those social distinctions that we long to receive at the hands of our fellow men. It has been proved that although in the past only 1 per cent (the ratio is now over 3 per cent) of American men have received a college educa- tion, in the Fifty-fourth and Fifty-fifth Congresses, the House of Representatives contained nearly 36 per cent and the Senate over 36.3 per cent of college-bred men, or thirty-two times as many as might have been expected; that in the fifty-seven years, from 1841- 1898, 55 per cent of the Speakers, 55 per cent of all the elected Presi- dents of the United States, and 54 per cent of all the Vice-Presidents have been college graduates, and that 68 per cent of members of the Supreme Court,^and 85 per cent of the Chief Justices of the United States have been college-bred men.2 One out of 40 college graduates as against 1 out of 10,000 non-college graduates are mentioned in Appleton's Encylopedia of American Biography.3 In the 1900 edition of Who 's Who in America, 1 in every 106 of the living graduates of the colleges mentioned in Who 's Who has attained mention as against 1 See reports of the United States Commissioner of Echi cation. Science, August 19, 1904, states that in the past seven years, from 1898-1904, only 1713 Ph.D.'s have been conferred. 2 Professor John Carleton Jones, " Does College Education Pay? " The Forum, November, 1898. 3 President Charles F. Thwing, " The Preeminence of the College Graduate," Within College Walls, pp. 156-181. THE COLLEGE 145 1 in 600 of non-college graduates; or, in other words, a college gradu- ate's chance of this kind of Who 's Who eminence is more than 5.6 times that of the non-college-bred man. If we assume that 27 per cent of lawyers are college graduates, this 27 per cent forms 46 per cent of the eminent Who 's Who lawyers. Likewise the 24.7 per cent of college-bred clergymen form 53.3 of the divines mentioned in Who 's Who, and although only 7.5 per cent of physicians have received a college degree, this 7.5 per cent furnish 42 per cent of the physicians who have attained Who 's Who fame.1 What does a year more or less matter in beginning professional life, even if all college graduates entered the learned professions (which they do not), if college-bred professional men have five times the chance of other men to attain wealth and eminence? Why should college graduates wish to enter business life younger than twenty-two and a half years of age, if their college education will insure them more than five times the chances of success they would have had had they begun work four years earlier? How can we be sure that this chance will be reduced only proportionately by taking away one, two, or three years from the present college course? Why should we wish to lay rash hands on an institution so wonder- fully adapted to our needs as the American college? How could we have hoped for more overwhelming proof of its efficiency and success, measured not only in the wider vision, broader intellectual sympa- thies, deeper personal happiness of its graduates, and in all the in- tangible and ineffable things of the spirit, but also, in this truly unexpected and marvelous fashion, in the ringing coin of the market- place? I confidently believe, therefore, that the college course of the future will be four years. Will the college course of the future be wholly elective? When President Eliot became president of Harvard College in 1869, only one half of the Harvard college course was elective, but from that day to this Harvard has led the way under his guidance toward unre- stricted electives, not only in the college, but in the school. Since 1890, however, there are many indications that the pendulum is swinging back again and common sense reasserting itself. Every one believes in giving the student a wide choice in studies under certain restrictions; the question is precisely whether or not the student shall be guided in some degree by the accumulated experience of 1 Professor Edwin Grant Dexter, " A Study of Twentieth-Century Success," Popular Science Monthly, July, 1902. See also his " High-grade Men: in College and Out," Popular Science Monthly, March, 1903. (Three times as many $j3K graduates, or high-grade graduates of twenty-two colleges, are shown to have attained mention in Who 's Who as we should expect; in other words, if an ordi- nary college graduate has five and one half times the chance of eminence of other men, a college graduate of high academic rank has more than fifteen times the chance of eminence.) The investigation is carried farther by Professor A. Lawrence Lowell, " College Rank and Distinction in Life," Atlantic Monthly, October, 1903. 146 THE COLLEGE educated men that have gone before him, as expressed in a college curriculum. Our decision as to the wisdom of unlimited freedom of electives in both school and college depends on whether subjects of study do, or do not, differ among themselves, apart from their practi- cal value, as intellectual disciplines, that is, in training our mental powers. Everything in education depends on our answer to this question. I confess that it is to me inconceivable that all subjects, irrespective of their subject-matter, even if equally well taught, should give the same, or equal, intellectual results. The mere statement of such a proposition seems to me a reductio ad absurdum,. If the proposition be true, why do college-bred students excel stu- dents that have had severe professional training, not only in after- life, but also in the professional school itself? In the ten years from 1891 to 1902 the 37 per cent of Bachelors of Arts in the Yale Law School carried off 62 per cent of the honors and 70 per cent of the prizes, and in the Columbia Law School 94 per cent of the 237 men who have attained honor rank in the past ten years have been college graduates.1 If we believe that there is a real difference in the intellectual value of studies, it follows as a consequence of this conclusion that certain studies should be taken by every one if we have in view the develop- ment of intellectual power by the college course; and if we believe in mental discipline, the element of continuity also must be insured by the college, and, of course, by the school, and only so many elect- ives should be permitted as are consistent with training and continu- ity. There is, I believe, a kind of curriculum that combines all these qualifications — the " group system " — introduced in 1876 in the three years' (now four years') undergraduate course of the Johns Hopkins University, amplified into a four years' course and named the " group system " by Bryn Mawr College at its opening in 1885, in- troduced into the college course of the University of Indiana in 1888 by President Jordan and Professor von Jagemann, and now adopted in slightly altered form in the West by Illinois, Northwestern, Indiana, Missouri, Wisconsin, California, and by the two most re- cent educational foundations of the West, Leland Stanford Junior and Chicago, and in the East by Williams, Dartmouth, Tufts, New York University, by Pennsylvania (in the strict Bryn Mawr form), and by the four women's colleges of Smith, Wellesley, Mt. Holyoke, and the Woman's College of Baltimore. Yale adopted the ABC system, or modified group system, in 1901. Clark College of Clark University opened in 1902 with the group system in full operation, and the approval thereby given to the group system by its president, the Hon. Carroll D. Wright, the well-known statistician, is very 1 See President's Report, Yale University, 1902-03, p. 131; and President's Report, Columbia University, 1902, p. 125. THE COLLEGE 147 significant. Princeton, whose president, as a graduate student of the Johns Hopkins University and a professor of Bryn Mawr College, was familiar with the true group system, puts in operation this year a modified group system, and the president of Columbia, in his report for 1902, promises an early consideration of the group system recom- mended by three members of the Columbia scientific faculty, two of whom became acquainted with the working of the group system as students in the Johns Hopkins University and professors at Bryn Mawr College. It is, then, I think, clear that our four years' college course will be, not a free elective course, but that wisely ordered combination of freedom and authority known as the group system. In this respect Harvard does not, I believe, represent the most enlightened educa- tional opinion. The American college in its fullest perfection will be a residential college. We are coming to see that the best results of college life are only to be obtained when the college student lives an academic life among his companions. The English college for men is unique among the institutions of the world, and its finished product — the English gentleman, equipped beyond his fellows for social and political life — ■ is the admiration and despair of other nations. In the two cities of Oxford and Cambridge, isolated from the outside world, among green lawns and medieval buildings of wonderful beauty and charm, this educational process has gone forward for hundreds of years, and has given us the men of thought and action who have guided the destinies of the English-speaking races. The ineffable whole of English college life cannot be attained without semi-seclusion in academic surround- ings and intimate and delightful association with other youth of the same age and with professors who are devoting themselves to scholar- ship and research. There is no fear that in the future the larger colleges will absorb the smaller. Colleges will multiply in the future as in the past, and the more there are of them the better. It is impossible, and highly undesirable if it were possible, to concentrate the youth of our vast country into a few large colleges. Each college creates its own supply of students, and two thirds of the students of all our colleges, large and small, come from within a radius of one hundred miles. As each student can, as a rule, attend but one college, each such college must be educationally as perfect as possible. If we reduce our in- dependent American colleges to glorified high schools, as has been suggested, perhaps with questionable disinterestedness, by the presidents of some of the larger universities, we thereby cut off the majority of American students from a complete college educa- tion. It is clear to me that the college of the future will be coeduca- 148 THE COLLEGE tional. There are in the United States 464 colleges for men. In 1870 one third of these colleges admitted women; in 1880, so suc- cessful had coeducation proved itself to be, one half had been opened to women, and in 1900 two thirds of all colleges for men had become coeducational. At the present time, if we omit Catholic colleges, which, in America, are mainly training-schools for priests, 80 per cent, or four fifths, of all colleges for men teach women exactly the same subjects by the same professors in the same lecture-rooms, and allow them to compete for all their degrees, prizes, and fellowships. There are in the United States also thirteen separate colleges for women. In the year 1902 there were nearly 22,507 women studying in colleges for men, and over 5549 women studying in separate women's colleges, or in all about 28,000 women college students. Although there were in the United States two million less women than men, women formed about one third of all college students. In addition to the 28,000 women students in colleges and graduate schools of philosophy, there were, in 1902, 9784 women studying engineering, mechanics, agriculture, and other technical subjects in universities and technical schools; 1177 studying medicine, 218 studying pharmacy, 162 studying dentistry, 165 studying law, and 106 studying theology, or a total of 12,614 women pursuing profes- sional and technical courses. If we combine these two classes of students we get a total of 40,676 women studying in the colleges and professional and technical schools of the United States, and the number of college and professional women students is steadily in- creasing. Coeducation is the only economical method of educating all those women. It is impossible, even if it were not criminally wasteful, to duplicate in every part of the world colleges and universi- ties for women, and not all the wealth of all the world can duplicate the few great scientific teachers that are born in any single generation. Experience proves that unless schools, and still more universities, are conveniently near, even boys go without a higher education. Unless in the future all existing colleges and universities are to become coeducational, unnumbered generations of girls must go without any education beyond that of the high school. This is not the place to discuss whether or not the college cur- riculum for men and women should be the same. Women must decide this for themselves. Men cannot decide it for them. In a few years one third of all the college graduates of the United States will be women, and we may safely leave the kind of education to be given their daughters in their hands. For myself I am convinced that college and school education should train the mind and faculties, and not fit directly for practical life, and that, therefore, the question as to whether a woman is to make beds, or a man to curry horses, after leaving college, should not affect their education in college, but THE COLLEGE 149 that all the more on, this account should they be raised by their educa- tion above the petty routine of their after-life. As the outcome of this discussion of the college this afternoon I have hoped that there might be some practical way suggested of uniting together, for the collection of statistical and other informa- tion in regard to college education, those of us who are interested in maintaining and enriching the college as the source of all our culture. It would not be necessary to include in such an association all of the 477 colleges of the United States. It would be entirely feasible, and eminently desirable, to adopt, for example, some such clear and definite conditions of admission as I have indicated on pages 11 and 12 of my monograph on the Education of Women. By applying four entirely impersonal and general tests I was able to select the 58 best equipped and most advanced colleges of the United States. In such an association there would be no secret rites of initiation such as seem somewhat to interfere with the influence of the Association of American universities; but each college would understand clearly why it was admitted or excluded, and these very conditions of ad- mission would tend to raise the excluded colleges to the admission standard. The colleges thus banded together could then mutually agree upon a systematic way of keeping, collecting, and publishing educational statistics. At present our college statistics are scarcely kept at all, or, if kept, are kept by such different methods that com- parison is impossible. For example, no subject has been more hotly debated than the elective system, and the debate has raged during the past thirty years. Yet we have no satisfactory records of the sub- jects elected by students in different colleges covering a series of years, or even last year. The Harvard Exhibit at this Exposition contains a chart of electives chosen during a series of years, but there is no indication of whether the one required course in Freshman English inflates the bloated block of English electives; nor do we know whether other required courses affected earlier blocks. Chicago University frankly states that required courses greatly influence the tables of electives published in its reports, but we are not told how great this influence is. Cornell in its tables lumps Semitics, Greek, and Latin. Some other colleges put in one elective class philosophy and education; still others bibliography and elocution! Such a college association as I have suggested would make it im- possible for any one ever again to base radical changes in college courses on mistaken facts, such as I have referred to in my brief discussion of the length of the college course. Such a statistical association would greatly lighten the labors of the overworked college president, who now has to collect his educational data as he runs, and perhaps I may be permitted to add — as my own trade is also that of college president — that it would also greatly improve the trust- 150 THE COLLEGE worthiness of the statistics on which he bases his educational re- forms. Even the few facts I have presented to you this afternoon have been collected at great expenditure of time from many journals and educational magazines published during the past twenty years. They are nowhere to be found classified and arranged. Indeed, if the present chaotic conditions in education are to continue, boards of trustees ought to be required by law to provide a trained statistician as the running mate of every college or university president before letting him loose on our educational systems. Intellectual experiments are the most costly of all conceivable experiments, for they affect the mind stuff of the next generation. The decline or advance of the race is the issue involved. It is indeed terrible to think that changes of vast importance have already been made in the constitution of the American college, based on such in- correct assumptions and misleading arguments as those which I have attempted to disprove. This discussion has at least shown the need of collecting carefully and studying accurately such educational data as exist before we lay rash hands on the college which, im- perfect as it may be, has yet proved itself so marvelously adapted to our needs in the past. SHORT PAPERS Pkesident Henry Churchill King, D.D., of Oberlin College, presented the following paper on " The Function of CoUege Education " : Has the American college a real function, a logical and vital place in a com- prehensive system of education? or is it the blunder of a crude time and a crude people, an illogical hybrid between the secondary school and the university, that ought to hand over a part of its work to the secondary school and the rest to the university, and to retire promptly from the scene with such grace as it can muster? or, at best, is its older function now incapable of realization? Just because these questions concern the place of coUege education in a system of education, they can be answered only in the light of a comprehensive survey of the entire problem of education. The problem of education in its broadest scope may perhaps be said to be the problem of preparation for meeting the needs of the world's life and work. Much of the training belongs necessarily to the home and to the interactions of the inevitable relations of life. Much of it, probably, can never be brought into any organized system. But organized education must do what it can to insure, first, that no men shall lack that elementary training and knowledge without which they are hardly fitted at all for ordinary human intercourse or for intelligent work of any kind in society, still less for growing and happy lives; second, that there shall be those who can carry on the various occupations demanded by our complex civilization, in the trades, in business, and in the professions; third, that there shall be investigators, scientific specialists, extenders of human know- ledge, in aU spheres. None of these needs are likely to be denied — not even the last; for our age has had so many demonstrations of the practical value of scientific discoveries that it is even ready to grant the value of the extension of knowledge for its own sake. That, then, every man should have the education necessary to render him a useful member of society; that the necessary occupa- tions should be provided for; that there should be a class of scientific specialists constantly pushing out the boundaries of human knowledge, — we are all agreed. And to this extent at least, the problems, first, of the elementary schools; second, of the trade, technical, and professional schools; and third, of the university proper, are recognized and justified. Our difficulties begin when we try to define more narrowly just what is to be included in our first group of schools. Exactly what education is indispensable that one may become a useful member of society? Virtually we seem to have decided that indispensable education is covered in our primary and grammar grades; for the majority do not go further, and compulsory education does not require more. And yet, with practical unanimity, the United States have decided that the state is justified in furnishing, and, indeed, is bound to furnish, that smaller number of its children who are willing and able to take further schooling, opportunity to continue for three or four years longer in studies of so-called " secondary " grade. The state can justify this procedure only upon the ground that such further study prepares still better for citizenship, and that it is of value to the state that even a much smaller number should have this better preparation; or, also, and perhaps more commonly, upon the practical ground that the secondary education furnishes the knowledge and training which, if not indispensable to citizenship, is indispensable to many of the higher occupations and forms of service to the state. No sharp line, certainly, can be drawn between the studies of the grammar school and those of the high school. And we all 152 THE COLLEGE recognize and justify the secondary school, and unhesitatingly include it as practically indispensable to the state, if not to all its citizens, in our first group of schools, to form the unified public school system. But it needs to be borne clearly in mind that if the true justification of ele- mentary and secondary education is the preparation of useful members of society, it cannot be regarded as merely intellectual. The moral side of the matter is, if there is any difference, even more important — the learning of order, of obedience, of integrity in one's work, of steadfastness in spite of moods, of the democratic spirit, of a real sense of justice, and of the rightful demand of the whole upon the individual. If these are not given in some good measure, then, whatever the intellectual results, in just so far, from the point of view of the state, public school education is a failure. And yet no doubt it must be said that since in America the school children are all in homes, the American public school teacher has, quite naturally, not regarded himself as primarily charged with anything but the intellectual training of the child. Other training has been largely incidental — taken up only so far as the order of the school demanded, or as it was in- evitably involved in the situation. Even so, the moral training has been by no means unimportant. But it may be doubted if there is any change in public school education so important to-day as that the teacher should plainly recognize that his real responsibility is to train his charges to be useful members of society, with all that that implies. Let the child and the parent and the teacher all alike understand that the state undertakes the free education of all its children just because it hopes thus to prepare them to be valuable members of a free people, and that whatever is necessary to that end, provided it does not violate individual consciences, is within the function of the public school. This means, of course, that it is the business of the public school to teach living as well as studies. But with this recognition of the broader function of the public schools, with the necessary acknowledgment of a real broadening even on the intellectual side of technical and professional courses, and with the present common admission of the danger of a specialism not broadly based, is the distinct function of the college clearer, or has it rather been taken on by the other members of the educa- tional system? To a certain extent, no doubt, the latter is true and ought to be true. But we might well argue for college education, in line with the more practical argument already made for secondary education, that the highest success in the great occupations of the world's work, including scientific specialism, requires an education preliminary to the technical training, more extended not only, but of a broader type than secondary education can furnish. This seems commonly granted now by the technical schools themselves. And this position is no doubt correct. But is this the chief reason for college education? It is not merely for the purpose of carrying on the world's work in this external sense that college education exists, nor does this sufficiently define its function. The college does not look beyond to the technical or professional school, or to the university proper for its justification; but rather is itself the culmination of the work that at least ought to be undertaken by the public schools. We might, therefore, argue again and more truly, probably, for college education, in line with the other argument for secondary education, that the world needs preeminently the leadership of a few of greater social efficiency than any of the other types of education by their necessary limitations are able to offer. For when all is said that can possibly be said for elementary, secondary, technical, professional, and specialized training, what still do the world's life and work need? All these are necessary, but obviously, for the highest life of society, much more, and much that is greater, is demanded. Here are instruction and discipline, technical skill and professional training, and heights of specialized knowledge. " But where shall wisdom be found, and where is the place of under- SHORT PAPERS 153 standing? " The elementary school saith, " It is not in me; " and the secondary school saith, "It is not with me." It cannot be gotten for technical skill, nor shall professional success be weighed for the price thereof; it cannot be valued with the gain of the specialist, with his enlarged knowledge or his discovery. " Whence then cometh wisdom, and where is the place of understanding? " One cannot answer that question by raising small inquiries of immediately appreciable gain. Let us ask, then, the largest questions and note their generally admitted answers. Assuming that the world and life are not wholly irrational, what is the best we can say concerning the meaning of the earthly life? What is the goal of civilization? What is the danger of the American nation? What .are the greatest needs of the individual man? The wisdom of the centuries has not been able to suggest a better meaning for the earthly life than that it is a preliminary training in living itself. The goal of civilization, our sociologists tell us, is a rational, ethical democracy. Our political students insist that the foremost danger of the nation is the lack of the spirit of social service. The greatest needs of the individual man are always character, happiness, and social efficiency. If these are even approximately correct answers to our questions, then the deepest demands to be made upon an educational system are that, so far as it may, it should give wisdom in living that should insure character and happiness to the individual, and that spirit of social service that should make men efficient factors in bringing on the coming rational and ethical democracy. This requires that somewhere in our educational system we should attack the problem of living itself and of social service in the broadest possible way, and in a way that is broader than is possible to either the elementary or secondary school, though neither of these may legitimately shirk this task. Just this, then, is the function of the college : to teach in the broadest way the fine art of living, to give the best preparation that organized education can give for entering wisely and unselfishly into the complex personal relations of life, and for furthering unself- ishly and efficiently social progress. As distinguished from the other forms of education, it has no primary reference to the earning of a living, or to the per- formance of some specific task; it faces the problem of living in a much broader and more thoroughgoing fashion; it does not specifically aim or expect to reach all, but seeks to train a comparatively small self-selected number who shall be the social leaven of the nation. If the task so set the college seems too large, let us remember not only that the admitted individual and social goals require no less, but also that the outcome of the maturest thinking upon man and his relation to the world indicates that the best anywhere can be attained only through such breadth of aim. For if we seek fight from psychology we are confronted at once with its insist- ence upon the complexity of life — the relatedness of all — and upon the unity of man. But these principles deny point-blank the wisdom of an education ex- clusively intellectual, and require rather that, for the sake of the intellect itself, the rest of life and the rest of man be not ignored. Positively, they call for an education that shall be broadly inclusive in its interests, and that shall appeal to the entire man. If we turn to sociology, we meet, if possible, an even stronger emphasis upon the complexity of life, and a clear demand that, back of whatever power the individual may have, there should lie the great convictions of the social consciousness, that imply the highest moral training, and set one face to face with the widest social and political questions. No narrow education can meet the sociological test. And if we ask for the evidence of 'philosophy, we have to note that its most characteristic positions to-day in metaphysics and theory of knowledge, its teleological view of essence, its insistence that the function of knowledge is 154 THE COLLEGE transitional, and that the key to reality is the whole person, — all refute a purely intellectual conception of education and logically require a broader view of education than has anywhere commonly prevailed. And if as a Christian people, professing to find our highest ideals in the Christian religion, we seek guidance from its goal — that all men should live as obedient sons of the heavenly Father and as brothers one of another — we are face to face again with that problem of the complex world of personal relations that cannot be solved except through the training of the entire man. In all these lines of psychological, sociological, philosophical, and Christian thinking, our theories are right; our practice in education at best lags far behind. Every line of modern thinking is a fresh insistence upon the concrete complexity of life and upon the unity of man, and demands an education broad enough to meet both. Nothing justifies the common extraordinary emphasis on the intellectual as the one aim of education. It is not, then, by accident that we speak of the necessity of a liberal education. For let us notice that even on the intellectual side the most valuable and vital qualities cannot be given by rule or by any narrow technique. The supreme demand is for what we call sanity, judgment, common sense, adaptability — all different names, perhaps, for the same thing, namely, ability to know whether a given case is to be treated according to general precedent — by appeal to a general principle — or decided upon its individual merits; to know whether our problem is one of classification or one of more thorough acquaintance with the particular. No rules or methods of procedure can make a reasoner or an investi- gator ; for the vital point is to pick out of a new situation, the exact element in it which is significant for the purpose in hand. The case cannot have been anti- cipated; the only help that education can give is through much practice in discrimination and assimilation, and through the bestowal of a wide circle of interests, esthetic and practical, even more than intellectual. Interpretative power is similarly conditioned, and calls for the richest life in the interpreter. Even the scientific spirit, then, — the most valuable gift of a scientific training, — is not merely intellectual. Still less are the historical spirit and the philosophic spirit intellectually conferred; they require at every turn the use of the key of the whole man. And we certainly have a right to ask of education that it bring men to appre- ciation of the great values of life — what else does culture mean? — to esthetic taste and appreciation, to moral judgment and character, to the capacity for friendship, to religious appreciation and response. But if we have a right to demand from an educational system in any measure these qualities — judgment, adaptability, discernment, interpretative power, the scientific, historical, and philosophical spirit, and the culture adequate to enter into the great spheres of value, — esthetic, personal, moral, and religious, — it is evident that they can be given only indirectly and through the most liberal train- ing. Do they not lie, in the nature of the case, quite beyond the limits of ele- mentary, secondary, professional, or special is tic training, and constitute the great aims of college education? Is there anything else likely to take the place of the college in performing this greatest educational work? President Mary E. Woolt^ey, of Mt. Holyoke College, presented the follow- ing paper on " The Place of the College in the Great Educational Movement " : The form of the subject is itself significant, indicating the new conditions in education. A twofold tendency of the age has invaded the educational world; first, a movement toward the utilitarian, and second, that toward consolidation, or what may be termed an " academic trust." It is perhaps not remarkable that tendencies so characteristic of the centurv in its industrial and social life should SHORT PAPERS 155 show themselves also in education, but the fact that they are felt there is of too great importance to be disregarded. The increase in requirements for admission to college has meant a corresponding development in the equipment and courses offered by the secondary school, and the affiliation of some of these schools with the university presents an entirely new problem to the college. With the affiliated school leading directly to advanced standing in the university and the undergraduate course merging into the pro- fessional work, the casual observer may feel that the college is in an uncomfortable position between the upper and the nether millstone, when the new conditions in reality emphasize the important work of the college and its peculiar fitness for it. First. The university stands for specialization, the college for liberal culture. It may be dangerous to make sweeping assertions, since they open the way for exceptions, but they also have the virtue of furnishing a starting-point for dis- cussion. To say that the university cannot give a liberal education is as far from the truth as to maintain that highly specialized work is impossible for the college; but general culture is the forte of the college, specialization of the university, — which is only another way of saying that the emphasis in the college is naturally placed upon the undergraduate work, in the university upon the graduate course. That the tendency of the university is toward making the undergraduate course an adjunct of the graduate work and the professional school is shown by the courses elected by the undergraduates; by the fact that the movement in favor of shortening the course required for the A.B. degree, that the student may more quickly enter upon his professional work, comes from the university; by the argument so often urged that it is to the advantage of the student to take his undergraduate course there, that it may play into his professional work. The college can and should insist upon a symmetrical undergraduate course which shall send out, not specialists, but liberally educated men and women. That such a course must be flexible goes without saying, and to a certain extent each college must work out its own salvation while cooperating with others. Liberal culture implies something different from unrestricted elective. The elective system has been responsible for a great and salutary change in education, broadening the curriculum, meeting the needs of differing types of mind, and giving opportunity for wider preparation, but even a good thing may be carried to excess. A freshman is not always ready to be thrown entirely on his own resources. The college, with its greater insistence upon a prescribed course and with certain restrictions upon the elective, emphasizes a more symmetrical development. Second. The university is characterized by a spirit of laissez-faire, the college by attention to the individual. The university considers the subject rather than the student, the college has a better opportunity to regard the student in relation to the subject, and thus understanding his possibilities and limitations, to " edu- cate " in the truest sense. The head of a department in the university has an important executive position, must be the man of affairs as well as the scholar, and cannot ordinarily come into as close touch with the undergraduate life as is both possible and necessary for the college professor. The old ideal of the personal influence of the instructor as a factor in education, at least partially obscured by the modern conception of him as a specialist simply, whose respon- sibility extends no further than the classroom, is far more easily preserved in the college. In other ways the college has more of the personal element, for the law of com- pensation works in academic as well as in other relations, and the very magni- tude of the university means a certain sacrifice of unity and of esprit de corps. At Oxford and Cambridge the personal feeling for the individual college, the pride of belonging to Balliol or Magdalen, to King's or Trinity, cannot be over- 156 THE COLLEGE looked as a factor in the educational influence. College spirit may be carried to an extreme, but enthusiasms rightly directed are as valuable in the intellectual world as electricity in the physical realm. Education must take into considera- tion not only method and equipment, the opportunities for research and investi- gation, but also all the influences which enter into the training and development of a life. ■..■,:'■ ■ - : i TAKING THE DOCTOR'S DEGBEE Photogravure from the Painting by K. Storch. The painter has depicted a typical scene in the life of a German University scholar. It is the memorable occasion when, some time subsequent to his grad- uation, he has written a successful thesis, and is having the customary oath ad- ministered after the University officials have conferred on him the coveted de- gree of a doctor of laws. SECTION D— THE UNIVERSITY SECTION D-THE UNIVERSITY {Hall 12, September 24, 10 a. m.) Speakers: Professor Edward Delavan Perry, Columbia University. Professor Charles Chabot, University of Lyons, France. PRESENT PROBLEMS OF THE UNIVERSITY BY EDWARD DELAVAN PERRY [Edward Delavan Perry, Jay Professor of Greek and Dean of the Faculty of Philosophy, Columbia University, New York. b. Troy, New York, 1854. A.B. Columbia College, 1875; Ph.D. Tubingen, 1879; LL.D. Columbia College, 1904. Postgraduate, Leipzig, and Tubingen, Germany; Columbia University.] When one examines in turn the universities of the great nations which lead the world's civilization one is struck by the diversity of their history, of their aims, of their organization and operation, and by the difference in the measure of influence which they exert in the several countries which support them. Starting mostly from the model of the University of Paris, passing through endless vicissitudes of ecclesiastical, governmental, or corporate control; in turn en- dowed and plundered, fostered and suppressed; the centres now of ultra-conservative, now of extreme radical tendencies in religion, in politics, or in scientific theory; in one place content merely to impart to youth of still tender age a modest measure of inherited learning, altogether theoretical and unpractical, in another sub- ordinating, even sacrificing, everything else to the development and maintenance of technical schools, in yet another unwearied in the pursuit of advanced scientific investigation of all sorts; in one age and place if not actually stationary, yet rather moved than moving in the resistless current of the world's progress with faces firmly fixed upon the past, in another eagerly peering into the gloom of the unknown which their own light shall yet illumine — do these protean institutions contain a common element that justifies us in assuming the existence of problems that affect them all alike, be they European or American or Asiatic, ancient or of yesterday, poor and struggling or proud in the rich endowments of centuries or in the more than princely benefactions of a single generation? When even the name university seems to have taken a new signi- fication and use in every country where it occurs (and in none so many or so puzzling applications as in our own United States), what problems can there be, common to them all, that are not in equal degree problems of the secondary school, or of the college, 160 THE UNIVERSITY or of the technical school? And if such problems can be isolated, how do they differ, as " present " problems, from those that con- fronted our ancestors or our immediate predecessors, or from those that continue in existence as questions still unsolved? A startingrpoint for the response to these questions may perhaps best be found in this simple fact: In every country of the civilized world the institution which gives the most advanced instruction, whatever form that may take except the exclusively practical, is called a university. Such an institution may do this well or badly, may do few or many other things besides giving this kind of in- struction; but the feeling is universal that this kind of organization does something which others are not expected to do, which in most cases they cannot do. Unfortunately the converse is not univer- sally true; in our own country scores of so-called universities are no more than high schools, and poor ones at that; but in every civilized land the highest level of educational achievement is reached by a university. It is a commonplace that every institution, to be influential and really profitable to the life of the nation as a whole, must be in harmony with the national spirit and ideals. This would seem to give us naturally as many types of universities as there are nations, and to a limited extent this is true, though it has often been pointed out that all the varieties are referable to two or three early forms. The most intensively and exclusively national forms and tendencies have their proper place in the schools; here if anywhere the seeds of patriotism must be sown and character developed in accordance with ancestral and national traditions. In the schools, therefore, in the colleges, by whatever name we choose to call the institutions whose pupils are expected merely to acquire knowledge and to de- velop character, we expect to find the greatest diversity in the practices and interests of different nations. Each people must here work out its own salvation, with an eye to its own profit; it should learn what it can from the experience and example of others, but its responsibility begins and ends with itself so far as the mere trans- mission of acquired knowledge is concerned. But when we pass on to the actual increase of human knowledge and to the training of the maturer minds to take their part in thus pushing out the bound- aries of the known, we necessarily overstep the limits of the national, and enter upon ground common to all the nations of the earth. Here the interests of civilized nations can only coincide, and on this ground must meet the institutions which in each country, whether organized especially to this end or not, carry on this work as far as it is carried on at all. These are, preeminently, the uni- versities. They may be of one form or another, with simple or complicated aims; but this responsibility is theirs, this duty and PROBLEMS OF THE UNIVERSITY 161 opportunity. If they perform this duty to the best of their ability they justify their existence, whether they do other things or not; if they neglect it, though they may turn out accomplished and well- read gentlemen, fitted to enjoy to the utmost whatever pleasure comes their way, or eminent lawyers or physicians, or brilliant engineers or chemists, they fail in the one point wherein their op- portunity, and consequently their duty, are unique. And this is as true of the universities in the newest country as of those in the oldest. Service, and training for service, of our fellow men is, or should be, the keynote of modern education. But there are many forms of service, many ways in which the trained man or woman may help along the world's advance in civilization; and who is justified in saying that an occupation which to him seems profitless and a mere amusement may not contribute in the end to the sum of human wel- fare? Whatever else the university may do or leave undone, it cannot without being unfaithful to its highest opportunity neglect to train some persons to be contributors to the sum of human know- ledge, to be investigators. It may do, and in most instances is organized to do, many things beside this, and so far as it does these well it is fulfilling more or less well its duties toward the nation in which it exists; but its duty toward the world at large is not fulfilled unless it helps in the work of actual research and uses this activity as an inspiration and model for those of younger generations who shall take up the torches that fall from the hands of their elders and carry them a little further onward. In the obligation to service of this sort I conceive the common ground of universities the world over to lie; here is their point of contact, here their bond of union, and from this common point of view are visible many problems that concern them all alike — problems that can be solved only by cooperation of many countries. Getrennt marschieren, vereint schlagen, is a principle that must at last prevail in the world's highest educational practice no less than in its wars; marching by way of its duty to its own country, each university must strive to pass beyond that and to reach the ultimate goal of service to the whole human race. Is the problem thus confronting the universities of the world a modern problem exclusively or chiefly, so that the experience of our predecessors can help us but little to solve it? It is chiefly a modern problem, because it is only in very recent years that great nations have begun to look steadily abroad in educational matters, to view themselves as reflected in the views of other nations, to profit by the experience of those others; because enormous advances in science of all sorts have been made within a century, countless new fields of investigation opened up, and old ones reexplored. The doctrine of free investigation in all directions pos- 162 THE UNIVERSITY sible to the mind of man as the duty of the university, of complete Lehrfreiheit, is comparatively recent, and not even yet adopted with- out reserve by some of the oldest, richest, and most famous univer- sities of the world. For centuries after the beginning of universities in Europe these institutions regarded as their one duty the handing down of knowledge given to them by earlier ages; for them truth, as Paulsen puts it, " war ein Gegebenes," something " delivered," not something to be found out. " The content of instruction was provided for the medieval university; its task was to hand down the fixed body of learning." To Germany belongs the honor of having, first among nations, seen the inestimable advantage to the nation at large of so identifying the principle of research in all fields with the university that " university teacher " and " investigator," " leader of scientific thought," should become practically synonymous terms, and that the nation should look primarily to its universities and to men trained in them for counsel and guidance. This is, it seems to me, the vital point of the whole matter — the impregnation of the students of a university with the same enthusiasm for widening the bounds of human knowledge that is felt by those who guide the university, so that whatever their profession, they may practice it with an eye to this as well as to their personal success. The teacher who succeeds in doing this with a single pupil is in effect a university teacher. Herein is the fundamental difference between the uni- versity of to-day and the university of the olden time. It is to-day expected to turn out trained men and women for the professions, and thus to serve Church and State no less than was the university of old; but above and beyond this, to serve humanity at large by the insistence upon the pursuit of truth for its own sake. If the teachers of our youth feel this enthusiasm within them, it cannot fail to take root in the hearts of their pupils. What must the universities do to exert such an influence as widely and deeply as possible in the world, along with the other functions traditionally and properly assigned to them? Research alone, uncoupled with training in its methods, is rather the duty of such bodies as the learned " academies " existing in some countries, or of the fortunate individuals who can give their lives to it, than of the universities. This narrower view of research was the one held for generations by the great English universities, when they have held it at all, and until the most recent times " re- search " meant for them chiefly literary, mathematical, and, to certain extent, historical investigation. It is plain also that research, along with such training in methods, cannot be the only functions of even the ideal university. There are the professions to be provided for; the welfare of the community demands the existence of highly trained experts, both as practitioners and as teachers; and to aban- PROBLEMS OF THE UNIVERSITY 163 don the training of these to purely technical or professional schools would be suicidal for the universities, and a calamity to the state. Our own country is much too lax in this respect, and is full of in- competent practitioners, by no means all of whom are self-taught; most have graduated from some school which has the right to bestow degrees. In some other countries, wiser than ours in this particular, the practice of a profession is made in effect impossible for those who have not been trained in a university school, and governmental con- trol of the latter holds them rigidly to a high standard. In lands where this regulation is impossible, owing to the form of govern- ment or to deeply rooted traditions, the duty of upholding the highest standards of professional training falls upon the universities. These can, by providing the best training to be had anywhere, attract the best men to their schools, and with them leaven the whole body of practitioners. The university, to be serviceable to the fullest extent, must be impartial in its welcome to subjects of research. It must not pro- scribe certain fields of research or withdraw its support from inves- tigations therein merely because few students are attracted to them, or because such studies seem unpractical and not likely to " pay." After a long and hard struggle the natural sciences have, in many quarters, prevailed, and by reason of the countless ways in which the results of researches therein can be put to practical use, for commercial profit and for the physical welfare of man, their appeal, particularly in newer countries, drowns the voice of the advocate of the philosophical, philological, and historical sciences. Unfor- tunately the bitterness of controversy is not yet extinct; the scorn formerly poured out in blind wrath by the " classical men " upon studies in natural science has been returned with interest. The classical languages and literatures seem threatened with starva- tion by withdrawal of their nutriment. A naturalist, who will cheerfully spend his life in determining the number of recognizable variations in a species of beetles, will be heard to sneer at researches into the history of human institutions or of human speech, no less bitter and one-sided in his views than the classical scholar who sneers at him. Yet as long as man's associations are with his fellow men, as long as he remains the " political animal " of Aristotle, so long will the sciences that make for the comprehension of man, of his history, of his future, deserve at least an equal place with the sciences of the extra-human world. No knowledge, however ex- tensive and accurate, of natural science can dispense us from the need of better knowledge than we possess of the human mind, of human passions, and human ambitions, of the history of mankind upon the earth. The person who discovers or helps to discover a law of any part of the vast complex which we call nature is a benefactor 164 THE UNIVERSITY of the race; but so also is he who discovers a law of the human mind, whether that be manifested in language as the instrument or in literature as the form of expression, in statutes and ordinances of civilized peoples or in uncouth customs of savages, in works of paint- ing or sculpture or architecture or music, or in the countless mani- festations of man's religious emotions, beliefs, and practices. "We make the world a better place to live in," say the " practical " men. " Yes," say the " theoretical " men, " and we, by making men better fitted to live in it, also make it a better place to live in; for it is made up of human beings no less than of inanimate things." Each is fully justified in his pride, and the latter is performing as noble and permanent a service as the former; each is contributing to the pro- gress of the race. But the mere limitations of endowment, not to mention others, make it in most cases impossible for any one university to provide courses of research in all fields of human knowledge. Such instruc- tion is very costly, sometimes almost prohibitively so, and the other needs which the university must meet are more immediate and press- ing. Here is where intelligent and unselfish cooperation, to a- far greater extent than has yet been seen in the world of higher education, is imperatively called for. In how many parts of the world we see within the compass of a few miles two or more universities attempting the same work with insufficient endowments, inadequate faculties, and a discouragingly small number of students, while mere local pride and a mistaken kind of loyalty prevent consolidation or parti- tion of the fields to be covered. Such partition of work of course implies the right of the student to migrate freely from one university to another, without sacrifice of his standing or loss of time or credit. In the first period of development of European universities this mi- gratoriness of students, even beyond national limits, was very marked; then a reaction set in, owing to the growing bitterness of feeling between neighboring states, or even districts, intensified by confes- sional differences; for example, in the eighteenth century the subjects of certain German states were actually forbidden to attend the univer- sities of certain others. But since the end of the eighteenth century migration of students among the German, Austrian, and Swiss univer- sities is commoner than persistence of residence at one university. The benefits of the custom have been too often set forth to need dis- cussion here. But there is need of still further progress; not only must the migration from country to country, already in fashion in certain directions, be encouraged, but currents must be made to flow in both, nay, in many directions. Inestimable benefits have already accrued to American education in all its stages from ac- quaintance with the ideals and methods of other countries. On all sides we have seen, of late years, educational commissions sent PROBLEMS OF THE UNIVERSITY 165 from one country to another to observe and report. Probably there are few states of the civilized world that have not some lessons to teach the others; the thoroughness of German scholarship, the elegance and precision of the French and English, are reciprocally needful. America, for generations viewed as merely a learner by the nations of Europe, and still needing much light, has at last become recognized as a possible teacher, and seems in a fair way to repay at least a part of her educational debt to older countries. It has re- cently been well said that while in America much time is wasted in the schools, in Germany an equal amount is wasted in the universities. We may still learn from Germany how to correct the one evil, even though the conditions in the two countries differ so greatly; and Germany may perhaps learn from our practice how to correct the other. There are already encouraging beginnings of reciprocal action in the interchange of students. The French Government several years ago entered into relations with one or more American universities for such an interchange, on fellowship stipends. Only last spring some eminent professors of German universities, while on a visit to the United States, expressed the hope that it might soon be made possible for Germans to spend a part of their time of study at American universities, with full credit at home for the time thus occupied, just as some of our universities allow time spent at a foreign university to be counted toward their own degrees. A movement in this direction has already been made by the Philosophical Faculty of Berlin. As the other states of the Empire are apt to follow Prussia's lead in educational matters, we may hope to see this privilege extended to the Saxon, the Bavarian, and the Badensian student as well. The Rhodes Scholarships, in some respects a curiously one-sided benefaction, may yet serve indirectly a wider purpose than their founder foresaw; they may yet lead to reciprocal provision for foreign study on the part of Englishmen, and so find their own usefulness doubled. The university must be democratic. It must not serve directly or indirectly the exclusive interests of one part or class of the com- munity, whether that part be the social aristocracy, or the church, or the technical practitioners, or the adherents of one or another form of political theory or religious belief. This does not mean, however, that it should admit to its work or lectures every person that chooses to apply. On the contrary, admission to research and professional training must be restricted, and closely; but the re- striction must be merely one of qualification for work of the character which the university is called upon to do. Restriction because of lack of residential accommodation is, for the university as such, 166 THE UNIVERSITY most unwise, for often those excluded are better fitted for its work than those admitted, who may be admitted for other reasons — family or political or religious connections, ability to pay the prices demanded, and so on. Nor does restriction on account of sex seem to me possible of retention for many years longer. One has only to compare the situation of to-day with that of twenty-five years ago to understand how irresistible is the tendency toward equality of the sexes in respect to opportunities of education. The desire for large numbers of " graduates " and professional students, merely from satisfaction in the contemplation of large numbers, is a serious danger to which American universities are peculiarly exposed. In advanced work not a very great number of students can be properly handled at one time; for mere lectures it makes perhaps little difference whether the instructor addresses twenty-five or two hundred students, but the more modern methods of laboratory and seminar have brought with them a necessary restriction in the size of classes, and the personal relations borne by the most successful teachers towards their advanced students cannot, in the nature of things, be extended to very many at once. A selection must always be made. In the first instance only those thoroughly qualified by previous training to profit by the courses should be admitted to them — except in certain cases as "hearers" or "auditors" — and only the most promising of the whole number to the advanced work. It is in my opinion a very grave though a widespread error to suppose that the university which admits the most students does the greatest service to the community. That greatest service is done by the institution which holds its standards high and firm; not so high indeed that only the exceptional student can hope to reach them, but so high that its certificate of approval, its degree, shall be accepted at a premium all over the educational world. This view is often decried as " undemocratic," particularly in America, and when applied to the professional schools of our universities. But democracy can here logically imply no more than the lack of restrictions arising from birth, class, belief, or sex; no democratic spirit can insure the making of a competent scholar out of poor material, or justify hampering the man of good endowment and training by yoking him with others who can never maintain his pace. The welfare of the country de- mands that there be some who can push on far in advance of their fellows, and it is the_ worst spirit of trades-unionism which would hinder them under pretense of giving all others an equal chance with them. The welfare of the country is greater than the apparent col- lective welfare of all the units that compose it; in things spiritual the whole is often greater than the apparent sum of its parts, because some of the most important parts cannot be estimated alone, but only in their effect upon others, as quickening and inspiring influences. PROBLEMS OF THE UNIVERSITY 167 The number of persons admitted to the universities, in any country, who are fitted by nature to become exclusively investigators, is very small. Here it is particularly true that many are called but few- chosen; but any one who is fitted by nature to become a good practitioner ought to be able to learn how to investigate for himself, and so to add something to the sum of human knowledge, in con- nection with the exercise of his profession. This is the kind of pro- fessional man that the university should expect to turn out; not the physician who is content with merely curing his patients; nor the mining or the civil or the electrical engineer who is content merely with making his creations pay dividends; nor the lawyer who is content merely with winning his cases; but men of all these pro- fessions who look beyond practice to actual enlightenment of places that are still dark, though it be given to each one to shed only a tiny gleam of light which reveals a minute speck of truth hitherto unknown. This is one form of the ideality for which the university as such must strive; not only the ideality of the poet, the painter, or the musician, but also an ideality which may inhere in geology as well as in Greek, in anatomy as well as in the history of literature — an ideality which transfigures all study, and fills the pursuit of even the most practical profession with the noble passion for the things beyond and above mere " success in life." By this the university makes of its children an aristocracy within a democracy, not hostile to that democracy, but preservative of it; an aristocracy that is not a " close corporation," but open to every one competent to reach it; not reproducing itself from within, but replenishing itself from without. " Aristocracy " is a noble word, though often dragged in the mire by those who should hold it free from taint; and the aristo- cracy of mind and education can imperil the liberties of no com- munity. The university, and these men and women its offspring, must lead public opinion and not follow it; nor must they sit aloof from the national life nursing their superior culture in a fine sense of detachment. The university graduate who does not feel that he owes service to the community as his yevidkia, as the thank-offering for his spiritual birth, is an unworthy son of his alma mater, and the university that has not made him feel this duty is an unworthy spiritual parent; but his service, so far as lies within his powers, should be one that can be performed by none in the community so well as by himself. The millions of money annually spent upon universities are wasted if their "output" does not show itself able to do what the rest of the community cannot do. I have dwelt at length upon these general phases of the whole duty of the university because this seems to me greater than all other problems of the university, and greater now than in any previous age because of the profound changes already taking place or imminent 168 THE UNIVERSITY in every civilized community. The problem is: How can the university make of itself the most efficient instrument for giving, with or without professional training (in which latter I include of course the profession of teacher) the enthusiasm and proper training for research, the latter being recognized as the most important of all, the sine qua non of university training? The injection of the transfiguring ideality of which I have spoken above into university teaching in all its ramifications is a process necessary in every country that maintains a complete system of education, and must be carried out by each country in its own way. In some it is practically ac- complished already, in others hardly begun. The many other speci- fic problems which confront the universities are, in my opinion, all subsidiary to this, and the solution of each of them but a different way to this end. I have spoken thus far as though but one type of university ex- isted, a type more closely resembling the German than any other, yet not German because of the inclusion in it of the technical schools, which in Germany are separate from the " universities," with their time-honored " four faculties " of theology, law, medicine, and philosophy (though in some German universities we find, as is well known, a subdivision of one or another faculty). This I have done to avoid confusion; and it seems necessary now to explain that so far as I know no university of exactly this type exists anywhere in the world. Certainly not in the United States, because those few which include the " four faculties " include also " undergraduate colleges," the aim of which, while not contrary to the ideal of the university, is not coincident with it, but rather preparatory and con- ducive to it. Not in England, where the " university " is either a group of colleges which do almost all the teaching, or merely an examining body, or as yet merely an incomplete institution consist- ing chiefly of technical schools; and not on the Continent of Europe, because there the technical schools are still separate institutions. Yet the ideal which I have tried to formulate is pursued in England, in the United States, and on the Continent of Europe, and in other parts of the world. By " university " in the United States I mean so much of one of our complex and heterogeneous institutions as trains for the work of research of an advanced character, whether coupled or not with professional instruction, to which training are admitted only those who have had a previous training roughly to be estimated, in accordance with American custom, by the bacca- laureate degree or its equivalent. This part of such an institution has to solve " university problems;" or rather, the institution as a whole has to solve them for that much of itself, along with many others which affect other portions of its complex organism. These questions are thus made much more difficult of solution for American PROBLEMS OF THE UNIVERSITY 169 institutions than for those of older countries. The American " university " is tending to become a huge magasin, an emporium of learning, a sort of Ministry or Department of Education. In its desire to be all things unto all men it is apt to lose sight of the logical distinctions between different stages and fields of education, and to assume that everything it does is exactly as important as every- thing else done by it, or by any other institution. The first problem that presents itself is naturally that of money. Probably no university exists which has all the money it needs ; such ,a one would be an absurdity in the world of education. A university which has all the money it needs does not deserve all that it has; it condemns itself out of its own mouth, by confessing that it can think of no new paths in which to strike out, or does not care to enter upon them. A school, even a college, may conceivably have money enough; not so a university. Instruction in methods of research is well known to be the most expensive of all kinds. The great specialists in medicine and law and engineering and chemistry command, as practitioners, fees far in excess of anything that a university could afford to pay them as salaries if it demanded all of their time and activity. It is fortunate for the universities that the profitableness of actual practice often does not appeal at all to the men best fitted to instruct, and that in other cases men eminent in practice, satisfied with the income produced by devoting part of their time to it, use the rest in lecturing or conducting courses of research in a university or professional school. It is plain to every one that large and commodious laboratories are needed for even a few advanced students, although fine laboratories and equipment do not of themselves make investigators, any more than fine art schools necessarily turn out great painters or sculptors, or fine conserva- tories of music great composers — the right kind of men must be there to use them. The scientific spirit and insight and patience and training which make discoveries would doubtless make them anyway with the merely necessary materials at hand; but good equipment makes for good work. The danger here lies in the tempt- ation to mere splendor. The need of well-equipped libraries is less evident to the outsider — sometimes least evident to the Maecenas from whom donations are fondly expected (I speak as an American) — yet it is not less great than ijiat of laboratories. It is probably not too much to say that the need least well supplied, in all universities but a very few exceptionally favored ones, is that of proper endow- ments for the constant purchase of books. Other equipments too are requisite: museums and collections; and for the history of art, casts, photographs, engravings, models, at least in universities where there is not ready access to good public museums. The rapidity with which large sums disappear when applied to such objects is only 170 THE UNIVERSITY too familiar to those who are charged with the duty of providing and administering such collections. Another temptation, particu- larly hard to resist, is that of devoting the endowments chiefly to things that bring in an immediate return — ■ the " things that pay/' as the phrase is. How to touch the generous impulses of the men of wealth, or convince the rulers of the state of the university's needs, and to do this without sacrificing the ideal of the university to please the whim or vanity of the one or the other — this is one of the greatest and most insistent problems, and it grows greater and more insistent with every year, because of the constant advance and ramification of human knowledge. The question of the best organization for the work that the uni- versity has determined to do is no sooner apparently settled than it again raises its head. Of course in the United States, where new organization and reorganization are constant, this problem is par- ticularly pressing. It here presents itself in different aspects to East and West. To the older East, with its great institutions of learning built up on a collegiate foundation, for generations under- graduate colleges, on which have been grafted from time to time professional schools with little or no organic relation to each other or to the central stem, the problem has been largely one of favoring the new without sacrificing the old, of bringing to the institution as a whole that feeling of solidarity which naturally inheres in an " undergraduate " college. In the West, in the state universities, where the professional and technical schools have from the first held the more important place, the conditions are almost reversed. In Europe the technical schools have from their first establishment stood on altogether different ground, as something apart from the uni- versity, requiring a different preparation of candidates for admission, and in most cases possessing decidedly inferior social prestige. But this condition is passing away in Europe; it is coming to be seen, for example, that medicine and law are quite as truly technical pro- fessions as engineering and architecture, and the latter quite as well entitled to be called " learned professions " as the former. Ger- many has begun to wipe out the invidious distinctions between Hochschulen pure and simple, i. e., universities, and technische Hoch- schulen, formerly called Polytechnica. In Prussia the technische Hochschulen have had, since 1899, the* right of giving the doctor's degree in engineering, and the other states of the Empire have fol- lowed suit. This has naturally reacted upon the secondary schools which are feeders to these institutions — a point to be touched upon presently. What is to be the attitude taken toward technical schools by the university which includes them in its corporate membership? For the United States this is indeed a burning question. Are the tech- PROBLEMS OF THE UNIVERSITY 171 nical and professional schools to be viewed and treated as undergrad- uate or as graduate schools? That is to say, shall they or not admit students who have not had a preliminary training indicated by the possession of a bachelor's degree? Hardly any two institu- tions in America are answering that question in the same way. Some of the Eastern institutions have made the schools of medicine and law " graduate " schools in that sense, but none has yet had the courage to take the same step with regard to the technical schools — of chemistry, engineering in its many forms, and architecture. Here is, it seems to me, an exceedingly great opportunity for the larger and more powerful institutions of the United States to serve the ultimate welfare of the country, by putting all their technical and professional schools on a graduate basis. Probably no one now alive will see the abolition in this country of technical and professional schools unconnected with any university. These, so far as not controlled by the state, will go their own way, for the most part (of course there are honorable exceptions) aiming to " fit for practice " in the shortest possible time, and taking little or no ac- count of the ideal emphasized above, — the ideal of research, of train- ing in methods of research, of encouragement and inspiration to research, as the proper ideal of the university, whether that be done in connection or out of connection with training for professional practice. The university's technical and professional schools should be put and maintained on a higher plane. If in the course of time they drive the others out of existence, so much the better — the fittest will have survived; if not, it will surely be better for us to have the higher ideal and its partial realization before the eyes of the country and the world than to see the lower one everywhere pre- vailing. For here is the point of contact with other lands and other civilizations, and we shall be measured by the best of what we have accomplished. The professions are steadily assuming a more and more important and commanding position in the world. The universities, to keep their hold on the nation, to be the leaders which their duty calls them to be, must identify themselves with the pro- fessions as never before, but with only the very highest forms of professional education. For them to lose their traditional hold on the older professions, or to fail to secure a firm hold on the newer ones, would be for them to lay the ax to their own roots. To keep and secure this hold they must make themselves everywhere in the world recognized as the centres of researcn. Paulsen said, some years ago, that some of England's greatest lights in science would be inconceivable as members of an English university. That is a terrible indictment to bring against a university; fortunately it is less true now than in 1893, when he said it; and it is becoming less true every year. 172 THE UNIVERSITY I have said little or nothing, in this connection, of that part of the university, whether it be an American or a European university, which is not commonly considered professional or technical: the part called " philosophical faculty " in Germany and most countries of Continental Europe, and including the parts devoted to political science and economics, and to mathematical and natural science, which in some places are organized as separate faculties; in others included in the faculty of philosophy or elsewhere. Some of our American universities comprehend all these parts under the collect- ive name of " graduate " schools — an insufficient designation in those institutions which have made one or more of the professional schools also into graduate schools. The history of this part of the university body has been singularly varied. At first, in Europe, subordinated to the other faculties, it has there been raised to perfect equality with them, and in general has maintained the ideal of theoretical research far more completely than the other faculties; yet in Germany it has become almost as much of a professional faculty as the others, having been made the pathway to the profession of teaching in the schools of higher rank. In the United States also the tendency is strong in the same direction; the majority of those who, as graduate students, pursue courses leading to the degrees of master of arts and doctor of philosophy do so with a view to becom- ing teachers. Here, too, almost without exception, are found those students who, without thought of active professional ^practice, pur- sue their work for the sake of study and research alone as far as the university can guide them. This is naturally the most " theoretical " part of the university, the least exclusively professional and technical; there is nothing like it to be found outside of university organization, whereas the work of the theological, the legal, and the technical faculties is almost everywhere duplicated outside. In fact, taking the Christian countries as a whole, theological training is given much more outside of universities than in them, and the same is true of technical training. This " philosophical " part of the university (I use the name without prejudice to the others — not as if they were necessarily unphilosophical, and not in the narrower sense of the term) — this part is preeminently called upon to maintain the ideal of research. It has no raison d'etre if it does not maintain it; but it is not called upon to maintain it single-handed. It is important that the philosophical faculty, in the wider sense, be a large part numerically of every university, and that it be not subdivided in any such way as to weaken its solidarity. The task of fitting teachers for the higher school work, and, of course, those who look forward to giving instruction in non-professional subjects in colleges and univer- sities, will always be peculiarly its own, and these teachers must be imbued with the idealism which shall protect them from degeneration PROBLEMS OF THE UNIVERSITY 173 into mere teaching-machines — Unterrichtstechniker, to quote again from Paulsen. In America the relations of this part of the university to the rest offer many problems peculiarly pressing, because the individuals who compose these faculties almost without exception form part of others as well — a condition entirely different from that existing in European universities. They generally have quite as much to do in an undergraduate as in the graduate school, and so are in a position analogous to that of the Gymnasiallehrer who also lectures in the university. The situation is, of course, largely, if not exclusively, the result of insufficient funds. No good " graduate school " could possibly be self-supporting, and the institutions of which these schools form parts have naturally many other demands to meet. The bur- den of double teaching weighs very heavily upon the American professor, making exceedingly difficult the necessary concentration of mind upon the higher work. To regulate these conditions is cer- tainly one of the most important problems before the American university organizer. To do this chosen work with the best result the universities must have well-prepared material. The need of this has been met by different nations in different ways. Least care has hitherto been taken in the United States, where until very recent years almost any one was thought well enough trained for admission to a school of medicine or law or technology. Germany has been the most careful, demanding until not long ago a gymnasial training for all faculties of the universities, and a full course in the Realschule for admission to the technische Hochschule. But even here, some years ago, a re- action set in against the exclusive privileges of the gymnasium, and now certain parts of the university are open to the graduates of Realschulen and Realgymnasien. The end of the extension of privi- leges is not yet reached; the natural sciences will doubtless receive still greater concessions. But the principle is still firmly maintained that admission to professional training is to be denied to those who have not a rigid and thorough preliminary training. The kind of training may vary, but its amount and thoroughness may not be diminished. This is still an urgent need in America: not how the universities may get the largest numbers of students, or fill up the schools that " pay " the best, but to get a reasonable number of the best-prepared students, who will push on beyond their masters. Much has been written of late years about the undue prolongation of university, especially professional, study; and from this point of view what seems only a school question becomes . a burning uni- versity question as well, for the university can build only upon the foundation of the school, or of the school and the college. The best form of instruction for the university to follow is still 174 THE UNIVERSITY a matter of discussion. Everywhere it is recognized that mere school methods do not suffice; the lesson to be learned, the pension, the " recitation/' to use an American term, has no proper place in university work. Even where a new subject is taken up, for example, an Oriental language, this method is felt to be out of place. The lecture, on the other hand, which up to a few years ago held chief sway in the Continental universities of Europe and was thence imported into American colleges and universities, has been vigor- ously assailed. Why should students take down from the lips of a lecturer, the objectors say, things which they could find more quickly and satisfactorily in books? There is much force in the objection, and the lecture has lost much of its prestige. The seminar, and laboratory, and clinical work, under the direct guidance of an instructor, have largely taken its place. Yet its usefulness is by no means gone. As a means of informing a number of students quickly of the' latest developments of science its place cannot be taken by books, for purely practical reasons; the books cannot be printed quickly enough, nor could publishers be found to issue new editions every year, nor could the students be expected to buy as many books as this method would imply. Again, the personality of the teacher would be largely lost — and the personality of a really good teacher, his visible and communicable enthusiasm, are potent factors in the production of a satisfactory pupil. Undoubtedly much time can be saved by judicious use of printed bibliographical and other lists, and the lectures should be kept in close connection with seminar and laboratory work; but to abolish them entirely would mean an immense loss to university instruction. There is a certain freedom and flexibility in the lecture which make it partic- ularly useful. It is thus eminently suited to advanced instruction, where a number of mature students have to be guided. It meets the needs which they have in common. On the other hand, the individuality of the advanced student must be maintained to the utmost; he must be shown how to work, but left to himself to apply the principles, with such criticism from his instructor as his application calls for, which is properly done in seminar, laboratory, or clinic. His selection of work must not be too closely limited, and he must be encouraged to strike out for himself. His Lernfreiheit must be guaranteed him. It is manifestly impossible, within the limits here set, even to touch upon all the university problems of to-day. I have, therefore, attempted merely to indicate what seemed to me the all-important ones. In the prospectus of this Congress we read: " The central purpose is the unification of knowledge, an effort toward which seems appropriate on an occasion when the nations bring together an PROBLEMS OF THE UNIVERSITY 175 exhibit of their arts and industries." There is no field of human physical activity which might not find illustration among the ex- hibits, and no field of mental activity not provided for in the de- liberations of this Congress; but more than this, there is nothing represented in either the Exposition or the Congress which may not properly be made the subject of university study. Not only do the architect and the legislator build wiser, but also the poet often speaks truer, than he knows. Terence's homo sum: humani nil a me alienum puto has gained in the course of ages a deeper and truer meaning, probably far deeper than the poet ever intended it to bear, but a meaning and a truth from which mankind can never recede. So too the very word " university," which as originally used had no reference to the univer- sality of human interest, but denoted merely the whole body of teachers and scholars of the studium generate, has earned the right to the wider sense now attached to it; it is becoming, and it is our duty to help it to become, a panepistemion, as the Greeks of to-day call it. Nothing that man can possibly find out is alien to him; not only to increase knowledge, but to multiply the fields of knowledge, is the peculiar province of the universities, which might well take as their motto that famous line. They are peculiarly called upon to take all research under their protection, to train for it, and to encourage its practice. THE PROFESSIONAL TRAINING OF TEACHERS IN FRANCE BY CHARLES CHABOT {Translated from the French by Professor Charles B. Goold, Albany Academy) [Charles Chabot, Professor of the Science of Education at the University of Lyons since 1891. b. Villette (Ain), 1857. Eleve de l'Ecole Normale Supe- rieure, 1876; Licencie es lettres, 1877; Agrege de philosophie, 1879; Docteur es lettres, 1897. Professeur de Philosophie aux Lycees de Saint Ouen (1879), Mouhns (1881), Besancon (1889), Lyons (1891). Author of Nature et Moralite; Rollin et la Discipline des Colleges; L' Enseignement Secondaire dans le Rhone {collaborateur) ; La Pedagogie au Lycee; Collaborateur de la Revue Pedagogique et de V Aimee Psychologique.] The question of the professional training of teachers in France is one of the vital problems of the day. As a result of the study and experiment we are spending in its solution is to arise, let us hope, a new and better state of affairs in the matter of both primary and secondary education. In achieving this reform which, in the matter of secondary education, will amount to the introduction and establishment of a system, we may look for model and suggestion to the educational systems in vogue in other countries than our own. So widely divergent and conflicting, however, are such models that we can use them only by adapting them to the needs of our own national character and temperament. How shall our country solve this important problem by combining, along the lines of these needs, its own traditions with the suggestions coming from abroad? It seemed to me that this question is of interest not only to French teachers, but also to the international congress of teachers which I have the honor to address. It is my purpose in this paper to present but few of my own views and to deal chiefly with facts. I shall mention, briefly, the history and present status of our system; first, in regard to primary education; second, in regard to secondary education; then I shall suggest some plans for reform. I. Primary Education It is to the Revolution that we are indebted, if not for the idea of a professional training for teachers, at least for a plan of general organization corresponding to that idea. The Convention passed, October 31, 1794,"an act establishing " a normal school in which should be gathered, from all parts of the Republic, citizens already instructed in the useful sciences, for the purpose of learning under 'the tuition of the ablest professors in every department of knowledge, the art of teaching." This school, established in Paris, was to become a sort TRAINING OF TEACHERS IN FRANCE 177 of nursery for the propagation of normal schools; for its 1400 pupils taken from the provinces, were to return, after four months of study, to their respective districts and establish in them similar schools. This institution lasted only four months and came to an untimely end in the political turmoil. Moreover, under this form, it seemed hardly suited to its purpose. But the idea, together with the name of normal school, survived, and in 1808 the school was reestablished, or established on a different basis, for the training of teachers of secondary instruction. So far, however, as primary teaching is concerned, we owe it to private, or at least local, initiative that the idea of a normal school was again taken up and realized under a decidedly practical form. Normal schools were established first in the eastern departments of France; then in other localities, with ever-increasing success. There were thirty of them in 1833 when Minister Guizot incorporated in the famous enactment which bears his name a clause compelling " each department to support, either by itself or in conjunction with other departments, a normal school for primary teachers." This provision was not carried out strictly; but if the institution could be jeopardized it could no longer be destroyed. As a matter of fact it was in peril when the normal schools, apparently dangerous on account of their liberal views, were attacked, threatened, almost wiped out. But they soon regained their popularity, and, thanks to the efforts of Minister Duruy, to- ward the end of the Second Empire continued to flourish. In 1870 nearly every department had a normal school for male teachers, but nineteen only had one for female teachers, while the normal courses annexed in the others to the primary schools were quite inadequate. Since 1879, owing to the efforts of Jules Ferry, the provisions of the law have been actually enforced in all the departments, and we now have eighty-seven normal schools for male teachers, eighty- five for female teachers, with a total of 7736 pupils, maintained, according to the statistics of 1900, at a cost of 8,000,000 francs. Admission to the normal schools is by competitive examination. As a rule candidates come from the higher primary schools and must pass written and oral examinations, the scope of which, however, em- braces nothing of a purely professional nature. In the school itself the professional training is as follows : (1) There is, to begin with, instruction in the theory of teaching. This is given by the principal and deals with the application of psychology to education, the practice or history of pedagogy, and school administration. The instruction in science and literature is, as a rule, excellent ; but the professors do not touch the question of pedagogy, or at least are not obliged to do so. Some few, however, test their pupils' ability actually to conduct a recitation, supple- menting such efforts with criticism and advice. 178 THE UNIVERSITY (2) There is, on the other hand, some practical work. This is done in the practice or experimental school, which is an ordinary primary school, associated or not, as the case may be, with the normal. Its organization is not everywhere the same. On the average, every nor- mal student spends thirty days in the practice school, divided into several periods according to a system of rotation. In certain schools these days are subdivided into four weekly periods, during each of which the pupil-teacher discontinues his studies and devotes his entire time to the school of practice. In other schools he spends only his afternoon in the practice school, devoting the morning to the normal. Moreover, his period of apprenticeship is not always organized in the same way : in some cases he will have charge of all the recitations; in others he will be present in certain classes and will personally conduct only a few. In every instance, however, he has the same duties as his instructor; he must instruct his class, keep a notebook of his preparation, correct his pupils' exercise-books, etc. In this apprenticeship he has, as teacher and guide, not his pro- fessors, who, with few exceptions, do not enter the training-school, but the principal of this school, under the authority and control of the head of the normal. This teacher shows his apprentice in the first place by example how to manage a class and conduct a recitation; then assists him by direction, criticism, and advice, in the actual work of teaching. These are the essential features of the system. Doubtless the results obtained depending, as is always the case, on the efficiency of the men, are as satisfactory as we have a right to expect. But the question may fairly be raised whether the organization itself leaves nothing to be desired, and we shall see that a reform must be thought out. The examinations for the elementary and higher licenses, which all normal students have to pass, are not of a professional nature, for at this stage an examination on the application of psychology to education cannot be reckoned as a pedagogical test and the ele- mentary license, which is all that is required of a public or private school teacher, does not demand any such test. But no one can be appointed full teacher in an ordinary public school unless he has obtained a certificate of proficiency in pedagogy. Before attempting an examination to gain this certificate a preliminary course of two years' teaching is required. The examination embraces" a thesis on some educational subject, a criticism of the exercise-books containing a month's work, questions on pedagogy, and, above all, as a prac- tical test, the conducting of a class by the candidate in a primary public school. The candidate is now duly qualified to teach. His professional training is continued by actual practice, by a course of reading, especially by the reading of some journal devoted to peda- TRAINING OF TEACHERS IN FRANCE 179 gogy, and lastly by discussions on teaching, held in his school dis- trict, which he is expected to attend. These discussions, the subjects for which are prearranged by mutual agreement, are held under the direction of an inspector and treat of practical questions in regard to teaching. Often, too, in schools in which there are several teachers, the principal calls a meeting of his assistants every month or fortnight, and discusses with them questions arising from the life and routine work of the school. To teach in the higher grade primary and normal schools a special certificate is requisite, calling for substantial literary or scientific attainments. The professional part consists of a thesis on some questions of ethics or psychology as applied to education; as a matter of fact, this is not always satisfactory.1 The oral tests, consist- ing of the correction of a task, assignment of lessons, comments upon a text, and preparation of material, may be of a very pro- fessional nature, but that depends on the views of the examining board, and the candidate does not submit to these tests in a class before his pupils. Professors for our normal schools, as you know, are especially pre- pared for the discharge of their duties and for gaining this certificate, in the advanced normal schools for primary teachers at St. Cloud and Fontenay. These are genuine professional schools, intended ex- pressly to train men and women teachers. As a matter of fact their training is excellent; and, speaking only of the past, the inspiring personality of M. Pecaut at Fontenay and that of M. Jacoulet at St. Cloud are reproduced in the character and earnest zeal of those who have been their pupils. However, pedagogy, in the proper sense of that term, occupies only a subordinate place as compared with general instruction or culture. Both of these schools require a thesis as a part of their entrance examination, and there are one or two discussions a week on ethics and psychology, not, however, es- pecially pedagogic. The course of study is, then, not at all professional in its scope, and the special training of the pupils for their future work is dependent on such private conferences as they can have with the director or the professors. Moreover, the latter, who come either from the university or the high schools of Paris, are not always inter- ested or well posted in pedagogy, nor are they anxious to teach it. However, since 1898, each of the pupils from Fontenay serves a fortnight apprenticeship as teacher in a primary school, where she re- ceives some instruction in school matters and herself conducts a few recitations. All certificates of fitness for the various special branches (singing, drawing, sewing, bookkeeping, etc.) require a test of ability to teach 1More professional perhaps is the thesis required for a certificate of fitness to teach modern languages, involving the question of methods of teaching. 180 THE UNIVERSITY these subjects, but there is seldom any organized work of preparation for this test. Finally, the examination which the inspectors of primary schools or directors of normal schools are obliged to pass is more particu- larly or even wholly pedagogic and professional. It embraces theses and lessons in pedagogy and in school administration; comment on a passage from a pedagogical writer; the inspection of a school in the presence of an examining board. Preparation for this examina- tion is systematically organized in some universities and by groups of private teachers. Such is the actual state of affairs. The theory and practice of teaching play some part, variable indeed, but still positive and ef- fective, in the education received by teachers of various grades. In this fact is to be found the chief reason for the remarkable pro- gress in our primary instruction during the past twenty years. Can we make still further improvement if we broaden and strengthen this education and secure for it the benefit to be derived from new scientific truths and from recent pedagogic experiences? This is the thought of very many educators. Let me outline their criticisms and their proposed reforms. A. Criticisms In this professional training of teachers actual pedagogy and the sciences or studies inseparable therefrom do not, generally speak- ing, receive the place which is due them. The instruction given is neither sufficiently scientific nor sufficiently concrete and prac- tical. Psychology as applied to education is, with some exceptions, quite general in its scope; it is the psychology of the adult, not that of the child, which has yet made progress of late. Only in a few normal schools is any effort made to accustom the pupils to undertake a systematic study of the children in the training-school. So, too, the general principles of hygiene are taught, not those of school hygiene. The history of theories is dwelt upon, but too little attention is given to the history of teaching and of the school, even less to the methods employed in foreign countries. All this is left to the chance of in- dividual reading, that is to say, often reduced to a matter of slight importance or, in the case of many teachers, to a matter of no im- portance at all. One can become director of a school without any additional qualifications and without thereby being any better in- formed than a mere beginner. It is true that in large cities the better teachers are first appointed directors' substitute, which gives op- portunity of judging them by their actual work. This is an excellent guaranty of their fitness when such estimate is fair and impartial. But whatever be the value of this precaution and period of apprentice- TRAINING OF TEACHERS IN FRANCE 181 ship, their knowledge of teaching often remains limited to the meager qualifications required for a certificate of fitness. They have more practice but no more professional knowledge than their assistants. This is an argument which the opponents of directors and the principle of supervision never fail to urge against it. In like manner the professors in the normal school rest contented, or at least may do so, with the inadequate knowledge of pedagogy required to pass their examinations. If many of their number are solicitous about the progress of pedagogical studies there is nothing obligatory about the matter, nothing even to inspire interest in it. They teach literature and science to our future instructors without being obliged to keep in touch with new methods of instruction. If they are not ambitious of becoming primary inspectors they may lose all interest in the science of teaching. The director, on whom devolves the teaching of pedagogy, has shown his ability by passing an examination for his position, but the practical part of this instruc- tion belongs also to the director of the training-school, and he is under no obligation to devote himself to any special study of the art of teaching. Finally, is it not clear that our primary inspectors, and even our normal school directors, are too deeply engrossed in their adminis- trative duties, too fully occupied by the purely practical part of their work, to devote to the study of pedagogy the attention which it deserves, or which they might be willing to give it? How many of them have the time or the means to keep informed on what is going on in other countries? B. Plans for Reform It seems then necessary in certain cases, useful in all, to broaden the professional training of our primary teachers. The influence of some would be better assured thereby, the initiative of all quickened and made productive. What is it expedient to do, and how shall it be done, without overstepping the bounds of moderation, without falling into the pedantry of pedagogy? Place must be found at the same time for the philosophy of education and for some positive knowledge of school hygiene, child psychology, the history of peda- gogy, and its development in other countries. The interest and critical spirit of teachers of every grade must be aroused on educa- tional questions. A plan looking to the reorganization of our normal schools, presented by the Minister of Education to the Parliamentary Education Commission, has already been tried in a score of schools, at Lyons in particular. Its general adoption seems to be in the not distant future. Its essential features are as follows: General training and professional training are clearly distinguished, almost 182 THE UNIVERSITY divorced. The former, with better chosen, simplified, and more in- teresting courses of study, fills in the first two years. At the end of this period the pupil receives a certificate of fitness as a primary teacher. This takes the place of the two licenses to teach and is to be required from now on of every teacher in either a public or private school. The third year is devoted, first, to a complementary and more independent work of general culture, a sort of philosophy of the teaching done in the first two years; second, above all, to profes- sional training. At the end of this third year the pupil receives a certificate of pedagogic fitness. The course of study in preparation for the acquirement of this certificate is henceforth clearly mapped out. All those who, without having been admitted to the normal school, may wish to become public school teachers, will have to spend a year at the school in preparation for their work. Up to the present time the certificate of pedagogic fitness has not been required of instructors in private schools. Even now during the first two years of their course the normal students have studied psychology as applied to education, have made frequent visits to the school of practice, have made their psychological investigations by a system- atic study of the minds and characters of children. This work is continued during the third year, but pedagogical training takes the foremost place. The course of study 1 for this (third) year is, it will be seen, extremely interesting. It embraces lessons in pedagogy and school government; reading and analysis of classical authors; studies in the application of methods to various subjects of the course; practical application in the primary school of the lessons learned in the normal; a period of earnest apprenticeship either in the training-school or in the neighboring schools; visits to rural schools; finally, critical estimates and discussions in regard to all of these various tests. The results already obtained from this reform are, if we may believe its partisans, decisive, at any rate very encouraging. But even the most optimistic express the hope that in the future the practical examination for the certificate of pedagogic fitness may be placed at least toward the close of the first year of teaching and passed by the young instructor in the presence of his class. Whatever may be the outcome of this new plan, instruction in psychology, ethics, and pedagogy is destined to assume a character really concrete. Ideas about text-books or courses of study are not sufficient. The educator of the future must learn to know the child by studying children, must learn methods by applying in the school for practice what he has been taught in the normal. Indeed, all 1 1 am indebted to M. Mironneau, Director of the Lyons Normal School for Teachers, for documents giving this course. They form, moreover, a part of our exhibit in this Exposition. TRAINING OF TEACHERS IN FRANCE 183 this is contemplated in the proposed plan. It is to be hoped too that room may be found for the philosophy of education, for school hygiene, and for some ideas of the pedagogy of other countries than our own. Finally, would it not be well to open the university to teachers with a view to broadening their general or professional training? This question is being more and more persistently raised in Germany. In France, in certain university towns, normal students of the third or fourth year pursue either public courses or a few of the private courses in the departments of literature or science. In other cities free lectures are given for the normal schools themselves by university professors. Doubtless it would be sufficient to make these attempts more general, to strengthen them and extend their advantages to the other normal schools. I have no doubt the university professors would gladly lend their aid to such an attempt. At any rate, if a department of pedagogy were established in all of our universities, it would be easy to connect it with the normal schools of that part of the country. The normal director or professors would continue to give instruction in practical pedagogy, but the university professor would be a member of the examining board to pass judgment on the students' pedagogic dissertations. It would be his further duty to lecture each year on such questions of vital importance as might call for discussion. Another reform which has been suggested raises even greater diffi- culties, for it threatens the very existence of the normal schools at St. Cloud and Fontenay. Their pupils, it is claimed, are students in the department of higher education. Should we not be justified in turning them over to the universities? Is it not useless and ex- pensive to assemble and confine them in special schools, the cost of whose establishment and maintenance must be met, when the same instruction could be given, in some instances, by the same professors, in. the University of Paris or the universities in other parts of France? To the examination for a professorship sit not only the pupils of these special schools, but also candidates who have pursued their studies in a department of the university, and it is clear that the universities could offer to these young teachers every opportunity necessary for preparation for their future work. Ought we then to abolish the schools at St. Cloud and Fontenay? The idea suggests itself readily enough, but its practical application is by no means an easy matter. These two schools have traditions that are of real value. Thanks to the very unity of management and to the maintenance in them of the pedagogic spirit these institutions are in a position to render still greater services. But they can urge no greater claims for support than could the normal school of Paris; moreover, the decentralization would have advantages unnecessary 184 THE UNIVERSITY to enumerate in America. If the schools at St. Cloud and Fontenay are to be abolished, we must fully replace all their excellent qualities by creating in the universities something of the same spirit that has animated these two institutions. This solution of the question is quite possible, even desirable, provided pedagogical institutions are organized into which would be brought together, without loss of individuality, however, all of our students of pedagogy as well as all of our future teachers of primary or secondary schools. On this condition the new organization would be quite superior to the present system. In any event it is indispensable that in the future our teachers should receive, in schools or elsewhere, better instruction in the art of teaching, in accordance with the programme which I have indicated, and that they should have more practice in the actual work of teach- ing. This is the underlying idea of a new plan, still under discussion, to separate, as in the normal schools, general culture and professional training. The former would be intrusted to the various universities; the latter, covering a period of a year, would be given to St. Cloud and Fontenay, which would become exclusively pedagogical. Under the new scheme normal school professors will play an important part in the management of teaching. Under the present system they have no preparation for this duty. In the case of the students of St. Cloud a,t least, they may never have taught in a primary school. Their professional preparation should evidently be adapted to their future work. In regard to primary school principals, the question has already been agitated of requiring of them a new certificate of fitness and professional skill.1 This would constitute a sort of teacher's degree similar to that granted by the University of Chicago; it might con- sist of the diploma established by the Lyons Faculty of Letters for advanced pedagogical study, or perhaps better still of a similar diploma cut down in its requirements and adapted to the purposes of the primary school. The general principle of an increase in the number of examinations is undesirable and burdensome, but this examination has come to be a necessity. The requirements for such a diploma as I have described allot a generous share to individual and original work. In fact, in addition to practical exercises and an examination on various pedagogical subjects, it calls for the writ- ing of a dissertation on some topic left, subject to his professor's approval, to the candidate's own choice. In this way there would be some certainty that a principal would be able to show his assistants how the most elementary question of practice is the concrete expres- sion of some general theory, and, conversely, how theoretical ideas find their expression in familiar processes. 1 In Paris, already, by reason of the large number of candidates for such posi- tions, an examination has just been instituted. TRAINING OF TEACHERS IN FRANCE 185 Finally, the practical value of this organization will depend on the action of the normal school principals and primary inspectors. How shall they be prepared for these important duties? It has been proposed in various quarters that all examinations for these positions be abolished. The primary inspectors, from among whose number are subsequently taken without further examination the normal school principals, would be chosen by the administration from among the best of the professors or instructors and in accord- ance with the capacities of which they may have given proof. But this very choice from among two hundred candidates, all of whom are not known by the same heads of departments, would be constantly subject to mistake and unintentional injustice, to suspicion of favoritism, and in many cases would be determined simply by the success of the students. It would take only accidental account of the general pedagogical studies so necessary for one who is to act as a guide for future teachers. It is then neither probable nor desir- able that the examination be abolished. Ought it to be reformed? Yes, undoubtedly, in some points; but there should be no radical transformation, for it has proved its usefulness; it is really pedagogic and professional. (1) In regard to the written examinations which consist of a thesis on some subject connected with teaching or on school management, I suggest that there are too few. Trifling accidents may cause the rejection of really able candidates, while permitting those of inferior ability to pass. In too many cases mental capacity is judged by a single pedagogical examination, so that the power of memory of the least desirable candidate enables him to gain, if not a good mark, at least one sufficient to pass. The element of chance would be eliminated if we required two or even three written examinations in the theory, practice, and history of pedagogy. (2) In the matter of oral examinations, the actual conducting of recitations is indispensable. The practical test of an inspection of his school by the examining board is excellent. The test of inter- preting some author is a difficult one and vigorously opposed by some. It is perfectly fair and convincing, however, by reason of its very difficulty. It permits the examiner to form a fair judgment, not merely of the candidate's power of discrimination and clearness of mental vision, but also of his professional fitness. An inspector, even on scientific subjects, ought to be able to explain to his teachers a good page from some work on pedagogy or to discuss intelligently the contents of a printed circular of directions. With these limitations, it is simply necessary to make the ex- amination as accessible to candidates on the scientific side as to those on the literary. This would be an easy matter if the subjects for theses and oral work or the text required for reading were chosen 186 THE UNIVERSITY with a due regard to the teaching of science. Lastly , some place should be found on the programme for the art of teaching as devel- oped abroad. I would suggest for each period of three years the study of some country in which this art has reached a high stand- ard of excellence. With these guaranties the primary inspectors, already a choice body of men, would really be adequate to the discharge of their duties, capable of directing the most intelligent and the best-trained of their subordinates, able to arouse and sustain in others something of their own zeal and interest in teaching. If it should seem wise finally to demand some additional title from such of their number as might be placed at the head of the normal schools, evidence of further professional study of a more independent and personal kind should be required. In token of such study the university might grant a sort of doctor's degree. II. Secondary Education It will not take long to describe what has been, and is even to-day in France the professional preparation of our teachers in secondary public education. There has been none; there is hardly any now. Our professors supply this deficiency in part by a knowledge, talent, and superiority which raise them above their task. But they are for the most part indifferent, if not hostile, to pedagogy, as though it were a kind of professional apprenticeship. And yet they are pro- vided with degrees or professional titles, while many of them have passed through the higher 1 normal school. But there is no true professional training required either of the professor or of the in- structor. The normal school founded in 1808 for the future teachers of secondary education soon abandoned, if indeed it ever fulfilled, its pedagogic role. Its destiny and crowning distinction consisted in the fact that during the whole of the nineteenth century it was to be the real school for higher education. It took the place of the univer- sities which failed in the performance of their duty. But it became increasingly disloyal to the purposes for which it was established. Although occasional unsuccessful attempts were made to remind it of its duty, these efforts were put forth for the most part during the progress of some political reaction with a view to discrediting the institution, all of which was by no means calculated to restore any of its lost prestige to pedagogy. So that the higher normal school became a sort of rallying-point for the opposition to all normal school instruction. " It is useless to learn to teach," said one of its directors; and one of its most distinguished teachers recently ridi- 1 This title (higher) was given to the school in 1849, when an unsuccessful attempt was made to establish normal schools for secondary education through- out France. TRAINING OF TEACHERS IN FRANCE 187 culed the study of the mental processes of children, declaring that the young graduates of twenty-two know infinitely more of child nature than the specialists who devote their time to its investigation. It should be added, however, that a period of apprenticeship in teaching, either before or after graduation, has been repeatedly prescribed. The period which followed graduation embraced no- thing in the way of pedagogy and was a mere matter of form. The other was required of normal students, then extended ten years ago to all students receiving scholarships. This is the whole extent of their professional preparation, which has" been cut down to the necessity of teaching one or two weeks in a high school. Even until recently the professor who received the apprentice, while he did not refuse him his advice, was charged with the duty of merely judging his work, not of directing it; in many cases he was present only at the last recitation. Moreover, this period of apprenticeship was not, and is not yet, generally accepted with good grace, either by the apprentice himself, by his university teachers, or by the high-school professor. Each of them sees in it merely a hindrance to his ordinary work and an interruption of his daily habits. It is easy to see that any idea of a betterment of the system was thwarted by the very burdensomeness of the system itself. The progress in pedagogical ideas, an acquaintance with the methods in vogue abroad, our own primary and normal school system, the crisis in secondary education itself — all these factors have served to make more necessary some change for the better in our secondary school system. The Paris International Congress of 1900 demanded it. The parliamentary investigation which preceded the reforms of 1902 reached the same conclusion in the matter. It was decided, announced, proclaimed, that we were to have an organized system of professional preparation for our teachers of secondary education; that the higher normal school, restored to its original purpose, was to become an institution de- voted to pedagogy. So much for what has thus far been accom- plished. The question has not yet been raised in reference to teachers in academies and to the master of arts degree nor in regard to teachers in the high schools for girls. As for requirements, as an agrege, after an inquiry and various plans for reform, we have con- tinued to think that pedagogy had nothing to do with the matter, and that a professor had no need of knowing the philosophy of education or the psychology of the child, or the theory and history of methods, or the methods employed abroad. There has been merely an extension to all agrege requirements of the rules adopted in reference to history. These provide for " two kinds of examina- tions : first, examinations covering the general principles of the subject, undergone before the several university faculties and the normal 188 THE UNIVERSITY school; second, professional examinations undergone before ex- amining boards appointed by the Minister of Education." But the programme of these tests embraces nothing of a professional nature. Doubtless the questions selected for discussion are taken from the high-school courses, but there is nothing to indicate that they will be treated as in a high-school recitation and that there will be any change in the established traditions. Meanwhile everything of a professional nature that can be positively counted upon is the pro- vision that candidates must have passed a period of apprenticeship in the high school " under the conditions laid down by the regulations." These regulations, and this entire organization, are still in the future, and it remains to be seen whether the apprenticeship will have practically any positive sanction. In the matter of modern lan- guages professors in the Paris high schools have been requested to deliver some lectures before their apprentices on pedagogical sub- jects. The inspectors general of modern languages and physics have likewise explained in similar lectures to the teachers already engaged in actual work the new methods which they desire to have employed. Finally, some few universities for some years past have begun to attach a little more importance to the apprenticeship of their students on a scholarship in the high schools and have tried to organize a system of cooperation on the part of the high school and university. Interesting as such attempts may be, they are, after all, unsub- stantial in character, vague and shadowy in outline. Half-hearted plans that may amount to nothing, they look forward to clearly defined, adequate courses of study to render them successful. They take no positive ground either for or against systematic prepara- tion for teaching. I may then be allowed in this connection to show briefly what seems to be possible and desirable in the way of realiza- tion in our own country of that reform which has already been ac- complished elsewhere. If we are backward, at least we may profit by the experience of others and construct anew. The underlying principle I shall not attempt to discuss. To those who still believe that our future professors have nothing to learn of the theory or practice of teaching, that they will discover everything by their own genius and without injury to the pupils intrusted to their train- ing, that one can always impart successfully to whomsoever he pleases the knowledge that he himself has acquired — to such mis- informed and belated opponents of pedagogy there is nothing further to be said after all that has been said. If the State competitive examination (agregation) and the master of arts degree (licence) should be evidence of fitness to fill a position in our secondary schools, they naturally demand tests, both equally necessary, in the theory and practice of teaching. Without theory TRAINING OF TEACHERS IN FRANCE 189 practice becomes routine; without practice theory remains a barren abstraction. The function of the university is to impart instruction in the theory and science of teaching; but it can do nothing on the practical side, for it lacks proper experimental material in the way of pupils. On the other hand, the high school, on which devolves the duty of providing the practical apprenticeship, is not adapted to working-out the theory of teaching. Equally inadequate, it seems to me, would be the introduction either into our high schools or uni- versities of the German seminar system. Theory and practice both have their proper functions; there should be no confusion or conflict between them. With which then should we begin? With the theory? But students take little or no interest in the solution of purely theo- retical questions unless they have already had to do with the practical side, the side which presents concrete examples and illustrations and suggests problems. In medicine one is interested in medical courses only after some actual experience in the sick-room. Shall we then commence with the practical side? But the apprentice will fail to derive from his apprenticeship all the advantage which he should if he lack the theoretical knowledge requisite to understand its meaning, its value, its very insufficiency. There is but one solution of the problem: theory and practice, instead of following one after the other, must go hand in hand, working on parallel lines, each vitalizing or enlightening the other. This is the plan suggested by the faculty of letters in the University of Lyons.1 Candidates for positions as teachers would pass a period of ap- prenticeship during the year preceding their entrance on the actual duties of their profession. Theoretically it would be advisable that this period should last one year, and that it be placed after the requirements for agregation, or for the licence in the case of those who do not wish to go further. Practically, however, we should have to be satisfied at least temporarily with one semester of apprenticeship, to be combined with the last year's study, as a requisite either for agregation or, in the case of those who have decided not to attempt agregation, as a requirement for a licence. All these candidates would then be brought together for their apprenticeship in the high school, where the agreges and holders of a licence could be taught separately. This arrangement would certainly be feasible for the university courses in pedagogy, some of which would fortunately foster a closer relationship with the students preparing for primary work. The work might be mapped out like this. First, in the University. Here all candidates would receive instruc- 1 There is no difficulty in applying this principle in the universities outside of Paris equally as well as in that city. The University of Paris has its normal school — the old higher normal. It is fair that the other universities should have theirs as well, in each of which might be gathered all candidates for instruction in the art of teaching. 190 THE UNIVERSITY tion in the general science of teaching. One lecture a week would be sufficient to cover the ground. The subject-matter of the lectures would embrace a discussion of these topics: general philosophy of education, psychology of the child; general methods of teaching, education, and discipline; outline of the history of pedagogy and the methods employed abroad. Moreover, it is to be hoped that in each particular department some professor will undertake to deliver a course of lectures setting forth, if not the present approved methods of instruction, at least what they have been in the past and what is their status abroad. There might also be an elementary course in school hygiene, and finally a few lectures on the rights and duties of the officials, charged with the superintendence of secondary education. The professor of pedagogy might also arrange for a series of visits to primary or normal schools. The completion of this university course would best be marked by granting a diploma for pedagogical studies, the requirements for which would embrace first, an essay on some question connected with the course of study; second, an oral discus- sion and examination on the same topic. In place of these tests, however, might be advantageously substituted a short period of residence in some foreign country, to be devoted to a study of its educational system and a formal report thereon. Second, in the High School. Here the apprentices would be in- trusted, according to the special branch that each was studying, to the particular care of professors who would receive for their extra work of supervision a fair compensation. Each professor could supervise the work of from four to, at most, six students, who would be handed over to him by one of his colleagues in the university. He would be free to map out as he pleased the work of this group of students, but would not fail to have them conduct a certain number of classes and do similar practical work. The cooperation between university and high school in the theory and practice of teaching would be more complete and effective if the university professor should happen to hear two or three of the classes intrusted to his students. From time to time the apprentice might be present at the classes and in departments of instruction other than those in which he was specializing and might even inspect some of their recitations. The carrying out of this part of the programme would naturally devolve upon the principal, who also would give instruction on the organization and general direction of studies and discipline. In a word, our future professors would learn to know the life of the school and to take an interest in it before participating themselves in the common work. The results of this practical ap- prenticeship would be attested by a series of reports submitted by the principal, by the high-school professor, by the university professor, TRAINING OF TEACHERS IN FRANCE 191 and finally, by the apprentice himself, whose views would not fail to be of interest.1 Thus will be fostered in a perfectly natural way among our high school and academy professors, by the scientific study of pedagogy, and by practical initiation into the art of teaching, that pedagogic spirit without which the best regulations and printed rules must re- main useless and which would dispense with the necessity of many such rules and regulations. Conclusion Important, indeed, then, in its bearing upon our primary education, especially so for our secondary education, is the reform in question. Its underlying principle is the necessity of giving to pedagogy its proper place in the training of teachers and educators. In and of itself it will not be sufficient; it will never take the place of genius nor do away with the necessity of talent on the part of the teacher, but it will render both fruitful in results, and eliminate many a mis- take and error. For the type of pedagogy to which we refer must be at once scientific and inspiring, suited to the instruction and upbuilding of enlightened minds, not dogmatic, mechanical, slavish. In all this programme that I have attempted to outline nothing seems to me a more essential feature than the study of the organiza- tion and methods in vogue in foreign schools. Among the innovations that I hope to see adopted, none seems to me more fruitful of good results than the creation of scholarships for travel and residence abroad for pedagogic purposes. It is well for our future educators to broaden their mental horizon by seeing other countries than their own, not with a view to forgetting it, but the better to understand and to serve it by bringing to its aid the benefit of what they may have learned elsewhere. Is not this the thought that has brought here such a goodly number of educators, and is not this the firm con- viction which this Congress is destined to leave in the minds of all who have had the pleasure of attending its sessions? 1 This system was adopted this year at Lyons by the University and by the High School. SECTION E-THE LIBRARY SECTION E— THE LIBRARY (Hall 12, September 22, 3 p. m.) Chairman: Mr. Frederick M. Crunden, Librarian, St. Louis Public Library. Speakers: Mr. William E. A. Axon, Manchester, England. Professor Guido Biagi, Royal Librarian, Florence. Secretary: Mr. C. P. Pettus, Washington University. In opening the Section of The Library, Mr. Frederick M. Crunden, Librarian of the St. Louis Public Library, and Chairman of the Section, spoke as follows: " The Louisiana Purchase Exposition is an epitome of the life and the activity of the world — from the naked Negrito to the grande dame with her elaborate Paris costume; from the rude wigwam of the red Indian to the World's Fair palace filled with the finest furniture, rugs, and tapestries, sculpture and painting and decora- tions that the highest taste and finest technique can produce; from the monotonous din of the savage tom-tom to the uplifting and enthralling strains of a great symphony orchestra; from fire by fric- tion, the first step of man beyond the beast, to the grand electric illumination that makes of these grounds and buildings the most beautiful art-created spectacle that ever met the human eye. And to all this magnificent appeal to the senses are superadded the marvels of modern science and its applications; the wonders of the telescope, the microscope, and the spectroscope; the telegraph in its latest wireless extension; the electric motor and electric light; the telephone and the phonograph; the Roentgen ray, and the new- found radium. " And now after this vision of wondrous beauty, this triumph of the grand arts of architecture and sculpture and landscape — of all the arts, fine and useful — has for six months enraptured the senses of people from all quarters of the globe, the learned men of the world have gathered here to set forth and discuss the fundamental princi- ples that underlie the sciences, their correlations, and the methods of their application to the arts of life, — to summarize the progress of the past, to discuss the condition of the present, and attempt, perhaps, a forecast of the future. " In the scheme of classification, so comprehensive and well- ordered as to be in itself an achievement, our subject appears in the last department that concerns itself with man's purely mundane affairs, and is the last section in that department. It thus appears properly as a climax and summary of the arts and sciences intellig- ible to man in his present stage of existence; and if the problem of 196 THE LIBRARY the future life is ever solved this side of the grave, the knowledge conserved and disseminated by the library will be the starting-point and the inspiration of the advance, as it has been of all progress since the art of written speech was invented. ' The library is the reser- voir of the common social life of the race. It is at once the accumu- lator and the transmitter of social energy.' Without the library the highest social culture is impossible; and a most moderate degree could be achieved by very few. " Under the main division, ' Social Culture,' the Library is one of the five sections in the Department of Education. In education are summed up all the achievements of the past and the possibilities of the future. In the words of Wendell Phillips: 'Education is the one thing worthy the deep, controlling anxiety of the thoughtful man.' ' Education,' exclaims Mazzini, ' and my whole doctrine is included and summed up in this grand word.' It is practically a truism that Jules Simon utters when he says, ' Le peuple qui a les meilleures ecoles est le premier peuple; s'il ne Vest pas aujourd'hui il le sera demain.' " Under this Department of Education, with its grades, the School, the College, and the University, the Library is assigned the last section. It belongs there in chronological order of development as an active factor in popular instruction and enlightenment; and furthermore, the presentation of its claims and functions comes naturally after those of the other factors in education, because it is an essential coadjutor and supplement to each and all. It is a summary and a climax. There have always been libraries, and they have always been a factor in education; but the public, free, tax- supported library is but just a half-century old, and could hardly be considered out of the long clothes of infancy till the year 1876, while its general acceptance as an essential supplement to the public school and a coordinate factor with the college and university may be considered the accomplishment of the last decade. This ac- ceptance, however, is not yet universal. There are still teachers who look on general reading as an interference with school work and an extra burden on their shoulders. " We start, then, with the axiomatic proposition that all human progress depends on education; and no elaborate demonstration is necessary to show that the library is an essential factor in every grade of education. " Higher education, certainly, cannot dispense with the library. The well-known dictum of Carlyle — l The true university of modern times is a collection of books ' — was accepted as a striking statement of a man with the rhetorical habit, without, perhaps, a realization of its full significance. It has been recently expanded into a more express and specific tribute to the importance of the library in THE LIBRARY 197 university education. In an address delivered in St. Louis and afterwards published in the North American Review, President Harper said: " ' The place occupied by libraries and laboratories in the educa- tional work of to-day, as compared with that of the past, is one of commanding importance. Indeed, the library and the laboratory have already practically revolutionized the methods of higher edu- cation. In the really modern institution the chief building is the library. It is the centre of the institutional activity. . . . That factor of college work, the library, fifty years ago almost unknown, to-day already the centre of the institution's intellectual activity, half a century hence, with its sister, the laboratory, almost equally unknown fifty years ago, will have absorbed all else and will have become the institution itself.' " As to the value of the library in elementary education, Doctor Harris says: " ' What there is good in our American system points toward this preparation of the pupil for the independent study of the book by himself. It points toward acquiring the ability of self-education by means of the library.' " I might quote similar utterances from many other eminent edu- cators as to the value — the necessity — of the library in early education; but I can think of no stronger summing-up of the subject, nor from higher authority, than this statement from President Eliot : ' From the total training during childhood there should result in the child a taste for interesting and improving reading, which should direct and inspire its subsequent intellectual life. That schooling which results in this taste for good reading, however unsystematic or eccentric the schooling may have been, has achieved a main end of elementary education; and that schooling which does not result in implanting this permanent taste has failed. . . . The uplifting of the democratic masses depends on this implanting at school of the taste for good reading.' " To persons who have given little thought to educational questions these utterances will have the weight that attaches to the highest authority; but we need no university president nor national com- missioner to tell us these facts. We have learned them from our own experience; and enlightened as we now are, it seems to us strange that question could ever have been raised as to the essential character of the library in elementary education. Yet there are some of us, I am sure, who can recall painful consequences from putting into practice an educational theory not generally accepted by the pedagogues of our childhood days. " We know that higher education is impossible without a library, for the library is the storehouse of the world's knowledge, the record 198 THE LIBRARY of humanity's achievements, the history of mankind's trials and sorrows and sufferings, of its victories and defeats, and of its gradual progress upwards in spite of frequent fluctuation and failure. In this chronicle of the past lie lessons for the present and the future; from the lives of storied heroes comes the inspiration that leads the race onward and upward. A university without a library would of necessity have a very small and weak faculty — only the few pro- fessors who could be induced to go where the most important in- strumentality of their work was lacking; the university that has an adequate library includes in its faculty the professors of all other universities and all the great teachers of all countries and ages. " But is it worth while to consider a university without a library? Can there be such an institution? " In higher education, then, the library is a necessit}^. In element- ary and secondary education it is no less essential, if the most is to be made of the few years that the average child spends in school and if he is to be started on a path of self-culture. On this point Stanley Jevons says: ' In omitting that small expenditure in a universal system of libraries which would enable young men and women to keep up the three R's and continue their education, we spend £97 and stingily decline the £3 really needed to make the rest of the £100 effective.' " At the International Library Conference in London, in 1897, one of the most distinguished American librarians, who has been an administrator in a large educational field outside of the library, ex- pressed his view of the supreme importance of the library in a scheme of popular education by saying that if he had to choose between the public school and the public library — if he could have only one — (though the alternative is one that never will nor can be presented), he would keep the library and let the school go. For, he argued, every child would learn to read somehow, and, with a free library that actively sought him, he would be better off than if he had a school to teach him to read, but no books to read after he had learned. But however divergent might be opinions regarding this impossible alternative, there is no doubt that the public library, with enlarged functions and activities, has at least equal potentialities with the school. Whether the formal instruction of the school or the broader education of the library is of greater value, depends on what is the chief aim. If it is merely to make breadwinners, the school may be the more useful, though in this, too, the library is an efficient coadju- tor; but if our 'purpose is to make men and women, citizens of a progressive nation, active members of an aspiring society, the library may fairly claim at least equal rank with the school. For the school wields its direct influence over the average child but a few years ; the library is an active influence through life. THE LIBRARY 199 " Again, more than ninety-five children out of every hundred leave school before they are sufficiently mature to comprehend those studies which open their eyes to the universe, which bear upon their relations to their fellow men, upon their duties as citizens of a state, as members of organized society. These are the studies that deal with the most important problems that mankind has to solve. They cannot be taught to children; they cannot be taught, dogmatically, at all. They involve the consideration of burning questions, subjects of bitter controversy — the world-old battle between con- servatism and innovation, which, as Emerson says, ' is the subject of civil history.' They cannot be taught by any teacher; they cannot be taught by any text-book or by any one book. Their ade- quate consideration calls for the reading of many books — books of the present and the future as well as of the past. The electrician who allowed himself to be guided by the treatises of twenty years ago would have no standing; neither has the economist or sociologist who has not kept up with the literature of the last thirty years or the last three years. It would be of no particular advantage for all of us to be electricians. We can safely trust that field to experts; but it is extremely desirable that every man should comprehend the great issues of economics and politics. The school cannot even present the important problems of sociology; the university cannot ade- quately do so without the library. On no other subject is the wide reading that Matthew Arnold enjoins so necessary. And no other subject is of such momentous importance to mankind; for the betterment of social conditions is a necessary forerunner and foun- dation of moral and religious progress. And that cannot be true religion which does not lead to social betterment. In that noblest aspiration ever put into the mouth and mind and heart (too often, alas, only the mouth!) of man we are taught to pray not that we may be transplanted to a better world, but that God's kingdom may come and his will be done in this world. " We are not likely to abate our eagerness in the pursuit of know- ledge of physical science, for the zeal of the scientist is stimulated by the spur of commercialism; and, though it seems impossible, the twentieth century may bring forth as wonderful discoveries and inventions as the nineteenth. But, to take the advance just now most sought, can any one raise the question as to which would be of greater benefit to St. Louis, to reach Chicago in an hour by air-ship or to take six or ten hours for the trip and find there — and every- where — a contented body of workmen supplying us with the necessities of life and a set of managers carrying on the transporta- tion system that we already have on equal terms to all people? What the world's progress most needs is ' evening up.' The ad- vancing column presents a very ragged front, with physical science 200 THE LIBRARY and its applications so far ahead that they have almost lost sight of social science in the rear. It would be no great disadvantage to the world — to the progress of mankind as a whole — if the swift- footed legion of applied science would merely mark time for a period, while attention should be given to a better organization of the vast human army. The objective point would be reached as soon, for a nation is like a railway train, it can go no faster than its hindmost car. But this is not likely to happen at present. Applied science has every stimulus from within and without, every reward intrinsic and extrinsic; while progress in the social and political sciences must carry the dead weight of the inertia of conservatism and also meet the active and intense opposition of vested interests, which have ever the single purpose of preserving the status quo, no matter how unjust or maleficent. " The solution of these all-important problems cannot be found in the school, where immature minds are taught merely how to use the tools of knowledge; these questions cannot be settled by the small number of university students; they must be solved by the social education of the masses, by instilling in them in their early school years a desire for knowledge and a love for good reading, which will lead them to continue their education by means of the library. The education of the mass of the voters, who determine the character of a democratic government, must not be left to the party organ or the stump-speaker. The great social and political questions should be studied and pondered in the quiet of the closet and not decided, without previous thought, amid the hurrahs of the hustings. " To make the public library realize fully its possibilities as the People's University calls for more than the opportunity which every public library now offers; it requires active effort to reach out and bring the people to the library by the fullest cooperation with the school and by means of attractive lecture courses, which shall stimulate reading and guide it in profitable channels. But the be- ginning of this work — the inculcation of a taste for good reading — - lies with the school, with the library's cooperation, especially during the years from six to ten or twelve, those years when nearly all the children come under the school's influence and when the habit of reading can be most easily formed. " If charged with placing undue stress on the value of the library, I might urge its comparative newness and its consequent lack of recognition; and as an evidence of the latter I might point to the fact that in this great educational exposition, while one vast palace is given up to exhibits of the school, the library has with difficulty secured, through the courtesy of the Missouri Commission, a part of a room in the State Building for an exhibit of its activities in the great work of education, in which, as I am trying to show, its poten- THE LIBRARY 201 tialities are as great as those of the school. As our Board of Directors said, in its appeal to the Exposition Directors for a separate library building: ' The library, besides being the most efficient and most economical agency for popular education, represents all the Fair will have to show. It stands for the sum total of human knowledge. It is the instrumentality through which knowledge has been conserved and cumulated. Only through the library can civilization con- tinue to advance. Books are the most potent factors in progress. Without books we should have had no powerful locomotives to show, no wireless telegraphy, no wonder-working machinery, no beautiful buildings, no impressive statuary, no paintings to arouse wonder and yield delight, no World's Fair to draw distinguished scientists and educators from all over the world.' " By way of introduction to the comprehensive addresses of the two distinguished delegates who have traveled four or five thous- and miles to lay before this section, and, through publication, before the world, the past history and the present problems of the library, it has seemed to me appropriate that, as chairman, I should present a brief plea for the consideration of the library as one of the greatest factors in human progress. It has existed, though not in its present form or with its present functions, from the dawn of recorded civili- zation. It is itself the record of civilization, and without it there can be no records and no civilization. It is the repository, the custo- dian, the preserver of all the arts and sciences, and the principal means of disseminating all knowledge. With the school and the church it forms the tripod necessary to the stable equilibrium of society. Let me briefly summarize the functions of the public library. " (1) It doubles the value of the public school instruction, on which is expended more than ten times the cost of the library. " (2) It enables the children who leave school at an early age (an overwhelming majority) to continue their education while earning their living. It provides for the education of adults who have lacked, or failed to utilize, early opportunities. This is of special importance in a country like the United States, where one of the greatest political problems is the assimilation of a vast influx of ignorant foreigners of all races and languages. " (3) It supplies books and periodicals needed for the instruction of artisans, mechanics, manufacturers, engineers, and .all others whose work requires technical knowledge l — all persons on whom depends the industrial progress of the community. " (4) It furnishes information and inspiration to ministers, teach- ers, journalists, authors, physicians, legislators — all persons on 1 The information furnished by a book in the Cincinnati Public Library once saved that city a quarter of a million dollars. This, in numerous instances, but on a smaller scale, is a part of the every-day work of every library. 202 THE LIBRARY whose work depends the intellectual, moral, sanitary, political, and religious welfare and advancement of the people. " (5) It is the stimulus and the reliance of the literary and study clubs which, especially among women, have done so much not only for individual self-culture but also for civic enlightenment and social betterment. This represents its numerous post-graduate courses, which are taken by constantly increasing numbers. " (6) It has philosophers and theologians to explain and expound and to exhort those who are willing to listen; but, far better, it has poets and dramatists and novelists, who compel a hearing and im- press on heart as well as mind the fundamental truths of morality and religion. " (7) It is also a school of manners, which have been well defined as minor morals. The child learns by example and by the silent influence of his surroundings; and every visit to a library is a lesson in propriety and refinement. The roughest boy or the rudest man cannot fail to be impressed by the library atmosphere and by that courtesy which is the chief element in the ' library spirit.' " (8) It imparts, as the school cannot, knowledge of one's self and of one's relations to one's fellow man, and thus prepares the individ- ual for citizenship and fellowship in organized society and leads him to be an active force in social advancement. " (9) It elevates the standard of general intelligence throughout the community, on which depends its material prosperity as well as its moral and political well-being. " (10) But not last, if an exhaustive list were aimed at, — nor least, it supplies a universal and urgent craving of human nature by affording to all entertainment of the highest and purest character, substituting this for the coarse, debasing, demoralizing amusements which would otherwise be sought and found. Further, it brings relief and strength to many a suffering body, and cheer and solace to many a sorrowing heart. It is instruction and inspiration to the young, comfort and consolation to the old, recreation and companion- ship to all ages and conditions. " I close as I began. " Education is the greatest concern of mankind; it is the founda- tion of all human progress. The library is an essential factor in all grades of education; and it is the agent plenipotentiary in the betterment of society and the culture and cheer of the human soul. " ' The highest gift of education is not the mastery of sciences, but noble living, generous character, the spiritual delight that comes from familiarity with the loftiest ideals of the human mind, the spiritual power that saves each generation from the intoxication of its own success.' " THE LIBRARY IN RELATION TO KNOWLEDGE AND LIFE BY WILLIAM EDWARD ARMYTAGE AXON [William Edward Armytage Axon, Member of the Literary Staff of the Man- chester Guardian, Manchester, England, from 1874 until his retirement in 1905. b. Manchester, England, January, 1846. Self-educated. LL.D. Wilber- force, 1899. Deputy Chief Librarian, Manchester Public Libraries, 1874; one of the founders of the Library Association of the United Kingdom ; Bibli- ographical Societyj and Past President of Lancashire and Cheshire Antiqua- rian Society; Chairman of the Salford Museum and Libraries Committee. Author of many books and articles on the library, and also editor of several journals.] If the most accomplished and most enthusiastic librarian in the world were possessed of Aladdin's power and summoned the Spirit of the Lamp, not to build a gorgeous palace for his beloved princess, but to erect an ideal library for the benefit of the world, what would it be likely to contain? The dream library, standing in its fair pleasance, a structure beautiful and spacious, of ample proportions and conveniently ar- ranged both for study ~and recreation, what would the Magician Librarian desire to place upon its myriad shelves? The library is an instrument of culture, of research, of moralization, and, as the record of human effort and aspiration, touches learning and life at every point. The ideal library would form a complete narrative of the past history of mankind, a record of all that men have found out or surmised about the physical facts of the universe, from the giant worlds that roll in space to the tiniest insect that can be detected by the strongest microscope; all that men have thought about that which has not material form; all that poet and sage, teacher and prophet, have said about ethics; all that men have invented and devised for the arts and pleasures of life; in short, all the documentary evidences of human activity since the advent of man upon the globe. Such a library never has existed and never can exist, but it is the ideal archetype to which all libraries, consciously or unconsciously, seek to approximate. Even in Utopia such a mass of literature, good, bad, or indifferent, would be impossible, for it would embrace all that human wisdom and human folly has ever intrusted to the recording word. Physical and financial considerations impose upon all existing libraries the necessity of selection, but the ideal library would be all-embracing and include all the literature of every land and of every science. Would the ideal library include " trash " ? Must everything be preserved? Such inquiries are natural enough in an age when the printing-press vomits forth by day and night much that the sober-minded could easily spare. But everything that comes from the human brain is an evidence of what the mind of man 204 THE LIBRARY can accomplish, if not for wisdom, then for folly. The most stupid production that ever flowed from a pen is at least a human document. And who shall decide what is and what is not " trash "? The legen- dary dictum attributed to Al Moumenin Omar, who declared that whatever was opposed to the Koran was noxious and whatever agreed with its teachings was unnecessary, a dictum at once prac- tical and thorough, has not earned either the assent or the grati- tude of posterity. Sir Thomas Bodley, the munificent founder of the Great Oxford Library, a learned man and a friend of learning, excluded plays and pamphlets from his great collection as mere " riff raff." He thus missed the opportunity of making a matchless collection of Elizabethan literature, and of furnishing to future ages the material for solving many of the problems that now perplex the student of the most glorious period of English literature. To Bodley the plays of Shakespeare as they came singly from the press were " trash," and he died before they were collected into the goodly " first folio." That the friends as well as the foes of learning can make such enormous blunders may give us pause in the effort to decide what is unworthy of preservation. " What," asked Panizzi, " is the book printed in the British dominions . . . utterly unworthy of the place in the National Library? " And he tells of a British lib- rary that was entitled to books under the copyright law and that solemnly rejected Scott's Antiquary, Shelley's Alastor, and Beetho- ven's musical compositions as unworthy of a place upon the shelves. Everything that has come from the human mind has a certain value. True, its value may be pathological, an evidence of mental or moral aberration, but pathology is an important department of science, and in the midst of its sadness, pathetic or grotesque, blossoms the flower of hope. The historian can usefully illuminate his annals by citations from the trivial and ephemeral literature of the period of which he writes. A ballad will express the feelings of the multitude, at least as clearly and as truthfully as a dispatch will exemplify the designs of ambassadors or kings.1 A volume valued as theology in the fifteenth century may now be highly treasured, not for its literary contents, but as the handiwork of an early printer. That which was once thought to be sober science may now be folklore, but it is still a matter for investigation. The intimate nature of its relationship to the whole range of human knowledge and human conduct becomes evident when we realize fully that the essential note of the library is universality. All that relates to Man and the Universe in which he has his place it is the function of the library to remember. There we ought to find all 1 An admirable paper on " The Idea of a Great Public Library " appears in the Library Association Record for April, 1903, from the pen of Mr. Thomas W. Lyster, M.A., of the National Library of Ireland. THE LIBRARY AND KNOWLEDGE AND LIFE 205 that successive scientific investigators have taught us of his bodily structure and of the complicated processes by which the mystery of life is sustained; all that has been ascertained of the changes that follow when the silver cord is loosed and the golden bowl is broken and the dust returns to the earth as it was. There we should be able to read the history of the races of men since the first dawn of human life upon the globe; the struggle of man in his efforts for the conquest of nature; the horror and the heroism, the mixture of grandeur and grotesque in the crimes of conquerors, in the struggles of the enslaved; the rise and fall of empires; the transformation of savage tribes into civilized nations. And the library must record the painful evidence of degeneration from higher to lower types not less than those docu- ments which convince us that . . . Thro' the ages, one increasing purpose runs, And the thoughts of men are widened with the process of the suns. If it is the function of the library to preserve the records of man acting in the corporate capacity of clan or nation, not less so is it to keep account of those members of the race who, by the force of their individuality, stand out, whether for praise or reproach, from the common mass. Apart from its fascination as a picture of human life and character, biography has a practical value both as warning and incentive in the conduct of life. The library should conserve for us all that the thinkers have formulated as to the conduct of life, the rules for the guidance of the individual in his duties to himself, in his relations to his fellows, in the contact of man with man, in the laws and tendencies to be seen in his industries and commerce, in the relation of nation to nation, of race to race, of class to class. Nor is it of less interest to us to know the marvels of industry, the won- drous processes by which the properties and forces of the earth and of the universe are utilized for the service of man. The relation of man to nature, the secrets of bird and beast, of flower and tree, of all the myriad creatures, past and present, that make up the sum of the life of our world, these are to be noted in our ideal library. There, too, we must look for the record of all that can be ascertained and surmised of the countless worlds, moving in empyreal space, worlds beyond the sight of man, yet known though unseen. The library is the temple of art as well as of science, and in its open volumes we may gaze upon the glowing visions seen by Phidias, by Raphael, by Michelangelo, by all those who in many lands and climes have in- terpreted to their fellows the strength and harmony of nature and the beauty of the human form. The power of the artist is immensely increased by the ppssibility of reproduction and by the popularization of art in the library. That such reproductions can never convey all the beauty of the originals may be quite true, but whatever may 206 THE LIBRARY evaporate in the process of transfer enough remains for pleasure and inspiration. There is an illustration of this in the pathetic reference to Raphael's Madonna Delia Seggiola in Mrs. GaskelFs Cranford.1 A soldier's wife in India, whose previous children have died, tramps with her baby to secure a passage to England that the child may have a chance to live. She tells her story: " And when Phoebe was coming, I said to my husband, ' Sam, when the child is born, and I am strong, I shall leave you; it will cut my heart cruel; but if this baby dies too, I shall go mad; the madness is in me now; but if you let me go to Calcutta, carrying my baby step by step, it will, maybe, work itself off; and I will save, and I will hoard, and I will beg — and I will die, to get a passage home to England, where our baby may live.' God bless him! he said I might go; and he saved up his pay, and I saved every pice I could get for washing or any way; and when Phoebe came, and I grew strong again, I set off. It was very lonely; through the thick forests, dark again with their heavy trees — along by the river's side (but I had been brought up near the Avon in Warwickshire, so that flowing noise sounded like home) — from station to station, from Indian village to village, I went along, carrying my child. I had seen one of the officers' ladies with a little picture, ma'am, — done by a Catholic foreigner, ma'am, — of the Virgin and the little Saviour, ma'am. She had him on her arm, and her form was softly curled round him, and their cheeks touched. Well, when I went to bid good-bye to this lady, for whom I had washed, she cried sadly; for she, too, had lost her children, but she had not another to save, like me; and I was bold enough to ask her, would she give me that print. And she cried the more, and said her children were with that little blessed Jesus; and gave it me, and told me she had heard it had been painted on the bottom of a cask, which made it have that round shape. And when my body was very weary, and my heart was sick (for there were times when I misdoubted if I could ever reach my home, and there were times when I thought of my husband, and one time when I thought my baby was dying), I took out that picture and looked at it, till I could have thought the mother spoke to me, and comforted me." The library should garner all that shows the development of the religious spirit. No manifestation of man's reaching out to the infinite, however ineffectual or however sordid, is to be despised. "Where others have prayed before to their God in their joy or in their agony is of itself a sacred place." 2 The speculations of philoso- phers as to the contents and methods of the human mind, its powers and its limitations, should find a place in the library. Nor should the song of the poet or the fiction of the story-teller be excluded. 1 Gaskell's Cranford, chap. xi. 2 Ibid. THE LIBRARY AND KNOWLEDGE AND LIFE 207 That fiction responds to a need of human nature may be safely inferred from its universal popularity. A great critic has styled poetry " a criticism of life," and the phrase may with at least equal justice be applied to nearly every variety of fiction, whether in verse or prose, and whether it take the form of novel, romance, drama, or apologue. For every work of fiction, great or small, shapeless or artistic, wise or foolish, is the author's solution of some problem of existence, presented to his mind as the result of experience or of vision. The hackneyed but beautiful Terentian phrase applies to the library, which aims at being the record of Man, and therefore finds nothing alien or out of place that relates to Man and the Uni- verse which environs him. Well has Matthew Arnold said : Look, the world tempts our eye, And we would know it all! We map the starry sky, We mine this earthen ball, We measure the sea-tides, we number the sea-sands; We scrutinize the dates Of long-past human things, The bounds of effaced states, The lines of deceased kings; We search out dead men's words, and works of dead men's hands; We shut our eyes and muse How our own minds are made, What springs of thought they use, How righten'd, how betrayed — And spend our wit to name what most employ unnamed . But still, as we proceed, The mass swells more and more Of volumes yet to read, Of secrets to explore. Centuries ago, Michael the Bishop spoke with enthusiasm of the Book of the Wise Philosophers, a sort of miniature library in one volume.1 " In this book," he says, " are gathered together many discourses of exhortation and doctrine. This book gladdens the heart and increases the understanding of the intelligent. In it the wise philosophers have told of noble and of famous deeds. It con- tains the wisdom of the wise and the pronouncements of the learned. It is a light of inquiry and a lamp of understanding. There is in it a chain of profit, and it is to be preferred to gold and silver and to precious stones. It is fairer than the flowers of the garden. What garden can be compared to it in the fairness of its aspect and in the 1 The book was a translation in Ethiopic from the Arabic. A German version by Dr. C. H. Cornill appeared in 1875 and is described in The Library, October, 1903, by the present writer. 208 THE LIBRARY fragrance of its scent? And this garden can be carried in the breast and sheltered in the heart. And this book can make thy under- standing fruitful, and God the Almighty may enlarge thy understand- ing, and make thee to know many things, and make thy character noble, and give increase in all talents. . . . And it is an eloquent although a dumb and silent monitor. If thou have not gained aught else from its preference, has it not kept thee from sitting with fools and from communing with the wicked? This book is a great inherit- ance for thee, and a shining glory, and a beloved brother, and a faithful servant, and a joy-bringing messenger." If a small ethical manual thus impressed the wisdom-loving Michael, what would he have said to a great modern library with its storehouses of all that the human mind has wrought for instruction and delight? " Knowledge grows from more to more," and in the midst of its immense and bewildering variety we are gradually feeling towards a sense of unity. There may be unity in diversity as there may be progression by antagonism. When the Royal Society was estab- lished in 1662, its aim was declared to be " the promotion of natural knowledge," the intention being, presumably, in the interests of peace, to exclude all that relates to the spiritual faculties as super- natural and beyond the scope of research. Some at least of the later academies wisely avoid such limitations and deal with all subjects that can be dealt with from the point of view of scholarship. The Smithsonian Institution, that remarkable gift from a son of the Old World to the sons of the New World for the benefit of both hemi- spheres, was founded for the " increase and diffusion of knowledge among men." Is there a better definition of the function of the library? The ideal collection of books knows no limitations of sub- ject, but takes all knowledge for its province. It certainly does not exclude theology. A large library building would not hold all that has been written about the Bible alone. A small one might be filled with the printed material relating to Thomas a Kempis and his Imitation of Christ. The " Poet at the Breakfast-Table " sup- posed his neighbor to be an entomologist, but the man of science was too modest to claim that title. Often spoken of as a coleopterist, he was content to be a scarabseist. " If I can prove myself worthy of that name," he said, " my highest ambition will be more than satis- fied." Every specialist knows how great his own subject is, how extensive its literature, how difficult, if not impossible, to bring to- gether all the facts and speculations of those who have preceded him in the investigation of the little corner of chaos that he is striving to reduce to cosmic order. If, then, the librarian could summon the Spirit of the Lamp to create the ideal library, its main characteristic as a collection of books would be its universality. The ideal library may have stood in one THE LIBRARY AND KNOWLEDGE AND LIFE 209 of Eden's happy vales, and since then the children of Eve, and especially those of them who are librarians or book-lovers, have sighed for this lost paradise of thought and knowledge. Certain it is that since the fall of man the Bibliotheca Universalis has never taken material form, and as the years widen the circle of knowledge it recedes further and further into the land of dreams and the speed at which it retires increases, so it would seem, with each new genera- tion. The first edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica appeared in 1771, and filled three quarto volumes. In a century and a quarter the three have grown to thirty-six. It is a significant fact that this period wherein the boundaries of learning have been so widely enlarged is also the period in which libraries, great and small, have increased with marvelous rapidity. It used to be an article of undergraduate faith that the Bodleian contained a copy of every printed book, but no library now, not even the largest, dare claim completeness in every direction, and huge specialist libraries have been created. But happily there is a constant stream of literature in which this specialist learning, in a condensed and quintessential form, finds its way to the general library. The nearest approach to the ideal library is in the attempt to sup- ply, with generous liberality, the literature of all lands and subjects, to be seen in the great national collections provided mainly at the cost of the state, though often enriched by the munificence of indi- viduals. The British Museum is the most familiar type of such an institution, and may probably, alike in extent and in freedom of access, claim the premier position. France might possibly, in some respects, challenge the claim, and other European nations are proud of their vast repositories of literary treasure. In the Library of Congress, America, though later in the race than some of her com- peers, is, with amazing energy, building up a great national library, and, happily unfettered by conventions, is working with a skill and individuality that insures success. But in the nature of things the newer institutions are at a disadvantage. No modern library can duplicate the treasures of the Vatican. Every great library rejoices in the possession of gems that are unique. Happily in these latter days the arts of exact and faithful reproduction have made it possible to have trustworthy facsimiles prepared. These simulacra can never have the interest of the originals, but they suffice for the pur- poses of scholarship and they have a further value as a precaution against the loss to learning that would follow from the accidental destruction of the originals. It is much to be desired that all manu- scripts of great importance should be facsimiled. In this direction we may commend the action of Italy in the magnificent publication of the manuscript of her mighty son Leonardo da Vinci, who com- bined the talents of painter, poet, and engineer; whose well-stored 210 THE LIBRARY mind seems to have contained all the learning of his generation, and whose prescient genius anticipated, in part, some of the great ideas of later generations. There is another function of national libraries. Their catalogues, so far as they are printed, should form a standard of excellence and be an important contribution, not only to the biblio- graphy of the nation to which they belong, but also to that universal catalogue which haunts the dreams of students and librarians who, in our time, have taken such mighty strides toward this unattained ideal. When the first International Library Congress was held in London in 1877 1 urged the printing of the British Museum Catalogue of Printed Books, which then filled two thousand volumes of manu- script and was estimated to contain three million entries. There were, of course, many other advocates of the printing scheme both earlier and later. The task was declared to be impossible of execu- tion. Yet it has been accomplished. The British Museum Catalogue of Printed Books is the best bibliography of English literature and it is also the largest contribution that has ever been made to the Uni- versal Catalogue. The publication of the British Museum Catalogue has facilitated research and has sensibly raised the standard of ac- curacy. In spite of the general opinion that every man, and nearly every woman, is able to drive a dogcart, edit a newspaper, and make a catalogue, the accurate description of books is not an easy art to be learned without apprenticeship or effort. The youngest of the national libraries, if I may so style the Library, of Congress, has made a novel and praiseworthy departure in the supply of printed catalogue title-slips to other libraries. This is one of several exam- ples of economy by cooperation. The printed catalogue of the British Museum is, as I have said, • a mighty contribution to the Universal Catalogue.1 Every library seems fully occupied with its own special work, but there awaits for some national library or international office the task, not indeed of completing, for in the nature of things it can never be complete, but of greatly advancing the preparation of the Universal Catalogue. This could be done by the simple process of reducing to cards the printed titles of the books in the British Museum, and of incorporat- ing with them, as opportunity served, the " Catalogue of Scientific Papers/' and such special bibliographical works as might be approved or be available. All these ought, in theory, to be editor- ially revised in accordance with a code of rules, and I know of none better than those of the British Museum, which have the additional advantage of having served as the standard in the largest under- taking of the kind that the world has yet seen. And if absolute uniformity was not attained there would still be an immense advan- tage in the bringing together and arrangement of the multitude of 1 See Dr. Richard Garnett's paper in The Library, v, 1903. THE LIBRARY AND KNOWLEDGE AND LIFE 211 references that could thus be made available for personal inspection or dispatch through the post. What has been said refers to an alpha- betical catalogue, but there are also many subject-entries awaiting consolidation. The labors of Poole and his continuators and imitators, British and foreign, and the excellent Subject Index of Mr. G. K. Fortescue should here be named. The Institut Inter- national de Bibliographie announces that it has in its possession six and a half million of bibliographical references and that it is daily adding to its store. Millionaires who desire to advance literature and .learning might find a useful employment for their money and energies in the task of facilitating rational efforts towards a general catalogue of all literature. " If we think of it," says Carlyle, " all that a university, or final highest school can do for us, is still but what the first school began doing — teach us to read. We learn to read, in various languages, in various sciences; we learn the alphabet and letters of all manner of books. But the place where we are to get knowledge, even theo- retic knowledge, is the books themselves! It depends on what we read, after all manner of professors have done their best for us. The true university of these days is a collection of books." In this illuminating passage is the justification for insisting that universality is the true note of the library. No science can prosper without its aid. He who would add to the sum of knowledge must, as a preliminary, learn what is already known. He who devises what he hopes is a new invention must investigate, in fear and trembling, lest he has been anticipated. Even the mistakes of predecessors may be turned to account. The comparison of discordant views may suggest omitted considerations that will bring them into fruitful harmony. There is happily no finality in science. Classification, even the most elaborate, useful and necessary as it is, can often only be approximate, and that only in a rough and ready fashion. One book may serve several purposes and may be placed with equal propriety in more than one part of the library. Thus the celebrated Lunar Hoax of Richard Adams Locke, which de- scribes " wonderful " — and quite imaginary — discoveries in the moon, has certainly no scientific value, yet it is an interesting docu- ment in the history of astronomy, as it shows the condition of educa- tion which caused its impossibilities to be greedily swallowed by multitudes both in Europe and America. The tract itself is an amus- ing piece of mystification, and it has a literary interest from the fact that Edgar Allan Poe noticed it in his Literati, and institutes a comparison between its incidents and those in the story of Hans Pfaal. Knowledge is not an island but a continent, and, however strictly defined the capital may be, each kingdom has vague border- lands where one science merges into another. Literature cannot be 212 THE LIBRARY hemmed in by exclusive boundaries of nation or race. The arrogant Western world owes its most cherished book, the Bible, a volume of many books in one, to the East, to the patriarchs and prophets of a race that lives only in exile from its fatherland — a race that, wher- ever it may be, powerful or oppressed, wealthy or mendicant, turns in prayer to the Holy City that is the symbol of its faith and hope. It used to be said that an educated man was one who knew some- thing of everything and everything of something. With the ever- widening field of knowledge and observation it is impossible that a man should know even something of everything, and even the most devoted specialist, however minute his specialty may be, finds a diffi- culty in learning all that can be known of his subject. Thus arise opposite dangers of superficiality and narrowness. The library, whilst it should aid the researches of the specialist, should also help him to take broad views and to see even his own special work in its right proportion and true relation to other studies. To see things, not in sections but as a whole, is not the easiest duty of the student, but it is real and essential. A great library impresses this thought on the mind. Are you an astronomer? Has it been yours to feel the awe and wonder when "a, new planet swims into the ken"? Your science may have begun when Eve, on the night of the expulsion, saw shining above the lost Paradise a star of hope. Thousands of men have devoted their lives to your study since the days, thousands of years ago, of the shepherd star-gazers on the Babylonian plains. It has a rich and extensive literature, but in the greatest library its hall is but one of many. Mr. Dewey allows it ten places out of a thousand in his Decimal Classification. So it is with every other department of learning. I do not know of a more remarkable bibliography than that contained in Dr. J. S. Billings's Catalogue of the Surgeon-General's Library at Washington. Sixteen volumes of a first series, eight of a second series, and more to follow, all filled with titles of books and papers written on the healing art. Looking on this great effort, we are as ready as Socrates to pay tribute to Esculapius. Yet medicine, like astronomy, is but one of the many departments of a great library. Universality is, as we have seen, an ideal impossible of realization. Not the less is complete- ness the watchword for every library — a rational effort to provide the best that is possible under the environing circumstances. Every library, however small, may aim at completeness in some direction and every true microcosm is a contribution to the macrocosm. And the ideas of universality and completeness become nearer of fulfill- ment by that spirit of cooperation which is happily becoming more and more common amongst librarians and amongst the large and increasing class of persons who are engaged, to use the fine Smith- sonian phrase, in " the increase and diffusion of knowledge among THE LIBRARY AND KNOWLEDGE AND LIFE 213 men." Much has already been done, but doubtless there are still many ways in which the relations of the library, the school, the university, and the individual student may be improved. The possibilities of cooperation and serviceable help are practically illimitable. In the morning of life, when the direction of the student's energies are still undetermined, the resort to a library, with its inviting panorama of human learning, will often give the impulse to fruitful endeavor. Reverence as well as the desire for knowledge is in- spired in generous minds by the sight of a great collection of books. Pope's words have often been quoted: A little learning is a dangerous thing, Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring. The doctrine, if not a fallacy, is a half-truth at the best. A little learning has some dangers, but a little less learning has more, and no learning is the most dangerous of all. And the wider our know- ledge grows the keener will be our sense of the limits of acquirement, our eagerness to profit by the labors of the students who have gone before, and the true humility of our desire to add to the sum of human knowledge or at least to make straight some part of the way of those who shall enlarge the boundaries of learning. The library has relation to life as well as to learning. It can aid us in acquiring the practical wisdom for the management of daily affairs, for the right relationship to our fellow men. It can help us to moderation in prosperity, to humility in success, to courage in adversity, and to endurance and resignation in affliction. " There is no God," the foolish saith, But none, " There is no sorrow." How many sorrowing hearts have found consolation in the com- panionship of books! How tender are the accents of Plutarch striving to allay the grief of his wife for the death of their beloved daughter! How many have been strengthened by the words of those who have been dust and ashes for centuries, men who belong to an empire that has past away, to a faith that has become ex- tinct, to a race alien to our own, but whose message still lives and has power for consolation, for reproof, and for inspiration. Litera- ture can give us rest as well as inspiration, nor is it only the great ones who are of service to us in the work of life. There are moments when the melody of the milkmaid's song is a better tonic than the pealing grandeur of a great cathedral's organ. How well has Longfellow expressed this feeling when he asks for . . . some poem, Some simple and heartfelt lay, That shall soothe this restless feeling, And banish the thoughts of day. 214 THE LIBRARY Not from the grand old masters, Not from the bards sublime, Those distant footsteps echo Through the corridors of Time. For, like strains of martial music, Their mighty thoughts suggest Life's endless toil and endeavor, And to-night I long for rest. Read from some humble poet, Whose songs gushed from his heart, As showers from the clouds of summer, Or tears from the eyelids start. . . . Such songs have power to quiet The restless pulse of care, And come like the benediction That follows after prajrer. Wise, indeed, was the ancient Egyptian monarch who placed over the door of a library an inscription signifying that it contained " the medicine of the mind." From literature we may derive courage for the battle, fortitude in defeat, wisdom in victory, and an anodyne for grief. What Shelley has said of the drama may well be given a wider application. " The highest moral purpose," he says, " aimed at in the highest species of the drama, is the teaching of the human heart, through its sympathies and antipathies, the knowledge of itself; in proportion to the possession of which knowledge, every human being is wise, just, sincere, tolerant, and kind."1 This is what Arnold means when he describes culture as " a study of perfection." This is that at which our schools, and colleges, and universities, and libraries, all the machinery great and small of education, should aim. In proportion as this is attained are they successful and their existence justified. No educational system has fulfilled its purpose that does not nourish the love of knowledge and the desire for righteousness. The library has its lessons for nations as for individuals. It is a perpetual symbol of the brotherhood of man. It knows no distinc- tion of Jew or Gentile, of bond or free, but welcomes genius from every quarter. The better part of Emerson the American, Homer the Greek, Kalidasa the Hindoo, Dumas the French mulatto, Shake- speare the Englishman, Dante the Italian, Omar the Persian, Goethe the German, Tolstoy the Russian, stand on the shelves of the library to warn us against arrogating preeminence to our own people, and to teach us that every nation may contribute to the common fund, and to lead us to hope that every race will bring some special gift to the common service of humanity. The American, newest born 1 Preface to The Cenci. ■ THE LIBRARY AND KNOWLEDGE AND LIFE 215 of time, with his self-reliant individuality; the ancient Greek with his sense of beauty; the Roman with his skill as lawgiver; the Japan- ese with his feeling for color; the Negro with his cheerful endurance; the Englishman with his power of association; the Hebrew with his deep religious instinct, are familiar instances of special gifts and aptitudes. These are mirrored in the literature and history of the races of mankind as we may read them in the halls of a great library. Each race may have its own ideal, — the French love equality, the English love liberty, — and the interaction of all these influences upon each other modifies the thought of the world and makes for the progress of mankind. The duty of the library in relation to learning is to garner with sedulous care all the fruits of knowledge, to record what is known, and to provide material from which future knowledge may be wrought. The mission of the library to the individual is to place before him for his use and benefit all the knowledge and all the wisdom and all the inspiration that the ages have accumulated. The summons of religion, the efforts of philosophy, the warnings and incitements of the moral- ist, the historian's long record of endeavor, of failure, and of success, the varied wonders that the physical sciences have to reveal, the investigations of the geographer the narratives of the traveler, the inventions of men for the comfort and ease of existence, the pictures of life drawn by the novelist and the dramatist, the melody of the poet's song — all these the library places before the individual for delight, for instruction, and for guidance. The library has also its international mission. Paul's declaration that God " hath made of one blood all nations of men " finds its realization in(the library to which East and West and North and South, the Old World and the New, have alike contributed all those things that they deem most precious and beautiful, the holiest and the wisest that they have been able to fashion and express. The library is the symbol of . . . Truth, Knowledge and Duty, Virtue, Progress, Right, And Reason scattering hence delirious dreams. 1 1 Victor Hugo, translated by Mathilde Blind. THE LIBRARY — ITS PAST AND FUTURE BY GUIDO BIAGI [Guido Biagi, Director of the Laurentian and the Riccardi Libraries of Florence. b. Florence, Italy, 1855. Ph.D. 1878, Istituto di Studi Superiori Pratici e di Perfezionamento, Florence; granted fellowship by the Board of Education for Italian literature. Assistant Librarian in the Victor Emanuel, Rome, 1880; First Vice-Librarian, by competition, in the National Library of Florence, 1882; Librarian in the Victor Emanuel, 1883; Chief of the Cabinet of the Secretary of Education, 1884; Librarian of the Marucelliana Library in Florence, 1886; Prefect of the Laurentian Library of Florence, 1889; Chief of the Cabinet of the Minister of Education, 1892; General Inspector of Public Instruction, 1893; Director of the Laurentian Library, 1895; Vice-President of the International Library Conference, London, 1897; Director of the Riccardiana, annexed to the Laurentian Library, 1898; Hon. Professor of the Fine Arts Academy of Florence, 1897; Correspondent of the Royal His- torical Society of Tuscany, 1887; Hon. Secretary of the Dante Society, 1887- 1894; Hon. Treasurer of the Dante Society, 1899 until now; member of the Superior Jury, St. Louis Exposition, 1904. Author of The Novelle Antiche (Florence, 1878) ; The Mare Magnum of F. Marucelli (Florence, 1888); The Private Life of the Renaissance Florentines; The Last Days of P. B. Shelley; The Illustrations of Stradanus to the Divine Comedy; Aneddoti Litter ari; several publications of bibliography and library economy. Editor of The Library Review (Rivista delle Bibliotiche e degli Archive).] The first founders of public libraries having been Italian, it will perhaps be neither strange nor unfitting that an Italian, the custo- dian of one of the most ancient and valued book-collections in the world, should speak to you of their past. He may, however, appear presumptuous in that he will speak to you also of their future, thus posing as an exponent of those anticipations which are now fashion- able. It is in truth a curious desire that urges us and tempts us to guess at the future, to discover the signs of what it will bring us, in certain characteristics of the present moment. It answers to a want in human nature which knows not how to resign itself to the limitations of the present, but would look beyond it into time and space. This looking forward toward the future is no selfish sentiment; it springs from the desire not to dissipate our powers in vain attempts, but to prepare new and useful material for the work of the future, so that those who come after us may move forward without hindrance or perturbation, without being obliged to overturn and destroy, before they can build up anew. Thus does it happen in nature : huge secular trunks flourish and grow green by luxuriant offshoots which add new vigor of life to the old and glorious stock. We may perhaps discover the secret of the future of the library by looking back over its past, by attentively studying the varying phases through which it has passed in its upward path towards a splendid goal of wisdom and civilization. By thus doing we may THE LIBRARY — PAST AND FUTURE 217 prepare precious material for its future development and trace with security the line of its onward movement. It is of supreme im- portance that humanity in general, as the individual in particular, know whither its efforts must be directed, that there may be no straying from the straight path. We are sailors on a vast sea bound toward a shore we know not of; when we approach it it vanishes like a mirage from before our eyes. But we have as guides the stars which have already ruled our destinies, while before us flames, on the distant horizon, that light of the Idea toward which our ships and our hearts move eagerly. Let us stand firm at the helm and not despise the counsels of some old pilot who may perhaps seem faint- hearted to young and eager souls. He who is hurried along by the excitement of the course, by the impetuosity of the motion, finds neither time nor place to look back and to meditate, which is neces- sary, that he may lo©k forward with sharper and calmer gaze. Modern life among the younger and more venturesome peoples is a giddy race. They run, they annihilate the space before them, they press onward, ever onward, with irresistible impetus, but we cannot always say that this headlong course leads straight toward the goal. We are not sure, even, that it may not sometimes be running in a circle, a retracing of their steps. In mechanics a free wheel turn- ing upon itself and moving no machinery is so much lost power. Let us beware of free wheels which consume without producing, which give the illusion of movement whilst they still remain station- ary. Modern civilization bears within itself a great danger, the endeavor which loses the end by a misuse of the means, and which, though busy, is ever idle; idle, yet never at rest. It may be, therefore, that a momentary return to the past, with all that it can teach, will be useful to all of us. Progress has rightly been compared to a continual ascent. Modern man sees before him ever vaster horizons; the eye of science discovers in the infinitely distant and in the infinitely small ever new worlds, whether of suns or of bacteria. In the same way do concep- tions and ideas ever widen and tend to a more comprehensive general- ization. All the march of civilization, both material and moral, consists in rising from a simple primordial idea to another more complex, and so on to the highest scientific abstractions. Woe to science if it stops short in the course of this evolution; its reputation would be injured beyond repair. In material things the fate of certain words shows us the great advance that has been made; the words are the same but the things they represent are very different. We still give the name of casa (capsa, that is, hut) to our splendid dwellings, which have here among you reached their highest point of development in your skyscrapers; we still give to the great trans- atlantic steamers, floating cities, the name of boats, which was once 218 THE LIBRARY applied to the first rude canoes of the troglodytes. The first function of the casa and of the boat still remains, but how differently are the details carried out. So also the book, the liber, whose etymology is preserved in the word library, was anciently the inner part of the tree (liber) on which men used to write, and which is now unfortu- nately again used in the making of paper no longer obtained from rags but from woody pulp. The libraries of Assyria and Egypt, those for instance of Assur-Bani-Pal and of Rameses I, consisted of clay tablets of inscribed stones or of papyrus rolls; the libraries of Greece, those of the Ptolemies and of the kings of Pergamos, the libraries of Rome, first opened to public use by the efforts of Asinius Pollio; the Byzantine libraries, which arose within Christian churches or in monasteries; and lastly, the rich and splendid collec- tions made at great expense by the patrons, by the builders, of the culture of the Renaissance; all these, compared with the modern libraries, of which the most perfect specimens may be found in this land, are like an ancient trireme beside a twin-screw steamer. And the essential difference between the ancient and the modern library, between the conception of library as it existed up to the times of Frederic, Duke of Urbino, and of Lorenzo il Magnifico, and that existing in the minds of Thomas Bodley, or Antonio Maglia- becchi, is to be found in the different objects represented by the same word, liber. A study of the fate of this word would lead us step by step through the varying forms of the library, from those containing clay tablets, from those filled with rolls covered with cuneiform characters, to the codices brilliant with the art of Oderisi da Gubbio, splendid with gold and miniatures, to the first block books, to the printed books of Faust and Schoffer and of Aldo Manuzio, of William Caxton, and of Christopher Plantin. The invention of printing caused a great revolution in the world of books. The new art was, as we well know, received at first with scorn and indifference. The incunabula were but rough, vulgar things as compared with the beautiful manuscripts, clearly written on carefully prepared parchment, and glittering with brilliant colors. They were fit at most to be used by the masses — by women, by children, to be sold at fairs, to be put into the hands of clean-jacks and charlatans; but they were quite unfitted for the valuable collections guarded with so much care in perfumed cases carved from precious woods, in sculptured cabinets, on reading-desks cov- ered with damask or with the softest of leathers, made from the skins of sucking animals. We can easily understand that fastidious art patrons such as the Duke of Urbino should scorn this new form of book, and should proclaim it unworthy of a place in a respectable library. But this tempest of scorn gradually subsided before the THE LIBRARY — PAST AND FUTURE 219 advantages which the new invention offered and before the marvel- ous progress it made. It sought, moreover, the favor of the minia- turists by leaving, in the margins of the new codices, sufficient space for ornamentations and for initials of burnished gold; it sought the favor and the help of the learned humanists by employing them to revise and correct the texts; it won the favor of the studious and of clerks, who have at all times been poor, by spreading abroad the texts of the classics, by offering for a few halfpence that which could at first be obtained only with gold or silver florins, by impart- ing to all that which had been the privilege of the few. And we must not forget the help given to typography by the invention of the minor arts, calcography and xylography, which added new value to the pages of the no longer despised book; so that printed codices (codices impressi) might stand side by side with the manuscript codices (codices manuscripti) . The word, the sign of the thought, first took on visible form with the invention of the alphabet. But other ways of revealing thought were to be discovered in the future. No one in the ancient world, no one before the very culminating point of the Renaissance, could have supposed it possible that a library might contain anything but manuscripts; just as we, to-day, are incapable of imagining a library containing anything but books. We have seen that the conception of the book underwent expansion when printed books were added to those written by hand; and in the same way the library underwent expansion, gradually rising, between the fifteenth and the twentieth centuries, from a simple collection of codices, to the vast and won- derful proportions it has at present reached, assuming the duty of receiving within itself any kind of graphic representation of human thought, from clay tablets and inscribed stones and papyrus rolls, to phototypes and monotype or linotype products, from books for the blind written in the Braille alphabet to the new manuscripts of the typewriters. From this brief compendium of bibliographical history one essen- tial feature emerges. As though directed by an unswerving law, by the law of reproduction, human thought feels the necessity of expanding and of multiplying and perpetuating itself; and it is ever searching for new means of carrying out this intent. Thus the copyist or the scribe is replaced by the compositor, the minia- turist by the engraver, the draftsman by the litbographer, the painter by the color-printer, the engraver by the photographer and zincographer; thus the machine replaces the hand of man, the machine which is only concerned with working quickly, with pro- ducing as many copies as possible with diminished effort, with snatch- ing her secrets from Mother Nature herself. We have replaced the notae tironianae of the Roman scribes by the typewriter, the wax 220 THE LIBRARY tablets by the pages of the stenographer; for drawing and paint- ing we have substituted photography and three-color printing; wireless telegraphy has taken the place of messages sent by post- horses. And not content with these singular and wondrous modes of re- producing graphically the thought and the word, we have found another means of reproduction still more stupendous in the im- mediateness of its action. Sound, the human voice, whose accents have hitherto been lost, may now be preserved and repeated and reproduced like other graphic signs of thought. When the grapho- phone was first invented we little thought that the cylinders upon which the vibrations of the voice had traced so slight and delicate an impression would ever be reproduced as simply as, by electrotyp- ing, we reproduce a page of movable characters. Neither have we yet, or I am much mistaken, grasped the whole of the practical utility which the graphophone may have in its further applications and improvements. Up to the present time the graphophone has been kept as a plaything in drawing-rooms or in bars, to reproduce the last roulades of some well-known singer, the bangings of some military band, or the pretended uproar of some stormy meeting. At the present day the librarian would probably refuse to receive within his library this faithful reproducer of the human voice and thought, just as Frederic, Duke of Urbino, banished from his collection the first examples of printed books. But without posing as a prophet or the son of a prophet, we may surely assert that every library will, before long, contain a hall in which the disks of the graphophone may be heard (as already is the case at the Brera in Milan), and shelves for the preservation of the disks, just as the libraries of Assyria preserved the clay tablets inscribed with cuneiform charac- ters. This is a new form of book, strange at first sight, but in reality simply a return to ancient precedents, yet a return which marks the upward movement of progress. An Italian Jesuit, Saverio Bettinelli, undertook toward the middle of the eighteenth century to give laws to Italian writers. He pro- duced certain letters which he assumed Virgil to have written from the Elysian Fields to the Arcadia at Rome. In two of these twelve tablets, which he put forth under the names of Homer, Pindar, Anachreon, Virgil, Horace, Propertius, Dante, Petrarch, and Ariosto, in the poetical meetings held in Elysium, he laid down as a rule: " Let there be written in large letters on the doors of all public libraries: ' You will be ignorant of almost everything which is within these doors, or you will live three centuries to read the half of it;' and a little further on: ' Let a new city be made whose streets, squares, and houses shall contain only books. Let the man who wishes to study go and live there for as long as may be needful ; THE LIBRARY — PAST AND FUTURE 221 otherwise printed matter will soon leave no place for the goods, for the food, of the inhabitants of our towns.' " This anticipation, which dates from 1758, still seems an exaggera- tion, but I know not whether, a century and a half hence, posterity will think it so, so great is the development of the industries, the succession of ever new inventions for preserving any graphic repre- sentation of human thought. Not even the life of Methuselah would be long enough to read as much as the tenth part of all that a modern library contains; and I know not whether we could invent a more terrible punishment than to insist upon this for our criminals. How many repetitions of the same ideas, how much superfluity, how many scientific works canceled and rendered useless and condemned to perpetual oblivion by those which succeed them! By welcoming everything, without discrimination, the modern library has lost its ancient and true character. No longer can we inscribe over its en- trance the ancient motto, "Medicine for souls; " few, indeed, of the books would have any salutary influence on body or on mind. Now that the conception of book and of library has been so enormously expanded, now that the library has become the city of paper, how- ever printed, and of any other material fitted to receive the graphic representation of human thought, it will become more and more necessary to classify the enormous amount of material, to separate it into various categories. The laws of demography, whatever they may be, must be extended also to books; the dead must be divided from the living, the sick from the sound, the bad from the good, the rich from the poor; and cemeteries must be prepared for all those stereotyped editions of school-books, of catechisms, or rail- way time-tables, for all that endless luggage of stamped paper that has only the form of a book and has nothing to do with thought. Sanatoria must be provided for books condemned to uselessness because already infected with error or already eaten away with old age, and the most conspicuous places must be set apart for books worthy to be preserved from oblivion and from the ravages of time, either on account of the importance of their contents or of the beauty of their appearance. In this great republic of books the princes principes will stand high above the countless mass, and an aristocracy of the best will be formed which will be the true library within the library. But even this will not have the exclusive character of the ancient library. It will receive divers and strange forms of books; next to a papyrus of Oxyrinchos, with an unknown fragment of Sappho, may be placed a parchment illuminated by Nestore Leoni or by Attilio Formilli, a graphophone disk containing Theodore Roose- velt's latest speech, or a scene from Othello given by Tommaso Salvini, the heliotype reproduction of the Medicean Virgil or some 222 THE LIBRARY phrases written on palm-leaves by the last survivor of a band of cannibals. The great abundance of modern production will render ever more rare and more valuable ancient examples of the book, just as the progress of industrialism has enhanced the value of work produced by the hand of man. Thought as it develops is undergoing the same transformation which has occurred in manual labor; mental work also has assumed a certain mechanical character visible in formalism, in imitation, in the influence of the school or of the surrounding. Industrialism has made its way into science, literature, and art, giving rise to work which is hybrid, mediocre, without any originality, and destined, therefore, soon to perish. The parasites of thought flourish at the expense of the greater talents, and they will constitute, alas, the larger part of future bibliographical production. The greatest difficulty of future librarians will be to recognize and classify these hybrid productions, in choosing from among the great mass the few books worthy of a place apart. The appraisal of literature which has already been discussed in books and congresses will continue to increase in importance; and in this work of discrimination we shall need the aid of critics to read for other men and to light up the path for those who shall come after.. " The records of the best that has been thought and done in the world," said George lies, " grow in volume and value every hour. Speed the day when they may be hospitably proffered to every human soul, the chaff winnowed from the wheat, the gold divided from the clay." One of the special characteristics of the library of the future will be .cooperation and internationalism applied to the division of labor. We may already see premonitory symptoms of this in the Catalogue of Scientific Literature now being compiled by the Royal Society of London, in the Concilium Bibliographicum of Zurich, in the Institut de Bibliographie of Brussels, and in the Card Catalogue printed and distributed by the Library of Congress at Washington. This co- operation, however, will have to be more widely extended and must assert itself not only by exchanges of cards and of indices, but also by means of the lending of books and manuscripts, of the repro- duction of codices or of rare and precious works. The government libraries of Italy are united under the same rules and correspond with all institutions of public instruction and with several town and provincial libraries, with free postage, so that books and manu- scripts journey from one end to the other of the peninsula, from Palermo to Venice, without any expense to those who use them, and the different libraries of the state become, in this way, one single library. And so the day will come when the libraries of Europe and of America and of all the states in the Postal Union will form, as it were, one single collection, and the old books, printed when America THE LIBRARY — PAST AND FUTURE 223 was but a myth, will enter new worlds, bearing with them to far-off students the benefit of their ancient wisdom. The electric post or the air-ships will have then shortened distances, the telephone will make it possible to hear at Melbourne a graphophone disk asked for, a few minutes earlier, from the British Museum. There will be few readers, but an infinite number of hearers, who will listen from their own homes to the spoken paper, to the spoken book. University students will listen to their lectures while they lie in bed, and, as now with us, will not know their professors even by sight. Writ- ing will be a lost art. Professors of paleography and keepers of manuscripts will, perhaps, have to learn to accustom their eye to the ancient alphabets. Autographs will be as rare as palimpsests are now. Books will no longer be read; they will be listened to; and then only will be fulfilled Mark Pattison's famous saying: " The librarian who reads is lost." But even if the graphophone does not produce so profound a transformation as to cause the alphabet to become extinct and effect an injury to culture itself; even if, as we hope will be the case, the book retains its place of honor, and instructions through the eyes be not replaced by that through the ears (in which case printed books would be kept for the exclusive benefit of the deaf), still these disks, now so much derided, will form a very large part of the future library. The art of oratory, of drama, of music, and of poetry, the study of languages, the present pronunciation of languages and dia- lects, will find faithful means of reproduction in these humble disks. Imagine, if we could hear in this place to-day the voice of Lincoln or of Garibaldi, of Victor Hugo or of Shelley, just as you might hear the clear winged words of Gabriele d' Annunzio, the moving voice of Eleonore Duse, or the drawling words of Mark Twain. Imagine the miracle of being able to call up again the powerful eloquence of your political champions, or the heroes of our patriotic struggles; of being able to listen to the music of certain verses, the wailing of certain laments, the joy that breaks out in certain cries of the soul. The winged word would seem to raise itself once more into the air as at the instant when it came forth, living from the breast, to play upon our sensibilities, to stir up our hearts. It is not to be believed that men will willingly lose this benefit — the benefit of uniting to the words the actual voices of those who are, and will no longer be, and that they should not desire that those whose presence has left us should at least speak among us.1 We may also believe that certain forms of art, such as the novel and the drama, will prefer the phonetic to the graphic reproduction, or at least a union of the two. And the same may be said of poetry, which will find in modern 1 A Phonographic Pantheon has been founded in the Laurentian Library, ac- cording to this proposal. 224 THE LIBRARY authors its surest reciters, its most eloquent interpreters. The oratory of the law-court and of the parliament, that of the pulpit and of the cathedra, will not be able to withstand the enticement of being preserved and handed on to posterity, to which their triumphs have hitherto sent down but a weak, uncertain echo. " I shall not die altogether" — Non omnis moriar — so will think the orator and the dramatic or lyric artist; and the libraries will cherish these witnesses to art and to life, as they now collect play-bills and lawyers' briefs. But internationalism and cooperation will save the future library from the danger of losing altogether its true character by becoming, as it were, a deposit of memories or of embalmed residua of life, among which the librarian must walk like a bearer of the dead. The time will come when, if these mortuary cities of dead books are not to multiply indefinitely, we must invoke the authority of Fra Girolamo Savonarola, and proceed to a burning of vanities. A return to, an- cient methods will be a means of instruction, and those centenary libraries which have preserved their proper character, which have not undergone hurtful augmentations, which have reserved them- selves for books and manuscripts alone, which have disdained all the ultra-modern rubbish which has neither the form nor the name of book, — these libraries will be saluted as monuments worthy of veneration. And then some patron who, from being a multi- millionaire, as was his far-off ancestor, will have become at least a multi-billionaire, will provide here in America for the founding of libraries, not of manuscripts, which will no longer be for sale, but of reproductions of codices in black or in colors; and we shall have libraries of facsimiles most useful for the study of the classics, just as we now have museums of casts for the study of the plastic arts. The application of photography and of photogravure to the re- production of texts which are unique rather than rare, makes it possible for us not only to have several examples of a precious codex or manuscript, but to fix the invisible deterioration which began in it at a certain date, so that, as regards its state of preservation, the facsimile represents an interior stage to the future state of the original. By thus wonderfully forecasting the future, these reproductions render less disastrous the effects of a fire such as that which lately destroyed the library of Turin. They have, therefore, found great favor among students and have excited the attention of the most enlightened governments. If the means for carrying on what have hitherto been but isolated efforts do not fail, if generous donors and institutions and governments do not deny their aid, we might already begin a methodical work of reproduction, and come to an agreement concerning the method of fulfilling a vast design which should comprehend all the most precious archetypes of the various THE LIBRARY — PAST AND FUTURE 225 libraries in the world, those which are the documents of the history of human thought and which are the letters-patent of the nobility of an ancient greatness. This, I think, would, nay should, be the most serious and principal duty assumed by the library of the future: to preserve these treasures of the past while hoping that the present and the future may add to them new ones worthy of public venera- tion. Think how vast a field of work, to seek through all nations the autographs or archetypes to which have been intrusted the thought of great men of every age and of every race, and to reproduce them in the worthiest way and to explain them so as to render them ac- cessible to modern readers. Thus should we form the true library of the nations which, with the facsimiles, would bring together the critical editions of their authors and the translations and the texts made for the explanation of the works. But the first and most urgent duty would be that of making an inventory, an index, of what should constitute this collection; and, first of all, we should know and search out such authors as may have influenced the history of the human race by their works in all times and among all peoples; and we should have to find the venerable codices which have handed on to us the light of their intellect, the beating of their hearts. Every nation which is careful of its own glory should begin this list, just as we are now beginning that of the monuments of marble or of stone which have value as works of art. We should thus begin to prepare the precious material to be reproduced, while at the same time it would be possible to calculate the expense needed for carrying out the magnificent design. The Belgian Government has appointed a congress to meet at Lieges next year for this purpose, but its pro- grammes are too extended; for they take in also the documents in the archives and in the museums. More opportune and practical would be an inquiry affecting the libraries alone and beginning with oriental and classical authors, with those who represent the wisdom of the ancients. Thus the library of to-day would gradually prepare its work for the future library, which will surely want something more than the editions, however innumerable, supplied to it by the biblio- graphical production of the years to come. Internationalism will also be able to render great services to science, in the field of photo-mechanic reproductions, if it find a way of directing them to some useful goal, and if it prevent them from taking a merely material advantage of the precious collections which every nation is justified in guarding with jealous care. Photography with the prism, which has no need of the plate or of the film, costs so little and is so easy of execution, especially if the process of the late Mile. Pellechet be adopted, that one can, in a few hours, carry away from a library the facsimile of an entire manuscript. No doubt many learned men of the new style find it more convenient to 226 THE LIBRARY have these collections at their own house instead of wandering from one library to another to collect them at the expense of their eyes, their patience, and their money. To be able to compare the various texts and to have the various readings of them under one's eye is an inestimable benefit; but the true philologist will never be contented with simply studying these facsimiles, however perfect they may be ; he will want to examine for himself the ancient parchments, the time-yellowed papers, to study the slight differences between the inks, the varieties in the handwritings, the evanescent glosses in the margins. In the same way an art critic is not content with confining his study simply to the photographs of pictures, but he observes the pictures themselves, their patina, their coloring, their shadows, their least graduations of tones and half-tones. In the same way, too, a musician would not presume to the knowledge of an opera which he had only studied in a pianoforte arrangement. If this manner of shunning fatigue took root, our splendid collections of manuscripts would no longer be the goal of learned pilgrims, but would become the easy prey of the photographer, who would cer- tainly embark upon a new speculation — that of retailing these collec- tions to the manifest injury of the libraries and of the states, which would thus lose the exclusive literary and artistic possession of what is a national glory. Meanwhile a wise jurisdiction will avoid these dangers without injuring or hindering studies and culture. We shall adopt for manuscripts, which excite other people's desires, the pro- position made by Aristophanes in the Ecclesiazuse (that charming satire on socialism) to bridle the excesses of free love. We shall permit a man to have a copy of a manuscript when he has first had one of another and older manuscript and when the latter, which is about equal in value to the first, has already been given up to the library, which will thus lose none of its property. " I give to make you give,"— Do ut des, — base and foundation of international treat- ises for customs duties must be applied also in a reasonable manner to the intellectual traffic that will be the characteristic of future civiliza- tion, which will never permit one nation to grow poor while another grows rich, and will insist that wealth be the bearer of equality and fruitful in good. A well-regulated metabolism, as it insures the health of our organic bodies,will also serve to maintain the health of that great social body which we all desire and foresee, notwithstanding political struggles and the wars which still stain the earth with blood. When the time comes in which we shall be able to use for ideal aims the millions which are now swallowed up by engines of war, of ruin, and of assault, the library will be looked upon as the temple of wisdom, and to it will be turned far more than at present the unceasing care of governments and of peoples. When that time comes, the book will be able to say to the cannon, with more truth than Quasimodo to Notre THE LIBRARY — PAST AND FUTURE 227 Dame de Paris, " This has killed that " — Ceci a tue cela — and it will have killed death with all her fatal instruments. But another and a more important aspect of scientific internation- alism which will preserve the library of the future from becoming a bazaar of social life, will be the importation of the most wholesome fruits of ancient wisdom collected with wonderful learning by the great scholars of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the first founders of libraries, men who attempted an inventory of human knowledge. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, hitherto looked upon by experimental science with disdain, was collected with laborious detail all the learning of past centuries, — that of the holy books of the oriental world, that which the fathers of the Church, and after them the Arabs, and later on the Ency- clopedists of the Middle Ages, and then the astrologists, and the alchemists, and the natural philosophers, condensed into encyclo- pedias, into chronicles, into treatises, into all that congeries of writings which formed the libraries of the Middle Ages and of the Renaissance, into that infinite number of printed books which still fill the ancient and classical libraries of Europe with voluminous folios and quartos. The desire of classifying and bringing into line all human knowledge, of reading this immense amount of material and gaining a thorough knowledge of it, armed those first solemn scholars with patience, formed those legendary librarians who, like Antonio Magliabecchi or Francesco Marucelli themselves, were living- libraries. The Latin anagram of the celebrated founder of the Floren- tine library, Antonio Magliabecchi, is well known: " This, one large library " — Is unus bibliotheca magna; but it may be, and at that time also could be, equally applied to the others. These devourers of books were the first inventors and asserters of the scientific importance of a card catalogue, because armed with cards they passed days and nights in pressing from the old books the juice of wisdom and of knowledge and in collecting and con- densing it in their miscellany, in those vast bibliographical collections compared with which the catalogue of the British Museum is the work of a novice. They not only appraised the known literature of their time, but they classified it; not by such a classification as we make now, contenting ourselves with the title of the book, but by an internal and perfect classification, analyz- ing every page and keeping record of the volume, of the paragraph, of the line. The skeleton of the encyclopedia, of the scientific dictionary, which at the end of the eighteenth century underwent, in France, a literary development, may be found within these biblio- graphical collections now forgotten and banished to the highest shelves of our libraries. Any one who has looked through and studied one of these collections as I have done, has wondered at the 228 THE LIBRARY treasures of information, of learning, of bibliographical exactitude, which are contained in those dusty volumes. Above all, the precision of the references, and of the quotations, the comprehensiveness of the subjects and of the headings, render them, rather than a pre- cious catalogue, an enormous encyclopedia, to which we may have recourse not only for history, for geography, for literature, for all moral sciences, but also, impossible as it may seem, for natural sciences, for medicine, and for the exact sciences. Incredible is the number of quotations made for even the least important subject; incredible, too, is our ignorance, our stupid disdain for this emporium for out-of-the-way information. Were you to study the article " Fever," you might perhaps find a hint at its propagation by means of mosquitoes, just as I, studying the geography of Ethiopia, came across mention of those gold-mines which have just lately been found again in Erythrea. Modern science, less presumptuous than that of a short while ago, which had shut itself up in the dogmas of materialism, will not disdain to visit these springs, and to compile an encyclopedia of the knowledge of the ancients, with quotations drawn from these true wells of science. In the library of the future, classified on the decimal system, or Cutter's expansive, every section should contain a shelf of cards on which should be collected, arranged, verified, and even translated this ancient material, which may throw light on new studies and on new experiments; for the empirical methods of our forefathers, like tradition and legend, have a basis of truth which is not to be despised. Meanwhile the modern library, which in this land pros- pers and exults in a youth strong and full of promise, should collect this material, and thus spare the students at your universities the long researches needed to assimilate the ancient literature of every subject. The modern library, the American library, would not need to acquire and accumulate with great expense all the ancient mass of human knowledge in order to make use of the work of past generations; it need only collect the extract of this work, oppor- tunely chosen, sifted, classified, and translated. This would be an immense advantage to its scholars, and the internationalism of science, of whose certain advent I have spoken to you, would find in this first exchange, in this fertile importation, its immediate applica- tion. Why should students and specialists be sent to begin new re- searches in learned and dusty volumes, when this work already has been done by the great champions of erudition in their miscellany, in their bibliographical encyclopedias? Let us rather try to spread abroad a knowledge of this treasure, this well of science; let us publish information about it; let us draw largely from its pure and health-giving waters. You will not be without guides who will lead you to it, who can and will give you to drink of its fresh waters. THE LIBRARY — PAST AND FUTURE 229 Thus shall those noble and solitary spirits who worked unknown in the dark of the seventeenth century and in the wan eighteenth century, be joined, by an invisible chain, to the vigorous intellects which, in the last century and in that upon which we have just entered, are working, are toiling, in the diffused light of civilization, and will con- tinue to work and will continue to toil for science, for humanity. And the card, the humble card, the winged arrow of the librarian and of the student, will fly from continent to continent, a messenger of knowledge and of concord. WORKS OF REFERENCE FOR THE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION Adams, Herbartian Psychology Applied to Education. Barr, Mental Defectives. Bastian, The Brain as an Organ of Mind. Binet, Psychology of Reasoning. Binet et Henri, La Fatigue Intellect uelle. Bradford, Heredity and Christian Problems. Bryan, Eye and Ear Mindedness. Colgrove, Memory. Dewey, Studies in Logical Theory. Interest as Related to Will. School and Society. Dexter and Garlick, Psychology in the School Room. Dopp, The Place of Industries in Elementary Education. DuBois, The Point of Contact. Ferrier, Functions of the Brain. Fitch, Lectures on Teaching. Art of Securing Attention. Galton, Natural Inheritance. Gross, The Play of Man. Hall, Adolescence. Halleck, Education of the Central Nervous System. Harris, The Psychologic Foundations of Education. Hinsdale, Art of Study. Hobhouse, Mind in Evolution. Holmes, Mechanism in Thought and Morals. Huston, Education of the Imagination. James, Principles of Psychology, v. 1 & 2. Talks to Teachers. Kay, Memory, What it is and How to Improve it. KrNG, The Psychology of Child Development. Kirkpatrick, The Fundamentals of Child Study. Lancaster, Psychology and Pedagogy of Adolescence. Lange, Apperception. Morgan, Habit and Instinct. Oppenheim, Mental Growth and Control. Ostermann, Interest. Radestock, Habit in Education. Ribot, Psychology of the Emotions. Psychology of Attention. Diseases of Memory. Diseases of Personality. Riddell, Heredity and Pre-Natal Culture. Small, The Suggestibility of Children. Steel, Imitation. Street, Adolescence. Sully, Human Mind. BIBLIOGRAPHY: DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION 231 Sully, Studies of Childhood. Thorndike, Notes on Child Study. Titchener, Outlines of Psychology. Tuke, The Influence of Mind upon Body. Welton, The Logical Basis of Education. Wilson, Bibliography of Child Study. HISTORY OF EDUCATION Adams, Civilization in the Middle Ages. Barnard, English Pedagogy. Pestalozzi and Pestalozzianism. Kindergarten and Child-Study Papers. Beard, Lectures on Reformation 16th Century. Bosanquet, Education of the Young in Plato's Republic. Bowen, Froebel and Education through Self-Activity. Brown, The Making of our Middle Schools. Browning, History of Educational Theories. Burckhardt, The Renaissance in Italy. Burnet, Aristotle on Education. Butcher, Some Aspects of the Greek Genius. Butler, Education in the United States. Capes, University Life in Ancient Athens. Clarke, The Education of Children at Rome. Compayre, Abelard. History of Pedagogy. Cunningham, Western Civilization in its Economic Aspects. Davidson, A History of Education. Education of the Greek People. Rousseau and Education according to Nature. De Coulange, The Ancient City. De Garmo, Herbart and the Herbartians. Dewey, School and Society. The Educational Situation. Dexter, A History of Education in the United States. Dill, Roman Society in the Last Century of the Western Empire. Drane, Christian Schools and Scholars. Draper, History of the Intellectual Development of Europe. Ely, Studies in Evolution of Industrial Society. Emerton, Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam. Felkin, Herbart's Science of Education. Fischer, Francis Bacon. Froebel, Education of Man. Hadley, The Education of the American Citizen. Hatch, Influence of Greek Ideas on the Christian Church. Herrick, Commercial Education. Hinsdale, Horace Mann and the Common School Revival in the United States. Hobhouse, Ancient Education. Hughes, Loyola and the Jesuit System of Education. The Making of Citizens. Jebb, Humanism in Education. Erasmus. Laurie, John Amos Comenius. Pre-Christian Education. 232 BIBLIOGRAPHY : DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION Laurie, Rise and Early Constitution of the Universities. Lecky, History of European Morals. Legge, The Chinese Classics. Lubbock, The Origin of Civilization. Mahaffy, Greek Life and Thought. Old Greek Education. Martin, The Chinese. Monroe, A Text Book in the History of Education. Source Book. Mullinger, Schools of Charles the Great. Munroe, The Educational Ideal. Newman, Historical Sketches. Painter, A History of Education. Luther on Education. Pater, Plato and Platonism. Paulsen, Character and Development of Universities of Germany. Pestalozzi, Leonard and Gertrude. Pinloche, Pestalozzi and the Modern Elementary School. Quick, Educational Reformers. Rashdall, The Universities of Europe in the Middle Ages. Rousseau, Emile. Russell, German Higher Schools. Seebohm, The Oxford Reformers. Symonds, The Renaissance. Taylor, Ancient Ideals. Classical Heritage of the Middle Ages. Townsend, Great Schoolmen of the Middle Ages. Tylor, Primitive Culture. Vincent, The Social Mind and Education. Ware, Educational Foundations of Trade and Industry. West, Alcuin and the Rise of the Christian Schools. Wilkins, National Education in Greece. Williams, The Middle Kingdom. Woodward, Vittorino da Feltre and Other Humanist Educators. Erasmus Concerning Education. PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION Bagley, The Educative Process. Baldwin, Mental Development. Barnett, Teaching and Organization. Bryant, Educational Ends. Butler, The Meaning of Education. Chancellor, Our Schools; Their Administration and Supervision. Coe, Education in Religion and Morals. Collar and Crook, School Management and Methods of Instruction. DeGarmo, Interest and Education. Dewey, The Child and the Curriculum. Psychology and Social Practice. Eliot, Educational Reform. Findlay, Principles of Class Teaching. Gilman, University Problems. Gordy, A Broader Elementary Education. Hadley, The Education of the American Citizen. BIBLIOGRAPHY: DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION 233 Hanus, Educational Aims. Harris, Psychologic Foundations of Education. Henderson, Social Elements. Horne, The Philosophy of Education. Laurie, The Institutes of Education. MacCunn, The Making of Character. McMtjrry, General Method. Method of the Recitation. Muensterberg, Psychology and Life. N. E. A. Reports: (a) Report of Committee on College Entrance Requirements. (b) Report of Committee of Fifteen. (c) Report of Committee of Ten. Oppenheim, The Development of the Child. Parker, Talks on Teaching. Rein, Outlines of Pedagogics. Royce, Is there a Science of Education? Shaw, School Hygiene. Sinclair, The Possibility of a Science of Education. Thorndike, Educational Psychology. Walker, Discussions in Education. Warner, The Study of Children. WORKS OF REFERENCE RELATING TO THE SECTION OF EDUCATIONAL THEORY (Prepared by the courtesy of Professor Wilhelm Rein) Herbart, John Fr., Ausgabe von Kehrbach, Langensalza-Beyer u. Mann, 1887. Rein, Wilhelm, Encyklopadische Handbuch der Padagogik, 8 vol., 2. Aufl., Langensalza-Beyer u. Mann, 1906. Padagogik in Systematischer Darstellung, Langensalza-Beyer u. Mann, 1904. Schmid, Carl A.,Encyklopadie des Gesammten Erziehungs. 11 B., Gotha, 1859- 1875. Stot, K. V., Encyklopadie Methodologie und Literatur der Padagogik, Leipzig, 1861. Struempell, L., Psychologische Padagogik, 1880. Waitz, Th., Allgemeine Padagogik, 1880. Willmann, Otto, Didaktik als. Bildungslehre nach ihren Beziehungen zur Sozialforschung u. zur Geschichte der Bildung, 2 vol. Ziller, T., Vorlesungen iiber Allgemeine Padagogik, Leipzig, 1876. / WORKS OF REFERENCE RELATING TO THE SECTION OF THE SCHOOL (Prepared by the courtesy of Dr. Michael E. Sadler) Dewey, John, The School and Society, University of Chicago Press, 1899. Eliot, Charles W., The Function of Education in Democratic Society, Essays on Educational Reform. Legge, J. G., and Sadler, M. E., Notes on Children's Workshops in Sweden, Special Reports on Educational Subjects, vol. vm, London, Wyman & Co., for his Majesty's Stationery Office, 1901. Sadler, M. E., National Education and Social Ideals, in Education in the Nine- teenth Century, Cambridge University Press, 1901. The Unrest in Secondary Education, chap, i, Special Reports on Edu- cational Subjects, vol. ix, 1902. Wells, H. G., Mankind in the Making, London, Chapman & Hall, 1904. Report of the Interdepartmental Committee on Physical Deterioration, vol. i, Report and Appendix. Vol. n, Evidence. Vol. in, Index and Appendix, London, Wyman & Co., for his Majesty's Stationery Office, 1904. SPECIAL WORKS OF REFERENCE FOR THE SECTION OF THE SCHOOL {Prepared by the courtesy of Dr. William H. Maxwell) Boone, R. G., Education in the United States. Butler, N. M., Meaning of Education. Committee of Fifteen, Report. Dewey, John, Educational Situation. School and Society. The Child and the Curriculum. Dutton, S. T., Social Phases of Education. Eliot, C. W., Educational Reform. Folks, Homer, Care of Destitute, Neglected, and Delinquent Children. Gordy, J. P., Broader Elementary Education. Hanus, P. H., Modern School. Horne, H. P., Philosophy of Education. Hughes, R. E., Making of Citizens. Hunter, Robert, Poverty. Mosely Education Commission to the United States, Report. Tenement House Department, New York City, Report 1902-1903. Walker, Francis, Discussions in Education. MAGAZINE ARTICLES Harris, W. T., Reports of the Moseley Educational Commission, Educational Review, November, 1904. Hoose, J. H., Educational Problem of Americanizing Immigrants, Education, January, 1905. McMurry, F. M., Advisable Omissions from the Elementary Curriculum, Educa- tional Review, May, 1904. Moseley, Alfred, British View of American Schools, World's Work, February, 1904. Percival, James, Educational Problems, Public Science Monthly, January, 1905. Williams, A. S., New York School Problem, Educational Review, April, 1904. SPECIAL WORKS OF REFERENCE RELATING TO THE SECTION OF THE COLLEGE {Prepared by the courtesy of President William DeWitt Hyde) Butler, Nicholas Murray, Education in the United States, Monograph No. 5. Dexter, History of Education in the United States, chap. xv. Thwing, Charles F., The American College in American Life. College Administration. West, Andrew F., The American College. Circulars of Information, issued by the United States Bureau of Education on education in the several states. WORKS OF REFERENCE RELATING TO THE SECTION OF THE LIBRARY {Prepared by the courtesy of Dr. Axon) The literature relating to the library in relation to knowledge and life is so extensive that only a few suggestive titles can be cited here. Memoirs of Libraries, 1859; Free Town Libraries, 1869; Libraries and Found- ers of Libraries, 1865; Lives of the Founders of the British Museum, 1870, — all four by Edward Edwards, — are full of interesting and important matter. The Life of Edwards by Thomas Greenwood, 1902, is an almost indispensable appendix. The Report on Public Libraries in the United States, 1876, is important both for its historic information and as a contribution to library science. The Bibliotheca Bibliographica, by Julius Petzhold, 1866, with the Manuel de Bibliographie Gene'rale, by Henri Stein, 1897, form an enumeration of works relating to general and special bibliography, and if not complete, show that an immense amount of work has been done. To this class belong the Bibliographie des Bibliographies, of Leon Vallee, 1883-87, and the Register of National Biblio- graphy, by W. P. Courtney, 1905. Works such as the Clue to Latin Literature by Professor J. E. B. Mayor; the Bibliographie Biographique Universelle by E. M. Oettinger, 1866; and the Bibliographie des Ouvrages Arabes, by Victor Chauvin, may be named. The last is the most important contribution that has yet been made to the detailed study of comparative literature. Much information as to libraries and catalogues is to be found in periodicals, such as, the Serapeum, Centralblatt fur Bibliothekenwissenschaft, Library, Library Association Record, Library Journal, Petzhold's Anzeiger, Polybiblon. The publications of the American Library Association, and of the Library Association of the United Kingdom, are especially important for modern develop- ments of library work. On municipal libraries, Freie offentliche Bibliotheken, by E. Schulze,1900; and Public Libraries, 1890; British Library Year Book, 1900, by Thomas Greenwood, should be consulted. On the problems of management may be named, Manual of Library Economy, by J. D. Brown, 1903; Handbuch der Bibliothekslehre, by Arnim Graesel (originally based on Petzholdt's Katechismus) , 1902; Manuel Pratique du Biblio- thecaire, by Albert Maire, 1896; and the Library Series, edited by Dr. Richard Garnett. The last named includes books on the Free Library by J. J. Ogle, 1897; Library Construction byF. J. Burgoyne, 1897; Library Administration by J. Macfarlane, 1898; Prices of Books by Henry B. Wheatley, 1898; Essays in Librarianship and Bibliography by Richard Garnett, 1899. The largest contribution yet made to the Universal Catalogue is the Catalogue of Printed Books in the British Museum. The Catalogue of Scientific Papers and the publications and collections of the Concilium Bibliographicum at Zurich and of the Institut Bibliographique Universelle at Brussels are movements in the same directions. The last named has adopted the decimal classification of Melvil Dewey, a system which is finding increased acceptance and greatly facili- tates the use of collections of books by students in search of information on specific topics. BIBLIOGRAPHY : THE LIBRARY 239 Mr. Thomas Greenwood has had the happy thought of founding a " Library for Librarians." This collection, now numbering some ten thousand volumes, is placed in the Manchester Free Library, but the works can be borrowed for use elsewhere. The books range over the whole domain of bibliography and library science. DEPARTMENT XXIV — RELIGION DEPARTMENT XXI V - RELIGION (Hall 4, September 20, 4.15 p. m.) Chairman: Bishop John H. Vincent, Chautauqua, N. Y. Speakers: President Henry C. King, Oberlin College. Professor Francis G. Peabody, Harvard University. THE FUNDAMENTAL NATURE OF RELIGION BY HENRY CHURCHILL KING [Henry Churchill King, President of Oberlin College, Professor of Theology and Philosophy, b. Hillsdale, Michigan, September 18, 1858. A.B. Oberlin College, 1879; D.B. Oberlin Seminary, 1882; A.M. Harvard University, 1883; D.D. Oberlin College, 1897; Western Reserve University, 1901; Yale Univer- sity, 1904. Associate Professor of Mathematics, Oberlin College, 1884-90; Associate Professor of Philosophy, Oberlin College, 1890-91 ; Dean of Oberlin College, 1901-02. Member of Council of Seventy of American Institute of Sacred Literature; Chairman of Executive Board and Council of Religious Education Association; member of Western Philosophical Association. Author of Reconstruction in Theology ; Theology and the Social Consciousness ; Rational Living ; The Appeal of the Child; Personal and Ideal Elements in Education. Is religion of really fundamental importance, or can we easily dispense with it? Is the real trend of the scientific and educational and ethical life of the world away from religion, or toward a deeper recognition of it? Is religion something external, to be merely tacked or pasted on to life, or is it absolutely fundamental to life, touching every part of it? No questions can be more important than these questions; the answer to none concerns us more deeply. But a satisfactory answer here must be thoroughgoing. No shal- low investigation can suffice. And we can hardly expect to come to any profound conviction of the fundamental nature of religion without careful consideration of its relation to education, to ethics, and to life. If religion is of fundamental importance, such a con- sideration ought to make that clear. I. Religion and Education And if we ask first as to the relation of religion and education (so far as education is not merely technical or professional), we seem bound to say that the relation is here so intimate that we cannot separate either at its best from the essential spirit of the other. The modern world believes in education as it believes in almost nothing else. Let us see, then, the inevitable outcome of a comparison of religion and education as to aim, as to means and spirit, as to method, and to results. 244 RELIGION (1) In the first place, I think it must be said that the ultimate aims of religion and education are essentially the same. For, on the one hand, the best education seeks to call out the whole man in his highest harmonious development. That education often falls short of this highest aim must, of course, be granted; but to this ideal it must nevertheless be held, and any education must be regarded as defective in just the degree in which it fails to accomplish this aim. Religion, too, at its highest, as looking always to the fulfillment of the supreme personal relation, involves everywhere the full person- ality in its highest possible response; and, just so far as it attains its aim, must touch and quicken every faculty, must call out the entire man, volitionally, emotionally> intellectually. In the con- crete case, doubtless, religion also fails all too often to reach its final goal; but the power of the genuine religious experience to quicken to its best the entire personality of the man cannot be doubted. The ideal aims, therefore, both of education and religion, surely fall together. (2) If one compares religion and education, in the second place, as to means and spirit, a similar result is obtained. For, on the one hand, true education must offer, as I have elsewhere said, " the opportunity to use one's full powers in a wisely chosen complex en- vironment, in association with the best; and all this in an atmos- phere catholic in its interests, objective in spirit and method, and finely reverent in its personal relations." That is, the great means in the truest education are broad environment, work calling out the whole man, and personal association. The spirit demanded is catholic, objective, and loving. Now, if these means and this spirit are those properly demanded in true education, just these means and just this spirit, it must be said, in like manner hold throughout for religion also. That this is for the most part true would probably hardly be questioned by any; and it may be maintained that the parallel holds even as to the catholic and the objective spirit, where perhaps most question would arise. For, as to the first, we are coming to see with increasing clearness that the true spirit of the life of religion, as of the life of culture, must be that of a broad catholicity. As Wundt says, " The dangers that come with civilization can be met only by the further advance of civilization." Psychological investigation, in its insistence upon the necessity of a wide range of interests for the large and free and sane life, is forcing upon us everywhere the conviction that no ideal interest has anything to gain by exclusiveness; that it is not in the true interest of the sacred to attempt to draw a sharp line between the sacred and the secular; that, in point of fact, the denial of legitimate worldly interests only limits the possible sphere of morality and THE FUNDAMENTAL NATURE OF RELIGION 245 religion. Every attempt to preserve something as especially sacred by setting it apart from all the rest of life results inevitably in leaving it apart — out of vital contact with the rest of life, in failing to per- meate life with its power. This has happened, for example, again and again in false attempts to exalt the Bible. Religion must, rather, believe in itself so profoundly as to be certain that no part of the life and work of the world can come to its best except as it is permeated with the religious spirit. Religion, therefore, equally with education, must be catholic in its spirit. Not less earnest must be the insistence that, equally with educa- tion, the spirit of religion must be predominantly objective. It is indeed true that men have very commonly believed that the sphere of religion was preeminently a sphere for introspection; but, unless the whole modern study of man is mistaken in its clear conviction that in body and mind we are made for action, the sphere of introspection, even in religion, must be decidedly limited, and much more limited than has often been conceived to be the case. There is no doubt a place for a certain amount of self-examination, and it can be clearly indicated just what that place is. There should be, namely, just so much introspection as may make a man certain that he is really putting himself in the presence of the great objective forces that make for character and godliness. Having determined that, the less a man's gaze is turned in upon himself, the better both for his character and for his religion. It is not less true, then, in religion than in education, that the prevailing mood must be every- where the objective mood. As to both means and spirit, then, we may unhesitatingly conclude that the ideals, both of religion and of education, are in agreement. An education, thoroughgoing in the use of these means and com- pletely informed by such a spirit, cannot be really " godless." It is only shallow insight that can so see it. We need to insist only that the education shall be real education — education of the entire man. And religion, too, is so seen not to be some simply external thing that can be merely spliced on to life, but an essential factor, implying the greatest means and moved by the highest spirit. (3) If, in the third place, we compare religion and education as to method, it must be said that the ruling method in both is the same, — staying persistently in the presence of the best in each sphere of value. For education, conceived as culture, should give especially ability to enter into all values with appreciation and conviction, — conviction strong enough to be ready to pass into act. We can hardly ask less than this in any well-rounded education. No man can be called fully cultured to whom are closed the doors of any of the great kingdoms of worth. 246 RELIGION And religion, in like manner, asks that men should become suffi- ciently cultured to be able to appreciate Christianity — religion at its best. For all values finally go back to the riches of some personal life. We cannot be too often reminded that the best the world has ever shown us in literature, or music, or art, is but a partial revelation of the inner riches of some personal life. So Kaftan is in the habit of saying in his lectures at the University of Berlin, that the greatest problem of life is the problem of appreciative understanding of the great personalities of history. The highest conceivable culture, therefore, would be the culture that should enable a man to enter with appreciation and conviction into the deepest and most signifi- cant personal life of history; and the world is coming to see with greater clearness every day that that life is the life of Jesus Christ. The world of the beautiful and of art, therefore, one may properly hold with Browning, is but the ante-chamber of the temple of the full sharing of the life of God. The wise who waited there could tell By these, what royalties in store Lay one step past the entrance door. All partial beauty was a pledge Of beauty in its plentitude. And all thou dost enumerate Of power and beauty in the world, The mightiness of love was curled Inextricably about. Love lay within it and without, To clasp thee. All the world of the beautiful and of art is but a single rose thrown over the garden wall, as but a little hint of the infinite riches of the life of God. It is no accident that, for the most part, the best in sculpture, in architecture, in painting, in literature, and in music has been most closely connected with religion, and has found its highest inspiration there. And, where this is not the case, it must still often force itself upon the feeling of the thoughtful man that in any one of the arts, indeed, but especially in music at its greatest, the medium is too great for small passions. I suspect that I only voice the inner feeling and conviction of many another when I say that the music of the best love songs, for example, manifestly goes far beyond themselves; the music tells far more than the sentiment itself will bear. Nor can this seem strange to the man who can think as well as feel. For, after all, in the first place, in much we all live alone, a solitary life, shut up to ourselves and God. There is much, both of good and evil, in us that no other has ever known, that we could hardly con- THE FUNDAMENTAL NATURE OF RELIGION 247 ceivably reveal to any other. Only to God is the deepest in us " naked and laid open." And that means that only unto God can that complete revelation of ourselves be made that must underlie the deepest personal relation of which we are capable. Moreover, men are mastered in different degrees by two great contrary instincts — the instinct, on the one hand, of self-devotion; the instinct, on the other, of an insatiate thirst for love; and there is only one relation in which a man can give himself with absolute devotion, only one in which the response can wholly satisfy, if a man is fully awake to the real and ultimate meaning of his experiences. And this means that we are helpless in the face of the deepest instincts in us apart from God. " I came from God," George MacDonald makes one of his characters say, " and I'm going back to God, and I won't have any gaps of death in the middle of my life." It is natural, therefore, that only under the great motives of religion should the artistic medium be felt to be fully filled by the sentiment it carries. Even the esthetic power of our natures is swept in its full compass only by the undying religious appeal; because only a conviction essentially religious can assure us of the final and complete worthfulness of life. We need to be able to re- spond with some real conviction to the prophetic appeal: "Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee." " Lift up your heads, 0 ye gates; and be ye lifted up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in." (4) Once more, religion and education are most closely akin in the final results attained. The highest results of a true education are convictions and ideals. The danger, no doubt, of a shallow educa- tion is over-sophistication — the false tolerance that is essentially indifferentism, because the great fundamental convictions and ideals have lost their hold on the man. Nevertheless, if it is the business of a true education to fit for high and rational living, then it must still be true that the highest results to be demanded from such an education are convictions and ideals; and the deepest convictions and the highest ideals, it should be remembered, are those of religion. For no convictions go deeper, and none are more vital, than religion's great assertions of the love of God and the life of love; they are practically all-inclusive. And even education would have reached its highest conceivable result only in the establishment of these con- victions and their implied ideals. The real forces in education are persons, even on the intellectual side. The greatest results of educa- tion are convictions and ideals. And the supreme persons, convic- tions, and ideals are those of religion — are Christian. We may, then, reasonably conclude that in aim, in means and spirit, in method, and in results, religion and education may be said essentially to agree. And that is to say: It is not possible for us to 248 RELIGION stand strongly for education in its full modern sense, and not find ourselves driven to the recognition of essential religion. II. Religion and Ethics From this comparison, now, of religion and education, let us turn to the comparison of religion and ethics, and see here, too, how im- possible it is to conceive either at its best apart from the other. (1) For, on the one hand, if the true ethical life is the fulfillment of all personal relations, then an impartial and thoroughgoing ethics must involve religion. For the spirit of the life that means to throw itself with impartial loyalty into the fulfillment of all personal relations in which it finds itself, certainly cannot logically leave out the most fundamental and significant relation of all. And if there is a God at all, the relation in which we stand to him must be just that most fundamental and significant relation. Not to fulfill that relation is, then, not merely to have failed on the religious side, but to have failed in any consistent fulfillment of our acknowledged ethical aim. From this point of view ethics involves religion. (2) Or if, on the other hand, we look at the matter from the point of view of religion, we have here, too, to recognize that religion is the fulfillment of exactly that personal relation which gives reality and meaning and value to all other relations. These owe the very fact of their existence to the purpose of God; they owe their meaning to what he has put into them; and they have the value that is theirs only because he has so established it. To the man of religious con- viction, therefore, the religious position of one whom he loves be- comes inevitably the most important of all matters; because he knows that, in very fact, this relation to God is the one essential relation which, itself set right, sets all others right. The religious man believes, not without full warrant, that the man who has come into a true relation to the God of character revealed in Jesus Christ must thereby have put himself, in just that degree, into absolutely right relations with other men. The first and second, command- ments are indissoluble; and religion is here seen to involve ethics, as before ethics involved religion. (3) Indeed, if we strive to take the ethical laws simply as laws of our own nature, even so we can hardly help connecting them with the great ongoing righteous trend of the universe, else we could not reverence them; and this is an essentially religious conviction. For we must take the laws of our own being as at least a partial manifes- tation of the essential nature of things. We have not conferred our nature upon ourselves, and the laws which we find revealed in it are not of our own creation. We cannot, therefore, recognize them as carrying in any degree the consent of our reason and conscience THE FUNDAMENTAL NATURE OF RELIGION 249 without thereby rendering the tribute of our deepest reverence to this essential nature of things in its highest revelation in ourselves. Here, too, then, a conviction essentially religious underlies the ethical. Wundt's thoroughgoing study of The Facts of the Moral Life may be taken as confirming this result, in his insistence that " the whole development of human morality rests on the expression of these two fundamental impulses of human nature " — " the feelings of reverence and affection." Of these, one, at least, is distinctly religious. And how important the religious element is, Wundt bears witness when, in speaking earlier even of the development of the forms of human society, he says: " Here, again, it is the religious factors that constitute the most important of all aids to moral evolution, whether found within or without the sphere of morality itself. " x (4) For us Americans, too, there is an historical reason why we can hardly separate the ethical and the religious without a denial of ourselves. For our national character has had a religious basis, and has been plainly glorified thereby. When William Stoughton, in 1688, in words that John Fiske asserts must be taken as literally true, said of our Puritan ancestors, " God sifted a whole nation that he might send choice grain into the wilderness," he reminds us how great these founders of our national life were, and how transcen- dent was their service. And their greatness lay in their convictions and their conscience. And any " new Puritanism " in life needs beneath it the old Puritan religious convictions in their seership, in their prophet's sense of God and the "spiritual world as the realest of all realities, in their consequent sense of commission, vocation, divine calling — the apostle's sense of being called to an " imperish- able work in the world " — and in their resulting conviction of responsibility and accountability. This tremendous sense of the significance and value of life in the doing of the will of God as co-partners with him, — this sense had power, and must ever have power, to lift men above the petty and the prejudiced and the partisan. Macaulay was certainly no eulogist of the Puritans, but Macaulay saw that their " coolness of judgment and immutability of purpose " were " the necessary effects of their religious zeal." And, if we are to be worthy successors of worthy sires, we must bind our ethical life up indissolubly with their great religious con- victions. In truth, from whatever point of view we choose to consider them, if we look deeply into both, we can hardly fail to find that, in Wundt's words, " religion and morality tend more and more to blend in an inseparable unity." Religion is the sharing of the life of God, and no man may share the life of the God of character without character. 1 Pp. 226, 328. 250 RELIGION III. Religion and Life If there is any one emphasis of our time more powerful than the emphases upon education and the ethical, it is the emphasis on life. The demand for life, real, full, and satisfying, is the deepest instinct of our time. 'Tis life whereof our nerves are scant; More life and fuller, that I want. So far is this true, that Professor Leuba feels justified in saying, as the result of his study of the religious consciousness of the Protestant Anglo-Saxon: " The preservation and increase of life is the moving impulse as well of religion as of secular activity." In our search, then, for the fundamental nature of religion, let us turn from this comparison of religion and education, and of religion and ethics, to the comparison of religion and life, and let us see how surely a faith that is essentially religious logically underlies all our reasoning, all work worth doing, all strenuous moral endeavor, all earnest social service; how permeated with the religious, therefore, all life at its highest must be. (1) For, in the first place, a faith essentially religious logically un- derlies all our reasoning. For every argument that we can possibly make, especially concerning any of the greater interests of life, must go forward upon the double assumption of the consistency and the worth of the world. We can reason at all, only so far as we have already virtually asserted that the world is a world in which we can rationally think; and our most significant arguments require, as well, that we should add the faith that the world is a world in which we can rationally live. That, in other words, there is the unity and con- sistency of one truth and of a unified reason in the world, and an essential love at its heart that makes life abundantly worth living. And these two fundamental assumptions of all our reasoning are essentially religious convictions. That men often do not recognize these logical implications of their reasoning and may use with great complacency impersonal and irreligious language concerning their experience that will not bear thinking through — this is all too true ; but this does not alter the fact of the ultimate logical implications of their deepest thinking and living. The mere report, therefore, of the psychological facts of a man's religious experience, as he conceives it, is by no means the final step in any fundamental religious inquiry. (2) In the same way, a faith essentially religious underlies all work worth doing. For, as Paulsen says, speaking simply as a philo- sopher, " Whoever devotes his life to a cause believes in that cause; and this belief, be his creed what it may, has always something of THE FUNDAMENTAL NATURE OF RELIGION 251 the form of religion." " Hence," he adds/' faith infers that an inner connection exists between the real and the valuable within the domain of history, and believes that in history something like an immanent principle of reason or justice favors the right and the good and leads it to victory over all resisting forces."1 It is impossible, that is, for a man with full consciousness to throw himself enthusias- tically into a work which he regards from the start as absolutely hopeless. When, then, he takes up the work of his life calling, or the cause to which he devotes himself, as work really worth while, in which he can lose himself with joy, whether consciously or not, he is virtually asserting his faith in a plan larger than his own plan, the all-embracing plan of the on-going providence of God, which shall catch up the little fragments of his work into a larger whole and make them contribute, thus, to a goal greater than any that the man himself may set. To believe in the final worth of one's own work, then, logically implies a real belief in God. For " principles " and " plans " and " laws," so far as I am able to see, have no real existence that will bear thorough thinking, and can do nothing apart from Being that must be conceived ultimately in essentially personal terms. A fully religious conviction logically underlies all enthu- siastic work. (3) In all strenuous moral endeavor, in the fight for character for one's self, a faith essentially religious is in like manner involved. So Martineau asserts: " Nothing less than the majesty of God, and the power of the world to come, can maintain the place and sanctity of our homes, the order and serenity of our minds, the spirit of patience and tender mercy in our hearts." For here, once more, we shall not earnestly attempt a hopeless task. And if, in the surrender to the highest in us, we cannot believe that we thereby at the same time link ourselves to the highest in the universe, we shall not be able to reach that courage which gives promise of any high attainment. Only the highest motives are finally sufficient here. If our faith in the ultimate ethical trend of the great power back of the universe really breaks down, we shall hardly be able to keep our faith even in our own ideals. That this faith in the ethical trend of the universe is always con- sciously present, or even the need of it definitely felt in any recog- nized religious way, I am far from affirming. There may even be such a kind of intoxication with life itself, as should lead one, as in a recorded case, on the one hand, to deny any relation to God, and yet, on the other hand, to assert in the most varied and ardent ways, " I trust the laws that govern my destiny."2 And the emotional and general volitional state of such a one might conceivably be almost 1 Introduction to Philosophy, pp. 8, 9. 2 American Journal of Religious Psychology and Education, Vol. I, No. 1 , p. 72. 252 RELIGION ideal, for she expresses so deep a faith in the universe as fairly to rival the old Calvinistic test of willingness to be damned for the glory of God. But her intellectual perception of the real implications of her " faith-state/' I confess, does not seem to me all that is to be desired. That a successful business man should even report to Professor Leuba, " I have no religious need; I am devoid of religious feeling," — this is entirely conceivable. But the fact by no means proves that there is no such need, if the man is to be thoroughly and consistently rational in his thinking and living. There are great temperamental differences here, doubtless, and the very force of life in us may carry us over many thin places in our reasoning, without misgiving; but the fact remains that hopeful, courageous, moral endeavor logically requires the faith that we are not here at war with the ultimate purpose of things. (4) And, once more, a faith essentially religious logically underlies, in like manner, all earnest social service. I do not forget that, in the inconsistency of our natures, men may often go on in forgetfulness of the real significance of their actions, and in the strength of motives which they have at least formally denied. Nor do I forget that it is possible for social service itself to become, for the time being, even a kind of fad, and for the phrases of the new social consciousness of our time to become only a new cant. Nor do I forget that men in such unselfish service may honestly think of themselves, for a time, as not needing in any degree either the convictions or the consolations of religion. Nevertheless, when I try really to think the situation through, I am not able to doubt that Nash is right when he says: " Nothing save a settled and fervid conviction that the universe is on the side of the will . . . can give the will the force and edge suitable." For here, also, we shall not throw ourselves with all abandon into a task that we think either hopeless or worthless. And that means that we must have back of our social service the great religious con- victions of the love of God and the worth of men. We shall not attempt to dip out the ocean with a cup, and we shall not enter on a boundless social task in which there is no hope of accomplishing any permanent and large result. We must believe here that we work with God, in line with his own purpose, and that the mighty will of the living God is pledged to our attempt. So, too, must we believe that we ourselves and those for whom we work have a personality great enough to make the sacrifice rational. Let religious faith in the immortality of men be once thoroughly sapped, let men be once fulty persuaded that man is not a creature of the endless life, that he is not capable of an absolutely endless de- velopment, and that there is in his constitution no pledge of the eternal years, and the immortal hope dies down not only in us, but the THE FUNDAMENTAL NATURE OF RELIGION 253 value of all those for whom we labor is essentially lowered. It is not merely that our lives have lost value; the life of the other, also, has become comparatively worthless, and our self-sacrificing, altruistic service becomes vain and irrational. We shall not ultimately be capable of acts of supreme self-sacrifice on behalf of a creature merely of a day. And faith essentially religious, therefore, is neces- sitated, and, whether consciously or not, logically implied in all earnest social service. And when we have thus said that a religious faith logically under- lies all our reasoning, all work worth doing, all strenuous moral en- deavor, and all earnest social service, we have already asserted that religion is inseparable from life. Benjamin Kidd, in his study of social evolution, insists that " the evolution which is slowly proceed- ing in human society is not primarily intellectual, but religious in character." 1 And though he uses the term " religious " in the sense rather of the altruistic, his contention may surely be regarded as essentially correct; for, as we have just seen, this spirit of willing self-sacrifice for others builds on a faith really religious. Fairbairn's conclusion is, thus, thrust upon us: " Religion is the supreme factor in the organizing and regulating of our personal and collective life." We can hardly take a step in any direction that we can regard as really significant, without a virtual assertion of God, of the sanctity of his will, and of the worth of men. It is but an illustration of this inevitableness of religion that, in an introduction to a recent edition of Wesley's Journal, Hugh Price Hughes should say: " He who desires to understand the real history of the English people during the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries should read most carefully three books: George Fox's Journal, John Wesley's Journal, and John Henry Newman's Apologia pro Vita Sua. . . . The Religious Question cannot be ignored. It is the Question; in the deepest sense it is the only Question. It has always determined the course of history every where." To similar import, Brierley says, in the preface to his Problems of Living : " Spite of the modern assertion to the contrary, our problems of living are finally religious, and look to religion for their solution." Nor can this seem to the thoughtful man strange, when he thinks that, if religion is really communion with God, the fulfillment of that personal relation most essential to man, then religion can hardly fail to give the ideal conditions of the richest life. It is the great claim and challenge of Christ that he is come that men " may have life, and may have it abundantly." He welcomes just this test, and is willing to abide the issue. He brings, he says, not limitation of life, but life itself, the fullest, richest, largest life. 1 Social Evolution, p. 263. 254 RELIGION Or if, in harmony with the social consciousness of our time, we think of life as love, we have only struck the note of Christianity's most fundamental conviction. Or if, with Kaftan, we fincl the great problem and joy of life in the appreciative understanding of the great personalities of history, then in Christianity we are confronted again with the one great, central, supreme personality of Jesus Christ. Or, if we try to think of the highest conceivable goal of life, we can hardly set before ourselves anything greater than the possible sharing of the life of the infinite God. Compared with the infinity of the religious outlook, all other aims and goals are poor indeed. Or if, once more, we ask from psychology a statement of those ideal conditions of the richest life, and get its answer, — Reverent association, and work in which one can forget himself, — we can then hardly fail to see that exactly these greatest means and greatest con- ditions are given in religion. For here alone are the most intimate and unobtrusive association with the Spirit of the Highest, and work for the Kingdom of God — God given and large enough for a man to lose himself in it with joy. We are thus unavoidably brought to our conclusion, and to Christ's great insistence: Religion is life. " This is life eternal, that they should know thee, the only true God, and him whom thou didst send, even Jesus Christ." No doubt, the depth of a man's religion must depend on the depth of his conviction as to the significance of life, and his felt need of religion on the claim he makes on life. The man who requires little from life will have little conscious need of religion. But in just the proportion in which he awakes to the real meaning of the life into which he is called and of the true greatness of his own nature, in just that degree must he awake to the need of more than the finite can give — to the need of religion and to its indispensable contribution to life. What religion requires, above all, is not credulity, but simply that a man should be really awake. " Man's unhappiness," Carlyle says, " as I construe, comes from his greatness; it is because there is an Infinite in him, which, with all his cunning, he cannot quite bury under the Finite." He cannot satisfy the infinite though unconscious thirst of his nature with finite things. It «is no new heresy, then, though it has been so called, to assert that in this sense religion grows out of the claim on life. For it is, after all, only a modern echo of that great sentence of Augustine that has voiced the heart of the Church through the centuries: " Thou hast made us for Thyself, and our hearts are restless until they find rest in Thee." In our deepest nature, then, we are religious, and we cannot escape it. We were never meant to come to our best in inde- pendence either of our neighbor or of God. Man is alone the religious animal, and he cannot escape the demand of religion until he escapes THE FUNDAMENTAL NATURE OF RELIGION 255 from his deepest self. No wonder that Sabatier should say: " Man is incurably religious." Or that Royce should give " the highest worth to religion among the interests of humanity." Or that Coe should affirm: " Worship is so wrought into the fiber of our minds that we need only come to ourselves to find God." * Or that Granger should say, even in arguing for the right of free thought in matters of religion: " The religious sentiment needs no adventitious aids, for it is safe here to trust the unbiased instincts of mankind. So far as prophecy can reach, it seems certain that man will always worship and that the symbols of the Christian tradition will afford the ultimate vehicle of his devotion. " 2 We can hardly do less, there- fore, than to confess with George Macdonald: " Life and religion are one, or neither is anything. Religion is no way of life, no show of life, no observance of any sort. It is neither the food nor the medicine of being. It is life essential." Is religion of really fundamental importance, or can we easily dispense with it? No age ever believed more than our own in education, in the ethical, in life. No age ever demanded more imperiously the best that education, ethical living, and the richest experiences of life can give. And the truest thinking of our time indicates that into this best no age and no man may come without religion. We can- not dispense with religion; it is absolutely fundamental in its nature, 1 The Religion of a Mature Mind, p. 250. 2 International Journal of Ethics, October, 1903. THE EXPANSION OF RELIGION BY FRANCIS GREENWOOD PEABODY [Francis Greenwood Peabody, Plummer Professor of Christian Morals, since 1886, Harvard University, and Dean of the Divinitv School, b. Boston, Massa- chusetts, December 4, 1847. A.B. Harvard, "1869; A.M. ibid. 1872; D.D. Yale, 1886. Pastor, First Parish Church, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1874-80; Parkman Professor of Theology, Harvard Divinity School, 1880-86. Author of Mornings in the College Chapel; Afternoons in the College Chapel; Jesus Christ and the Social Question ; The Religion of an Educated Man ; Jesus Christ and the Christian Character.} I do not propose in this introductory paper to attempt any con- tribution to theological or philosophical science, or to discuss any specific application of religion. The first has been impressively ac- complished by the paper of President King; the latter will be pre- sented in many ways by the meetings which are to follow. I have in mind nothing more than a point of view, a cursory survey of the present horizon of religious opportunity, from which we may descend, with a sense of common understanding, to the consideration of the religious needs and problems of our own time. What is the message of the twentieth century to religion? What is the possible expansion which is offered to religion by the new conditions of a new age? No sooner does one thus approach the general characteristics of modern religious progress than he is confronted by the besetting sin of religious people, which has always obstructed the expansion of religion and still blocks the way to its larger use. This sin of the saints is neither moral obliquity, nor doubt, nor heresy, nor schism. It is provincialism; the dealing with a great theme as though it were a small one, the magnifying of the local until it shuts out the universal, the exaggeration of the unimportant, the loss of perspective, the failure to appreciate the dimensions of the purposes of God. A person of cosmopolitan experience finds himself some day in a secluded village. He listens to the conversation — the gossip of the highway, the parish, and the cottage hearth — and what most impresses him is the meagerness of the interests which most occupy these rustic minds. The cold and the crops, the price of hay and the gossip of the rival churches, — these things which are near shut out the re- moter concerns of the larger world; and the wars of nations and of industry, the achievements of science and art, excite less real emotion than the condition of the corn and the problems of the town-meeting. These interests are not fictitious or discreditable; they are simply provincial. This rural life is side-tracked from the main line of the world. The alert and energetic youth of this provincial village are drawn by the law of natural direction toward a larger centre where THE EXPANSION OF RELIGION 257 life may expand to diversity, comprehensiveness, richness, scope. Provincialism is not directed to the untrue, but to the unimportant. It is false perspective, like that which a Chinaman paints on a plate, where the man is larger than the bridge he crosses, and the bridge is larger than the castle it joins. The incorrect drawing of the picture of life crowds the foreground with details which are larger than the universe behind. The same defect of disproportion, or, in the language of economics, the limitation of spiritual output, meets one as he traces the history of the Christian religion. A person unfamiliar with the mechanics of religion who should enter some Christian convocation and listen to the hot debates of Christian ministers, might well find himself astonished by the narrow range of topics which seemed to command attention. What is this organization, he might ask, whose interests are here considered? Is it a piece of machinery, to be adjusted and repaired; is it a court, assigning its discipline and penalties; is it an army, with its uniforms and drills; is it a theater, with its search for a new sensation? It is not that these discussions are wholly illegiti- mate or superfluous. Organization involves orderliness; worship must have form. When, however, the spiritual is subordinated to the mechanical, and a way of inspiration regarded as a way of organi- zation, then there results provincialism, and religion is detached from the real interests of the modern world, as the small-talk of the village is detached from the great movements of the world. In the preface to the last edition of Professor Paulsen's Ethics he remarks that many controversies of theology recall to him a student's reply to an examiner's question concerning the occupations of the inhabitants of the Hebrides. " The people of the Hebrides," answered this youth, " obtain a meager subsistence by washing each other's clothes." A similar comment might be made on the issues which divide religious sects and claim the first place in conventions. The Christians, a looker-on might say, maintain a meager existence by washing, or soiling, or criticising each other's clothes. Even the highest themes of religion may be provincially approached. The purposes of God and the destiny of man, though they are the subjects of contemplation which environ human life like an atmos- phere, without which it is impossible to draw full breath or to hold one's soul erect, may become unreal, uninteresting, unrefreshing, provincial. The habit of mind induced by theology easily develops into a detached and specialized way of thought, unrelated to the common duty of the world; and the theologian may discourse of the highest concerns in a language quite unintelligible to the common work-a-day world. Even theology is but a province of life, though it be a province of lofty altitude and large horizon; and the air of 258 RELIGION these heights is to those who habitually dwell below not easy to breathe. Aerial navigation, though it fascinate its practitioner, has as yet but slight practical applicability to the plodding world be- low. It is not surprising that one of the leaders of American educa- tion was led not long ago to remark: " I am an attendant at church and a church member, but I very rarely hear anything in worship or preaching which appears to have any direct relation with the work I have to do." The provincialism of the Church had alienated this sympathetic mind. The busy world had swept him into its hurry- ing movement, and the methods of the Church had left her, as it were, on the banks of this swift stream, unmoved and orthodox perhaps, but high and dry upon the shore, while the new scenery of modern life unfolded itself to the modern man at every turn of the flowing river of time. If, then, it is provincialism which limits the effectiveness and obstructs the progress of religion, what is the call of the present time which religion must hear if it would hold its place among the con- structive forces of the world? It is the call to a larger interpretation of its own task, the call from provincialism to cosmopolitanism, from the limited to the universal, from religion for a part of life to religion for the whole of life, from a detached, specialized, guarded, esoteric faith to a faith which is the key of the world's work, its public con- cerns, and its private needs, its politics and industry, its education and art, its national, social, and domestic welfare, its real and con- temporary needs and cares and sins. This is the opportunity which the conditions of the twentieth century appear to offer to religion and which is reinforced by the philosophy, the science, the political movements, and the industrial changes of the modern world. The nineteenth century was a period of extraordinary development in the mechanical, external, and physical efficiency of the world. It was the age of science, of invention, of machinery, of political consolida- tion, of industrial organization, the period which made of human society in an unprecedented degree a fighting, producing, governing, administering machine. Religion had its part in this great movement toward mechanical effectiveness. It was the period of institutional churches, parish houses, denominational work, associated enterprise, conventions, conferences, delegations, committees. Never before did the machinery of the Christian Church work as well as it does now. It is the natural order of progress, first, that which is natural; afterward, that which is spiritual. The development of natural science, the acceptance of natural law, the interpretation of human society in terms of biology, the conception of the social organism with its many members, — all this which has marked the philosophy of the past century has had its effect upon religion and has given it also the aspect of a physical, biological, material organization, with THE EXPANSION OF RELIGION 259 a mechanical and external work to do. Does not such a period, however, though it be essential in the history of religion, bear on its very face the mark of preparatoriness, as though it were confessedly preliminary to a new movement of a new time? Does not the mechanism of nature, which has been so impressively taught by the nineteenth century, begin to disclose within itself a spiritual move- ment of which natural law is the symbol and expression? Is not the key of modern thought to be found in the dictum of Lotze, that mechanism in the universe is everywhere essential, yet everywhere subordinate? Are not the vast organizations of politics and in- dustry which have been devised within one generation now offering to the next generation a new possibility of industrial stability and peace? Is society a merely biological organism, as we were taught twenty years ago, or does the biological analogy, by its very insuffi- ciency disclose the essentially ethical nature of social forms? These are the new aspects of the world and its affairs which meet us as the new century begins. A spiritual significance within the machinery of the world, a penetration of the mechanical by the ideal, a renais- sance of ethical idealism, — these are the ways that now lie open to the philosophy and sociology of the time. The nineteenth century had for its theme the social body; the twentieth century has for its theme the social soul. The same demand for the spiritualization and expansion of the task is now laid upon religion. I have spoken of this as the religious opportunity of the present time. I had almost said that it was the last opportunity of organized religion. If the churches remain en- snared in the mechanism of their work, if they live in the era of organi- zation while philosophy and sociology are advancing to the era of spir- itualization, if they remain a separate, detached, provincial group, when the whole secular life of the world is learning the lessons of solidarity, fraternity, organic unity, then they must expect to forfeit the right to primacy among the creative influences of the new world and to become simply the refuges of the disheartened and the senti- mental. Religion in all ages has the same central reality, the com- munion of the individual soul with God. The teaching of Jesus was fundamentally for the individual. It sought the one sheep; it rejoiced over each one that was found. The first discovery of Jesus was the significance of the individual. The first duty of the Christian is to practice the presence of God. All this makes a reli- gious heritage which no change of the centuries can alienate or supplant. Religion, if possessed at all, is a personal possession. " The kingdom of God is within you." Because the centre, however, is the same, the circumference is not unchangeable. Religion does not become less personal because it becomes more universal. Per- sonal religion is not antiquated or outgrown because personal religion 260 RELIGION finds itself in a universe of hitherto unrecognized religious significance. Religion has not less to do in the new world, but finds a new range of interpretative power. The soul is not less because the world is more. It is like the transition from the Ptolemaic to the Copernican conception of the solar system. Instead of a personal centre round which the whole world of circumstance revolves, the person finds himself to-day in an infinitely larger system, set in his own orbit within a universe of other souls ; and the grandeur and sanctity of this comprehensive law holds him to his own place with a new authority. Such is the expansion of religion. The one sheep is not lost or overlooked because it is gathered into the one fold. The practice of the presence of God is no longer to be attained by retreat from the world, but by service of the world. Religion is to be rescued from provincialism. The kingdom of God is to be not only within but to come on earth as it has come in heaven. The Church has heard much of religion as apart from the world; it is called to the discovery of the religious significance of the world itself, from aban- donment of the world to interpretation of the world, from what the older theologians called the " body of doctrine " to what is now designed as the soul of doctrine, from the provincialism of religion to the comprehensiveness of God. The religion of earlier centuries has found its mission in saving the soul from the world; the religious mission of the twentieth century is to be the salvation of the soul of the world. Let us consider, then, some of the ways in which this expansion of religion in the twentieth century may occur. The first and most obvious redemption from religious provincial- ism is by deliverance from sectarianism. During the last century many ways of uniting the fragments of the Christian Church have been devised which were consistent with an age of machinery. It has' seemed as though, with a little yielding here and there, an arrangement of ordination, a phrasing of creed, a shifting of organi- zation, a divided church might be reconstructed into a single machine. It had been a disheartening enterprise. The purpose of Jesus, it now seems plain, cannot be expressed in the language of the nine- teenth century. He did not prescribe an organization; he communi- cated inspiration; his call was not to uniformity but to life. The sects which have issued from his influence have not been mechanical failures which should now be supplanted by more modern machines; they have been, for the most part, results of great spiritual awaken- ings, of new vistas of insight, of brave sacrifices for reality, simplicity, piety, and truth. Words like Methodism, Quakerism, Puritanism, do not recall historical events which should be forgotten or depre- ciated, but are memorials of lofty experiences, deep movements of the Spirit, genuine revivals of forgotten elements in the teaching of THE EXPANSION OF RELIGION 261 Jesus Christ. The evil of sectarianism is not, therefore, in the ex- ternal divisions which it permits. It is no more to be anticipated that there shall be one form of religious expression than that there shall be one language, one nation, or one form of government. The evil of sectarianism is its provincialism, the assumptions and con- tentions which proceed from the shut-in life, the isolation of spirit which breeds ignorance or contempt of the larger purposes of God. The sects are not to be distinguished from each other as false and true. They are, as it were, cross sections through religion. Each is true when looked at as a section, yet each is but a fragment of the growing whole. " Nothing is diviner in the Christ," says one of the greatest of modern theologians, " than the impossibility of identify- ing him with any church, though he is in all." The deliverance from sectarianism is to be attained, not by patching and softening and compromising and reorganizing, but by the simple appreciation of the magnitude and many-sidedness of the revelation of God to men. It is not a matter of a better machine, but of the expansion of motive power within the machine. Christian unity is not to be attained by a consent to opinion, but by an ascent to a larger horizon. It is not the giving up of much, but the believing more. It is rescued from provincialism by discovering the comprehensiveness of God. The expansion of religion is, further, the problem now confronting the Christian Church in its missionary activity. The audacious dream of a world made obedient to Christ has, during the nineteenth century, taken shape in a vast business enterprise, magnificently conceived, lavishly endowed, and sagaciously organized. Never before was missionary machinery so well devised or its operation so smooth. Yet together with the new mechanism for the conversion of the world has come a new respect for the world, and a new ap- preciation of other religions which have been long conceived of as forms of spiritual blindness. Refined and subtle philosophies, great historic personalities, and noble literature, have become a new pos- session of the western world. What is to be the effect of this new knowledge upon Christian missions? Does it make them super- fluous and intrusive? Does the new recognition of the unity of the world extinguish missionary zeal? On the contrary, this expansion of religious appreciation is the essential preliminary of rational missionary progress. Many missionary undertakings, with all their heroism, have been provincial in spirit. They have assumed a contrast of absolute truth with unmixed error, of light with dark- ness, where are now known to have been sages, scholars, mystics, great literatures, and great traditions, sources of instruction as much as objects of missionary effort. What an expansion of opportunity, what a new demand for insight, appreciation, and comprehensive- ness, is thus demanded of the message of Christianity! Other 262 RELIGION religions may be the technical possession of priests and adepts; the Christian religion recognizes the sanctity of the whole of life, and sends out not alone its preaching missionaries, but its medical mis- sionaries, its teaching missionaries, yes, even its mercantile mis- sionaries, who shall rescue trade from trickery and teach the religion of commercial life. Christian missions are called to stand among the traditions and resources of an unChristianized world, and to say of it what St. Paul said as he stood before the men of Athens: " I perceive that ye are exceedingly devoted to religion. Whom there- fore ye worship at a single altar I declare unto you as the God who made the world and all things therein." It is not, however, within the specialized activities of religion that its expansion is most clearly indicated by the signs of the time. Beyond the interior discipline and technical tasks of organized religion lies the great world of human life, stretching like concentric circles round the sphere of religion, as though the island of faith were set in a great and stormy sea. Nearest to the shore of religion lies the circle of the home, with its problems of domestic integrity and domestic instability; beyond stretches the circle of social classes, with its diverse conditions of luxury and want; still further on the horizon lie the problems of industry, the toil of the millions and the wealth of the few; and beyond all extends the scene of political agitation and the storms that threaten national life. What have all these to do with religion, or rather, what has religion to do with all these? They are the scene of the expansion of religion for which the times are ready. It is not a question of outgrowing personal religion. The message of life is still to the individual. It is not a change of the centre, but an extension of the radius of religion. Is religion applicable to those new issues of a new world; is it large enough to cover the whole of life? Must it remain a personal pos- session, to be hoarded and prized for its uses within the soul; or may it be applied as a form of power for the redemption of the world? Was the purpose of Jesus restricted to the individual, or, as he looked out upon his mission, did he say, " The field is the world "? Is re- ligion to remain provincial, an island of security set in an unexplored sea; or, is that island life to breed brave navigators, so that not alone the island but the uttermost parts of the sea shall be colonized by faith? Shall we still draw a line between the secular and the sacred? Is there not a religious significance in social life, a religious interpre- tation of social problems? Here is this extraordinary force which has already proved sufficient to convert and recreate unnumbered separate souls. Must it be dissipated like escaping steam in pious utterances, or may it be applied within the mechanism of the world, and by its expansion give new momentum to the world's work? These are the questions which confront religion as the age of organi- THE EXPANSION OF RELIGION 263 zation and mechanism comes to its close and religion asks for a larger work to do. It is interesting to observe that religion has already taken its first steps of expansion, and has annexed to its territory some outlying provinces of the modern world. It has recognized, for example, the religious significance of the family, and has ventured out into that first circle of social duty. It has proposed better laws, better comity between churches, more scrupulous administration, closer scrutiny of the teaching of Jesus. Yet in this consciousness of social peril there still exists the provincial impression that religion is proceeding beyond its own proper sphere, as into foreign territory which may be adjacent, but is not its own. Shall, then, the home be regarded as a product of law and custom, to be safeguarded and shattered by legislatures and courts; or is it a part of the field of religion, his- torically created by moral sacrifices and restraints, maintained by the ideals of faith and love, and in the hands of religion to secure or corrupt? The relation of religion to the home is not that of one institution patronizing another institution or crossing the boundary into a foreign land. On the contrary, the home is a religious institu- tion, and behind all legislative questions which concern the home lies the religious problem of creating in the home a type of the Christian religion. The stability of modern marriage is not to be accom- plished by mechanical devices of law, but by a return from ostenta- tion to simplicity, from laxity to loyalty, from the thought of the home as a commercial venture to the thought of the home as a moral opportunity. The problem of religion in the twentieth century is to annex the province of the family, and the order of procedure in this expansion of religion is to be, not, first the adjustment of ritual and regulations to be applied to the family, but first the restora- tion of domestic integrity within the family as an essential part of a healthy, religious life. A second circle of social activity has already felt the expansion of religion. It is the circle of philanthropy, the sense of responsibility for the weaker members of the social body, the supplementing of the survival of the fit by the revival of the unfit. In all the centuries of Christian history the instinct of compassion has accompanied the life of faith. " If a man love not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen? " Yet how provincial has been the mind of the Christian Church as it has considered this expansion of its mission! It is as though philanthropy were, after all, an accessory enterprise, which might be becoming for Christians to undertake, but which lay beyond the distinctive sphere and es- sential task of the Church. I stood one day in a Women's Settlement House, the most unimpeachable form of self-effacing service which modern philanthropy has devised, and a minister of the Christian 264 RELIGION religion, looking about him for some technical expression of ec- clesiastical loyalty, remarked: "This is very touching, but I wish there were more of Christ in it." How could there be more of Christ, one asked himself, than in such a work, just as it was, without tech- nical confession or provincial limitation. Would not the Master, were he to walk those streets, pass with indifference many a great temple built in his name, and laying his hands of blessing on these ministering women, say, "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto these least, ye have done it unto me" ? Is modern charity, in other words, an enterprise into which persons being already religious may venture as into a foreign land where one meets new customs and new lan- guages, or does it lie within the natural boundaries of religion, a home-country whose language is the language of faith, and which needs no apology, or symbol, or flag, to bring it within the kingdom of God? These steps in the expansion of religion are, however, in large degree already taken, though not always recognized. It is otherwise with the further circles of modern life, the industrial and political problems of the new century. Here is the most stormy and least explored sea of the modern world, and the Christian Church still stands and looks out to the tumultuous waves and conflicting currents of this sea as though it stood on the shore of its little island and watched a vessel driving toward the rocks. Something, the Church knows, ought to be done by religion which may save, not single lives alone, but the ship itself; yet how shall faith and love venture into so dangerous a sea? What means of help, what skill in salvage have they, what training to take command of so large a venture? Precisely at this point, however, the new opportunity is offered to religion to justify its claim to leadership, sacrifice, wisdom, and saving power. Here is precisely what religion in the modern world is meant to do, — not to sit securely on the shore of the time, but to learn the currents and perils of the surrounding sea, to rescue from its dis- asters, to pilot to its ports. The industrial life of the present age does not lie beyond the province of the Church. It is the Church which is provincial when it permits industry to regard itself as Godless, irredeemable, remote. When Jesus stood one day with his little company of friends by the Lake of Galilee the meager use of their great opportunity seems to have impressed his mind, and he used the language of their vocation as a parable of the work they had to do. "Launch forth," he bade them, "into the deep, and let down your nets for a draught." They had been fishing along the shores of their opportunity, and he called them to do business in great waters. They had been as those who caught minnows, and he meant them to be fishers of men. It is the call which comes again from the present age to a timid Church — Launch forth into the deep. THE EXPANSION OF RELIGION 265 The place of religion in the modern world is not along the shores, but among its vicissitudes and storms. The industrial agitations of the time are a summons to the courage and daring of the Church. What is the fundamental reason for our present industrial discontent? It is to be discovered in the obvious fact that neither party to the in- dustrial conflict manifests the slightest intention of any application of religion to business affairs. Many such combatants are religious men, but the world of their business appears to lie quite beyond the sphere of their religion; and in this divided life it is inevitable that business should become a mere state of war, and religion should seem to an increasing number formal, technical, or fictitious. One of the most extraordinary aspects of modern industry is the passionate devotion with which thousands have given themselves to a programme of industrial revolution and the abolition of private capital. What is there in socialism which gives it this emotional quality? On its face it involves a mere change of ownership, a new distribution of production. Why is it that men willingly sacrifice themselves for such a cause? It is because it is the nearest substitute, they have discovered for a religion. A religion of materialism it may be that the}T have reached, a pathetic substitute for Christian faith; yet so long as the Christian Church regards the world of industry as foreign territory, so long those who are inextricably involved in the indus- trial order will create a new religion for themselves. The growth of socialism is an indictment of religion. It is the working-man's answer to religious provincialism. Finally, the same situation presents itself in the political conditions of the present time. In the most unanticipated and dramatic manner the movement toward organization, concentration, and efficiency, which has dominated industry, now controls national progress. The questions which confront the nations are questions of world-politics. Political expansion has become not so much a policy to debate as a condition from which it is impossible to retreat. But what does political expansion indicate as the task of religion? It is often affirmed that it opens the way for the Church to follow. When other agencies have done their work, religion may reap the harvest. Such a view of religion, as technical, specialized, detached from politics and business, is sheer provincialism. Religion cannot be carried to a foreign nation after the politicians and the traders have opened the way. It is in and through the spirit of conquest, and through the conduct of commercial life, that religion must express itself. Its missions will be viewed as mere hypocrisy and formalism unless its rulers, soldiers, and exploiters are honest, just, and merciful. It is not after the statesmen have finished that the Church begins, but it is in that which the statesmen do that the religion they represent is weighed. Politics is not extraneous to 266 RELIGION religion, a foreign invasion to be followed by international peace; it is itself a part of the religion. The detachment of political inexpedi- ency from religious ideals is the gravest indictment which can be made, not so much against the politics as against the religion of a land. In beginning the biography of Gladstone, Mr. Morley calls attention to the essentially religious character of this great political career. " He steadfastly strove," says his biographer, " to apply the nobler moralities of his church to the affairs of his own nation and of the commonwealth of nations. . . . Well was it said of him, ' You have so lived and wrought that you have kept the soul alive in England.' " That is the expansion of religion for which modern politics waits. The highest problem of the statesman is to keep the soul alive in his own nation and in the commonwealth of nations; and this, which is political greatness, is at the same time the largest expression of religion. Such, then, is the call of the twentieth century to the religious life. Other centuries have been preparing the way for this expansion. Never before could the world of industry and politics be surveyed as one world, or the movement of the ages invite religion so urgently to a new enlargement of its sphere. Yet shall we speak of this ex- pansion of religion as a new ideal? On the contrary, this conception of the unity of the world and this spiritual interpretation of its affairs was precisely the vision which lay before the mind of Jesus Christ in his teaching concerning the kingdom of God. Involved in Oriental imagery as his thought inevitably was, and directed at one time toward present circumstances and at another toward an ideal future, the fundamental note of the teaching of Jesus was his faith in the possibility of a consecrated world, when the will of God should be done on earth as in heaven, and out through all the circles of human association should radiate the controlling power of the con- sciousness of God. How distorted and shrunken has been at times the thought of the Church concerning the kingdom of God! The largeness of the purpose of Jesus has made it inconceivable to a shut-in world. He has been thought to proclaim an ecclesiastical organization, or an internal experience, or a glorious future in heaven for the saints, and it is quite true that all these aspects of the king- dom issue legitimately from his teaching. It seems to have been reserved, however, for the present age to appreciate the dimension of the kingdom of God. The unity of the world is a prerequisite for the recognition of the scope of religion. Social organization, industrial combination, political concentration, — these great events of the last century prepare us to discern, as it has been disclosed to no other generation in Christian history, the vision which dominated the mind of Jesus of a whole world — its homes, its business, its politics, its personal hopes and fears — penetrated and spiritualized THE EXPANSION OF RELIGION 267 by the consciousness of God and the desire to do his will. " In those days," says the first record of his mission, " Jesus came into Galilee preaching the kingdom of God." The words which thus begin the gospels are words written for the present age. In these days also religion is called from its provincialism to preach the gospel of the kingdom of God. And how is it, finally, that this expansion of religion is to proceed in this or in any age? What is to be the instrument of this enlarge- ment, the dynamic of the kingdom of God? It has been sought in many ways consistent with the spirit of the last century, through instruction in doctrine, through ecclesiastical machinery, through the discipline and organization of the Church; and all these enter- prises have their place as preparations for the kingdom. When, however, one recalls the teaching of Jesus, he is astonished to observe how slightly the Master concerned himself for the machinery of his mission. He did not organize or discipline or even instruct in a deliberate form. He communicated himself. He trusted every- thing to the contagion of personality. He left all else to those who had been touched by him, perfectly sure that the Holy Spirit which the Father would send in his name would lead them into all truth. It is the same to-day. The kingdom of God, the expansion of religion through all the circles of human need, is not to be a new achieve- ment of mechanism, but a new experience of the Holy Spirit. Per- sonal religion is the key to social religion. It inherits the past, but it creates the future. Other centuries have converted the soul of the individual; the problem of the present age is to apply the converted soul to the conversion of the soul of the world. " I sanctify myself," said Jesus, — it was the secret of his power, — but he goes on to say, " For their sakes I sanctify myself." The sanctified life becomes the serviceable life, and in that perfect service finds its perfect freedom. The religious life rises, like some secluded stream, in the quiet con- sciousness of the single soul; yet it hurries down toward the world of men, as though it asked what further work it had to do. It sanctifies itself for others' sakes, and as it flows it joins with many another stream hastening like itself. Below waits the great plain of the world, with its busy multitudes and their unsanctified toil, thirsty for some spiritual meaning in their flat, dull lives. Out into the plain of human life flows the expanding stream of religion. It is no foreign land which it thus waters, but the valley whither, by the law of its own motion, it was meant to run. Here is the work which it was meant to do. This is the end for which the springs in the wilderness pour forth their unpolluted life. The enlarging stream finds at last the purpose of its own creation, and as it flows sings to itself the Master's message, " I am coming that these may have my life and may have it abundantly." SECTION A GENERAL RELIGIOUS EDUCATION SECTION A GENERAL RELIGIOUS EDUCATION (Hall 11, September 24, 3 p. m.) Chairman: Professor Edwin D. Starbuck, Earlham College, Richmond, Indiana. Speakers: Professor George A. Coe, Northwestern University. Dr. Walter L. Hervey, Examiner, Board of Education, New York City. THE REASON AND THE FUNCTIONS OF GENERAL RELIGIOUS EDUCATION BY GEORGE ALBERT COE [George Albert Coe, John Evans Professor of Moral and Intellectual Philosophy, Northwestern University, b. Mendon, New York, March 26, 1862. A.B. University of Rochester, 1884; A.M. ibid. 1888; S.T.B. Boston University, 1887 ; Graduate student, ibid. 1887-88; Jacob Sleeper Fellow, Boston Uni- versity, studying at Berlin, 1890-91; Ph.D. Boston University, 1891. Pro- fessor of Philosophy, University of Southern California, 1888-90; Lecturer on Religious Education at Harvard University Summer School of Theology. Associate Editor of American Journal of Religious Psychology and Education. Member of American Psychological Association, American Philosophical Asso- ciation. Author of The Spiritual Life; The Religion of a Mature Mind; Education in Religion and Morals.] How education in religion can be provided for the whole people in the modern state is undoubtedly a problem of great practical diffi- culty. Yet the more serious and decisive question is whether we really wish to provide such education. That the people will find a way to it whenever they are convinced of its paramount importance cannot be doubted. The most disturbing feature of our present situation, accordingly, is not so much practical obstacles like that presented by the separa- tion of the Church from the state as confusion or inconclusiveness in current thinking about both religion and education. Our age has caught glimpses of inspiring religious ideas, but it has not effectually harnessed them to the car of human progress. We have wrought out truths of widest import regarding education- and the teaching process; we have taken some pains to study the child, and we have not been wanting in zeal for improving the machinery of the schools ; yet in only a limited and over-cautious way have we tried to unify the aims and processes of the school with our world-view and with the fundamental aims of life. We shall not proceed far in the attempt to unify these factors in' 272 GENERAL RELIGIOUS EDUCATION our thinking and our practice before we perceive that the relation between religion and education is so close that the problem of the nature and place of one includes the problem of the nature and place of the other also. Solve one problem and you solve the other with it. That " education " and " religious education " are treated on this programme and in our every-day thinking as different concep- tions is due simply to historical incidents that have temporarily divided what is properly one and inseparable. The secularization of education that has been in progress for the last century is not to be regarded as a wanton or deliberate violation of principle, either religious or educational. It is rather an un- avoidable incident of the coming of the people to self-consciousness and self-government. From of old, civil authority, religion, and learning, all alike descended upon the people from sources above them. Then came modern democracy, according to the inner principle of which the whole of culture should be found springing up from within the free mind and heart of man. What had been de- termined for the people by external imposition was now to be determined by them through self-imposition. Yet this principle could not be practically applied at once to the whole circle of life, nor could its true limitations be clearly defined. The principle could be put into practice only by limiting its application. Then was repeated the old story of conquering by dividing. There was ready at hand in religious thought a conception of a divided world, the world of the sacred and the world of the secular. This con- ception was now to receive its widest application and its severest test. Undertaking to govern themselves in the sphere of the secular, the people continued to think of things sacred as something separate therefrom and as coming to them from a realm beyond rather than as arising, like secular interests, from the nature and circumstances of human life. Both Catholicism and Protestantism took this view. However much they differed as to the nature and extent of spiritual authority, they agreed in placing the affairs of religion apart from the affairs of nature and the secular life. This distinction, though the thought of to-day declares it to be artificial rather than real, made possible the modern free state and the modern state school. The secularization of education, therefore, is so far from involving any radical depar- ture from religion that it is, in fact, an application of what religion herself has taught. Nor is the secularization of education so much a retrograde step as an, as yet, only partially accomplished forward movement. It is difficult to see how free schools for the whole people, supported by self-imposed taxation of the whole people, could ever have become a fact in our divided Christendom without belief in the existence of a FUNCTIONS OF RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 273 neutral ground like the purely secular. Our progress here has been like that of a mountain-climber who goes forward now and then by stepping momentarily upon stones or sands that move under his feet ; or that of a skater who glides over ice that is too thin to bear his weight. Such movement is not only possible but also safe provided one move fast enough. Just so the secularization of education may be wholesome, provided we proceed promptly beyond it without try- ing to rest in it. That it offers no resting place is certain alike from the religious and the educational point of view. If we approach the matter from the standpoint of religion, our fundamental consideration will have to be the idea of God that has been achieved through reflection upon our human experiences and through the study of external nature. The old separation of the sacred from the secular reflected the then current notion of the Divine Being. There are two worlds, it was thought, - — the world of nature, and the world of the divine presence or supernature. Two educations logically followed, one conducted by the natural man organized as the state, the other by the Church as the representative of God. But the religious as well as the scientific thought of our day recognizes only one world. Religion is proclaim- ing that we have not to ascend into the heavens or descend into the depths to reach God. His dwelling-place is all reality, all experience. He comes to the soul, as an American writer has said, " without bell." He is in immediate and essential relation to the whole of nature, the whole of history, the whole of each personality. This conception justifies the remark that