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diff --git a/36774-8.txt b/36774-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3239a52 --- /dev/null +++ b/36774-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8894 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Teacher, by +George Herbert Palmer and Alice Freeman Palmer + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Teacher + Essays and Addresses on Education + +Author: George Herbert Palmer + Alice Freeman Palmer + +Release Date: July 17, 2011 [EBook #36774] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TEACHER *** + + + + +Produced by Katherine Ward, Jonathan Ingram, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + + + + +THE TEACHER + +ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES ON EDUCATION + + +BY GEORGE HERBERT PALMER AND ALICE FREEMAN PALMER + + + BOSTON AND NEW YORK + HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY + The Riverside Press Cambridge + 1908 + + COPYRIGHT, 1908, BY GEORGE HERBERT PALMER + ALL RIGHTS RESERVED + _Published November 1908_ + + SECOND IMPRESSION + + + + +PREFACE + + +The papers of this volume fall into three groups, two of the three being +written by myself. From my writings on education I have selected only +those which may have some claim to permanent interest, and all but two +have been tested by previous publication. Those of the first group deal +with questions about which we teachers, eager about our immeasurable art +beyond most professional persons, never cease to wonder and debate: What +is teaching? How far may it influence character? Can it be practiced on +persons too busy or too poor to come to our class-rooms? To subjects of +what scope should it be applied? And how shall we content ourselves with +its necessary limitations? Under these diverse headings a kind of +philosophy of education is outlined. The last two papers, having been +given as lectures and stenographically reported, I have left in their +original colloquial form. A group of papers on Harvard follows, preceded +by an explanatory note, and the volume closes with a few papers by Mrs. +Palmer. She and I often talked of preparing together a book on +education. Now, alone, I gather up these fragments. + + + + +CONTENTS + + + PAGE + I. PROBLEMS OF SCHOOL AND COLLEGE + I. The Ideal Teacher 3 + II. Ethical Instruction in the Schools 31 + III. Moral Instruction in the Schools 49 + IV. Self-Cultivation in English 72 + V. Doubts About University Extension 105 + VI. Specialization 123 + VII. The Glory of the Imperfect 143 + + II. HARVARD PAPERS + VIII. The New Education 173 + IX. Erroneous Limitations of the Elective System 200 + X. Necessary Limitations of the Elective System 239 + XI. College Expenses 272 + XII. A Teacher of the Olden Time 283 + + III. PAPERS BY ALICE FREEMAN PALMER + XIII. Three Types of Women's Colleges 313 + XIV. Women's Education in the Nineteenth Century 337 + XV. Women's Education at the World's Fair 351 + XVI. Why Go to College? 364 + + + + +I + +PROBLEMS OF SCHOOL AND COLLEGE + + + + +I + +THE IDEAL TEACHER + + +In America, a land of idealism, the profession of teaching has become +one of the greatest of human employments. In 1903-04 half a million +teachers were in charge of sixteen million pupils. Stating the same +facts differently, we may say that a fifth of our entire population is +constantly at school; and that wherever one hundred and sixty men, +women, and children are gathered, a teacher is sure to be among them. + +But figures fail to express the importance of the work. If each year an +equal number of persons should come in contact with as many lawyers, no +such social consequences would follow. The touch of the teacher, like +that of no other person, is formative. Our young people are for long +periods associated with those who are expected to fashion them into men +and women of an approved type. A charge so influential is committed to +nobody else in the community, not even to the ministers; for though +these have a more searching aim, they are directly occupied with it but +one day instead of six, but one hour instead of five. Accordingly, as +the tract of knowledge has widened, and the creative opportunities +involved in conducting a young person over it have correspondingly +become apparent, the profession of teaching has risen to a notable +height of dignity and attractiveness. It has moved from a subordinate to +a central place in social influence, and now undertakes much of the work +which formerly fell to the church. Each year divinity schools attract +fewer students, graduate and normal schools more. On school and college +instruction the community now bestows its choicest minds, its highest +hopes, and its largest sums. During the year 1903-04 the United States +spent for teaching not less than $350,000,000. + +Such weighty work is ill adapted for amateurs. Those who take it up for +brief times and to make money usually find it unsatisfactory. Success is +rare, the hours are fixed and long, there is repetition and monotony, +and the teacher passes his days among inferiors. Nor are the pecuniary +gains considerable. There are few prizes, and neither in school nor in +college will a teacher's ordinary income carry him much above want. +College teaching is falling more and more into the hands of men of +independent means. The poor can hardly afford to engage in it. Private +schools, it is true, often show large incomes; but they are earned by +the proprietors, not the teachers. On the whole, teaching as a trade is +poor and disappointing business. + +When, however, it is entered as a profession, as a serious and difficult +fine art, there are few employments more satisfying. All over the +country thousands of men and women are following it with a passionate +devotion which takes little account of the income received. A trade aims +primarily at personal gain; a profession at the exercise of powers +beneficial to mankind. This prime aim of the one, it is true, often +properly becomes a subordinate aim of the other. Professional men may +even be said to offer wares of their own--cures, conversions, court +victories, learning--much as traders do, and to receive in return a kind +of reward. But the business of the lawyer, doctor, preacher, and teacher +never squares itself by equivalent exchange. These men do not give so +much for so much. They give in lump and they get in lump, without +precise balance. The whole notion of bargain is inapplicable in a sphere +where the gains of him who serves and him who is served coincide; and +that is largely the case with the professions. Each of them furnishes +its special opportunity for the use of powers which the possessor takes +delight in exercising. Harvard College pays me for doing what I would +gladly pay it for allowing me to do. No professional man, then, thinks +of giving according to measure. Once engaged, he gives his best, gives +his personal interest, himself. His heart is in his work, and for this +no equivalent is possible; what is accepted is in the nature of a fee, +gratuity, or consideration, which enables him who receives it to +maintain a certain expected mode of life. The real payment is the work +itself, this and the chance to join with other members of the profession +in guiding and enlarging the sphere of its activities. + +The idea, sometimes advanced, that the professions might be ennobled by +paying them powerfully, is fantastic. Their great attraction is their +removal from sordid aims. More money should certainly be spent on +several of them. Their members should be better protected against want, +anxiety, neglect, and bad conditions of labor. To do his best work one +needs not merely to live, but to live well. Yet in that increase of +salaries which is urgently needed, care should be used not to allow the +attention of the professional man to be diverted from what is +important,--the outgo of his work,--and become fixed on what is merely +incidental,--his income. When a professor in one of our large +universities, angered by the refusal of the president to raise his +salary on his being called elsewhere, impatiently exclaimed, "Mr. +President, you are banking on the devotion of us teachers, knowing that +we do not willingly leave this place," the president properly replied, +"Certainly, and no college can be managed on any other principle." +Professional men are not so silly as to despise money; but after all, it +is interest in their work, and not the thought of salary, which +predominantly holds them. + +Accordingly in this paper I address those only who are drawn to teaching +by the love of it, who regard it as the most vital of the Fine Arts, who +intend to give their lives to mastering its subtleties, and who are +ready to meet some hardships and to put up with moderate fare if they +may win its rich opportunities. + +But supposing such a temper, what special qualifications will the work +require? The question asked thus broadly admits no precise answer; for +in reality there is no human excellence which is not useful for us +teachers. No good quality can be thought of which we can afford to +drop. Some day we shall discover a disturbing vacuum in the spot which +it left. But I propose a more limited problem: what are those +characteristics of the teacher without which he must fail, and what +those which, once his, will almost certainly insure him success? Are +there any such essentials, and how many? On this matter I have pondered +long; for, teaching thirty-nine years in Harvard College, I have each +year found out a little more fully my own incompetence. I have thus +been forced to ask myself the double question, through what lacks do +I fail, and in what direction lie the roots of my small successes? Of +late years I think I have hit on these roots of success and have +come to believe that there are four of them,--four characteristics which +every teacher must possess. Of course he may possess as many more as +he likes,--indeed, the more the better. But these four appear +fundamental. I will briefly name them. + +First, a teacher must have an aptitude for vicariousness; and second, an +already accumulated wealth; and third, an ability to invigorate life +through knowledge; and fourth, a readiness to be forgotten. Having +these, any teacher is secure. Lacking them, lacking even one, he is +liable to serious failure. But as here stated they have a curiously +cabalistic sound and show little relation to the needs of any +profession. They have been stated with too much condensation, and have +become unintelligible through being too exact. Let me repair the error +by successively expanding them. + +The teacher's art takes its rise in what I call an aptitude for +vicariousness. As year by year my college boys prepare to go forth into +life, some laggard is sure to come to me and say, "I want a little +advice. Most of my classmates have their minds made up about what they +are going to do. I am still uncertain. I rather incline to be a teacher, +because I am fond of books and suspect that in any other profession I +can give them but little time. Business men do not read. Lawyers only +consult books. And I am by no means sure that ministers have read all +the books they quote. On the whole it seems safest to choose a +profession in which books will be my daily companions. So I turn toward +teaching. But before settling the matter I thought I would ask how you +regard the profession." "A noble profession," I answer, "but quite unfit +for you. I would advise you to become a lawyer, a car conductor, or +something equally harmless. Do not turn to anything so perilous as +teaching. You would ruin both it and yourself; for you are looking in +exactly the wrong direction." + +Such an inquirer is under a common misconception. The teacher's task is +not primarily the acquisition of knowledge, but the impartation of +it,--an entirely different matter. We teachers are forever taking +thoughts out of our minds and putting them elsewhere. So long as we are +content to keep them in our possession, we are not teachers at all. One +who is interested in laying hold on wisdom is likely to become a +scholar. And while no doubt it is well for a teacher to be a fair +scholar,--I have known several such,--that is not the main thing. What +constitutes the teacher is the passion to make scholars; and again and +again it happens that the great scholar has no such passion whatever. + +But even that passion is useless without aid from imagination. At every +instant of the teacher's life he must be controlled by this mighty +power. Most human beings are contented with living one life and +delighted if they can pass that agreeably. But this is far from enough +for us teachers. We incessantly go outside ourselves and enter into the +many lives about us,--lives dull, dark, and unintelligible to any but an +eye like ours. And this is imagination, the sympathetic creation in +ourselves of conditions which belong to others. Our profession is +therefore a double-ended one. We inspect truth as it rises fresh and +interesting before our eager sight. But that is only the beginning of +our task. Swiftly we then seize the lines of least intellectual +resistance in alien minds and, with perpetual reference to these, follow +our truth till it is safely lodged beyond ourselves. Each mind has its +peculiar set of frictions. Those of our pupils can never be the same as +ours. We have passed far on and know all about our subject. For us it +wears an altogether different look from that which it has for beginners. +It is their perplexities which we must reproduce and--as if a rose +should shut and be a bud again--we must reassume in our developed and +accustomed souls something of the innocence of childhood. Such is the +exquisite business of the teacher, to carry himself back with all his +wealth of knowledge and understand how his subject should appear to the +meagre mind of one glancing at it for the first time. + +And what absurd blunders we make in the process! Becoming immersed in +our own side of the affair, we blind ourselves and readily attribute to +our pupils modes of thought which are not in the least theirs. I +remember a lesson I had on this point, I who had been teaching ethics +half a lifetime. My nephew, five years old, was fond of stories from the +Odyssey. He would creep into bed with me in the morning and beg for +them. One Sunday, after I had given him a pretty stiff bit of adventure, +it occurred to me that it was an appropriate day for a moral. "Ulysses +was a very brave man," I remarked. "Yes," he said, "and I am very +brave." I saw my opportunity and seized it. "That is true," said I. "You +have been gaining courage lately. You used to cry easily, but you don't +do that nowadays. When you want to cry now, you think how like a baby it +would be to cry, or how you would disturb mother and upset the house; +and so you conclude not to cry." The little fellow seemed hopelessly +puzzled. He lay silent a minute or two and then said, "Well no, Uncle, I +don't do that. I just go sh-sh-sh, and I don't." There the moral crisis +is stated in its simplicity; and I had been putting off on that holy +little nature sophistications borrowed from my own battered life. + +But while I am explaining the blunders caused by self-engrossment and +lack of imagination, let me show what slight adjustments will sometimes +carry us past depressing difficulties. One year when I was lecturing on +some intricate problems of obligation, I began to doubt whether my class +was following me, and I determined that I would make them talk. So the +next day I constructed an ingenious ethical case and, after stating it +to the class, I said, "Supposing now the state of affairs were thus and +thus, and the interests of the persons involved were such and such, how +would you decide the question of right,--Mr. Jones." Poor Jones rose in +confusion. "You mean," he said, "if the case were as you have stated it? +Well, hm, hm, hm,--yes,--I don't think I know, sir." And he sat down. I +called on one and another with the same result. A panic was upon them, +and all their minds were alike empty. I went home disgusted, wondering +whether they had comprehended anything I had said during the previous +fortnight, and hoping I might never have such a stupid lot of students +again. Suddenly it flashed upon me that it was I who was stupid. That is +usually the case when a class fails; it is the teacher's fault. The next +day I went back prepared to begin at the right end. I began, "Oh, Mr. +Jones." He rose, and I proceeded to state the situation as before. By +the time I paused he had collected his wits, had worked off his +superfluous flurry, and was ready to give me an admirable answer. +Indeed in a few minutes the whole class was engaged in an eager +discussion. My previous error had been in not remembering that they, I, +and everybody, when suddenly attacked with a big question, are not in +the best condition for answering. Occupied as I was with my end of the +story, the questioning end, I had not worked in that double-ended +fashion which alone can bring the teacher success; in short, I was +deficient in vicariousness,--in swiftly putting myself in the weak one's +place and bearing his burden. + +Now it is in this chief business of the artistic teacher, to labor +imaginatively himself in order to diminish the labors of his slender +pupil, that most of our failures occur. Instead of lamenting the +imperviousness of our pupils, we had better ask ourselves more +frequently whether we have neatly adjusted our teachings to the +conditions of their minds. We have no right to tumble out in a mass +whatever comes into our heads, leaving to that feeble folk the work of +finding in it what order they may. Ours it should be to see that every +beginning, middle, and end of what we say is helpfully shaped for +readiest access to those less intelligent and interested than we. But +this is vicariousness. _Noblesse oblige._ In this profession any one who +will be great must be a nimble servant, his head full of others' needs. + +Some discouraged teacher, glad to discover that his past failures have +been due to the absence of sympathetic imagination, may resolve that he +will not commit that blunder again. On going to his class to-morrow he +will look out upon his subject with his pupils' eyes, not with his own. +Let him attempt it, and his pupils will surely say to one another, "What +is the matter to-day with teacher?" They will get nothing from that +exercise. No, what is wanted is not a resolve, but an aptitude. The time +for using vicariousness is not the time for acquiring it. Rather it is +the time for dismissing all thoughts of it from the mind. On entering +the classroom we should leave every consideration of method outside the +door, and talk simply as interested men and women in whatever way comes +most natural to us. But into that nature vicariousness should long ago +have been wrought. It should be already on hand. Fortunate we if our +great-grandmother supplied us with it before we were born. There are +persons who, with all good will, can never be teachers. They are not +made in that way. Their business it is to pry into knowledge, to engage +in action, to make money, or to pursue whatever other aim their powers +dictate; but they do not readily think in terms of the other person. +They should not, then, be teachers. + +The teacher's habit is well summed in the Apostle's rule, "Look not +every man on his own things, but every man also"--it is double--"on +the things of others." And this habit should become as nearly as +possible an instinct. Until it is rendered instinctive and passes +beyond conscious direction, it will be of little worth. Let us then, +as we go into society, as we walk the streets, as we sit at table, +practice altruistic limberness and learn to escape from ourselves. A +true teacher is always meditating his work, disciplining himself for his +profession, probing the problems of his glorious art, and seeing +illustration of them everywhere. In only one place is he freed from +such criticism, and that is in his classroom. Here in the moment of +action he lets himself go, unhampered by theory, using the nature +acquired elsewhere, and uttering as simply as possible the fulness of +his mind and heart. Direct human intercourse requires instinctive +aptitudes. Till altruistic vicariousness has become our second +nature, we shall not deeply influence anybody. + +But sympathetic imagination is not all a teacher needs. Exclusive +altruism is absurd. On this point too I once got instruction from the +mouths of babes and sucklings. The children of a friend of mine, +children of six and four, had just gone to bed. Their mother overheard +them talking when they should have been asleep. Wondering what they +might need, she stepped into the entry and listened. They were +discussing what they were here in the world for. That is about the size +of problems commonly found in infant minds. The little girl suggested +that we are probably in the world to help others. "Why, no indeed, +Mabel," said her big brother, "for then what would others be here for?" +Precisely! If anything is only fit to give away, it is not fit for that. +We must know and prize its goodness in ourselves before generosity is +even possible. + +Plainly, then, beside his aptitude for vicariousness, our ideal teacher +will need the second qualification of an already accumulated wealth. +These hungry pupils are drawing all their nourishment from us, and have +we got it to give? They will be poor, if we are poor; rich if we are +wealthy. We are their source of supply. Every time we cut ourselves off +from nutrition, we enfeeble them. And how frequently devoted teachers +make this mistake! dedicating themselves so to the immediate needs of +those about them that they themselves grow thinner each year. We all +know the "teacher's face." It is meagre, worn, sacrificial, anxious, +powerless. That is exactly the opposite of what it should be. The +teacher should be the big bounteous being of the community. Other people +may get along tolerably by holding whatever small knowledge comes their +way. A moderate stock will pretty well serve their private turn. But +that is not our case. Supplying a multitude, we need wealth sufficient +for a multitude. We should then be clutching at knowledge on every +side. Nothing must escape us. It is a mistake to reject a bit of truth +because it lies outside our province. Some day we shall need it. All +knowledge is our province. + +In preparing a lecture I find I always have to work hardest on the +things I do not say. The things I am sure to say I can easily get up. +They are obvious and generally accessible. But they, I find, are not +enough. I must have a broad background of knowledge which does not +appear in speech. I have to go over my entire subject and see how the +things I am to say look in their various relations, tracing out +connections which I shall not present to my class. One might ask what is +the use of this? Why prepare more matter than can be used? Every +successful teacher knows. I cannot teach right up to the edge of my +knowledge without a fear of falling off. My pupils discover this fear, +and my words are ineffective. They feel the influence of what I do not +say. One cannot precisely explain it; but when I move freely across my +subject as if it mattered little on what part of it I rest, they get a +sense of assured power which is compulsive and fructifying. The subject +acquires consequence, their minds swell, and they are eager to enter +regions of which they had not previously thought. + +Even, then, to teach a small thing well we must be large. I asked a +teacher what her subject was, and she answered, "Arithmetic in the +third grade." But where is the third grade found? In knowledge, or in +the schools? Unhappily it is in the schools. But if one would be a +teacher of arithmetic, it must be arithmetic she teaches and not third +grade at all. We cannot accept these artificial bounds without damage. +Instead of accumulated wealth they will bring us accumulated poverty, +and increase it every day. Years ago at Harvard we began to discuss the +establishment of a Graduate School; and I, a young instructor, steadily +voted against it. My thought was this: Harvard College, in spite of what +the public imagines, is a place of slender resources. Our means are +inadequate for teaching even undergraduates. But graduate instruction is +vastly more expensive; courses composed of half a dozen students take +the time of the ablest professors. I thought we could not afford this. +Why not leave graduate instruction to a university which gives itself +entirely to that task? Would it not be wiser to spend ourselves on the +lower ranges of learning, covering these adequately, than to try to +spread ourselves over the entire field? + +Doubting so, I for some time opposed the coming of a Graduate School. +But a luminous remark of our great President showed me the error of my +ways. In the course of debate he said one evening, "It is not primarily +for the graduates that I care for this school; it is for the +undergraduates. We shall never get good teaching here so long as our +instructors set a limit to their subjects. When they are called on to +follow these throughout, tracing them far off toward the unknown, they +may become good teachers; but not before." + +I went home meditating. I saw that the President was right, and that I +was myself in danger of the stagnation he deprecated. I changed my vote, +as did others. The Graduate School was established; and of all the +influences which have contributed to raise the standard of scholarship +at Harvard, both for teachers and taught, that graduate work seems to me +the greatest. Every professor now must be the master of a field of +knowledge, and not of a few paths running through it. + +But the ideal teacher will accumulate wealth, not merely for his pupils' +sake, but for his own. To be a great teacher one must be a great +personality, and without ardent and individual tastes the roots of our +being are not fed. For developing personal power it is well, therefore, +for each teacher to cultivate interests unconnected with his official +work. Let the mathematician turn to the English poets, the teacher of +classics to the study of birds and flowers, and each will gain a +lightness, a freedom from exhaustion, a mental hospitality, which can +only be acquired in some disinterested pursuit. Such a private subject +becomes doubly dear because it is just our own. We pursue it as we will; +we let it call out our irresponsible thoughts; and from it we ordinarily +carry off a note of distinction lacking in those whose lives are too +tightly organized. + +To this second qualification of the teacher, however, I have been +obliged to prefix a condition similar to that which was added to the +first. We need not merely wealth, but an already accumulated wealth. At +the moment when wealth is wanted it cannot be acquired. It should have +been gathered and stored before the occasion arose. What is more +pitiable than when a person who desires to be a benefactor looks in his +chest and finds it empty? Special knowledge is wanted, or trained +insight, or professional skill, or sound practical judgment; and the +teacher who is called on has gone through no such discipline as assures +these resources. I am inclined to think that women are more liable to +this sort of bankruptcy than men. Their sex is more sympathetic than +ours and they spend more hastily. They will drop what they are doing and +run if a baby cries. Excellence requires a certain hardihood of heart, +while quick responsiveness is destructive of the larger giving. He who +would be greatly generous must train himself long and tenaciously, +without much attention to momentary calls. The plan of the Great +Teacher, by which he took thirty years for acquisition and three for +bestowal, is not unwise, provided that we too can say, "For their sakes +I sanctify myself." + +But the two qualifications of the teacher already named will not alone +suffice. I have known persons who were sympathetically imaginative, and +who could not be denied to possess large intellectual wealth, who still +failed as teachers. One needs a third something, the power to invigorate +life through learning. We do not always notice how knowledge naturally +buffets. It is offensive stuff, and makes young and wholesome minds +rebel. And well it may; for when we learn anything, we are obliged to +break up the world, inspect it piecemeal, and let our minds seize it bit +by bit. Now about a fragment there is always something repulsive. Any +one who is normally constituted must draw back in horror, feeling that +what is brought him has little to do with the beautiful world he has +known. Where was there ever a healthy child who did not hate the +multiplication table? A boy who did not detest such abstractions as +seven times eight would hardly be worth educating. By no ingenuity can +we relieve knowledge of this unfortunate peculiarity. It must be taken +in disjointed portions. That is the way attention is made. In +consequence each of us must be to some extent a specialist, devoting +himself to certain sides of the world and neglecting others quite as +important. These are the conditions under which we imperfect creatures +work. Our sight is not world-wide. When we give our attention to one +object, by that very act we withdraw it from others. In this way our +children must learn and have their expansive natures subdued to +pedagogic exigencies. + +Because this belittlement through the method of approach is inevitable, +it is all-important that the teacher should possess a supplemental +dignity, replacing the oppressive sense of pettiness with stimulating +intimations of high things in store. Partly on this account a book is an +imperfect instructor. Truth there, being impersonal, seems untrue, +abstract, and insignificant. It needs to shine through a human being +before it can exert its vital force on a young student. Quite as much +for vital transmission as for intellectual elucidation, is a teacher +employed. His consolidated character exhibits the gains which come from +study. He need not point them out. If he is a scholar, there will appear +in him an augustness, accuracy, fulness of knowledge, a buoyant +enthusiasm even in drudgery, and an unshakable confidence that others +must soon see and enjoy what has enriched himself; and all this will +quickly convey itself to his students and create attention in his +classroom. Such kindling of interest is the great function of the +teacher. People sometimes say, "I should like to teach if only pupils +cared to learn." But then there would be little need of teaching. Boys +who have made up their minds that knowledge is worth while are pretty +sure to get it, without regard to teachers. Our chief concern is with +those who are unawakened. In the Sistine Chapel Michael Angelo has +depicted the Almighty moving in clouds over the rugged earth where lies +the newly created Adam, hardly aware of himself. The tips of the fingers +touch, the Lord's and Adam's, and the huge frame loses its inertness and +rears itself into action. Such may be the electrifying touch of the +teacher. + +But it must be confessed that not infrequently, instead of invigorating +life through knowledge, we teachers reduce our classes to complete +passivity. The blunder is not altogether ours, but is suggested by +certain characteristics of knowledge itself: for how can a learner begin +without submitting his mind, accepting facts, listening to authority, in +short becoming obedient? He is called on to put aside his own notions +and take what truth dictates. I have said that knowledge buffets, +forcing us into an almost slavish attitude, and that this is resented by +vigorous natures. In almost every school some of the most original, +aggressive, and independent boys stand low in their classes, while at +the top stand "grinds,"--objects of horror to all healthy souls. + +Now it is the teacher's business to see that the onslaught of +knowledge does not enfeeble. Between the two sides of knowledge, +information and intelligence, he is to keep the balance true. While a +boy is taking in facts, facts not allowed to be twisted by any fancy +or carelessness, he is all the time to be made to feel that these facts +offer him a field for critical and constructive action. If they leave +him inactive, docile, and plodding, there is something wrong with +the teaching. Facts are pernicious when they subjugate and do not +quicken the mind that grasps them. Education should unfold us and +truth together; and to enable it to do so the learner must never be +allowed to sink into a mere recipient. He should be called on to +think, to observe, to form his own judgments, even at the risk of error +and crudity. Temporary one-sidedness and extravagance is not too high a +price to pay for originality. And this development of personal +vigor, emphasized in our day by the elective system and independent +research, is the great aim of education. It should affect the lower +ranges of study as truly as the higher. The mere contemplation of +truth is always a deadening affair. Many a dull class in school and +college would come to life if simply given something to do. Until the +mind reacts for itself on what it receives, its education is hardly +begun. + +The teacher who leads it so to react may be truly called "productive," +productive of human beings. The noble word has recently become +Germanized and corrupted, and is now hardly more than a piece of +educational slang. According to the judgments of to-day a teacher may be +unimaginative, pedantic, dull, and may make his students no less so; he +will still deserve a crown of wild olive as a "productive" man if he +neglects his classroom for the printing press. But this is to put first +things second and second things first. He who is original and fecund, +and knows how to beget a similar spirit in his students, will naturally +wish to express himself beyond his classroom. By snatching the fragments +of time which his arduous work allows, he may accomplish much worthy +writing and probably increase too his worth for his college, his +students, and himself. But the business of book-making is, after all, +collateral with us teachers. Not for this are we employed, desirable +though it is for showing the kind of mind we bear. Many of my most +productive colleagues have printed little or nothing, though they have +left a deep mark on the life and science of our time. I would encourage +publication. It keeps the solitary student healthy, enables him to find +his place among his fellows, and more distinctly to estimate the +contributions he is making to his subject. But let him never neglect his +proper work for that which must always have in it an element of +advertising. + +Too long I have delayed the fourth, the disagreeable, section of my +paper. Briefly it is this: a teacher must have a readiness to be +forgotten. And what is harder? We may be excellent persons, may be daily +doing kindnesses, and yet not be quite willing to have those kindnesses +overlooked. Many a man is ready to be generous, if by it he can win +praise. The love of praise,--it is almost our last infirmity; but there +is no more baffling infirmity for the teacher. If praise and recognition +are dear to him, he may as well stop work. Dear to him perhaps they must +be, as a human being; but as a teacher, he is called on to rise above +ordinary human conditions. Whoever has followed me thus far will +perceive the reason. I have shown that a teacher does not live for +himself, but for his pupil and for the truth which he imparts. His aim +is to be a colorless medium through which that truth may shine on +opening minds. How can he be this if he is continually interposing +himself and saying, "Instead of looking at the truth, my children, look +at me and see how skilfully I do my work. I thought I taught you +admirably to-day. I hope you thought so too." No, the teacher must keep +himself entirely out of the way, fixing young attention on the proffered +knowledge and not on anything so small as the one who brings it. Only so +can he be vicarious, whole-hearted in invigorating the lives committed +to his charge. + +Moreover, any other course is futile. We cannot tell whether those whom +we are teaching have taken our best points or not. Those best points, +what are they? We shall count them one thing, our pupils another. We +gather what seems to us of consequence and pour it out upon our classes. +But if their minds are not fitted to receive it, the little creatures +have excellent protective arrangements which they draw down, and all we +pour is simply shed as if nothing had fallen; while again we say +something so slight that we hardly notice it, but, happening to be just +the nutritive element which that small life then needs, it is caught up +and turned into human fibre. We cannot tell. We work in the dark. Out +upon the waters our bread is cast, and if we are wise we do not attempt +to trace its return. + +On this point I received capital instruction from one of my pupils. In +teaching a course on English Empiricism I undertook a line of exposition +which I knew was abstruse. Indeed, I doubted if many of the class could +follow; but there on the front seat sat one whose bright eyes were ever +upon me. It seemed worth while to teach my three or four best men, that +man in particular. By the end of the term there were many grumblings. My +class did not get much out of me that year. They graduated, and a couple +of years later this young fellow appeared at my door to say that he +could not pass through Cambridge without thanking me for his work on +Locke, Berkeley, and Hume. Pleased to be assured that my questionable +methods were justified, and unwilling to drop a subject so agreeable, I +asked if he could tell precisely where the value of the course lay. +"Certainly," he answered. "It all centred in a single remark of Locke's. +Locke said we ought to have clear and distinct ideas. I don't think I +got anything else out of the course." + +Well, at first I was inclined to think the fellow foolish, so to mistake +a bit of commonplace for gospel truth. Why did he not listen to some of +the profound things I was saying? But on reflection I saw that he was +right and I wrong. That trivial saying had come to him at a critical +moment as a word of power; while the deep matters which interested me, +and which I had been offering him so confidently day by day, being +unsuited to him, had passed him by. He had not heard them. + +To such proper unthankfulness we teachers must accustom ourselves. We +cannot tell what are our good deeds, and shall only plague ourselves and +hinder our classes if we try to find out. Let us display our subjects as +lucidly as possible, allow our pupils considerable license in +apprehension, and be content ourselves to escape observation. But though +what we do remains unknown, its results often awake deep affection. Few +in the community receive love more abundantly than we. Wherever we go, +we meet a smiling face. Throughout the world, by some good fortune, the +period of learning is the period of romance. In those halcyon days of +our boys and girls we have a share, and the golden lights which flood +the opening years are reflected on us. Though our pupils cannot follow +our efforts in their behalf, and indeed ought not,--it being our art to +conceal our art,--yet they perceive that in the years when their happy +expansion occurred we were their guides. To us, therefore, their blind +affections cling as to few beside their parents. It is better to be +loved than to be understood. + +Perhaps some readers of this paper will begin to suspect that it is +impossible to be a good teacher. Certainly it is. Each of the four +qualifications I have named is endless. Not one of them can be fully +attained. We can always be more imaginative, wealthy, stimulating, +disinterested. Each year we creep a little nearer to our goal, only to +find that a finished teacher is a contradiction in terms. Our reach will +forever exceed our grasp. Yet what a delight in approximation! Even in +our failures there is comfort, when we see that they are generally due +not to technical but to personal defects. We have been putting ourselves +forward, or have taught in mechanical rather than vital fashion, or have +not undertaken betimes the labor of preparation, or have declined the +trouble of vicariousness. + +Evidently, then, as we become better teachers we also become in some +sort better persons. Our beautiful art, being so largely personal, will +at last be seen to connect itself with nearly all other employments. +Every mother is a teacher. Every minister. The lawyer teaches the jury, +the doctor his patient. The clever salesman might almost be said to use +teaching in dealing with his customer, and all of us to be teachers of +one another in daily intercourse. As teaching is the most universal of +the professions, those are fortunate who are able to devote their lives +to its enriching study. + + + + +II + +ETHICAL INSTRUCTION IN THE SCHOOLS + + +Within a few years a strong demand has arisen for ethical teaching in +the schools. Teachers themselves have become interested, and wherever +they are gathered the question, "What shall this teaching be?" is +eagerly discussed. The educational journals are full of it. Within a +year there have been published seven books on the subject. Several of +them--it would be hardly an exaggeration to say all--are books of marked +excellence. Seldom does so large a percentage of books in a single year, +in a single country, and on a single subject reach so high a level of +merit. I shall not criticise them, however, nor even engage in the +popular discussion of which they form a part. That discussion concerns +itself chiefly with the methods by which ethics may be taught. I wish to +go behind this controversy and to raise the previous question whether +ethics should be taught to boys and girls at all. + +Evidently there are strong reasons why it should be. Always and +everywhere it is important that men should be good. To be a good +man!--it is more than half the fulfilment of life. Better to miss fame, +wealth, learning, than to miss righteousness. And in America, too, we +must demand not the mere trifle that men shall be good for their own +sakes, but good in order that the life of the state may be preserved. A +widespread righteousness is in a republic a matter of necessity. Where +all rule all, each man who falls into evil courses infects his neighbor, +corrupting the law and corrupting still more its enforcement. The +question of manufacturing moral men becomes, accordingly, in a +democracy, urgent to a degree unknown in a country where but a few +selected persons guide the state. + +There is also special urgency at the present time. The ancient and +accredited means of training youth in goodness are becoming, I will not +say broken, but enfeebled and distrusted. Hitherto a large part of the +moral instruction of mankind has been superintended by the clergy. In +every civilized state the expensive machinery of the Church has been set +up and placed in the hands of men of dignity, because it has been +believed that by no other engine can we so effectively render people +upright. I still believe this, and I am pretty confident that a good +many years will pass before we shall dispense with the ennobling +services of our ministers. And yet it is plain that much of the work +which formerly was exclusively theirs is so no longer. Much of it is +performed by books, newspapers, and facilitated human intercourse. +Ministers do not now speak with their old authority; they speak merely +as other men speak; and we are all asking whether in the immense +readjustment of faith now going on something of their peculiar power of +moral as well as of intellectual guidance may not slip away. + +The home too, which has hitherto been the fundamental agency for +fostering morality in the young, is just now in sore need of repair. We +can no longer depend upon it alone for moral guardianship. It must be +supplemented, possibly reconstructed. New dangers to it have arisen. In +the complex civilization of city life, in the huge influx of untutored +foreigners, in the substitution of the apartment for the house, in the +greater ease of divorce, in the larger freedom now given to children, to +women, in the breaking down of class distinctions and the readier +accessibility of man to man, there are perils for boy and girl which did +not exist before. And while these changes in the outward form of +domestic life are advancing, certain protections against moral peril +which the home formerly afforded have decayed. It would be curious to +ascertain in how many families of our immediate time daily prayers are +used, and to compare the number with that of those in which the holy +practice was common fifty years ago. It would be interesting to know how +frequently parents to-day converse with their children on subjects +serious, pious, or personal. The hurry of modern life has swept away +many uplifting intimacies. Even in families which prize them most, a few +minutes only can be had each day for such fortifying things. Domestic +training has shrunk, while the training of haphazard companions, the +training of the streets, the training of the newspapers, have acquired a +potency hitherto unknown. + +It is no wonder, then, that in such a moral crisis the community +turns to that agency whose power is already felt beneficently in a +multitude of other directions, the school. The cry comes to us +teachers, "We established you at first to make our children wiser; +we want you now for a profounder service. Can you not unite moral +culture with intellectual?" It may be; though discipline of the passions +is enormously more difficult than discipline of the mind. But at any +rate we must acknowledge that our success in the mental field is +largely staked on our success in the moral. Our pupils will not learn +their lessons in arithmetic if they have not already made some +progress in concentration, in self-forgetfulness, in acceptance of +duty. Nor can we touch them in a single section of their nature and hope +for results. Instruction must go all through. We are obliged to treat +each little human being as a whole if we would have our treatment +wholesome. And then too we have had such successes elsewhere that we +may well feel emboldened for the new task. Nearly the whole of life +is now advantageously surveyed in one form or another in our schools +and colleges; and we have usually found that advance in instruction +develops swiftly into betterment of practice. We teach, for example, +social science and analyze the customs of the past; but soon we find +bands of young men and women in all the important cities criticising +the government of those cities, suggesting better modes of voting, wiser +forms of charity; and before we know it the community is transformed. +We cannot teach the science of electricity without improving our +street-cars, or at least without raising hopes that they may some +day be improved. Each science claims its brother art. Theory creeps +over into action. It will not stay by itself; it is pervasive, +diffusive. And as this pervasive character of knowledge in the lower +ranges is perceived, we teachers are urged to press forward its +operation in the higher also. Why have we no school-books on human +character, the highest of all themes? Once direct the attention of our +pupils to this great topic, and may we not ultimately bring about +that moral enlargement for which the time waits? + +I have stated somewhat at length the considerations in behalf of ethical +instruction in the schools because those considerations on the whole +appear to me illusory. I cannot believe such instruction feasible. Were +it so, of course it would have my eager support. But I see in it grave +difficulties, difficulties imperfectly understood; and a difficulty +disregarded becomes a danger, possibly a catastrophe. Let me explain in +a few words where the danger lies. + +Between morals and ethics there is a sharp distinction, frequently as +the two words are confused. Usage, however, shows the meaning. If I call +a man a man of bad morals, I evidently mean to assert that his conduct +is corrupt; he does things which the majority of mankind believe he +ought not to do. It is his practice I denounce, not his intellectual +formulation. In the same way we speak of the petty morals of society, +referring in the phrase to the small practices of mankind, the +unnumbered actions which disclose good or bad principles unconsciously +hidden within. It is entirely different when I call a man's ethics bad. +I then declare that I do not agree with his comprehension of moral +principles. His practice may be entirely correct. I do not speak of +that; it is his understanding that is at fault. For ethics, as was long +ago remarked, is related to morals as geometry to carpentry: the one is +a science, the other its practical embodiment. In the former, +consciousness is a prime factor; from the latter it often is absent +altogether. + +Now what is asked of us teachers is that we invite our pupils to direct +study of the principles of right conduct, that we awaken their +consciousness about their modes of life, and so by degrees impart to +them a science of righteousness. This is theory, ethics; not morals, +practice; and in my judgment it is dangerous business, with the +slenderest chance of success. Useless is it to say that the aim of such +instruction need not be ethical, but moral. Whatever the ultimate aim, +the procedure of instruction is of necessity scientific. It operates +through intelligence, and only gets into life so far as the instructed +intelligence afterward becomes a director. This is the work of books and +teachers everywhere: they discipline the knowing act, and so bring +within its influence that multitude of matters which depend for +excellent adjustment on clear and ordered knowledge. Such a work, +however, is evidently but partial. Many matters do not take their rise +in knowledge at all. Morality does not. The boy as soon as born is +adopted unconsciously into some sort of moral world. While he is growing +up and is thinking of other things, habits of character are seizing him. +By the time he comes to school he is incrusted with customs. The idea +that his moral education can be fashioned by his teacher in the same way +as his education in geography is fantastic. It is only his ethical +training which may now begin. The attention of such a boy may be called +to habits already formed; he may be led to dissect those habits, to pass +judgment on them as right or wrong, and to inquire why and how they may +be bettered. This is the only power teaching professes: it critically +inquires, it awakens interest, it inspects facts, it discovers laws. And +this process applied in the field of character yields ethics, the +systematized knowledge of human conduct. It does not primarily yield +morals, improved performance. + +Nor indeed is performance likely to be improved by ethical enlightenment +if, as I maintain, the whole business of self-criticism in the child is +unwholesome. By a course of ethical training a young person will, in my +view, much more probably become demoralized than invigorated. What we +ought to desire, if we would have a boy grow morally sturdy, is that +introspection should not set in early and that he should not become +accustomed to watch his conduct. And the reason is obvious. Much as we +incline to laud our prerogative of consciousness and to assert that it +is precisely what distinguishes us from our poor relations, the brutes, +we still must acknowledge that consciousness has certain grave defects +when exalted into the position of a guide. Large tracts of life lie +altogether beyond its control, and the conduct which can be affected by +it is apt--especially in the initial stages--to be rendered vague, slow, +vacillating, and distorted. Only instinctive action is swift, sure, and +firm. For this reason we distrust the man who calculates his goodness. +We find him vulgar and repellent. We are far from sure that he will keep +that goodness long. If I offer to shake hands with a man with precisely +that degree of warmth which I have decided it is well to express, will +he willingly take my hand? A few years ago there were some nonsense +verses on this subject going the rounds of the English newspapers. They +seemed to me capitally to express the morbid influence of consciousness +in a complex organism. They ran somewhat as follows: + + The centipede was happy, quite, + Until the toad for fun + Said, "Pray which leg comes after which?" + This worked her mind to such a pitch + She lay distracted in a ditch. + Considering how to run. + +And well she might! Imagine the hundred legs steered consciously--now it +is time to move this one, now to move that! The creature would never +move at all, but would be as incapable of action as Hamlet himself. And +are the young less complex than centipedes? Shall their little lives be +suddenly turned over to a fumbling guide? Shall they not rather be +stimulated to unconscious rectitude, gently led into those blind but +holy habits which make goodness easy, and so be saved from the perilous +perplexities of marking out their own way? So thought the sagacious +Aristotle. To the crude early opinion of Socrates that virtue is +knowledge, he opposed the ripened doctrine that it is practice and +habit. + +This, then, is the inexpugnable objection to the ethical instruction of +children: the end which should be sought is performance, not knowledge, +and we cannot by supplying the latter induce the former. But do not +these considerations cut the ground from under practical teaching of +every kind? Instruction is given in other subjects in the hope that it +may finally issue in strengthened action, and I have acknowledged that +as a fact this hope is repeatedly justified. Why may not a similar +result appear in ethics? What puts a difference between that study and +electricity, social science, or manual training? This: according as the +work studied includes a creative element and is intended to give +expression to a personal life, consciousness becomes an increasingly +dangerous dependence. Why are there no classes and text-books for the +study of deportment? Is it because manners are unimportant? No, but +because they make the man, and to be of any worth must be an expression +of his very nature. Conscious study would tend to distort rather than to +fashion them. Their practice cannot be learned in the same way as +carpentry. + +But an analogy more enlightening for showing the inaptitude of the +child for direct study of the laws of conduct is found in the case of +speech. Between speech and morals the analogies are subtle and wide. So +minute are they that speech might almost be called a kind of vocal +morality. Like morality, it is something possessed long before we are +aware of it, and it becomes perfect or debased with our growth. We +employ it to express ourselves and to come into ordered contact with our +neighbor. By it we confer benefits and by it receive benefits in turn. +Rigid as are its laws, we still feel ourselves free in its use, though +obliged to give to our spontaneous feelings forms constructed by men of +the past. Ease, accuracy, and scope are here confessedly of vast +consequence. It has consequently been found a matter of extreme +difficulty to bring a young person's attention helpfully to bear upon +his speech. Indirect methods seem to be the only profitable ones. +Philology, grammar, rhetoric, systematic study of the laws of language, +are dangerous tools for a boy below his teens. The child who is to +acquire excellent speech must be encouraged to keep attention away from +the words he uses and to fix it upon that which he is to express. +Abstract grammar will either confound the tongue which it should ease, +or else it will seem to have no connection with living reality, but to +be an ingenious contrivance invented by some Dry-as-dust for the torture +of schoolboys. + +And a similar pair of dangers await the young student of the laws of +conduct. On the one hand, it is highly probable that he will not +understand what his teacher is talking about. He may learn his lesson; +he may answer questions correctly; but he will assume that these things +have nothing to do with him. He becomes dulled to moral distinctions, +and it is the teaching of ethics that dulls him. We see the disastrous +process in full operation in a neighboring field. There are countries +which have regular public instruction in religion. The argument runs +that schools are established to teach what is of consequence to +citizens, and religion is of more consequence than anything else. +Therefore introduce it, is the conclusion. Therefore keep it out, is the +sound conclusion. It lies too near the life to be announced in official +propositions and still to retain a recognizable meaning. I have known a +large number of German young men. I have yet to meet one whose religious +nature has been deepened by his instruction in school. And the lack of +influence is noticeable not merely in those who have failed in the +study, but quite as much in those who have ranked highest. In neither +case has the august discipline meant anything. The danger would be +wider, the disaster from the benumbing influence more serious, if +ethical instruction should be organized; wider, because morality +underlies religion, and insensitiveness to the moral claim is more +immediately and concretely destructive. Yet here, as in the case of +religion, of manners, or of speech, the child will probably take to +heart very little of what is said. At most he will assume that the +text-book statement of the rules of righteousness represents the way in +which the game of life is played by some people; but he will prefer to +play it in his own way still. Young people are constructed with happy +protective arrangements; they are enviably impervious. So in expounding +moral principles in the schoolroom, I believe we shall touch the child +in very few moral spots. Nevertheless, it becomes dulled and hardened if +it listens long to sacred words untouched. + +But the benumbing influence is not the gravest danger; analogies of +speech suggest a graver still. If we try to teach speech too early and +really succeed in fixing the child's attention upon its tongue, we +enfeeble its power of utterance. Consciousness once awakened, the child +is perpetually inquiring whether the word is the right word, and +suspecting that it is not quite sufficiently right to be allowed +free passage. Just so a momentous trouble appears when the moral +consciousness has been too early stirred. That self-questioning spirit +springs up which impels its tortured possessor to be continually +fingering his motives in unwholesome preoccupation with himself. +Instead of entering heartily into outward interests, the watchful +little moralist is "questioning about himself whether he has been as +good as he should have been, and whether a better man would not have +acted otherwise." No part of us is more susceptible of morbidness +than the moral sense; none demoralizes more thoroughly when morbid. +The trouble, too, affects chiefly those of the finer fibre. The +majority of healthy children, as has been said, harden themselves +against theoretic talk, and it passes over them like the wind. Here +and there a sensitive soul absorbs the poison and sets itself +seriously to work installing duty as the mainspring of its life. We all +know the unwholesome result: the person from whom spontaneity is +gone, who criticises everything he does, who has lost his sense of +proportion, who teases himself endlessly and teases his friends--so +far as they remain his friends--about the right and wrong of each +petty act. It is a disease, a moral disease, and takes the place in +the spiritual life of that which the doctors are fond of calling +"nervous prostration" in the physical. Few countries have been so +desolated by it as New England. It is our special scourge. Many here +carry a conscience about with them which makes us say, "How much +better off they would be with none!" I declare, at times when I see +the ravages which conscientiousness works in our New England stock, I +wish these New Englanders had never heard moral distinctions +mentioned. Better their vices than their virtues. The wise teacher will +extirpate the first sproutings of the weed; for a weed more difficult +to extirpate when grown there is not. We run a serious risk of +implanting it in our children when we undertake their class instruction +in ethics. + +Such, then, are some of the considerations which should give us pause +when the public is clamoring at our schoolhouse doors and saying to us +teachers, "We cannot bring up our children so as to make them righteous +citizens. Undertake the work for us. You have done so much already that +we turn to you again and entreat your help." I think we must sadly +reply, "There are limits to what we can do. If you respect us, you will +not urge us to do the thing that is not ours. By pressing into certain +regions we shall bring upon you more disaster than benefit." + +Fully, however, as the dangers here pointed out may be acknowledged, +much of a different sort remains also true. Have we not all received a +large measure of moral culture at school? And are we quite content to +say that the greatest of subjects is unteachable? I would not say this; +on the contrary, I hold that no college is properly organized where the +teaching of ethics does not occupy a position of honor. The college, not +the school, is the place for the study. It would be absurd to maintain +that all other subjects of study are nutritious to man except that of +his own nature; but it is far from absurd to ask that a young man first +possess a nature before he undertakes to analyze it. A study useless for +developing initial power may still be highly profitable for doctrine, +for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness. Youth +should be spontaneous, instinctive, ebullient; reflection whispers to +the growing man. Many of the evils that I have thus far traced are +brought about by projecting upon a young mind problems which it has not +yet encountered in itself. Such problems abound in the later teens and +twenties, and then is the time to set about their discussion. + +But even in college I would have ethical study more guarded than the +rest. Had I the power, I would never allow it to be required of all. It +should be offered only as an elective and in the later years of the +course. When I entered college I was put in my freshman year into a +prescribed study of this sort. Happily I received no influence from it +whatever. It passed over and left me untouched; and I think it had no +more effect on the majority of my classmates. Possibly some of the more +reflective took it to heart and were harmed; but in general it was a +mere wasting of precious ointment which might have soothed our wounds if +elected in the senior year. Of course great teachers defy all rules; +and under a Hopkins, a Garman, or a Hyde, the distinctions of elective +and prescribed become unimportant. Yet the principle is clear: wait till +the young man is confronted with the problems before you invite him to +their solution. Has he grown up unquestioning? Has he accepted the moral +code inherited from honored parents? Can he rest in wise habits? Then +let him be thankful and go his way untaught. But has he, on the other +hand, felt that the moral mechanism by which he was early guided does +not fit all cases? Has he found one class of duties in conflict with +another? Has he discovered that the moral standards obtaining in +different sections of society, in different parts of the world, are +irreconcilable? In short, is he puzzled and desirous of working his way +through his puzzles, of facing them and tracking them to their +beginnings? Then is he ripe for the study of ethics. + +Yet when it is so undertaken, when those only are invited to partake of +it who in their own hearts have heard its painful call, even then I +would hedge it about with two conditions. First, it should be pursued as +a science, critically, and the student should be informed at the outset +that the aim of the course is knowledge, not the endeavor to make better +men. And, secondly, I would insist that the students themselves do the +work; that they do not passively listen to opinions set forth by their +instructor, but that they address themselves to research and learn to +construct moral judgments which will bear critical inspection. Some +teachers, no doubt, will think it wisest to accomplish these things by +tracing the course of ethics in the past, treating it as a historical +science. Others will prefer, by announcing their own beliefs, to +stimulate their students to criticise those beliefs and to venture on +their own little constructions. The method is unimportant; it is only of +consequence that the students themselves do the ethicizing, that they +trace the logic of their own beliefs and do not rest in dogmatic +statement. Yet such an undertaking may well sober a teacher. I never see +my class in ethics come to their first lecture that I do not tremble and +say to myself that I am set for the downfall of some of them. In every +such studious company there must be unprepared persons whom the teacher +will damage. He cannot help it. He must move calmly forward, confident +in his subject, but knowing that because it is living it is dangerous. + + + + +III + +MORAL INSTRUCTION IN THE SCHOOLS + + +The preceding paper has discussed sufficiently the negative side of +moral education. It has shown how children should not be approached. But +few readers will be willing to leave the matter here. Are there no +positive measures to be taken? Is there no room in our schools for any +teaching of morality, or must the most important of subjects be +altogether banished from their doors? There is much which might lead us +to think so. If a teacher may not instruct his pupils in morality, what +other concern with it he should have is not at once apparent. One may +even suspect that attention to it will distract him from his proper +work. Every human undertaking has some central aim and succeeds by +loyalty to it. Each profession, for example, singles out one of our many +needs and to this devotes itself whole-heartedly. Such a restriction is +wise. No profession could be strong which attempted to meet the +requirements of man as a whole. The physician accordingly selects his +little aim of extirpating suffering and disease. His studies, his +occupation, his aptitudes, his hopes of gain, his dignity as a public +character, all have reference to this. Whatever is incompatible with +it, of however great worth in itself, is rightly ignored. To save the +soul of a patient may be of larger consequence than to invigorate his +body. But the faithful physician attends to spiritual matters only so +far as he thinks them conducive to bodily health. Or again the painter, +because he is setting ocular beauty before us, concerns himself with +harmonies of color, balance of masses, rhythms of line, rather than with +history, anecdote, or incitements to noble living. I once heard a +painter say, "There is religion enough for me in seeing how half a dozen +figures can be made to go together," and I honored him for the saying. +So too I should hold that the proper aim of the merchant is money-making +and that only so much of charity or public usefulness can fairly be +demanded of him as does not conflict with his profits. It is true that +there are large ways and petty ways of acquiring gain, and one's own +advantage cannot for long be separated from that of others. Still, the +merchant rightly desists from any course which he finds in the long run +commercially unprofitable. + +What, then, is the central aim of teaching? Confessedly it is the +impartation of knowledge. Whatever furthers this should be eagerly +pursued; and all that hinders it, rejected. When schoolmasters +understand their business it will be useless for the public to call to +them, "We want our children to be patriotic. Drop for a time your +multiplication table while you rouse enthusiasm for the old flag." They +would properly reply, "We are ready to teach American history. As a part +of human knowledge, it belongs to our province. But though the +politicians fail to stir patriotism, do not put their neglected work +upon us. We have more than we can attend to already." + +Now in my previous paper I showed how a theoretic knowledge of good +conduct had better not be given to children. By exposition of holy laws +they are not nourished, but enfeebled. What they need is right habits, +not an understanding of them: to become good persons rather than to +acquire a critical acquaintance with goodness. What moral function then +remains for the schools? To furnish knowledge of morality has been +proved dangerous. For teachers to turn away from imparting knowledge and +devote their scanty time to fashioning character is to abandon work +which they alone are fitted to perform. Yet to let them send forth boys +and girls alert in mind and loose in character is something which no +community will long endure. + +Until one has clearly faced these alternative perplexities he is in no +condition to advise about grafting morality into a school curriculum; +for until then he will be pretty sure to be misled by the popular notion +of morality as a thing apart, demanding separate study, a topic like +geography or English literature. But the morality nutritious for +school-children is nothing of this kind. No additional hour need be +provided for its teaching. In teaching anything, we teach it. A false +antithesis was therefore set up just now when we suggested that a +teacher's business was to impart knowledge rather than to fashion +character. He cannot do the one without the other. Let him be altogether +true to his scientific aims and refuse to accommodate them to anything +else; he will be all the better teacher of morality. Carlyle tells of a +carpenter who broke all the ten commandments with every stroke of his +hammer. A scholar breaks or keeps them with every lesson learned. So +conditioned on morality is the process of knowing, so inwrought is it in +the very structure of the school, that a school might well be called an +ethical instrument and its daily sessions hours for the manufacture of +character. Only the species of character manufactured will largely +depend on the teacher's acquaintance with the instrument he is using. To +increase that acquaintance and give greater deftness in the use of so +exquisite an instrument is the object of this paper. Once mastered, the +tools of his own trade will be more prized by the earnest teacher than +any additional handbook of ethics. + +It will be easiest to point out the kind of moral instruction a school +is fitted to give, if we distinguish with somewhat exaggerated +sharpness its several lines of activity. A school is primarily a place +of learning; it is unavoidably a social unit, and it is incidentally a +dependent fellowship. No one of these aspects is ever absent from it. +Each affords its own opportunity for moral training. The combination of +them gives a school its power. Yet each is so detachable that it may +well become the subject of independent study. + +I. A school is primarily a place of learning, and to this purpose all +else in it is rightfully subordinated. But learning is itself an act, +and one more dependent than most on moral guidance. It occurs, too, at a +period of life whose chief business is the transformation of a thing of +nature into a spiritual being. Several stages in this spiritual +transformation through which the process of learning takes us I will +point out. + +A school generally gives a child his first acquaintance with an +authoritatively organized world and reveals his dependence upon it. By +nature, impulses and appetites rule him. A child is charmingly +self-centred. The world and all its ordered goings he notices merely as +ministering to his desires. Nothing but what he wishes, and wishes just +now, is important. He relates all this but little to the wishes of other +people, to the inherent fixities of things, to his own future states, to +whether one wish is compatible with another. His immediate mood is +everything. Of any difference between what is whimsical or momentary and +what is rational or permanent he is oblivious. To him dreams and fancies +are as substantial as stars, hills, or moving creatures. He has, in +short, no idea of law nor any standards of reality. + +Now it is the first business of instruction to impart such ideas and +standards; but no less is this a work of moralization. The two +accordingly go on together. Whether we call the chaotic conditions of +nature in which we begin life ignorance or deficient morality, it is +equally the work of education to abolish them. Both education and +morality set themselves to rationalize the moody, lawless, transient, +isolated, self-assertive, and impatient aspects of things, introducing +the wondering scholar to the inherent necessities which surround him. +"Schoolmasters," says George Herbert, "deliver us to laws." And probably +most of us make our earliest acquaintance with these impalpable and +controlling entities when we take our places in the school. There our +primary lesson is submission. We are bidden to put away personal likings +and see how in themselves things really are. Eight times nine does not +permit itself to be seventy-three or sixty-four, but exactly and forever +seventy-two. Cincinnati lies obstinately on the Ohio, not on the +Mississippi, and it is nonsense to speak of Daniel Webster as a +President of the United States. The agreement of verbs and nouns, the +reactions of chemical elements were, it seems, settled some time before +we appeared. They pay little attention to our humors. We must accept an +already constituted world and adjust our little self to its august +realities. Of course the process is not completed at school. Begun +there, it continues throughout life; its extent, tenacity, and +instantaneous application marking the degree which we reach in +scientific and moral culture. Let a teacher attempt to lighten the task +of himself or his pupil by accepting an inexact observation, a slipshod +remembrance, a careless statement, or a distorted truth, and he will +corrupt the child's character no less than his intelligence. He confirms +the child's habit of intruding himself into reality and of remaining +listless when ordained facts are calling. Education may well be defined +as the banishment of moods at the bidding of the permanently real. + +But to acquire such obedient alertness persistence is necessary, and in +gaining it a child wins a second victory over disorderly nature. By this +he becomes acquainted not merely with an outer world, but with a still +stranger object, himself. I have spoken already of the eagerness of +young desires. They are blind and disruptive things. One of them pays +small heed to another, but each blocks the other's way, preventing +anything like a coherent and united life. A child is notoriously a +creature of the moment, looking little before and after. He must be +taught to do so before he can know anything or be anybody. A school +matures him by connecting his doings of to-day with those of to-morrow. +Here he begins to estimate the worth of the present by noticing what it +contributes to an organic plan. Each hour of study brings precious +discipline in preferring what is distantly important to what is +momentarily agreeable. A personal being, in some degree emancipated from +time, consequently emerges, and a selfhood appears, built up through +enduring interests. The whole process is in the teacher's charge. It is +his to enforce diligence and so to assist the vague little life to knit +itself solidly together. + +Nor should it be forgotten that to become each day the possessor of +increasing stores of novel and interesting truths normally brings +dignity and pleasure. This honorable delight reacts, too, on the process +of learning, quickening its pace, sharpening its observation, and +confirming its persistence. It is of no less importance for the +character, to which it imparts ease, courage, beauty, and +resourcefulness. But on the teacher it will depend whether such pleasure +is found. A teacher who has entered deeply into his subject, and is not +afraid of allowing enthusiasm to appear, will make the densest subject +and the densest pupil glow; while a dull teacher can in a few minutes +strip the most engrossing subject of interest and make the diligence +exacted in its pursuit deadening. It is dangerous to dissociate toil and +delight. The school is the place to initiate their genial union. Whoever +learns there to love knowledge, will be pretty secure of becoming an +educated and useful man and of finding satisfaction in whatever +employment may afterwards be his. + +One more contribution to character which comes from the school as a +place of learning I will mention: it should create a sense of freedom. +Without this both learning and the learner are distorted. It is not +enough that the child become submissive to an already constituted world, +obedient to its authoritative organization; not enough that he find +pleasure in it, or even discover himself emerging, as one day's +diligence is bound up with that of another. All these influences may +easily make him think of himself as a passive creature, and consequently +leave him half formed. There is something more. Rightly does the +Psalmist call the fear of the Lord the beginning of wisdom rather than +its end; for that education is defective which fashions a docile and +slavish learner. As the child introduces order into his previously +capricious acts, thoughts, and feelings, he should feel in himself a +power of control unknown before, and be encouraged to find an honorable +use for his very peculiarities. He should be brought to see that the +world is unfinished and needs his joyful coöperation, that it has room +for individual activity and admits rationally constructed purposes. From +his earliest years a child should be encouraged to criticise, to have +preferences, and to busy himself with imaginative constructions; for all +this development of orderly freedom and of rejoicing in its exercise is +building up at once both knowledge and character. + +II. Yet a school becomes an ethical instrument not merely through being +a place of learning but because it is also a social unit. It is a +coöperative group, or company of persons pledged every instant to +consider one another, their common purpose being jarred by the obtrusion +of any one's dissenting will. Accordingly much that is proper elsewhere +becomes improper here. As soon as a child enters a schoolroom he is +impressed by the unaccustomed silence. A happy idea springs in his mind +and clamors for the same outgo it would have at home, but it is +restrained in deference to the assembled company. In crossing the room +he is taught to tread lightly, though for himself a joyous dash might be +agreeable; but might it not distract the attention of those who are +studying? The school begins at nine o'clock and each recitation at its +fixed hour, these times being no better than others except as +facilitating common corporate action. To this each one's private ways +become adjusted. The subordination of each to all is written large on +every arrangement of school life; and it needs must be so if there is to +be moral advance. For morality itself is nothing but the acceptance of +such habits as express the helpful relations of society and the +individual. Punctuality, order, quiet, are signs that the child's life +is beginning to be socialized. A teacher who fails to impress their +elementary righteousness on his pupils brutalizes every child in his +charge. + +Such relations between the social whole and the part assume a variety of +forms, and the school is the best place for introducing a child to their +niceties. Those other persons whom a schoolboy is called on continually +to regard may be either his superiors, equals, or inferiors. To each we +have specific duties, expressed in an appropriate type of manners. Our +teachers are above us,--above us in age, experience, wisdom, and +authority. To treat them as comrades is unseemly. Confession of their +superiority colors all our approaches. They are to be listened to as +others are not. Their will has the right of way. Our bearing toward +them, however trustful or even affectionate, shows a respectfulness +somewhat removed from familiarity. On the other hand schoolmates are +comrades, at least those of the same sex, class, strength, and +intelligence. Among them we assert ourselves freely, yet with constant +care to secure no less freedom for them, and we guard them against any +damage or annoyance which our hasty assertiveness might cause. In case +of clash between their interest and our own, ours is withdrawn. And then +toward those who are below us, either in rank or powers, helpfulness +springs forth. We are eager to bridge over the separating chasm and by +our will to abolish hindering defects. These three types of personal +adjustment--respect, courtesy, and helpfulness, with their wide variety +of combination--form the groundwork of all good manners. In their +beginnings they need prompting and oversight from some one who is +already mature. A school which neglects to cultivate them works almost +irreparable injury to its pupils. For if these possibilities of refined +human intercourse are not opened in the school years, it is with great +difficulty they are arrived at afterwards. + +The spiritualizing influence of the school as a social unit is, however, +not confined to the classroom. It is quite as active on the playground. +There a boy learns to play fair, accustoms himself to that greatest of +social ties, _l'esprit du corps_. Throughout life a man needs +continually to merge his own interests in those of a group. He must act +as the father of a family, an operative in a factory, a voter of +Boston, an American citizen, a member of an engine company, union, +church, or business firm. His own small concerns are taken up into these +larger ones, and devotion to them is not felt as self-sacrifice. A +preparation for such moral ennoblement is laid in the sports of +childhood. What does a member of the football team care for battered +shins or earth-scraped hands? His side has won, and his own gains and +losses are forgotten. Soon his team goes forth against an outside team, +and now the honor of the whole school is in his keeping. What pride is +his! As he puts on his uniform, he strips off his isolated personality +and stands forth as the trusted champion of an institution. Nor does +this august supersession of the private consciousness by the public +arise in connection with sports alone. As a member of the school, a boy +acts differently from what he otherwise would. There is a standard of +conduct recognized as suitable for a Washington School boy, and from it +his own does not widely depart. For good or for ill each school has its +ideals of "good form" which are compulsive over its members and are +handed on from class to class. To assist in moulding, refining, and +maintaining these is the weightiest work of a schoolmaster. For these +ideals have about them the sacredness of what is traditional, +institutional, and are of an unseen, august, and penetrative power, +comparable to nothing else in character-formation. To modify them ever +so slightly a teacher should be content to work for years. + +III. A third aspect of the school I have called its character as a +Dependent Fellowship, and I have said that this is merely incidental. A +highly important incident it is, however, and one that never fails to +recur. What I would indicate by the dark phrase is this: in every school +an imperfect life is associated with one similar but more advanced, one +from which it perpetually receives influences that are not official nor +measurable in money payment. A teacher is hired primarily to teach, and +with a view also to his ability to keep order throughout his little +society and to make his authority respected there. But side by side with +these public duties runs the expression of his personality. This is his +own, something which he hides or discloses at his pleasure. To his +pupils, however, he must always appear in the threefold character of +teacher, master, and developed human being; while they correspondingly +present themselves to him as pupils, members of the school, and +elementary human beings. Of these pairs of relationships two are +contrasted and supplemental,--teacher and pupil, master and scholar, +having nothing in common, each being precisely what the other is not. As +human beings, however, pupil and teacher are akin and removed from one +another merely by the degree of progress made by the elder along a +common path. Here then the relation is one of fellowship, but a +fellowship where the younger is largely dependent on the older for an +understanding of what he should be. By example, friendship, and personal +influence a teacher is certain to affect for good or ill every member of +his school. In any account of the school as an ethical instrument this +subtlest of its moral agencies deserves careful analysis. + +There are different sorts of example. I may observe how the shopman does +up a package, and do one so myself the next morning. A companion may +have a special inflection of voice, which I may catch. I may be drawn to +industry by seeing how steadily my classmate studies. I may adopt a +phrase, a smile, or a polite gesture, which was originally my teacher's. +All these are cases of direct imitation. Some one possesses a trait or +an act which is passed over entire to another person, by whom it is +substituted for one of his own. Though the adoption of such alien ways +is dangerous, society could hardly go on without it. It is its mode of +transmitting what is supposed to be already tested and of lodging it in +the lives of persons of less experience, with the least cost to the +receivers. Most teachers will have habits which their pupils may +advantageously copy. Yet supposing the imitated ways altogether good, +which they seldom are, direct imitation is questionable as disregarding +the particular character of him in whom the ways are found and in +assuming that they will be equally appropriate if engrafted on anybody. +But this is far from true, and consequently he who imitates much is, or +soon will be, a weakling. On the whole, a teacher needs to guard his +pupils against his imitable peculiarities. If sensible, he will snub +whoever is disposed to repeat them. + +Still, there is a noble sort of imitation, and that school is a poor +place where it does not go on. Certain persons have a strange power of +invigorating us by their presence. When with them, we can do what seems +impossible alone. They are our examples rather as wholes, and in their +strength and spirit, than in their single traits or acts; and so +whatever is most distinctive of ourselves becomes renewed through +contact with them. It was said of the late Dr. Jowett that he sent out +more pupils who were widely unlike himself than any Oxford teacher of +his time. That is enviable praise; for the wholesomeness of example is +tested by inquiring whether it develops differences or has only the +power of duplicating the original. Every teacher knows how easy it is to +send out cheap editions of himself, and in his weaker moments he +inclines to issue them. But it is ignoble business. Our manners and +tones and phrases and the ways we have of doing this and that are after +all valuable only as expressions of ourselves. For anybody else they +are rubbish. What we should like to impart is that earnestness, +accuracy, unselfishness, candor, reverence for God's laws, and +sturdiness through hardship, toward which we aspire--matters in reality +only half ours and which spring up with fresh and original beauty in +every soul where they once take root. The Dependent Fellowship of a +school makes these larger, enkindling, and diversifying influences +peculiarly possible. It should be a teacher's highest ambition to +exercise them. And though we might naturally expect that such inspiring +teachers would be rare, I seldom enter a school without finding +indications of the presence of at least one of them. + +But for those who would acquire this larger influence a strange caution +is necessary: Examples do not work that are not real. We sometimes try +to "set an example," that is, to put on a type of character for the +benefit of a beholder; and are usually disappointed. Personal influence +is not an affair of acting, but of being. Those about us are strangely +affected by what we veritably are, only slightly by what we would have +them see. If we are indisposed to study, yet, knowing that industry is +good for our scholars, assume a bustling diligence, they are more likely +to feel the real portion of the affair, our laziness, than the activity +which was designed for their copying. Astonishingly shrewd are the young +at scenting humbug and being unaffected by its pretensions. There is +consequently no method to be learned for gaining personal influence. +Almost everything else requires plan and effort. This precious power +needs little attention. It will not come in one way better than another. +A fair measure of sympathetic tact is useful for starting it; but in the +long run persons rude and suave, talkative and silent, handsome and +ugly, stalwart and slight, possess it in about equal degree, the very +characteristics which we should be disposed to count disadvantageous +often seeming to confirm its hold. Since it generally comes about that +our individual interests become in some measure those of our pupils too, +the only safe rule for personal influence is to go heartily about our +own affairs, with a friendly spirit, and let our usual nature have +whatever effect it may. + +Still, there is one important mode of preparation: seeing that personal +influence springs from what we are, we can really be a good deal. In a +former paper, on The Ideal Teacher, I pointed this out and insisted that +to be of any use in the classroom we teachers must bring there an +already accumulated wealth. I will not repeat what I have said already, +for a little reflection will convince any one that when he lacks +personal influence he lacks much besides. A great example comes from a +great nature, and we who live in fellowship with dependent and +imitative youth should acquire natures large enough to serve both their +needs and our own. Let teachers be big, bounteous, and unconventional, +and they will have few backward pupils. + +Personal influence is often assumed to be greater the closer the +intimacy. I believe the contrary to be the case. Familiarity, says the +shrewd proverb, breeds contempt. And certainly the young, who are little +trained in estimating values, when brought into close association with +their elders are apt to fix their attention on petty points and so to +miss the larger lines of character. These they see best across an +interval where, though visible only in outline, they are clear, +unconfused with anything else, and so productive of their best effect. +For the immature, distance is a considerable help in inducing +enchantment, and nothing is so destructive of high influence as a +slap-on-the-back acquaintance. One who is to help us much must be above +us. A teacher should carefully respect his own dignity and no less +carefully that of his pupil. In our eagerness to help, we may easily +cheapen a fine nature by intruding too frequently into its reserves; and +on the other hand I have observed that the boy who comes oftenest for +advice is he who profits by it least. It is safest not to meddle much +with the insides of our pupils. An occasional weighty word is more +compulsive than frequent talk. + +Within the limits then here marked out we who live in these Dependent +Fellowships must submit to be admired. We must allow our pupils to +idealize us and even offer ourselves for imitation. It is not pleasant. +Usually nobody knows his weaknesses better than the one who is mistaken +for an example. But what a helpful mistake! What ennobling influences +come to schoolboys when once they can think their teacher is the sort of +person they would like to be! Perhaps at the very moment that teacher is +thinking they are the sort of person he would like to be. No matter. +What they admire is worthy, even if not embodied precisely where they +imagine. In humility we accept their admiration, knowing that nothing +else can so enlarge their lives. As I recall my college days, there rise +before me two teachers. As I entered the lecture rooms of those two men, +I said to myself, "Oh, if some day I could be like that!" And always +afterwards as I went to those respective rooms, the impression of +dignity deepened. I have forgotten the lessons I learned from those +instructors. I never can discharge my debt to the instructors +themselves. + +Such are the moral resources of our schools. Without turning aside in +the slightest from their proper aim of imparting knowledge, teachers are +able,--almost compelled--to supply their pupils with an intellectual, +social, and personal righteousness. What more is wanted? When such +opportunities for moral instruction are already within their grasp, is +it worth while to incur the grave dangers of ethical instruction too? I +think not, and I even fear that the establishment of courses in moral +theory might weaken the sense of responsibility among the other teachers +and lead them to attach less importance to the moralization of their +pupils by themselves. This is burdensome business, no doubt, but we must +not shift it to a single pair of shoulders. Rather let us insist, when +bad boys and girls continue in a school, that the blame belongs to the +teachers as a whole, and not to some ethical coach. It is from the +management and temper of a school that its formative influence proceeds. +We cannot safely turn over anything so all-pervading to the instructors +of a single department. That school where neatness, courtesy, +simplicity, obtain; where enthusiasm goes with mental exactitude, +thoroughness of work with interest, and absence of artificiality with +refinement; where sneaks, liars, loafers, pretenders, rough persons are +despised, while teachers who refuse to be mechanical hold sway--that +school is engaged in moral training all day long. + +Yet while I hold that the systematic study of ethics had on the whole +better be left to the colleges, I confess that the line which I have +attempted to draw between consciousness and unconsciousness, between +the age which is best directed by instinct and the age when the +questioning faculties put forward their inexorable demands, is a +wavering one and cannot be sharply drawn. By one child it is crossed at +one period, by another at another. Seldom is the crossing noticed. +Before we are aware we find ourselves in sorrow on the farther side. +Happy the youth who during the transition time has a wise friend at +hand to answer a question, to speak a steadying word, to open up the +vista which at the moment needs to be cleared. Only one in close +personal touch is serviceable here. But in defect of home guidance, +to us teachers falls much of the charge of developing the youthful +consciousness of moral matters naturally, smoothly, and without jar. +This has always been a part of the teacher's office. So far as I can +ascertain schools of the olden time had in them a large amount of +wholesome ethical training. Schools were unsystematic then; there lay +no examination paper ahead of them; there was time for pause and talk. +If a subject arose which the teacher deemed important for his pupils' +personal lives, he could lead them on to question about it, so far as he +believed discussion useful. This sort of ethical training the hurry of +our time has largely exterminated; and now that wholesome incidental +instruction is gone, we demand in the modern way that a clear-cut +department of ethics be introduced into the curriculum. But such +things do not let themselves be treated in departmental fashion. The +teacher must still work as a friend. He cannot be discharged from +knowing when and how to stimulate a question, from discerning which +boy or girl would be helped by consciousness and which would be +harmed. In these high regions our pupils cannot be approached in +classes. They require individual attention. And not because we are +teachers merely, but because we and they are human beings, we must be +ready with spiritual aid. + + + + +IV + +SELF-CULTIVATION IN ENGLISH + + +English study has four aims: the mastery of our language as a +science, as a history, as a joy, and as a tool. I am concerned with +but one, the mastery of it as a tool. Philology and grammar present +it as a science; the one attempting to follow its words, the other its +sentences, through all the intricacies of their growth, and so to +manifest laws which lie hidden in these airy products no less than in +the moving stars or the myriad flowers of spring. Fascinating and +important as all this is, I do not recommend it here. For I want to +call attention only to that sort of English study which can be +carried on without any large apparatus of books. For a reason similar, +though less cogent, I do not urge historical study. Probably the +current of English literature is more attractive through its continuity +than that of any other nation. Notable works in verse and prose have +appeared in long succession, and without gaps intervening, in a way +that would be hard to parallel in any other language known to man. A +bounteous endowment this for every English speaker, and one which +should stimulate us to trace the marvellous and close-linked progress +from the times of the Saxons to those of Tennyson and Kipling. +Literature too has this advantage over every other species of art study, +that everybody can examine the original masterpieces and not depend +on reproductions, as in the cases of painting, sculpture, and +architecture; or on intermediate interpretation, as in the case of +music. To-day most of these masterpieces can be bought for a trifle, and +even a poor man can follow through centuries the thoughts of his +ancestors. But even so, ready of access as it is, English can be +studied as a history only at the cost of solid time and continuous +attention, much more time than the majority of those for whom I am +writing can afford. By most of us our mighty literature cannot be taken +in its continuous current, the later stretches proving interesting +through relation with the earlier. It must be taken fragmentarily, +if at all, the attention delaying on those parts only which offer the +greatest beauty or promise the best exhilaration. In other words, +English may be possible as a joy where it is not possible as a history. +In the endless wealth which our poetry, story, essay, and drama +afford, every disposition may find its appropriate nutriment, +correction, or solace. He is unwise, however busy, who does not have +his loved authors, veritable friends with whom he takes refuge in the +intervals of work and by whose intimacy he enlarges, refines, +sweetens, and emboldens his own limited existence. Yet the fact +that English as a joy must largely be conditioned by individual taste +prevents me from offering general rules for its pursuit. The road +which leads one man straight to this joy leads another to tedium. In all +literary enjoyment there is something incalculable, something +wayward, eluding the precision of rule, and rendering inexact the +precepts of him who would point out the path to it. While I believe +that many suggestions may be made, useful to the young enjoyer and +promotive of his wise vagrancy, I shall not undertake here the +complicated task of offering them. Let enjoyment go, let history go, +let science go, and still English remains--English as a tool. Every +hour our language is an engine for communicating with others, every +instant for fashioning the thoughts of our own minds. I want to call +attention to the means of mastering this curious and essential tool, and +to lead every one who reads me to become discontented with his +employment of it. + +The importance of literary power needs no long argument. Everybody +acknowledges it, and sees that without it all other human faculties are +maimed. Shakespeare says that death-bringing time "insults o'er dull and +speechless tribes." It and all who live in it insult over the speechless +person. So mutually dependent are we that on our swift and full +communication with one another is staked the success of almost every +scheme we form. He who can explain himself may command what he wants. +He who cannot is left to the poverty of individual resource; for men do +what we desire only when persuaded. The persuasive and explanatory +tongue is, therefore, one of the chief levers of life. Its leverage is +felt within us as well as without, for expression and thought are +integrally bound together. We do not first possess completed thoughts +and then express them. The very formation of the outward product +extends, sharpens, enriches the mind which produces, so that he who +gives forth little after a time is likely enough to discover that he has +little to give forth. By expression too we may carry our benefits and +our names to a far generation. This durable character of fragile +language puts a wide difference of worth between it and some of the +other great objects of desire,--health, wealth, and beauty, for example. +These are notoriously liable to accident. We tremble while we have them. +But literary power, once ours, is more likely than any other possession +to be ours always. It perpetuates and enlarges itself by the very fact +of its existence and perishes only with the decay of the man himself. +For this reason, because more than health, wealth, and beauty, literary +style may be called the man, good judges have found in it the final test +of culture and have said that he, and he alone, is a well-educated +person who uses his language with power and beauty. The supreme and +ultimate product of civilization, it has well been said, is two or +three persons talking together in a room. Between ourselves and our +language there accordingly springs up an association peculiarly close. +We are as sensitive to criticism of our speech as of our manners. The +young man looks up with awe to him who has written a book, as already +half divine; and the graceful speaker is a universal object of envy. + +But the very fact that literary endowment is immediately recognized +and eagerly envied has induced a strange illusion in regard to it. It +is supposed to be something mysterious, innate in him who possesses it +and quite out of the reach of him who has it not. The very contrary is +the fact. No human employment is more free and calculable than the +winning of language. Undoubtedly there are natural aptitudes for it, as +there are for farming, seamanship, or being a good husband. But nowhere +is straight work more effective. Persistence, care, discriminating +observation, ingenuity, refusal to lose heart,--traits which in every +other occupation tend toward excellence,--tend toward it here with +special security. Whoever goes to his grave with bad English in his +mouth has no one to blame but himself for the disagreeable taste; for +if faulty speech can be inherited, it can be exterminated too. I hope +to point out some of the methods of substituting good English for bad. +And since my space is brief, and I wish to be remembered, I throw +what I have to say into the form of four simple precepts which, if +pertinaciously obeyed, will, I believe, give anybody effective mastery +of English as a tool. + +First then, "Look well to your speech." It is commonly supposed that +when a man seeks literary power he goes to his room and plans an article +for the press. But this is to begin literary culture at the wrong end. +We speak a hundred times for every once we write. The busiest writer +produces little more than a volume a year, not so much as his talk would +amount to in a week. Consequently through speech it is usually decided +whether a man is to have command of his language or not. If he is +slovenly in his ninety-nine cases of talking, he can seldom pull himself +up to strength and exactitude in the hundredth case of writing. A person +is made in one piece, and the same being runs through a multitude of +performances. Whether words are uttered on paper or to the air, the +effect on the utterer is the same. Vigor or feebleness results according +as energy or slackness has been in command. I know that certain +adaptations to a new field are often necessary. A good speaker may find +awkwardnesses in himself when he comes to write, a good writer when he +speaks. And certainly cases occur where a man exhibits distinct strength +in one of the two, speaking or writing, and not in the other. But such +cases are rare. As a rule, language once within our control can be +employed for oral or for written purposes. And since the opportunities +for oral practice enormously outbalance those for written, it is the +oral which are chiefly significant in the development of literary power. +We rightly say of the accomplished writer that he shows a mastery of his +own tongue. + +This predominant influence of speech marks nearly all great epochs +of literature. The Homeric poems are addressed to the ear, not to the +eye. It is doubtful if Homer knew writing, certain that he knew +profoundly every quality of the tongue,--veracity, vividness, +shortness of sentence, simplicity of thought, obligation to insure +swift apprehension. Writing and rigidity are apt to go together. In +Homer's smooth-slipping verses one catches everywhere the voice. So +too the aphorisms of Hesiod might naturally pass from mouth to mouth, +and the stories of Herodotus be told by an old man at the fireside. +Early Greek literature is plastic and garrulous. Its distinctive +glory is that it contains no literary note; that it gives forth +human feeling not in conventional arrangement, but with apparent +spontaneity--in short, that it is speech literature, not book +literature. And the same tendency continued long among the Greeks. At +the culmination of their power the drama was their chief literary +form,--the drama, which is but speech ennobled, connected, clarified. +Plato too, following the dramatic precedent and the precedent of +his talking master, accepted conversation as his medium for philosophy +and imparted to it the vivacity, ease, waywardness even, which the +best conversation exhibits. Nor was the experience of the Greeks +peculiar. Our literature shows a similar tendency. Its bookish times +are its decadent times, its talking times its glory. Chaucer, like +Herodotus, is a story-teller, and follows the lead of those who on +the Continent entertained courtly circles with pleasant tales. +Shakespeare and his fellows in the spacious times of great Elizabeth did +not concern themselves with publication. Marston in one of his prefaces +thinks it necessary to apologize for putting his piece in print, and +says he would not have done such a thing if unscrupulous persons, +hearing the play at the theatre, had not already printed corrupt +versions of it. Even the Queen Anne's men, far removed though they are +from anything dramatic, still shape their ideals of literature by +demands of speech. The essays of the Spectator, the poems of Pope, +are the remarks of a cultivated gentleman at an evening party. Here +is the brevity, the good taste, the light touch, the neat epigram, the +avoidance of whatever might stir passion, controversy, or laborious +thought, which characterize the conversation of a well-bred man. +Indeed it is hard to see how any literature can be long vital which is +based on the thought of a book and not on that of living utterance. +Unless the speech notion is uppermost, words will not run swiftly to +their mark. They delay in delicate phrasings while naturalness and a +sense of reality disappear. Women are the best talkers. I sometimes +please myself with noticing that three of the greatest periods of +English literature coincide with the reigns of the three English +queens. + +Fortunate it is, then, that self-cultivation in the use of English must +chiefly come through speech; because we are always speaking, whatever +else we do. In opportunities for acquiring a mastery of language the +poorest and busiest are at no large disadvantage as compared with the +leisured rich. It is true the strong impulse which comes from the +suggestion and approval of society may in some cases be absent, but this +can be compensated by the sturdy purpose of the learner. A recognition +of the beauty of well-ordered words, a strong desire, patience under +discouragements, and promptness in counting every occasion as of +consequence,--these are the simple agencies which sweep one on to power. +Watch your speech then. That is all which is needed. Only it is +desirable to know what qualities of speech to watch for. I find +three,--accuracy, audacity, and range,--and I will say a few words about +each. + +Obviously, good English is exact English. Our words should fit our +thoughts like a glove and be neither too wide nor too tight. If too +wide, they will include much vacuity beside the intended matter. If too +tight, they will check the strong grasp. Of the two dangers, looseness +is by far the greater. There are people who say what they mean with such +a naked precision that nobody not familiar with the subject can quickly +catch the sense. George Herbert and Emerson strain the attention of +many. But niggardly and angular speakers are rare. Too frequently words +signify nothing in particular. They are merely thrown out in a certain +direction to report a vague and undetermined meaning or even a general +emotion. The first business of every one who would train himself in +language is to articulate his thought, to know definitely what he wishes +to say, and then to pick those words which compel the hearer to think of +this and only this. For such a purpose two words are often better than +three. The fewer the words, the more pungent the impression. Brevity is +the soul, not simply of a jest, but of wit in its finer sense where it +is identical with wisdom. He who can put a great deal into a little is +the master. Since firm texture is what is wanted, not embroidery or +superposed ornament, beauty has been well defined as the purgation of +superfluities. And certainly many a paragraph might have its beauty +brightened by letting quiet words take the place of its loud words, +omitting its "verys," and striking out its purple patches of fine +writing. Here is Ben Jonson's description of Bacon's language: "There +happened in my time one noble speaker who was full of gravity in his +speech. No man ever spoke more neatly, more pressly, more weightily, or +suffered less emptiness, less idleness, in what he uttered. No member of +his speech but consisted of his own graces. His hearers could not cough +or look aside without loss. He commanded when he spoke, and had his +judges angry or pleased at his discretion." Such are the men who +command, men who speak "neatly and pressly." But to gain such precision +is toilsome business. While we are in training for it, no word must +unpermittedly pass the portal of the teeth. Something like what we mean +must never be counted equivalent to what we mean. And if we are not sure +of our meaning or of our word, we must pause until we are sure. Accuracy +does not come of itself. For persons who can use several languages, +capital practice in acquiring it can be had by translating from one +language to another and seeing that the entire sense is carried over. +Those who have only their native speech will find it profitable often to +attempt definitions of the common words they use. Inaccuracy will not +stand up against the habit of definition. Dante boasted that no rhythmic +exigency had ever made him say what he did not mean. We heedless and +unintending speakers, under no exigency of rhyme or reason, say what we +mean but seldom, and still more seldom mean what we say. To hold our +thoughts and words in significant adjustment requires unceasing +consciousness, a perpetual determination not to tell lies; for of course +every inaccuracy is a bit of untruthfulness. We have something in mind, +yet convey something else to our hearer. And no moral purpose will save +us from this untruthfulness unless that purpose is sufficient to inspire +the daily drill which brings the power to be true. Again and again we +are shut up to evil because we have not acquired the ability of +goodness. + +But after all, I hope that nobody who hears me will quite agree. There +is something enervating in conscious care. Necessary as it is in shaping +our purposes, if allowed too direct and exclusive control consciousness +breeds hesitation and feebleness. Action is not excellent, at least, +until spontaneous. In piano-playing we begin by picking out each +separate note; but we do not call the result music until we play our +notes by the handful, heedless how each is formed. And so it is +everywhere. Consciously selective conduct is elementary and inferior. +People distrust it, or rather they distrust him who exhibits it. If +anybody talking to us visibly studies his words, we turn away. What he +says may be well enough as school exercise, but it is not conversation. +Accordingly, if we would have our speech forcible, we shall need to put +into it quite as much of audacity as we do of precision, terseness, or +simplicity. Accuracy alone is not a thing to be sought, but accuracy and +dash. It was said of Fox, the English orator and statesman, that he was +accustomed to throw himself headlong into the middle of a sentence, +trusting to God Almighty to get him out. So must we speak. We must not +before beginning a sentence decide what the end shall be; for if we do, +nobody will care to hear that end. At the beginning, it is the beginning +which claims the attention of both speaker and listener, and trepidation +about going on will mar all. We must give our thought its head, and not +drive it with too tight a rein, nor grow timid when it begins to prance +a bit. Of course we must retain coolness in courage, applying the +results of our previous discipline in accuracy; but we need not move so +slowly as to become formal. Pedantry is worse than blundering. If we +care for grace and flexible beauty of language, we must learn to let our +thought run. Would it, then, be too much of an Irish bull to say that in +acquiring English we need to cultivate spontaneity? The uncultivated +kind is not worth much; it is wild and haphazard stuff, unadjusted to +its uses. On the other hand no speech is of much account, however just, +which lacks the element of courage. Accuracy and dash, then, the +combination of the two, must be our difficult aim; and we must not rest +satisfied so long as either dwells with us alone. + +But are the two so hostile as they at first appear? Or can, indeed, +the first be obtained without the aid of the second? Supposing we +are convinced that words possess no value in themselves, and are +correct or incorrect only as they truly report experience, we shall +feel ourselves impelled in the mere interest of accuracy to choose +them freshly and to put them together in ways in which they never +coöperated before, so as to set forth with distinctness that which +just we, not other people, have seen or felt. The reason why we do +not naturally have this daring exactitude is probably twofold. We +let our experiences be blurred, not observing sharply, nor knowing +with any minuteness what we are thinking about; and so there is no +individuality in our language. And then, besides, we are terrorized by +custom and inclined to adjust what we would say to what others have +said before. The cure for the first of these troubles is to keep our +eye on our object, instead of on our listener or ourselves; and for the +second, to learn to rate the expressiveness of language more highly +than its correctness. The opposite of this, the disposition to set +correctness above expressiveness, produces that peculiarly vulgar +diction known as "school-ma'am English," in which for the sake of a +dull accord with usage all the picturesque, imaginative and forceful +employment of words is sacrificed. Of course we must use words so +that people can understand them, and understand them too with ease; +but this once granted, let our language be our own, obedient to our +special needs. "Whenever," says Thomas Jefferson, "by small grammatical +negligences the energy of an idea can be condensed, or a word be made to +stand for a sentence, I hold grammatical rigor in contempt." "Young +man," said Henry Ward Beecher to one who was pointing out grammatical +errors in a sermon of his, "when the English language gets in my way, it +doesn't stand a chance." No man can be convincing, writer or speaker, +who is afraid to send his words wherever they may best follow his +meaning, and this with but little regard to whether any other person's +words have ever been there before. In assessing merit let us not +stupefy ourselves with using negative standards. What stamps a man as +great is not freedom from faults, but abundance of powers. + +Such audacious accuracy, however, distinguishing as it does noble speech +from commonplace speech, can be practised only by him who has a wide +range of words. Our ordinary range is absurdly narrow. It is important, +therefore, for anybody who would cultivate himself in English to make +strenuous and systematic efforts to enlarge his vocabulary. Our +dictionaries contain more than a hundred thousand words. The average +speaker employs about three thousand. Is this because ordinary people +have only three or four thousand things to say? Not at all. It is +simply due to dulness. Listen to the average schoolboy. He has a dozen +or two nouns, half a dozen verbs, three or four adjectives, and enough +conjunctions and prepositions to stick the conglomerate together. This +ordinary speech deserves the description which Hobbes gave to his "State +of Nature," that "it is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short." The +fact is, we fall into the way of thinking that the wealthy words are for +others and that they do not belong to us. We are like those who have +received a vast inheritance, but who persist in the inconveniences of +hard beds, scanty food, rude clothing, who never travel, and who limit +their purchases to the bleak necessities of life. Ask such people why +they endure niggardly living while wealth in plenty is lying in the +bank, and they can only answer that they have never learned how to +spend. But this is worth learning. Milton used eight thousand words, +Shakespeare fifteen thousand. We have all the subjects to talk about +that these early speakers had; and in addition we have bicycles and +sciences and strikes and political combinations and all the complicated +living of the modern world. + +Why then do we hesitate to swell our words to meet our needs? It is a +nonsense question. There is no reason. We are simply lazy, too lazy to +make ourselves comfortable. We let our vocabularies be limited and get +along rawly without the refinements of human intercourse, without +refinements in our own thoughts; for thoughts are almost as dependent on +words as words on thoughts. For example, all exasperations we lump +together as "aggravating," not considering whether they may not rather +be displeasing, annoying, offensive, disgusting, irritating, or even +maddening; and without observing too that in our reckless usage we have +burned up a word which might be convenient when we should need to mark +some shading of the word "increase." Like the bad cook, we seize the +frying-pan whenever we need to fry, broil, roast, or stew, and then we +wonder why all our dishes taste alike while in the next house the food +is appetizing. It is all unnecessary. Enlarge the vocabulary. Let any +one who wants to see himself grow resolve to adopt two new words each +week. It will not be long before the endless and enchanting variety of +the world will begin to reflect itself in his speech, and in his mind as +well. I know that when we use a word for the first time we are startled, +as if a fire-cracker went off in our neighborhood. We look about hastily +to see if any one has noticed. But finding that no one has, we may be +emboldened. A word used three times slips off the tongue with entire +naturalness. Then it is ours forever, and with it some phase of life +which had been lacking hitherto. For each word presents its own point of +view, discloses a special aspect of things, reports some little +importance not otherwise conveyed, and so contributes its small +emancipation to our tied-up minds and tongues. + +But a brief warning may be necessary to make my meaning clear. In urging +the addition of new words to our present poverty-stricken stock I am far +from suggesting that we should seek out strange, technical or inflated +expressions, which do not appear in ordinary conversation. The very +opposite is my aim. I would put every man who is now employing a diction +merely local and personal in command of the approved resources of the +English language. Our poverty usually comes through provinciality, +through accepting without criticism the habits of our special set. My +family, my immediate friends, have a diction of their own. Plenty of +other words, recognized as sound, are known to be current in books and +to be employed by modest and intelligent speakers, only we do not use +them. Our set has never said "diction," or "current," or "scope," or +"scanty," or "hitherto," or "convey," or "lack." Far from unusual as +these words are, to adopt them might seem to set me apart from those +whose intellectual habits I share. From this I shrink. I do not like to +wear clothes suitable enough for others, but not in the style of my own +plain circle. Yet if each one of that circle does the same, the general +shabbiness is increased. The talk of all is made narrow enough to fit +the thinnest there. What we should seek is to contribute to each of the +little companies with which our life is bound up a gently enlarging +influence, such impulses as will not startle or create detachment, but +which may save from humdrum, routine and dreary usualness. We cannot be +really kind without being a little venturesome. The small shocks of our +increasing vocabulary will in all probability be as helpful to our +friends as to ourselves. + +Such then are the excellences of speech. If we would cultivate ourselves +in the use of English, we must make our daily talk accurate, daring and +full. I have insisted on these points the more because in my judgment +all literary power, especially that of busy men, is rooted in sound +speech. But though the roots are here, the growth is also elsewhere. And +I pass to my later precepts, which, if the earlier one has been laid +well to heart, will require only brief discussion. + +Secondly, "Welcome every opportunity for writing." Important as I have +shown speech to be, there is much that it cannot do. Seldom can it teach +structure. Its space is too small. Talking moves in sentences, and +rarely demands a paragraph. I make my little remark,--a dozen or two +words,--then wait for my friend to hand me back as many more. This +gentle exchange continues by the hour; but either of us would feel +himself unmannerly if he should grasp an entire five minutes and make +it uninterruptedly his. That would not be speaking, but rather +speech-making. The brief groupings of words which make up our talk +furnish capital practice in precision, boldness and variety; but they do +not contain room enough for exercising our constructive faculties. +Considerable length is necessary if we are to learn how to set forth _B_ +in right relation to _A_ on the one hand and to _C_ on the other; and +while keeping each a distinct part, are to be able through their smooth +progression to weld all the parts together into a compacted whole. Such +wholeness is what we mean by literary form. Lacking it, any piece of +writing is a failure; because in truth it is not a piece, but pieces. +For ease of reading, or for the attainment of an intended effect, unity +is essential--the multitude of statements, anecdotes; quotations, +arguings, gay sportings and appeals, all "bending one way their gracious +influence." And this dominant unity of the entire piece obliges unity +also in the subordinate parts. Not enough has been done when we have +huddled together a lot of wandering sentences and penned them in a +paragraph, or even when we have linked them together by the frail ties +of "and, and." A sentence must be compelled to say a single thing; a +paragraph, a single thing; an essay, a single thing. Each part is to be +a preliminary whole and the total a finished whole. But the ability to +construct one thing out of many does not come by nature. It implies +fecundity, restraint, an eye for effects, the forecast of finish while +we are still working in the rough, obedience to the demands of +development and a deaf ear to whatever calls us into the by-paths of +caprice; in short it implies that the good writer is to be an artist. + +Now something of this large requirement which composition makes, the +young writer instinctively feels, and he is terrified. He knows how +ill-fitted he is to direct "toil coöperant to an end"; and when he +sits down to the desk and sees the white sheet of paper before him, +he shivers. Let him know that the shiver is a suitable part of the +performance. I well remember the pleasure with which, as a young man, +I heard my venerable and practised professor of rhetoric say that he +supposed there was no work known to man more difficult than writing. +Up to that time I had supposed its severities peculiar to myself. It +cheered me, and gave me courage to try again, to learn that I had all +mankind for my fellow sufferers. Where this is not understood, writing +is avoided. From such avoidance I would save the young writer by my +precept to seek every opportunity to write. For most of us this is a +new way of confronting composition--treating it as an opportunity, a +chance, and not as a burden or compulsion. It saves from slavishness and +takes away the drudgery of writing, to view each piece of it as a +precious and necessary step in the pathway to power. To those +engaged in bread-winning employments these opportunities will be few. +Spring forward to them, then, using them to the full. Severe they +will be because so few, for only practice breeds ease; but on that +very account let no one of them pass with merely a second-best +performance. If a letter is to be written to a friend, a report to +an employer, a communication to a newspaper, see that it has a +beginning, a middle and an end. The majority of writings are without +these pleasing adornments. Only the great pieces possess them. Bear +this in mind and win the way to artistic composition by noticing what +should be said first, what second and what third. + +I cannot leave this subject, however, without congratulating the present +generation on its advantages over mine. Children are brought up to-day, +in happy contrast with my compeers, to feel that the pencil is no +instrument of torture, hardly indeed to distinguish it from the tongue. +About the time they leave their mother's arms they take their pen in +hand. On paper they are encouraged to describe their interesting birds, +friends, adventures. Their written lessons are almost as frequent as +their oral, and they learn to write compositions while not yet quite +understanding what they are about. Some of these fortunate ones will, I +hope, find the language I have sadly used about the difficulty of +writing extravagant. And let me say too that since frequency has more +to do with ease of writing than anything else, I count the newspaper +men lucky because they are writing all the time, and I do not think +so meanly of their product as the present popular disparagement would +seem to require. It is hasty work undoubtedly and bears the marks of +haste. But in my judgment, at no period of the English language has +there been so high an average of sensible, vivacious and informing +sentences written as appears in our daily press. With both good and +evil results, the distinction between book literature and speech +literature is breaking down. Everybody is writing, apparently in +verse and prose; and if the higher graces of style do not often +appear, neither on the other hand do the ruder awkwardnesses and +obscurities. A certain straightforward English is becoming established. +A whole nation is learning the use of its mother tongue. Under such +circumstances it is doubly necessary that any one who is conscious of +feebleness in his command of English should promptly and earnestly +begin the cultivation of it. + +My third precept shall be, "Remember the other person." I have been +urging self-cultivation in English as if it concerned one person alone, +ourself. But every utterance really concerns two. Its aim is social. Its +object is communication; and while unquestionably prompted halfway by +the desire to ease our mind through self-expression, it still finds its +only justification in the advantage somebody else will draw from what is +said. Speaking or writing is, therefore, everywhere a double-ended +process. It springs from me, it penetrates him; and both of these ends +need watching. Is what I say precisely what I mean? That is an important +question. Is what I say so shaped that it can readily be assimilated by +him who hears? This is a question of quite as great consequence and much +more likely to be forgotten. We are so full of ourselves that we do not +remember the other person. Helter-skelter we pour forth our unaimed +words merely for our personal relief, heedless whether they help or +hinder him whom they still purport to address. For most of us are +grievously lacking in imagination, which is the ability to go outside +ourselves and take on the conditions of another mind. Yet this is what +the literary artist is always doing. He has at once the ability to see +for himself and the ability to see himself as others see him. He can +lead two lives as easily as one life; or rather, he has trained himself +to consider that other life as of more importance than his, and to +reckon his comfort, likings and labors as quite subordinated to the +service of that other. All serious literary work contains within it this +readiness to bear another's burden. I must write with pains, that he may +read with ease. I must + + Find out men's wants and wills, + And meet them _there_. + +As I write, I must unceasingly study what is the line of least +intellectual resistance along which my thought may enter the differently +constituted mind; and to that line I must subtly adjust, without +enfeebling, my meaning. Will this combination of words or that make the +meaning clear? Will this order of presentation facilitate swiftness of +apprehension, or will it clog the movement? What temperamental +perversities in me must be set aside in order to render my reader's +approach to what I would tell him pleasant? What temperamental +perversities in him must be accepted by me as fixed facts, conditioning +all I say? These are the questions the skilful writer is always asking. + +And these questions, as will have been perceived already, are moral +questions no less than literary. That golden rule of generous service by +which we do for others what we would have them do for us is a rule of +writing too. Every writer who knows his trade perceives that he is a +servant, that it is his business to endure hardship if only his reader +may win freedom from toil, that no impediment to that reader's +understanding is too slight to deserve diligent attention, that he has +consequently no right to let a single sentence slip from him +unsocialized--I mean, a sentence which cannot become as naturally +another's possession as his own. In the very act of asserting himself he +lays aside what is distinctively his. And because these qualifications +of the writer are moral qualifications they can never be completely +fulfilled so long as we live and write. We may continually approximate +them more nearly, but there will still always be possible an alluring +refinement of exercise beyond. The world of the literary artist and the +moral man is interesting through its inexhaustibility; and he who serves +his fellows by writing or by speech is artist and moral man in one. +Writing a letter is a simple matter, but it is a moral matter and an +artistic; for it may be done either with imagination or with raw +self-centredness. What things will my correspondent wish to know? How +can I transport him out of his properly alien surroundings into the +vivid impressions which now are mine? How can I tell all I long to tell +and still be sure the telling will be for him as lucid and delightful as +for me? Remember the other person, I say. Do not become absorbed in +yourself. Your interests cover only the half of any piece of writing; +the other man's less visible half is necessary to complete yours. And if +I have here discussed writing more than speech, that is merely because +when we speak we utter our first thoughts, but when we write, our +second,--or better still, our fourth; and in the greater deliberation +which writing affords I have felt that the demands of morality and art, +which are universally imbedded in language, could be more distinctly +perceived. Yet none the less truly do we need to talk for the other +person than to write for him. + +But there remains a fourth weighty precept, and one not altogether +detachable from the third. It is this: "Lean upon the subject." We +have seen how the user of language, whether in writing or in speaking, +works for himself; how he works for another individual too; but there +is one more for whom his work is performed, one of greater consequence +than any person, and that is his subject. From this comes his primary +call. Those who in their utterance fix their thoughts on themselves, +or on other selves, never reach power. That resides in the subject. +There we must dwell with it and be content to have no other strength +than its. When the frightened schoolboy sits down to write about +Spring, he cannot imagine where the thoughts which are to make up his +piece are to come from. He cudgels his brain for ideas. He examines +his pen-point, the curtains, his inkstand, to see if perhaps ideas may +not be had from these. He wonders what his teacher will wish him to +say and he tries to recall how the passage sounded in the Third Reader. +In every direction but one he turns, and that is the direction where +lies the prime mover of his toil, his subject. Of that he is afraid. +Now, what I want to make evident is that this subject is not in reality +the foe, but the friend. It is his only helper. His composition is not +to be, as he seems to suppose, a mass of his laborious inventions, but +it is to be made up exclusively of what the subject dictates. He has +only to attend. At present he stands in his own way, making such a din +with his private anxieties that he cannot hear the rich suggestions +of the subject. He is bothered with considering how he feels, or +what he or somebody else will like to see on his paper. This is +debilitating business. He must lean on his subject, if he would have +his writing strong, and busy himself with what it says rather than with +what he would say. Matthew Arnold, in the important preface to his +poems of 1853, contrasting the artistic methods of Greek poetry and +modern poetry, sums up the teaching of the Greeks in these words: +"All depends upon the subject; choose a fitting action, penetrate +yourself with the feeling of its situations; this done, everything +else will follow." And he calls attention to the self-assertive and +scatter-brained habits of our time. "How different a way of thinking +from this is ours! We can hardly at the present day understand what +Menander meant when he told a man who inquired as to the progress of +his comedy that he had finished it, not having yet written a single +line, because he had constructed the action of it in his mind. A +modern critic would have assured him that the merit of his piece +depended on the brilliant things which arose under his pen as he went +along. I verily think that the majority of us do not in our hearts +believe that there is such a thing as a total-impression to be derived +from a poem or to be demanded from a poet. We permit the poet to select +any action he pleases and to suffer that action to go as it will, +provided he gratifies us with occasional bursts of fine writing and +with a shower of isolated thoughts and images." Great writers put +themselves and their personal imaginings out of sight. Their writing +becomes a kind of transparent window on which reality is reflected, and +through which people see, not them, but that of which they write. How +much we know of Shakespeare's characters! How little of Shakespeare! Of +him that might almost be said which Isaiah said of God, "He hideth +himself." The best writer is the best mental listener, the one who +peers farthest into his matter and most fully heeds its behests. +Preëminently obedient is such a writer,--refinedly, energetically +obedient. I once spent a day with a great novelist when the book which +subsequently proved his masterpiece was only half written. I praised +his mighty hero, but said I should think the life of an author would +be miserable who, having created a character so huge, now had him in +hand and must find something for him to do. My friend seemed puzzled +by my remark, but after a moment's pause said, "I don't think you +know how we work. I have nothing to do with the character. Now that +he is created he will act as he will." + +And such docility must be cultivated by every one who would write well, +such strenuous docility. Of course there must be energy in plenty; the +imagination which I described in my third section, the passion for solid +form as in my second, the disciplined and daring powers as in my first; +but all these must be ready at a moment's notice to move where the +matter calls and to acknowledge that all their worth is to be drawn from +it. Religion is only enlarged good sense, and the words of Jesus apply +as well to the things of earth as of heaven. I do not know where we +could find a more compendious statement of what is most important for +one to learn who would cultivate himself in English than the saying in +which Jesus announces the source of his power, "The word which ye hear +is not mine, but the Father's which sent me." Whoever can use such words +will be a noble speaker indeed. + +These then are the fundamental precepts which every one must heed who +would command our beautiful English language. There is of course a +fifth. I hardly need name it; for it always follows after, whatever +others precede. It is that we should do the work, and not think about +it; do it day after day and not grow weary in bad doing. Early and often +we must be busy and be satisfied to have a great deal of labor produce +but a small result. I am told that early in life John Morley, wishing to +engage in journalism, wrote an editorial and sent it to a paper every +day for nearly a year before he succeeded in getting one accepted. We +all know what a power he became in London journalism. I will not vouch +for the truth of this story, but I am sure an ambitious author is wise +who writes a weekly essay for his stove. Publication is of little +consequence so long as one is getting one's self hammered into shape. + +But before I close this paper let me acknowledge that in it I have +neglected a whole class of helpful influences, probably quite as +important as any I have discussed. Purposely I have passed them by. +Because I wished to show what we can do for ourselves, I have everywhere +assumed that our cultivation in English is to be effected by naked +volition and a kind of dead lift. These are mighty agencies, but seldom +in this interlocked world do they work well alone. They are strongest +when backed by social suggestion and unconscious custom. Ordinarily the +good speaker is he who keeps good company, but increases the helpful +influence of that company by constant watchfulness along the lines I +have marked out. So supplemented, my teaching is true. By itself it is +not true. It needs the supplementation of others. Let him who would +speak or write well seek out good speakers and writers. Let him live in +their society,--for the society of the greatest writers is open to the +most secluded,--let him feel the ease of their excellence, the +ingenuity, grace and scope of their diction, and he will soon find in +himself capacities whose development may be aided by the precepts I have +given. Most of us catch better than we learn. We take up unconsciously +from our surroundings what we cannot altogether create. All this should +be remembered, and we should keep ourselves exposed to the wholesome +words of our fellow men. Yet our own exertions will not on that account +be rendered less important. We may largely choose the influences to +which we submit; we may exercise a selective attention among these +influences; we may enjoy, oppose, modify, or diligently ingraft what is +conveyed to us,--and for doing any one of these things rationally we +must be guided by some clear aim. Such aims, altogether essential even +if subsidiary, I have sought to supply; and I would reiterate that he +who holds them fast may become superior to linguistic fortune and be the +wise director of his sluggish and obstinate tongue. It is as certain as +anything can be that faithful endeavor will bring expertness in the use +of English. If we are watchful of our speech, making our words +continually more minutely true, free and resourceful; if we look upon +our occasions of writing as opportunities for the deliberate work of +unified construction; if in all our utterances we think of him who hears +as well as of him who speaks; and above all, if we fix the attention of +ourselves and our hearers on the matter we talk about and so let +ourselves be supported by our subject--we shall make a daily advance not +only in English study, but in personal power, in general serviceableness +and in consequent delight. + + + + +V + +DOUBTS ABOUT UNIVERSITY EXTENSION[1] + + +A step has lately been taken in American education which excites the +interest and hopes of us all. England has been our teacher,--England and +a persuasive apostle from that country. A few years ago the English +universities became discontented with their isolation. For generations +they had been devoting themselves to a single class in the community, +and that too a class which needed least to be brought to intelligence +and power. The mass of the nation, those by whom its labor and commerce +were conducted, had little access to Oxford and Cambridge. Poverty +first, then social distinctions, and, until recent days, sectarian +haughtiness barred them out. Their exclusion reacted on the training of +the universities themselves. Conservatism flourished. The worth of an +intellectual interest was rated rather by its traditional character than +by its closeness to life. The sciences, latter-day things, were pursued +hardly at all. The modern literatures, English included, had no place. +Plato and Aristotle furnished most of the philosophy. While the rest of +the world was deriving from Germany methods of study, from France +methods of exposition, and from America methods of treating all men +alike as rational, English scholarship, based on no gymnasia, lycées, or +high schools, went its way, little regarding the life of its nation or +that of the world at large. + +But there has come a change. Reformers have been endeavoring to go out +and find the common man, and, in connection with him, to develop those +subjects which before, according to university tradition, were looked at +somewhat askance. English literature, political economy, modern history, +have been put in the foreground of this popularized education. Far and +wide throughout England an enthusiastic band of young teachers, under +the guidance of officers of the universities, have been giving +instruction in these subjects to companies in which social grades are +for the time forgotten. And since public libraries are rare in England, +and among the poorer classes the reading habit is but slightly formed, +an ambitious few among the hearers have prized their opportunities +sufficiently to undertake a certain amount of study and to hand in +papers for the lecturer to inspect and to mark. In exceptional cases as +many as one third of the audience have thus written exercises and passed +examinations. The great majority of those in attendance during the three +months' term of course do nothing more than listen to the weekly +lecture. + +This is the very successful English movement which for some years has +been exciting admiration the world over, and which it is proposed to +introduce into the United States. Rightly to estimate its worth those +aspects of it to which attention has just been directed should carefully +be borne in mind. They are these: the movement is as much social as +scholarly and accompanies a general democratic upheaval of an +aristocratic nation; it springs up in the neighborhood of universities +to which the common people do not resort, and in which those subjects +which most concern the minds of modern men are little taught; in its +country other facilities for enabling the average man to capture +knowledge--public libraries, reading clubs, illustrated magazines, free +high schools--are not yet general; it flourishes in a small and compact +land, where a multitude of populous towns are in such immediate +neighborhood and so connected by a network of railroads that he who is +busied in one place to-day can, with the slightest fatigue and expense, +appear in five other towns during the remaining days of the week. + +These conditions, and others as gravely distinctive, do not exist in +America. From the first the American college has been organized by the +people and for the people. It has been about as much resorted to by the +poor as by the rich. Through a widely developed system of free public +schools it has kept itself closely in touch with popular ideals. Its +graduates go into commercial life as often as into medicine, the +ministry, or the law. It has shown itself capable of expansion too in +adjusting itself to the modern enlargement of knowledge. The rigid +curriculum, which suited well enough the needs of our fathers, has been +discarded, and every college, in proportion to the resources at its +command, now offers elective studies and seeks to meet the needs of +differing men. To all who can afford four years (soon it may be three), +and who are masters of about half as much capital as would support them +during the same time elsewhere, the four hundred colleges of our country +offer an education far too good to be superseded, duplicated, or +weakened. In these colleges excellent provision has been made, and has +been made once for all, for everybody who has a little time and a little +money to devote to systematic education of the higher sort. + +But our educational scheme has one serious limitation, and during the +last fifty years there have been many earnest efforts to surmount it. +Not every man is free to seek a systematic training. Multitudes are tied +to daily toil and only in the evening can they consider their own +enlargement. Many grow old before the craving for knowledge arises. Many +also, with more or less profit, have attended a college, but are glad +subsequently to supply those defects of education which the experiences +of life relentlessly bring to view. To all these classes, caught in the +whirl of affairs, the college does not minister. It is true that much +that such people want they get from the public library, especially as +our librarians of the modern type energetically accept their duties as +facilitators of the public reading. Much is also obtainable from the +cheap issues of the press and from such endowed courses of higher +instruction as those of the Lowell, Cooper, Brooklyn, Peabody, and +Drexel institutes. But, after all, these supplementary aids, though +valuable, are deficient in guiding power. Most persons, especially if +novices, work best under inspection. To learners teachers are generally +important. There seems to be still a place in our well-supplied country +for an organization which shall arouse a more general desire for +knowledge; which shall stand ready to satisfy this desire more cheaply, +with less interruption to daily occupation, and consequently in ways +more fragmentary than the colleges can; and yet one which shall not +leave its pupils alone with books, but shall supply them with the +impulse of the living word and through writing, discussion and directed +reading, shall economize and render effective the costly hours of +learning. Unquestionably there is a field here which the colleges cannot +till, a field whose harvest would enrich us all. Can any other agency +till it? To every experiment thus far it has yielded only meagre, brief +and expensive returns. A capital thing it would be to give to the busy +that which normally requires time and attention; but how to do it is the +question,--how to do it in reality, and not in mere outward seeming. + +Chautauqua has not done it, impassioned though that rough and +generous institution has been for wide and fragmentary culture. Its +work, indeed, has had a different aim; and, amusing as that work +often appears, it ought to be understood and acknowledged as of +fundamental consequence in our hastily settled and heterogeneous land. +Chautauqua sends its little books and papers into stagnant homes from +Maine to California and gives the silent occupants something to think +about. Conversation springs up; and with it fresh interests, fresh +hopes. A new tie is formed between young and old, as together they +persue the same studies and in the same graduating class walk through +the Golden Gate. Any man who loves knowledge and his native land must +be glad at heart when he visits a summer assembly of Chautauqua: there +listens to the Orator's Recognition Address; attends the swiftly +successive Round Tables upon Milton, Temperance, Geology, the +American Constitution, the Relations of Science and Religion, and the +Doctrine of Rent; perhaps assists at the Cooking School, the Prayer +Meeting, the Concert and the Gymnastic Drill; or wanders under the +trees among the piazzaed cottages and sees the Hall of Philosophy and +the wooden Doric Temple shining on their little eminences; and, best of +all, perceives in what throngs have gathered here the butcher, the +baker, and the candlestick-maker,--a throng themselves, their wives and +daughters a throng--all heated in body, but none the less aglow for +learning and a good time. The comic aspects of this mixture of science, +fresh air, flirtation, Greek reminiscence, and devoutness are patent +enough; but the way in which the multitude is being won to discard +distrust of knowledge, and to think of it rather as the desirable goal +for all, is not so generally remarked by scholarly observers. Yet that +is the weighty fact. The actual product in education may not be +large; enthusiasm and the memory may be more stimulated than the +rational intelligence. But minds are set in motion; an intellectual +world, beyond the domestic and personal, begins to appear; studious +thought forms its fit friendship with piety, gladness and the sense +of a common humanity; a groundwork of civilization is prepared. To +find a popular movement so composite and aspiring, we must go back to +the mediæval Crusades or the Greek Mysteries. In these alone do we +observe anything so ideal, so bizarre, so expressive of the combined +intellectual and religious hopes of a people. In many Chautauqua +homes pathetic sacrifices will be made in the next generation to send +the boys and girls to a real college. + +Now, in proposing to transport to this country English extension methods +the managers have had in mind nothing so elementarily important as +Chautauqua. They have felt the pity we all feel for persons of good +parts who, through poverty or occupation, are debarred from a college +training. They seek to reach minds already somewhat prepared, and to +such they undertake to supply solid instruction of the higher grades. It +is this more ambitious design which calls for criticism. Professor R. G. +Moulton speaks of extension education as "distinguished from school +education, being moulded to meet the wants of adults." And again, "So +far as method is concerned, we have considered that we are bound to be +not less thorough, but more thorough, if possible, than the universities +themselves." If, in the general educational campaign, we liken +Chautauqua to a guerrilla high school, university extension will be a +guerrilla college. Both move with light armor, have roving commissions, +attack individuals, and themselves appear in the garb of ordinary life; +but they are equipped for a service in which the more cumbrous +organizations of school and college have thus far proved ineffective. It +is a fortunate circumstance that, with fields of operation so distinct, +no jealousy can exist between the two bands of volunteers, or between +them both and the regular army. The success of either would increase the +success of the other two. To Chautauqua we are all indebted for +lessening the popular suspicion of expert knowledge; and if the plans of +the extension committee could be carried out, college methods would have +a vogue, and a consequent respect, which they have never yet enjoyed. + +Every one, accordingly, civilian or professional, wishes the movement +well, and recognizes that the work it proposes to do in our country is +not at present performed. Its aims are excellent. Are they also +practicable? We cannot with certainty say that they are not, but it is +here that doubts arise,--doubts of three sorts: those which suspect a +fundamental difference in the two countries which try the experiment; +those which are incredulous about the permanent response which our +people will make to the education offered; and those which question the +possibility of securing a stable body of extension teachers. The first +set of these doubts has been briefly but sufficiently indicated at the +beginning of this paper; the second may with still greater brevity be +summed up here in the following connected series of inquiries:-- + +With the multitude of other opportunities for education which American +life affords, will any large body of men and women attend extension +lectures? Will they attend after the novelty is worn off, say during the +third year? Will they do anything more than attend? Will they follow +courses of study, write essays, and pass examinations? Will the +extension system, any better than its decayed predecessor, the old +lyceum system, resist the demands of popular audiences and keep itself +from slipping out of serious instruction into lively and eloquent +entertainment? If the lectures are kept true to their aim of furnishing +solid instruction, can they in the long run be paid for? Will it be +possible to find in our country clusters of half a dozen towns so +grouped and so ready to subscribe to a course of lectures on each day of +the week that out of the entire six a living salary can be obtained? +Will the new teachers be obliged to confine themselves to the suburbs of +large cities, abandoning the scattered dwellers in the country, that +portion of our population which is almost the only one at present cut +off from tolerable means of culture? If in order to pursue these +destitute ones, correspondence methods are employed, in addition to the +already approved methods of lecture instruction, will lowering of the +standard follow? In England three or four years of extension lectures +are counted equivalent to one year of regular study, and a person who +has attended extension courses for this time may be admitted without +further examination to the second year of university residence. Will +anything of the sort be generally attempted here? + +These grave questions are as yet insusceptible of answer. Affirmative, +desirable answers do not seem probable; but experience alone can make +the matter plain. Of course the managers are watchfully bearing such +questions in mind, and critical watchfulness may greatly aid the better +answer and hinder the less desirable. Accordingly anything like a +discussion of this class of practical doubts would be inappropriate +here. Data for the formation of a confident opinion do not exist. All +that can be done by way of warning is to indicate certain large +improbabilities, leaving them to be confirmed or thwarted by time and +human ingenuity. + +But with the third class of doubts the case is different. These relate +to the constitution of the staff of teachers, and here sufficient facts +are at hand to permit a few points to be demonstrated with considerable +certainty. When, for example, we ask from what source teachers are to be +drawn, we are usually told that they must come from college faculties. +If the method of the extension lecturer is to be as thorough as that of +the universities themselves, the lecturers must be experts, not +amateurs; and where except at the colleges does a body of experts exist? +No doubt many well-trained men are scattered throughout the community as +merchants, doctors, school-teachers, and lawyers. But these men, when of +proved power, have more than they properly can attend to in their own +affairs. It seems to be the colleges, therefore, to which the movement +must look for its teachers; and in the experiments thus far made in +this country the extension lecturing has been done for the most part by +college officers. A professor of history, political economy, or +literature has, in addition to his college teaching, also given a course +of instruction elsewhere. This feature of the American system, one may +say with confidence, must prove a constant damage to the work of the +colleges and, if persisted in, must ultimately destroy the extension +scheme itself. + +In England the extension teachers are not university teachers. To have +no independent staff for extension work is a novelty of the American +undertaking. The very name, university extension, besides being +barbaric, is in its English employment largely misleading; since neither +the agencies for extending nor indeed, for the most part, the studies +extended, are found at the universities at all. A small syndicate or +committee, appointed from among the university officers, is the only +share the university has in the business. The impression, so general in +this country, that English university teachers are roaming about the +island, lecturing to mixed audiences, is an entire error. The university +teachers stay at home and send other people, their own graduates +chiefly, to instruct the multitude. A committee of them decides on the +qualifications for the work of such persons as care to devote themselves +to itinerant teaching as a profession. For those so selected they +arrange times, places, and subjects; but they themselves do not move +from their own lecture rooms. Nor is there occasion for their doing so. +In the slender development of popular education in England, many more +persons of the upper classes become trained as specialists than can find +places as university teachers. There thus arises a learned and leisured +accumulation which capitally serves the country in case of a new +educational need. On this accumulated stock of cultured men--men who +otherwise could not easily bring their culture to market--the extension +movement draws. These men are its teachers, its permanent teachers, +since there are not competing places striving to draw them away. In the +two countries the educational situation is exactly reversed: in England +there are more trained men than positions; in America, more positions +than trained men. It seems probable too that this condition of things +will continue long, so far as we are concerned; at least there is no +present prospect of our reaching a limit in the demand for competent +men. Whenever a college has a chair to fill, it is necessary to hunt far +and wide for a suitable person to fill it. The demand is not from the +old places alone. Almost every year a new college is founded. Every year +the old ones grow. In twenty-five years Harvard has quadrupled its +staff. Columbia, Cornell, Princeton, Yale, the University of Michigan, +the University of Pennsylvania,--indeed almost every strong college in +the country,--shows an immense advance. A Western state is no sooner +settled than it establishes a state university, and each of the sects +starts from one to three colleges besides. No such perpetual expansion +goes on in England. The number of learned positions there is measurably +fixed. If more experts than can fill them, or than care to enter +political life, the liberal professions, and the civil service, are +manufactured in the course of a year, the surplus stock is at the +disposal of the extension syndicate. Many of these men too are persons +of means, to whom a position of dignity is of more consequence than a +large salary. The problem, accordingly, of organizing popular +instruction out of such a body of waiting experts is a comparatively +simple one; but it is not so simple here. In our country any man who has +a fair acquaintance with a special subject and moderate skill in +imparting it, especially if he will be contented with a small salary, +can be pretty sure of college appointment. + +Naturally enough, therefore, the organizers of the extension movement, +despairing of finding among us competent unattached teachers, have +turned at once to the colleges; but the colleges are a very unsafe +support to lean upon. A professor in a university where the studies are +elective has no more superfluous time than a busy lawyer, or doctor, or +business man. Merely to keep up with the literature of a subject, to +say nothing of that research and writing which should enlarge its +limits, is an enormous task. Teaching too is no longer an affair of +text-books and recitations. Leisurely days of routine ease belong to the +past. A professor nowadays must prepare lectures incessantly; must +perpetually revise them; must arrange examinations; direct the reading +of his students; receive their theses; himself read a large part of +their voluminous written work; personally oversee his advanced men; +gather them about him in laboratory, seminary and conference; attend +innumerable committee and faculty meetings; devise legislation for the +further development of his college and department; correspond with +schools and colleges where his students, after taking their higher +degree, may suitably be placed; and if at the end of a hard-worked day +he can find an hour's leisure, he must still keep his door open for +students or fellow-officers to enter. So laborious have become the +duties of a university teacher that few large staffs now go through a +year without one or two of their members breaking down. With the growing +complexity of work it often seems as if the proper business of college +officers, study and teaching, must some day cease altogether, crowded +out by the multifarious tasks with which they are only indirectly +connected. It is useless to say that these things are not necessary. +Whoever neglects them will cease to make his college, his subject and +his influence grow. It is because professors now see that they cannot +safely neglect them that the modern college differs fundamentally from +its humdrum predecessor of a quarter of a century ago. Any movement +which seeks to withdraw a professor's attention from these things, and +induces him to put his soul elsewhere, inflicts on the community a +serious damage. No amount of intellectual stimulus furnished to little +companies here and there can atone for the loss that must fall on +education when college teachers pledge themselves to do serious work in +other places than in their own libraries and lecture rooms. To be an +explorer and a guide in a department of human knowledge is an arduous +profession. It admits no half-hearted service. + +Of course if the work demanded elsewhere is not serious, the case is +different. Rather with benefit than with damage a college teacher may on +occasion recast the instruction that was intended for professionals and +offer it to a popular audience. In this way a professor makes himself +known and makes his college known. Many of the small colleges are now +engaging in university extension as an inexpensive means of advertising +themselves. But such lecturing is incidental, voluntary and perpetually +liable to interruption. Beyond the immediate series of lectures it +cannot be depended on. There is nothing institutional about it. The men +who undertake it are owned elsewhere, and a second mortgage is not +usually a very valuable piece of property. A movement which places its +reliance on the casual teaching of overworked men is condemned from the +start. University extension can never pass beyond the stage of +amateurism and temporary expedient until, like its English namesake, it +has a permanent staff of instructors exclusively devoted to its +service. + +Where, then, is such a staff to be obtained? In view of the conditions +of education in this country already described, it is improbable that it +can be obtained at all. But something may still be done,--something, +however, of a more modest sort than enthusiasts at present have in mind. +There issue from our great universities every year a number of men who +have had two or three years' training beyond their bachelor's degree. +Some of them have had a year or two of foreign study. They frequently +wish to teach. Places do not immediately open to them. If the extension +movement would set them to work, it might have all their time at a +moderate salary for two or three years. Such men, it is true, would be +inexperienced, and their connection with itinerant teaching could not be +rendered lasting. As soon as one of them proved his power as a teacher, +some college would call him; and he would seldom prefer the nomadic and +fragmentary life to an established one. Plainly too under the charge of +such men the grade of instruction could not be the highest; but it +might be sound, inspiriting even, and it is in any case all that present +circumstances render possible. We may mourn that those who are masters +in their several provinces are already fully employed. We may wish there +were a multitude of masters sitting about, ready for enlistment in a +missionary undertaking. But there are no such masters. The facts are +evident enough; and if the extension movement aims at a durable +existence, it will respect these facts. The men it wants it cannot have +without damaging them; and damaging them, it damages the higher +education of which they are the guardians. Teachers of a lower grade are +at hand, ready to be experimented with. The few experiments already +tried have been fairly successful. Let the extension leaders give up all +thought of doing here what has been done in England. The principal part +of that work is performed for us by other means. The wisest guidance, +accordingly, may not lead the movement to any long success. If, however, +university extension will keep itself clearly detached from other +educational agencies and make a quiet offer of humble yet serviceable +instruction, there is a fair prospect that by somewhat slow degrees a +permanent new power may be added to the appliances for rendering busy +Americans intelligent. + + +FOOTNOTES: + + [1] Printed in 1892. + + + + +VI + +SPECIALIZATION[2] + + +Ladies and gentlemen of the graduating class, this afternoon belongs to +you. This morning we dedicated a chime of bells to the memory of Mrs. +Palmer, and in those moving exercises you had but a slender share. +Probably not half a dozen of you ever saw her who, once seen, was loved +with romantic ardor. Undoubtedly many of you are different from what you +would have been had she not lived, and lived here; for her influence so +passed into the structure of this University that she will shape +successive generations of you for a long time to come. But enough of +her. Let us dismiss her from our thoughts. Too much praise we have +already lavished on one who was ever simple and self-forgetting. She +would chide our profusion. If we would think as she would wish us to +think, let us turn rather to the common matters of the day, reflecting +on those joys and perplexities which have attended you throughout these +formative years. One especially among these perplexities, perhaps the +greatest of all, I would invite you to consider now. Let me set it +clearly before you. + +This morning I sat down to breakfast with about a hundred of you who had +entered on the attainment of the highest degree which this University +offers. You were advanced specialists. You had each chosen some single +line of endeavor. But even then I remembered that you were not the only +specialists here. Before me this afternoon I see candidates in medicine, +men and women who have taken for their specialty the warfare with pain +and disease. They have said, "All that I can ever know, I will bring to +bear on this urgent problem." Here also are the lawyers, impassioned for +justice, for the quelling of human strife. That is their specialty. They +too restrict themselves to a single point of view. Beside them sit the +scientific men, who looking over the vast expanse of nature have +accepted the task of tracing the physical aspects of this marvellous +machine. Nor can I stop here. Throughout the undergraduate department, +as we all know, run dominant interests. I should be ashamed of a young +man who in his four years had not found some compulsive interest; for it +is only when an interest compels that we can say that education has +begun. So long as we are simply learning what is set before us, taking +the routine mass of academic subjects, we may be faithful students, but +we are not scholars. No, it is when with a free heart we give ourselves +to a subject, bidding it take of us all it demands and feeling that we +had rather attend to it than to anything else, because it expresses our +personal desires--then it is that its quickening influence takes hold. +But this is specialization. We might think of the University of Chicago +then as a great specializing machine. + +But why has each of you set himself this task of specialization? Because +the world needs leaders, and you have chosen yourselves to be those +leaders. Are you aware how exceptional is your condition? The last +census shows that at present hardly one per cent of our population is in +our colleges. You are of that one per cent, and you are here in order +that you may enlighten the other ninety-nine per cent. If through +ignorance you fail, you will cause others to fail and you had better +never have come to this University. To some sort of leadership you have +dedicated yourselves, and to this aim you should be true. But do not at +times doubts cross your mind? Have you not occasionally asked yourselves +whether you can attain such leadership and make the most of your lives +by shutting yourselves up to a specialty? Multitudes of interesting +things are calling; shall you turn away from them and follow a single +line? It will be worth while to-day to consider these fundamental +questions and inquire how far we are justified in specializing, what +dangers there are in it, and in what degree those dangers may be +avoided. + +Let me say, then, at the start, that I regard specialization as +absolutely essential to scholarship. There is no scholarship without it, +for it is involved in the very process of knowing. When I look at this +desk I am specializing; that is, I am detaching this piece of furniture +from all else in the room. I am limiting myself, and I cannot see +without it. I can gaze without specialization, but I cannot see without +specialization. If I am to know anything by sight, that knowledge must +come through the limitation of sight. I seize this object, cast away all +others, and thus fix my attention. Or if I am carefully to observe, I +even put my eye on a single point of the desk. There is no other way. +Clear knowledge becomes possible only through precise observation. Now +specialization is nothing but this necessary limitation of attention; +and we, as specialists, are merely carrying out on a large scale what +every human being must practise in some degree whenever he knows. We +employ the process persistently, and for the sake of science are willing +to hold ourselves steadily to a single line of observation. And we +cannot do otherwise. The principles involved in the specialization of +the senses run throughout all science. If we would know, we must hold +the attention long on a given subject. + +But there is an unfortunate side to specialization. It obliges us to +discard other important interests. To discard merely unimportant ones +is easy. But every evening when I sit down to devote myself to my +ethics I am aware that there are persons starving in Boston who might +be saved if I should drop my work and go to them. Yet I sit calmly +there and say, "Let them starve; I am going to study ethics." I do +not see how I could be a suitable professor of ethics unless I were +willing thus to limit myself. That is the hard part, as I understand it, +of specialization,--the cutting off of things that are worth while. I +am sure you have already found it out. Many of you have come from +places of narrow opportunity and here find a welcome abundance. +Remembering how you have longed to obtain such privileges, you will be +tempted to scatter yourselves over a wide field, gathering a little +here and a little there. At the end of the year you will have nothing, +if you do that. The only possibility of gain is to choose your +field, devote serious time to it, count yourself a specialist, and +propose to live like one. Goethe admirably announces the principle: +"Wer grosses will muss sich beschränken können." You must accept +limitations if you will go on to power, for in limitation the very +process of knowledge is rooted. + +Furthermore, not only is specialization forced upon us by the nature +of knowledge, but without it our own powers cannot receive appropriate +discipline. It is difficult business to fashion a sound observer. +Each province of science has its special modes of observation, its own +modes of reasoning even. So long as we are unfamiliar with these and +obliged to hold ourselves to them through conscious control, our work +is poor. It is slow, inaccurate, and exhausting. Only when we have +trained ourselves to such aptitudes that within a certain field our +observations and reasonings are instinctive do we become swift, sure, +and unfatigued in research. To train our powers then we must begin to +specialize early and hold ourselves steadily within bounds. As one +looks over the names of those who have accomplished much, one is +surprised at the number who were early specialists. Take my own +department: Berkeley writes his great work when he is twenty-five; Hume +publishes his masterpiece at twenty-seven. Or again, Keats had +brought his wonderful results to accomplishment and died at twenty-five; +Shelley at thirty; Marlowe, the greatest loss English letters ever +met, at twenty-seven. It is just the same in other fields: Alexander +dies at thirty-six, Jesus at thirty-three. Yes, let us look nearer +home: the most forcible leader American education has ever had became +president of Harvard University at thirty-five; President Hyde of +Bowdoin took his position at twenty-seven; my own wife, Alice +Freeman, was president of Wellesley at twenty-six. These are early +specialists; and because they specialized early they acquired an +aptitude, a smoothness of work, a precision of insight, and width of +power which could not have been theirs had they begun later. I would +not deny that there have been geniuses who seemed to begin late: Kant +was such; Locke was such. You will recall many within your own fields. +But I think when you search the career of those who come to power in +comparatively late years, you will find that there has usually been a +train of covert specialization running through their lives. They may +not have definitely named their field to themselves, or produced work +within that field in early years, but everything had been converging +toward that issue. I believe, therefore, you ought to respect your +specialty, because only through it can your powers be brought to +their highest accuracy and service. + +One more justification of specialization I will briefly mention, that it +is necessary for the organization of society. No motive is good for much +until it is socialized. If specialization only developed our individual +selves, we could hardly justify it; but it is the means of progress for +society. The field of knowledge is vast; no man can master it, and its +immensity was never so fully understood as to-day. The only way the +whole province can be conquered and brought under subjection to human +needs is by parting it out, one man being content to till his little +corner while his neighbor is engaged on something widely different. We +must part out the field of knowledge and specialize on our allotted +work, in order that there may be entirety in science. If we seek to have +entirety in ourselves, science will be fragmentary and feeble. That +division of labor which has proved efficient everywhere else is no less +needful in science. + +But I suppose it is hardly necessary to justify specialization to this +audience. Most of you have staked heavily on it, putting yourselves to +serious inconvenience, many of you heavily mortgaging your future, in +order to come here and devote yourselves to some single interest. I +might confidently go through this room asking each of you what is your +subject? And you would proudly reply, "My subject is this. My subject is +this. My subject is this." I think you would feel ashamed if you had not +thus specialized. I see no occasion, therefore, to elaborate what I have +urged. As I understand it, the three roots of specialization are these: +it is grounded in the very nature of the knowing process; it is grounded +in the needs of ourselves as individuals, in order that we may attain +our maximum efficiency; it is grounded in the needs of society, because +only so can society reach that fulness of knowledge which its progress +requires. + +But, after all, the beliefs which are accepted as matters of course in +this room are largely denounced outside it. We must acknowledge that our +confidence in specialization encounters many doubts in the community. +It may be well, then, to place ourselves where that community stands and +ask the general public to tell us why it doubts us, what there is in our +specialized attitude which it thinks defective, and what are the +complaints which it is disposed to bring against us? I will try to take +the position of devil's advocate and plead the cause of the objector to +specialization. + +Specialization, it is said, leads to ignorance; indeed it rather aims at +ignorance than knowledge. When I attend to this desk, it is true I +secure a bit of knowledge, but how small is that bit in comparison to +all the things in this room which I might know about! It is but a +fraction. Yet I have condemned all else in the room to ignorance, +reserving only this one little object for knowledge. Now that is what we +are all of us doing on a great scale; by specializing, by limiting our +attention, we cut off what is not attended to. It is often assumed that +attention is mainly a positive affair and occupied with what we are to +know. But that is a very small portion of it; really its important part +is the negative, the removal of what we do not wish to observe. We cut +ourselves off from the great mass of knowledge which is offered. Is it +not then true that every specialist has disciplined himself to be an +ignoramus? He has drawn a fence around a little portion of the universe +and said, "Within that fence I know something." "Yes," the public +replies, "but you do not know anything outside." And is not the public +right? When we step forward and claim to be learned men, is not the +public justified in saying, "I know a great deal more than you do; I +know a thousand things and you know only one. You say you know that one +through and through, and of course I do not know my thousand things +through and through. But it is not necessary. I perceive their +relations; I can handle them; I can use them in practice; can you?" +"Well, no," we are obliged to say, "we specialists are a little fumbling +when we try to take hold of the world. We are not altogether skilful in +action, just because we are such specialists." You students here have +been devoting yourselves to some one point--I am afraid many of you are +going to have sad experience of it--you have been learning to know +something nobody else on earth does know, and then you go forth to seek +a position. But the world may have no use for you; there are only two or +three positions of that sort in the country, and those may happen to be +filled. Just because you are such an elaborate scholar you cannot earn +your daily bread. You have cut yourself off from everything but that one +species of learning, and that does not happen to be wanted. Therefore +you are not wanted. Such is the too frequent condition of the +specialist. The thousand things he does not know; it is only the one +thing he does know. And because he is so ignorant, he is helpless. + +Turning then to our second justification of specialization, the case +seems equally bad. I said that specialization was needed for the +training of our powers. The training of them all? Not that, but the +training of only certain ones among them. The others hang slack. In +those regions of ourselves we count for little. We are men of weight +only within the range of the powers we have trained; and what a large +slice of us lies outside these! Accordingly the general public declares +that there is no judgment so bad as the judgment of a specialist. Few +practical situations exactly coincide with his specialty, and outside +his specialty his judgment is worse than that of the novice. He has been +training himself in reference to something precise; and the moment he +ventures beyond it, the very exactitude of his discipline limits his +worth. The man who has not been a specialist, who has dabbled in all +things and has acquired a rough and ready common sense, that man's +judgment is worth something in many different sections of life, but the +judgment of the specialist is painfully poor beyond his usual range. You +remember how, in the comic opera, the practice is satirized of +appointing a person who has never been at sea to take charge of the navy +of a great country. But that is the only sensible course to pursue. Put +a specialist there, and the navy will be wretchedly organized, because +the administration of the navy requires something more than the +specialism of seamanship. It is necessary to coördinate seamanship with +many other considerations, and the man trained in the specialty of +seamanship is little likely to have that ability. Therefore ordinarily +we use our experts best by putting them under the control of those who +are not experts. Common sense has the last word. The coördinating power +which has not been disciplined in single lines is what ultimately takes +the direction of affairs. We need the specialist within his little +field; shut him up there, and he is valuable enough; but don't let him +escape. That seems to be the view of the public. They keep the +specialist confined because they utterly distrust his judgment when he +extends himself abroad. + +And when we look at the third of our grounds for justification, social +need, the public declares that the specialists are intolerably +presumptuous. Knowing their own subject, they imagine they can dictate +to anybody and do not understand how limited is their importance. Again +and again it happens that because a man does know some one thing pretty +well he sets himself up as a great man in general. My own province +suffers in this respect more than most; for as soon as a man acquires +considerable skill in chemistry or biology, he is apt to issue a +pronunciamento on philosophy. But philosophy does not suffer alone. +Everywhere the friends of the great specialist are telling him he has +proved himself a mighty man, quite competent to sit in judgment on the +universe; and he, forgetting that the universe and the particular +subject he knows something about are two different things, really +imagines that his ignorant opinions deserve consideration. + +Now I suppose we must acknowledge that in all this blasphemy against our +calling, there is a good deal of truth. These certainly are dangers +which all of us specialists incur. I agree that they are inevitable +dangers. Do not, however, let us on account of them abandon +specialization and seek to acquire a mass of miscellaneous information. +Bacon said, "I take all knowledge for my province." If we say it, we +shall become not Bacons but fools. No, that is the broad road to +ignorance. But laying these profound dangers of specialization well to +heart, assured that they beset us all, let us search for remedial +measures. Let us ask how such dangers may be reduced to a minimum. Is +there a certain way in which we may engage in the specialist's research +and still save ourselves from some of the evils I have here depicted? I +think there is. To find it we will follow the same three avenues which +have been leading us thus far. + +In regard to the first, the limitation of attention, I understand that, +after all, our specialty cannot fill our entire life. We do sometimes +sit down to dinner; we occasionally talk with a friend; we now and then +take a journey; we permit ourselves from time to time to read some other +book than one which refers to our subject. That is, I take it, if we are +fully alive to the great danger that in specializing we are cutting off +a large part of the universe, we shall be wise in gathering eagerly +whatever additional knowledge we may acquire outside our specialty. And +I must say that the larger number of eminent specialists whom I have +happened to know have been men pretty rich in knowledge outside their +specialties. They were men who well apprehended the extreme danger of +their limited modes of pursuit and who greedily grasped, therefore, at +every bit of knowledge they could obtain which lay beyond their +province. They appropriated all the wisdom they could; and merely +because it did not exactly fit in with their specialty, they did not +turn it away. I do not know how far it is wise to go in this effort to +repair the one-sidedness in which most of us are compelled to live. A +rather extreme case was once brought to my attention. There was a +student at Harvard who had been a high scholar with me, and I found that +he was also so specializing in the classics that when he graduated he +took classical honors. Some years later I learned that he was one of the +highest scholars in the Medical School. Meeting him a few years after +he had entered his profession, I asked, "How did it happen that you +changed your mind so markedly? You devoted yourself to classics and +philosophy in college. What made you finally decide to become a +physician?" "Finally decide!" said he. "Why, from childhood up I never +intended to be anything else." "But," I persisted, "I cannot be mistaken +in recalling that you devoted yourself in college to classics and +philosophy." "Yes," he said, "I did, because I knew I should never have +another chance at those subjects. I was going to give the rest of my +life to medicine, so I took those years for classics and philosophy." I +asked, "Wasn't that a great mistake; haven't you now found out your +blunder?" "Oh, no," said he, "I am a much better physician on that +account; I could not have done half so well if I hadn't had all that +training in philosophy and classics." Now I cannot advise such a course +for everybody. It takes a big man to do that. If you are big enough, it +is worth while laying a very broad foundation; but considering the size +on which most of us are planned, it is wiser to begin early and +specialize from the very start. + +Well, then, here is one mode of making up for the defects of +specialization: we may pick up knowledge outside our subject. But it is +an imperfect mode; you never can put away your limitations altogether. +You can do a great deal. Use your odd quarter-hours wisely and do not +merely play in fragmentary times, understanding that these are precious +seasons for acquiring the knowledge which lies beyond your province. +Then every time you talk with anybody, lead him neatly to what he knows +best, keeping an attentive ear, becoming a first-class listener, and +seeking to get beyond yourself. By doing so you will undoubtedly much +enlarge the narrow bounds to which you have pledged yourself. Yet this +policy will not be enough. It will require to be supplemented by +something more. Therefore I should say in the second place, that in +disciplining our powers we must be careful to conceive our specialty +broadly enough. In taking it too narrowly lies our chief danger. There +are two types of specialist. There is the man who regards his specialty +as a door into which he goes and by which he shuts the world out, hiding +himself with his own little interests. That is the petty, poor +specialist, the specialist who never becomes a man of power, however +much he may be a man of learning. But there is an entirely different +sort of specialist from that; it is the man who regards his specialty as +a window out of which he may peer upon all the world. His specialty is +merely a point of view from which everything is regarded. Consequently +without departing from our specialty each of us may escape narrowness. +Instead of running over all the earth and contemplating it in a +multitude of different aspects, the wise specialist chooses some single +point of view and examines the universe as it is related to this. +Everything therefore has a meaning for him, everything contributes +something to his specialty. Narrowing himself while he is getting his +powers disciplined, as those powers become trained he slacks them off +and gives them a wider range; for he knows very well that while the +world is cut up into little parcels it never can be viewed rightly. It +will always be distorted. For, after all, things are what they are +through their relations, and if you snap those relations you never truly +conceive anything. Accordingly, as soon as we have got our specialty, we +should begin to coördinate that specialty with everything else. At first +we may fix our attention on some single problem within a given field, +but soon we discover that we cannot master that problem without knowing +the rest of the field also. As we go on to know the rest of the field +and make ourself a fair master of that science, we discover that that +science depends on other sciences. Never was there an age of the world +in which this interlocking of the sciences was so clearly perceived as +in our day. Formerly we seemed able to isolate a particular topic and +know something of it, but in our evolutionary time nothing of that kind +is possible. Each thing is an epitome of the whole. Have you been +training your eye to see a world in a grain of sand? Can you look +through your specialty out upon the total universe and say: "I am a +specialist merely because I do not want to be a narrow man. My specialty +is my telescope. Everything belongs to me. I cannot, it is true, turn to +it all at once. Being a feeble person I must advance from point to +point, accepting limitations; but just as fast as I can, having mastered +those limitations, I shall cast them aside and press on into ever +broader regions." + +But I said specialization was fundamentally justified through the +organization of society, because by its division of toil we contribute +our share to the total of human knowledge; and yet the popular objector +declares that we are presumptuous, and because we have mastered our own +specialty we are apt to assume ourselves capable of pronouncing judgment +over the whole field. Undoubtedly there is this danger; but such a +result is not inevitable. The danger is one which we are perfectly +capable of setting aside. The temper of our mind decides the matter, and +this is entirely within our control. What is the use of our going forth +presumptuous persons? We certainly shall be unserviceable if we are +persons of that type. That is not the type of Charles Darwin in biology, +of William James in psychology, of Horace Howard Furness in Shakespeare +criticism, of Albert Michelson in physics. These are men as remarkable +for modesty and simplicity as for scholarly insight. The true +characteristic of a learned specialist is humility. What we want to be +training ourselves in is respect for other people and a sense of +solidarity with them. Our work would be of little use if there were not +somebody at our side who cared nothing for that work of ours and cared +immensely for his own. It is our business to respect that other man, +whether he respects us or not. We must learn to look upon every +specialist as a fellow worker. Without him we cannot be perfect. Let us +make ourselves as large as possible, in order that we may contribute our +little something to that to which all others are contributing. It is +this coöperative spirit which it should be ours to acquire. And it seems +to me that you are under peculiarly fortunate circumstances for +acquiring it. What strikes me as fatal is to have a group of young +specialists taken and trained by themselves, detachedly, shut off from +others. Nothing of that sort occurs here. Every day you are rubbing +shoulders with persons who have other interests than yours. When you +walk to dinner, you fall in with a comrade who has been spending his day +over something widely unlike that which has concerned you. Possibly you +have been able to lead him to talk about it; possibly you have gained an +insight into what he was seeking, and seen how his work largely +supplements your own. If you have had proper respect for him and proper +humility in regard to yourself, this great society of specialists has +filled out your work for you day after day; and in that sense of +coöperation, of losing yourselves in the common service of scientific +mankind, you have found the veritable glory of these happy years. + + +FOOTNOTES: + + [2] On the morning of June 9, 1908, a chime of bells was dedicated at + the University of Chicago in honor of Alice Freeman Palmer. At + the Convocation Exercises in the afternoon the following address + was delivered. + + + + +VII + +THE GLORY OF THE IMPERFECT[3] + + +A few years ago Matthew Arnold, after travelling in this country and +revising the somewhat unfavorable opinion of us which he had formed +earlier and at a distance, still wrote in his last paper on Civilization +in the United States that America, in spite of its excellences, is an +uninteresting land. He thought our institutions remarkable. He pointed +out how close a fit exists between them and the character of the +citizens, a fit so close as is hardly to be found in other countries. He +saw much that is of promise in our future. But after all, he declares +that no man will live here if he can live elsewhere, because America is +an uninteresting land. + +This remark of Mr. Arnold's is one which we may well ponder. As I +consider how many of you are preparing to go forth from college and +establish yourselves in this country, I ask myself whether you must find +your days uninteresting. You certainly have not been finding them +uninteresting here. Where were college days ever dull? It is a beautiful +circumstance that, the world over, the period of education is the +period of romance. No such thing was ever heard of as a college student +who did not enjoy himself, a college student who was not full of hope. +And if this has been the case with us prosaic males of the past, what +must be the experience of your own hopeful sex? I am sure you are +looking forward with eagerness to your intended work. Is it to be +blighted? Are you to find life dull? It might seem from the remark of +Mr. Arnold that it would probably be so, for you must live in an +uninteresting land. + +When this remark of Mr. Arnold's was first made a multitude of voices in +all parts of our country declared that Mr. Arnold did not know what he +was talking about. As a stupid Englishman he had come here and had +failed to see what our land contains. In reality every corner of it is +stuffed with that beauty and distinction which he denied. For that was +the offensive feature of his statement: he had said in substance the +chief sources of interest are beauty and distinction. America is not +beautiful. Its scenery, its people, its past, are not distinguished. It +is impossible, therefore, for an intelligent and cultivated man to find +permanent interests here. + +The ordinary reply to these unpleasant sayings was, "America is +beautiful, America is distinguished." But on the face of the matter this +reply might well be distrusted. Mr. Arnold is not a man likely to make +such a mistake. He is a trained observer. His life has been passed in +criticism, and criticism of an extremely delicate sort. It seems to me +it must be rather his standards than his facts which are at fault. Many +of us would be slow to believe our teacher had made an error in +observation; for to many of us he has been a very great teacher indeed. +Through him we have learned the charm of simplicity, the refinement of +exactitude, the strength of finished form; we have learned calmness in +trial too, the patience of duty, ability to wait when in doubt; in +short, we have learned dignity, and he who teaches us dignity is not a +man lightly to be forgotten or disparaged. I say, therefore, that this +answer to Mr. Arnold, that he was in error, is one which on its face +might prudently be distrusted. + +But for other than prudential reasons I incline to agree with Mr. +Arnold's opinion. Even though I were not naturally disposed to +credit his judgment, I should be obliged to acknowledge that my own +observations largely coincide with his. In Europe I think I find +beauty more abundant than in America. Certainly the distinguished +objects, the distinguished persons, whom I go there to see, are more +numerous than those I might by searching find here. I cannot think this +portion of Mr. Arnold's statement can be impugned. And must we then +accept his conclusion and agree that your lives, while sheltered in +this interesting college, are themselves interesting; but that when +you go forth the romance is to pass away? I do not believe it, +because I question the standard which Mr. Arnold employs. He tells us +that the sources of the interesting are beauty and distinction. I +doubt it. However much delight and refreshment these may contribute +to our lives, I do not believe they predominantly constitute our +interests. + +Evidently Mr. Arnold cannot have reached his opinion through +observation, for the commonest facts of experience confute him. There is +in every community a certain class of persons whose business it is to +discover what people regard as interesting. These are the newspaper +editors; they are paid to find out for us interesting matters every day. +There is nothing they like better than to get hold of something +interesting which has not been observed before. Are they then searchers +for beauty and distinction? I should say not. Here are the subjects +which these seekers after interesting things discussed in my morning +paper. There is an account of disturbances in South America. There is a +statement about Mr. Blaine's health. There is a report of a prize fight. +There are speculations about the next general election. There is a +description of a fashionable wedding. These things interest me, and I +suspect they interest the majority of the readers of that paper; though +they can hardly be called beautiful or distinguished. Obviously, +therefore, if Mr. Arnold had inspected the actual interests of to-day, +he would have been obliged to recognize some other basis for them than +beauty and distinction. + +Yet I suppose all will feel it would be better if the trivial matters +which excite our interest in the morning journal were of a more +beautiful, of a more distinguished sort. Our interests would be more +honorable then. These things interest merely because they are facts, not +because they are beautiful. A fact is interesting through being a fact, +and this commonest and most basal of interests Mr. Arnold has +overlooked. He has not perceived that life itself is its own unceasing +interest. + +Before we can decide, however, whether he has overlooked anything more, +we must determine what is meant by beauty. Let us analyze the matter a +little. Let us see if we can detect why the beautiful and the +distinguished are interesting, and still how we can provide a place for +the other interests which are omitted in his statement. If we should +look at a tree and ask ourselves why this tree is more beautiful than +another, we should probably find we had thought it so on some such +grounds as these: the total bunch of branches and leaves, that exquisite +green mass sunning itself, is no larger than can well be supported on +the brown trunk. It is large enough; there is nothing lacking. If it +were smaller, the office of the trunk would hardly be fulfilled. If +larger, the trunk would be overpowered. Those branches which extend +themselves to the right adequately balance those which are extended to +the left. Scrutinizing it, we find every leaf in order, each one ready +to aërate its little sap and so conduce to the life of the whole. There +is no decay, no broken branch. Nothing is deficient, but at the same +time there is nothing superfluous. Each part ministers to every part. In +all parts the tree is proportionate--beautiful, intrinsically beautiful, +because it is unsuperfluous, unlacking. + +And when we turn to other larger, more intricately beautiful objects, +we find the same principle involved. Fulness of relations among the +parts, perfection of organism, absence of incongruity, constitute the +beauty of the object. Were you ever in Wiltshire in England, and did +you visit the splendid seat of the Earls of Pembroke, Wilton House? +It is a magnificent pile, designed by Holbein the painter, erected +before Elizabeth began to reign. Its green lawns, prepared ages ago, +were adapted to their positions originally and perform their ancient +offices to-day. Time has changed its gardens only by making them more +lovely than when they were planned. So harmonious with one another are +grounds and castle that, looking on the stately dwelling, one imagines +that the Creator himself must have had it in mind in his design of +the spot. And when you enter, all is equally congruous. Around the +central court runs the cloistered statuary gallery, out of which open +the several halls. Passing through these, you notice the portraits +not only of past members of the family--men who have been among the +most distinguished of England's worthies--but also portraits of the +eminent friends of the Pembrokes, painted by notable artists who were +often themselves also friends of the family. In the library is shown +Sidney's "Arcadia," written in this very garden, with a lock of +Elizabeth's hair inclosed. In the chief hall a play of Shakespeare's +is reported to have been performed by his company. Half a dozen names +that shine in literature lend intellectual glory to the place. But +as you walk from room to room, amazed at the accumulation of wealth and +proud tradition, you perceive how each casual object makes its +separate contribution to the general impression of stateliness. A +glance from a window discloses an enchanting view: in the distance, past +the cedars, rises the spire of Salisbury Cathedral, one of the most +peaceful and aspiring in England. All parts--scenery, buildings, +rich possessions, historic heritages--minister to parts. Romantic +imagination is stirred. It is beautiful, beautiful beyond anything +America can show. + +And if we turn to that region where beauty is most subtly embodied, +if we turn to human character, we find the conditions not dissimilar. +The character which impresses us most is that which has fully +organized its powers, so that every ability finds its appropriate +place without prominence; one with no false humility and without +self-assertion; a character which cannot be overthrown by petty +circumstance, but, steadfast in itself, no part lacking, no part +superfluous, easily lets its ample functions assist one another in all +that they are summoned to perform. When we behold a man like this, we +say, "This is what I would be. Here is the goal toward which I would +tend. This man, like Wilton House, like the beautiful tree, is a +finished thing." It is true when we turn our attention back and once +more criticise, we see that it is not so. No human character can be +finished. It is its glory that it cannot be. It must ever press +forward; each step reached is but the vantage-ground for a further +step. There is no completeness in human character--in human character +save one. + +And must we then consider human character uninteresting? According to +Mr. Arnold's standard perhaps we ought to do so. But through this very +case the narrowness of that standard becomes apparent. Mr. Arnold +rightly perceives that beauty is one of our higher interests. It +certainly is not our only or our highest, because in that which is most +profoundly interesting, human life, the completeness of parts which +constitutes beauty is never reached. There must obviously be another and +a higher source of interest, one too exalted to be found where awhile +ago I sketched it, in the mere occurrence of a fact. We cannot say that +all events, simply because they occur, are alike interesting. To find in +them an intelligent interest we must rate their worth. I agree, +accordingly, with Mr. Arnold in thinking that it is the passion for +perfection, the assessment of worths, which is at the root of all +enduring interests. But I believe that in the history of the world this +passion for perfection, this deepest root of human interests, has +presented itself in two forms. The Greek conceived it in one way, the +Christian has conceived it in another. + +It was the office of that astonishing people, the Greeks, to teach us to +honor completeness, the majesty of the rounded whole. We see this in +every department of their marvellous life. Whenever we look at a Greek +statue, it seems impossible that it should be otherwise without loss; we +cannot imagine any portion changed; the thing has reached its +completeness. Before it we can only bow and feel at rest. Just so it is +when we examine Greek architecture. There too we find the same ordered +proportion, the same adjustment of part to part. And if we turn to Greek +literature, the stately symmetry is no less remarkable. What page of +Sophocles could be stricken out? What page--what sentence? Just enough, +not more than enough! The thought has grown, has asserted its entirety; +and when that entirety has been reached, it has stopped, delighted with +its own perfection. A splendid ideal, an ideal which never can fail, I +am sure, to interest man so long as he remains intelligent! + +And yet this beautiful Greek work shows only one aspect of the world. It +omitted something, it omitted formative life. Joy in birth, delight in +beginnings, interest in origins,--these things did not belong to the +Greek; they came in with Christianity. It is Jesus Christ who turns our +attention toward growth, and so teaches us to delight in the imperfect +rather than in the perfect. It is he who, wishing to give to his +disciples a model of what they should be, does not select the completed +man, but takes the little child and sets him before them and to the +supercilious says, "Take heed that ye despise not one of these little +ones." He teaches us to reverence the beginning of things. And at first +thought it might well seem that this reverence for the imperfect was a +retrogression. What! is not a consummate man more admirable than a +child? "No," Jesus answered; and because he answered so, pity was born. +Before the coming of Jesus Christ, I think we may say that the sick, the +afflicted, the child--shall I not say the woman?--were but slightly +understood. It is because God has come down from heaven, manifesting +even himself in forms of imperfection, it is on this account that our +intellectual horizon has been enlarged. We may now delight in the lowly, +we may stoop and gather imperfect things and rejoice in them,--rejoice +beyond the old Greek rejoicing. + +Yet it is easy to mistake the nature of this change of standard, and in +doing so to run into grave moral danger. If we content ourselves with +the imperfect rather than with the perfect, we are barbarians. We are +not Christians nor are we Greeks, we are barbarians. But that is not the +spirit of Jesus. He teaches us to catch the future in the instant, to +see the infinite in the finite, to watch the growth of the perfect out +of the imperfect. And he teaches us that this delight in progress, in +growth, in aspiration, in completing, may rightly be greater than our +exultation in completeness. In his view the joy of perfecting is beyond +the joy of perfection. + +Now I want to be sure that you young women, who are preparing yourselves +here for larger life and are soon to emerge into the perplexing world, +go forth with clear and Christian purpose. For though what I have been +discussing may appear dry and abstract, it is an extremely practical +matter. Consider a moment in which direction you are to seek the +interests of your life. Will you demand that the things about you shall +already possess their perfection? Will you ask from life that it be +completed, finished, beautiful? If so, you are doomed to dreary days. Or +are you to get your intellectual eyes open, see beauty in the making, +and come to rejoice in it there rather than after it is made? That is +the question I wish to present to-day; and I shall ask you to examine +several provinces of life and see how different they appear when +surveyed from one point of view or from the other. + +Undoubtedly all of you on leaving here will go into some home, either +the home of your parents or--less fortunate--some stranger's home. And +when you come there, I think I can foretell one thing: it will be a +tolerably imperfect place in which you find yourself. You will notice a +great many points in which it is improvable; that is to say, a great +many respects in which you might properly wish it otherwise. It will +seem to you, I dare say, a little plain, a little commonplace, compared +with your beautiful college and the college life here. I doubt whether +you will find all the members of your family--dear though they may +be--so wise, so gentle-mannered, so able to contribute to your +intellectual life as are your companions here. Will you feel then, "Ah! +home is a dull place; I wish I were back in college again! I think I was +made for college life. Possibly enough I was made for a wealthy life. I +am sure I was made for a comfortable life. But I do not find these +things here. I will sit and wish I had them. Of course I ought not to +enjoy a home that is short of perfection; and I recognize that this is a +good way from complete." Is this to be your attitude? Or are you going +to say, "How interesting this home! What a brave struggle the dear +people are making with the resources at their command! What kindness is +shown by my tired mother; how swift she is in finding out the many small +wants of the household! How diligent my father! Should I, if I had had +only their narrow opportunities, be so intelligent, so kind, so +self-sacrificing as they? What can I do to show them my gratitude? What +can I contribute toward the furtherance, the enlargement, the +perfecting, of this home?" That is the wise course. Enter this home not +merely as a matter of loving duty, but find in it also your own strong +interests, and learn to say, "This home is not a perfect home, happily +not a perfect home. I have something here to do. It is far more +interesting than if it were already complete." + +And again, you will not always live in a place so attractive as +Cleveland. There are cities which have not your beautiful lake, your +distant views, your charming houses excellently shaded with trees. These +things are exceptional and cannot always be yours. You may be obliged to +live in an American town which appears to you highly unfinished, a town +which constantly suggests that much still remains to be done. And then +are you going to say, "This place is not beautiful, and I of course am a +lover of the beautiful. How could one so superior as I rest in such +surroundings? I could not respect myself were I not discontented." Is +that to be your attitude? It is, I am sorry to think, the attitude of +many who go from our colleges. They have been taught to reverence +perfection, to honor excellence; and instead of making it their work to +carry this excellence forth, and to be interested in spreading it far +and wide in the world, they sit down and mourn that it has not yet come. +How dull the world would be had it come! Perfection, beauty? It +constitutes a resting-place for us; it does not constitute our +working-place. + +I maintain, therefore, in regard to our land as a whole that there is no +other so interesting on the face of the earth; and I am led to this +conviction by the very reasoning which brought Mr. Arnold to a contrary +opinion. I accept his judgment of the beauty of America. His premise is +correct, but it should have conducted him to the opposite conclusion. In +America we still are in the making. We are not yet beautiful and +distinguished; and that is why America, beyond every other country, +awakens a noble interest. The beauty which is in the old lands, and +which refreshes for a season, is after all a species of death. Those who +dwell among such scenes are appeased, they are not quickened. Let them +keep their past; we have our future. We may do much. What they can do is +largely at an end. + +In literature also I wish to bring these distinctions before you, these +differences of standard; and perhaps I cannot accomplish this better +than by exhibiting them as they are presented in a few verses from the +poet of the imperfect. I suppose if we try to mark out with precision +the work of Mr. Browning,--I mean not to mark it out as the Browning +societies do, but to mark it out with precision,--we might say that its +distinctive feature is that he has guided himself by the principle on +which I have insisted: he has sought for beauty where there is seeming +chaos; he has loved growth, has prized progress, has noted the advance +of the spiritual, the pressing on of the finite soul through hindrance +to its junction with the infinite. This it is which has inspired his +somewhat crabbed verses, and has made men willing to undergo the labor +of reading them, that they too may partake of his insight. In one of his +poems--one which seems to me to contain some of his sublimest as well as +some of his most commonplace lines, the poem on "Old Pictures in +Florence,"--he discriminates between Greek and Christian art in much the +same way I have done. In "Greek Art," Mr. Browning says:-- + + You saw yourself as you wished you were, + As you might have been, as you cannot be; + Earth here, rebuked by Olympus there; + And grew content in your poor degree + With your little power, by those statues' godhead, + And your little scope, by their eyes' full sway, + And your little grace, by their grace embodied, + And your little date, by their forms that stay. + + You would fain be kinglier, say, than I am? + Even so, you will not sit like Theseus. + You would prove a model? The son of Priam + Has yet the advantage in arms' and knees' use. + You're wroth--can you slay your snake like Apollo? + You're grieved--still Niobe's the grander! + You live--there's the Racers' frieze to follow: + You die--there's the dying Alexander. + + So, testing your weakness by their strength, + Your meagre charms by their rounded beauty, + Measured by Art in your breadth and length, + You learned--to submit is a mortal's duty. + + Growth came when, looking your last on them all, + You turned your eyes inwardly one fine day + And cried with a start--What if we so small + Be greater and grander the while than they! + Are they perfect of lineament, perfect of stature? + In both, of such lower types are we + Precisely because of our wider nature; + For time, theirs--ours, for eternity. + + To-day's brief passion limits their range; + It seethes with the morrow for us and more. + They are perfect--how else? they shall never change: + We are faulty--why not? we have time in store. + The Artificer's hand is not arrested + With us; we are rough-hewn, no-wise polished: + They stand for our copy, and once invested + With all they can teach, we shall see them abolished. + +You will notice that in this subtle study Mr. Browning points out how +through contact with perfection there may come content with our present +lot. This I call the danger of perfection, our possible belittlement +through beauty. For in the lives of us all there should be a divine +discontent,--not devilish discontent, but divine discontent,--a +consciousness that life may be larger than we have yet attained, that we +are to press beyond what we have reached, that joy lies in the future, +in that which has not been found, rather than in the realized present. +And it seems to me if ever a people were called on to understand this +glory of the imperfect, it is we of America, it is you of the Middle +West; it is especially you who are undertaking here the experiment of a +woman's college. You are at the beginning, and that fact should lend an +interest to your work which cannot so readily be realized in our older +institutions. As you look eastward upon my own huge university, Harvard +University, it probably appears to you singularly beautiful, reverend in +its age, magnificent in its endowments, equable in its working; perhaps +you contemplate it as nearing perfection, and contrast your incipient +college with it as hardly deserving the name. You are entirely mistaken. +Harvard University, to its glory be it said, is enormously unfinished; +it is a great way from perfect; it is full of blemishes. We are +tinkering at it all the time; and if it were not so, I for one should +decline to be connected with it. Its interest for me would cease. You +are to start free from some trammels that we feel. Because we have so +large a past laid upon us we have not some freedoms of growth, some +opportunities of enlargement, which you possess. Accordingly, in your +very experiment here you have a superb illustration of the principle I +am trying to explain. This young and imperfect college should interest +you who are members of it; it should interest this intelligent city. +Wise patrons should find here a germ capable of such broad and +interesting growth as may well call out their heartiest enthusiasm. + +If then the modes of accepting the passion for perfection are so +divergent as I have indicated, is it possible to suggest methods by +which we may discipline ourselves in the nobler way of seeking the +interests of life?--I mean by taking part with things in their +beginnings, learning to reverence them there, and so attaining an +interest which will continually be supported and carried forward. You +may look with some anxiety upon the doctrine which I have laid down. You +may say, "But beauty is seductive; beauty allures me. I know that the +imperfect in its struggle toward perfection is the nobler matter. I know +that America is, for him who can see all things, a more interesting land +than Spain. Yes, I know this, but I find it hard to feel it. My strong +temptation is to lie and dream in romance, in ideal perfection. By what +means may I discipline myself out of this degraded habit and bring +myself into the higher life, so that I shall always be interested in +progress, in the future rather than in the past, in the on-going rather +than in the completed life?" I cannot give an exact and final receipt +for this better mind. A persistently studied experience must be the +teacher. To-day you may understand what I say, you may resolve to live +according to the methods I approve. But you may be sure that to-morrow +you will need to learn it all over again. And yet I think I can mention +several forms of discipline, as I may call them. I can direct your +attention to certain modes by which you may instruct yourselves how to +take an interest in the imperfect thing, and still keep that interest an +honorable one. + +In my judgment, then, your first care should be to learn to observe. A +simple matter--one, I dare say, which it will seem to you difficult to +avoid. You have a pair of eyes; how can you fail to observe? Ah! but +eyes can only look, and that is not observing. We must not rest in +looking, but must penetrate into things, if we would find out what is +there. And to find this out is worth while, for everything when observed +is of immense interest. There is no object so remote from human life +that when we come to study it we may not detect within its narrow +compass illuminating and therefore interesting matter. But it makes a +great difference whether we do thus really observe, whether we hold +attention to the thing in hand, and see what it contains. Once, after +puzzling long over the charm of Homer, I applied to a learned friend and +said to him, "Can you tell me why Homer is so interesting? Why can't you +and I write as he wrote? Why is it that his art is lost, and that to-day +it is impossible for us to awaken an interest at all comparable to +his?"--"Well," said my friend, "I have often meditated on that, but it +seems to come to about this: Homer looked long at a thing. Why," said +he, "do you know that if you should hold up your thumb and look at it +long enough, you would find it immensely interesting?" Homer looks a +great while at his thumb. He sees precisely the thing he is dealing +with. He does not confuse it with anything else. It is sharp to him; and +because it is sharp to him it stands out sharply for us over thousands +of years. Have you acquired this art, or do you hastily glance at +insignificant objects? Do you see the thing exactly as it is? Do you +strip away from it your own likings and dislikings, your own previous +notions of what it ought to be? Do you come face to face with things? If +you do, the hardest situation in life may well be to you a delight. For +you will not regard hardships, but only opportunities. Possibly you may +even feel, "Yes, here are just the difficulties I like to explore. How +can one be interested in easy things? The hard things of life are the +ones for which we ought to give thanks." So we may feel if we have made +the cool and hardy temper of the observer our own, if we have learned to +put ourselves into a situation and to understand it on all sides. Why, +the things on which we have thus concentrated attention become our +permanent interests. For example, unluckily when I was trained I was not +disciplined in botany. I cannot, therefore, now observe the rose. Some +of you can, for you have been studying botany here. I have to look +stupidly on the total beauty of the lovely object; I can see it only as +a whole, while you, fine observer, who have trained your powers to +pierce it, can comprehend its very structure and see how marvellously +the blooming thing is put together. My eyes were dulled to that long +ago; I cannot observe it. Beware, do not let yourselves grow dull. +Observe, observe, observe in every direction! Keep your eyes open. Go +forward, understanding that the world was made for your knowledge, that +you have the right to enter into and possess it. + +And then besides, you need to train yourselves to sympathize with that +which lies beyond you. It is easy to sympathize with that which lies +within you. Many persons go through life sympathizing with themselves +incessantly. What unhappy persons! How unfit for anything important! +They are full of themselves and answer their own motion, while there +beyond them lies all the wealthy world in which they might be sharers. +For sympathy is feeling with,--it is the identification of ourself with +that which at present is not ourself. It is going forth and joining that +which we behold, not standing aloof and merely observing, as I said at +first. When we observe, the object we observe is alien to us; when we +sympathize, we identify ourselves with it. You may go into a home and +observe, and you will make every person in that home wretched. But go +into a home and sympathize, find out what lies beyond you there, see how +differently those persons are thinking and feeling from the ways in +which you are accustomed to think and feel; yet notice how imperfect you +are in yourself, and how important it is that persons should be +fashioned thus different from you if even your own completion is to +come; then, I say, you will find yourself becoming large in your own +being, and a large benefactor of others. + +Do not stunt sympathy, then. Do not allow walls to rise up and hem it +in. Never say to yourself, "This is my way; I don't do so and so. I know +only this and that; I don't want to know anything else. You other people +may have that habit, but these are my habits, and I always do thus and +thus." Do not say that. Nothing is more immoral than moral psychology. +You should have no interest in yourself as you stand; because a larger +selfhood lies beyond you, and you should be going forth and claiming +your heritage there. Do not stand apart from the movements of the +country,--the political, charitable, religious, scientific, literary +movements,--however distastefully they may strike you. Identify yourself +with them, sympathize with them. They all have a noble side; seek it out +and claim it as your own. Throw yourself into all life and make it nobly +yours. + +But I am afraid it would be impossible for you thus to observe, thus to +sympathize, unless you bring within your imperfect self just grounds of +self-respect. You must contribute to things if you would draw from +things. You must already have acquired some sort of excellence in order +to detect larger excellence elsewhere. You should therefore have made +yourself the master of something which you can do, and do on the whole +better than anybody else. That is the moral aspect of competition, that +one person can do a certain thing best and so it is given him to do. +Some of you who are going out into the world before long will, I fear, +be astonished to find that the world is already full. It has no place +for you; it never anticipated your coming and it has reserved for you no +corner. Your only means of gaining a corner will be by doing something +better than the people who are already there. Then they will make you a +place. And that is what you should be considering here. You should be +training yourself to do something well, it really does not matter much +what. Can you make dresses well? Can you cook a good loaf of bread? Can +you write a poem or run a typewriter? Can you do anything well? Are you +a master somewhere? If you are, the world will have a place for you; and +more than that, you will have within yourself just grounds for +self-respect. + +To sum up, what I have been saying throughout this address merely +amounts to this: that the imperfect thing--the one thing of genuine +interest in all the world--gets its right to be respected only through +its connection with the totality of things. Do not, then, when you leave +college say to yourself, "I know Greek. That is a splendid thing to +know. These people whom I am meeting do not know it and are obviously of +a lower grade than I." That will not be self-respectful, because it +shows that you have not understood your proper place. You should respect +yourself as a part of all, and not as of independent worth. To call this +wide world our own larger self is not too extravagant an expression. But +if we are to count it so, then we must count the particular thing which +we are capable of doing as merely our special contribution to the great +self. And we must understand that many are making similar contributions. +What I want you to feel, therefore, is the profound conception of +mutual helpfulness and resulting individual dignity which St. Paul has +set forth, according to which each of us is performing a special +function in the common life, and that life of all is recognized as the +divine life, the manifestation of the life of the Father. When you have +come to that point, when you have seen in the imperfect a portion, an +aspect, of the total, perfect, divine life, then I am not afraid life +will be uninteresting. Indeed I would say to every one who goes from +this college, you can count with confidence on a life which shall be +vastly more interesting beyond the college walls than ever it has proved +here, if you have once acquired the art of penetrating into the +imperfect, and finding in limited, finite life the infinite life. "To +apprehend thus, draws us a profit from all things we see." + + + + +II + +HARVARD PAPERS + + +The following papers relate primarily to Harvard University and are +chiefly of historic interest. But since out of that centre of +investigation and criticism has come a large part of what is significant +in American education, the story of its experiences will be found pretty +generally instructive for whoever would teach or learn. + +The first three papers were published in the Andover Review for +1885, 1886, and 1887, and are now printed without alteration. Time has +changed most of the facts recorded in these papers, and the University +is now a different place from the one depicted here. An educational +revolution was then in progress, more influential than any which has +ever visited our country before or since. Harvard was its leader, and +had consequently become an object of suspicion through wide sections of +the land. I was one of those who sought to allay those suspicions and +to clear up some of the mental confusions in which they arose. To-day +Harvard's cause is won. All courses leading to the Bachelor's degree +throughout the country now recognize the importance of personal +choice. But the history of the struggle exhibits with peculiar +distinctness a conflict which perpetually goes on between two currents +of human progress, a conflict whose opposing ideals are almost equally +necessary and whose champions never fail alike to awaken sympathy. As +a result of this struggle our children enjoy an ampler heritage than +was open to us their fathers. Do they comprehend their added wealth +and turn it to the high uses for which it was designed? In good +measure they do. A brief consideration of the ethical aims which have +shaped the modern college may enable them to do so still more. + +Appended to these are two papers: one on college economics in 1887, +describing the first attempt ever made, I believe, to ascertain from +students themselves the cost of the higher education; the other setting +forth a picturesque and noble figure who belonged to the days before the +Flood, when the prescribed system was still supreme. + + +FOOTNOTES: + + [3] Delivered at the first commencement of the Woman's College of + Western Reserve University. + + + + +VIII + +THE NEW EDUCATION + + +During the year 1884-85 the freshmen of Harvard College chose a majority +of their studies. Up to that time no college, so far as I know, allowed +its first year's men any choice whatever. Occasionally, one modern +language has been permitted rather than another; and where colleges are +organized by "schools,"--that is, with independent groups of studies +each leading to a different degree,--the freshman by entering one school +turns away from others, and so exercises a kind of selection. But with +these possible exceptions, the same studies have always been required of +all the members of a given freshman class. Under the new Harvard rules, +but seven sixteenths of the work of the freshman year will be +prescribed; the entire remainder of the college course, with the +exception of a few exercises in English composition, will be elective. A +fragment of prescribed work so inconsiderable is likely soon to +disappear. At no distant day the Harvard student will mark out for +himself his entire curriculum from entrance to graduation. + +Even if this probable result should not follow, the present step toward +it is too significant to be passed over in silence, for it indicates +that after more than half a century of experiment the Harvard Faculty +are convinced of the worth of the elective system. In their eyes, option +is an engine of efficiency. People generally treat it as a concession. +Freedom is confessedly agreeable; restive boys like it; let them have as +much as will not harm them. But the Harvard authorities mean much more +than this. They have thrown away that established principle of American +education, that every head should contain a given kind of knowledge; and +having already organized their college from the top almost to the bottom +on a wholly different plan, they now declare that their new principle +has been proved so safe and effective that it should supplant the older +method, even in that year when students are acknowledged to be least +capable of self-direction. + +On what facts do they build such confidence? What do they mean by +calling their elective principle a system? Does not the new method, +while rendering education more agreeable, tend to lower its standard? +Or, if it succeeds in stimulating technical scholarship, is it equally +successful in fostering character and in forming vigorous and +law-revering men? These questions I propose to answer, for they are +questions which every friend of Harvard, and indeed of American +education, wishes people pressingly to ask. Those most likely to ask +them are quiet, God-fearing parents, who, having bred their sons to a +sense of duty, expect college life to broaden and consolidate the +discipline of the home. These are the parents every college wants to +reach. Their sons, whether rich or poor, are the bone and sinew of the +land. In my judgment the new education, once understood, will appeal to +them more strongly than to any other class. + +But it is not easy to understand it. My own understanding of it has been +of slow growth. When, in 1870, I left Andover Seminary and came to teach +at Harvard, I distrusted the more extreme developments of the elective +system. Up to 1876 I opposed the introduction of voluntary attendance at +recitations. Not until four years ago did I begin to favor the remission +of Greek in the requisites for entrance. In all these cases my party was +defeated; my fears proved groundless; what I wished to accomplish was +effected by means which I had opposed. I am therefore that desirable +persuader, the man who has himself been persuaded. The misconceptions +through which I passed, I am sure beset others. I want to clear them +away, and to present some of the reasons which have turned me from an +adherent of the old to an apostle of the new faith. + +An elementary misconception deserves a passing word. The new system is +not a mere cutting of straps; it is a system. Its student is still +under bonds, bonds more compulsive than the old, because fitted with +nicer adjustment to each one's person. On H. M. S. Pinafore the desires +of every sailor receive instant recognition. The new education will not +agree to that. It remains authoritative. It will not subject its student +to alien standards, nor treat his deliberate wishes as matters of no +consequence; but it does insist on that authority which reveals to a man +his own better purposes and makes them firmer and finer than they could +have become if directed by himself alone. What the amount of a young +man's study shall be, and what its grade of excellence, a body of +experts decides. The student himself determines its specific topic. + +Everybody knows how far this is from a prescribed system; not so many +see that it is at a considerable remove from unregulated or nomadic +study. An American at a German university, or at a summer school of +languages, applies for no degree and is under no restraint. He chooses +whatever studies he likes, ten courses or five or one; he works on them +as much as suits his need or his caprice; he submits what he does to no +test; he receives no mark; the time he wastes is purely his own concern. +Study like this, roving study, is not systematic at all. It is +advantageous to adult students,--to those alone whose wills are steady, +and who know their own wants precisely. Most colleges draw a sharp +distinction between the small but important body of students of this +class--special students, as they are called--and the great company of +regulars. These latter are candidates for a degree, are under constant +inspection, and are moved along the line only as they attain a definite +standard in both the quantity and quality of their work. After +accomplishing the studies of the freshman year, partly prescribed and +partly elective, a Harvard student must pass successfully four elective +courses in each of his subsequent three years. By "a course" is +understood a single line of study receiving three hours a week of +instruction; fifty per cent of a maximum mark must be won in each year +in order to pass. Throwing out the freshman year, the precise meaning of +the Harvard B.A. degree is therefore this: its holder has presented +twelve courses of study selected by himself, and has mastered them at +least half perfectly. + +Here, then, is the essence of the elective system,--fixed quantity and +quality of study, variable topic. Work and moderate excellence are +matters within everybody's reach. It is not unfair to demand them of +all. If a man cannot show success somewhere, he is stamped _ipso facto_ +a worthless fellow. But into the specific topic of work an element of +individuality enters. To succeed in a particular branch of study +requires fitness, taste, volition,--incalculable factors, known to +nobody but the man himself. Here, if anywhere, is the proper field for +choice; and all American colleges are now substantially agreed in +accepting the elective principle in this sense and applying it within +the limits here marked out. It is an error to suppose that election is +the hasty "craze" of a single college. Every senior class in New England +elects a portion of its studies. Every important New England college +allows election in the junior year. Amherst, Bowdoin, Yale, and Harvard +allow it in the sophomore. Outside of New England the case is the same. +It is true, all the colleges except Harvard retain a modicum of +prescribed study even in the senior year; but election in some degree is +admitted everywhere, and the tendency is steadily in the direction of a +wider choice. + +The truth is, Harvard has introduced the principle more slowly than +other colleges. She was merely one of the earliest to begin. In 1825, on +the recommendation of Judge Story, options were first allowed, in modern +languages. Twenty years of experiment followed. In 1846 electives were +finally established for seniors and juniors; in 1867 for sophomores; in +1884 for freshmen. But the old method was abandoned so slowly that as +late as 1871 some prescribed study remained for seniors, till 1879 for +juniors, and till 1884 for sophomores. During this long and unnoticed +period, careful comparison was made between the new and old methods. A +mass of facts was accumulated, which subsequently rendered possible an +extremely rapid adoption of the system by other colleges. Public +confidence was tested. Comparing the new Harvard with the old, it is +plain enough that a revolution has taken place; but it is a revolution +like that in the England of Victoria, wrought not by sudden shock, but +quietly, considerately, conservatively, inevitably. Those who have +watched the college have approved; the time of transition has been a +time of unexampled prosperity. For the last fifteen years the gifts to +the University have averaged $250,000 a year. The steady increase in +students may be seen at a glance by dividing the last twenty-five years +into five-year periods, and noting the average number of undergraduates +in each: 1861-65, 423; 1866-70, 477; 1871-75, 657; 1876-80, 808; +1881-85, 873. + +These facts are sufficient to show that Harvard has reached her +present great prosperity by becoming the pioneer in a general +educational movement. What made the movement general was the dread of +flimsy study. Our world is larger than the one our grandfathers +inhabited; it is more minutely subdivided, more finely related, more +subtly and broadly known. The rise of physical science and the +enlargement of humanistic interests oblige the college of to-day to +teach elaborately many topics which formerly were not taught at all. +Not so many years ago a liberal education prepared men almost +exclusively for the four professions,--preaching, teaching, medicine, +and law. In the first century of its existence one half the graduates +of Harvard became ministers. Of the graduates of the last ten years a +full third have entered none of the four professions. With a narrow +field of knowledge, and with students who required no great variety +of training, the task of a college was simple. A single programme +decently covered the needs of all. But as the field of knowledge +widened, and men began to notice a difference between its contents +and those of the college curriculum, an effort was made to enlarge +the latter by adding subjects from the former. Modern languages crept +in, followed by sciences, political economy, new departments of +history, literature, art, philosophy. For the most part, these were +added to the studies already taught. But the length of college days +is limited. The life of man has not extended with the extension of +science. To multiply subjects was soon found equivalent to cheapening +knowledge. Where three subjects are studied in place of one, each is +pushed only one third as far. A crowded curriculum is a curriculum +of superficialities, where men are forever occupied with alphabets and +multiplication-tables,--elementary matters, containing little mental +nutriment. Thoroughgoing discipline, the acquisition of habits of +intellectual mastery, calls for acquaintance with knowledge in its +higher ranges, and there is no way of reaching these remoter regions +during the brief season of college life except by dividing the field +and pressing along paths where personal friction is least. +Accordingly, alternative options began to be allowed, at first between +the new subjects introduced, then between these and the old ones. +But in this inevitable admission of option a new principle was +introduced whose germinal force could not afterwards be stayed. The old +conception had been that there were certain matters a knowledge of +which constituted a liberal education. Compared with the possession +of these, the temper of the receiving mind was a secondary affair. This +view became untenable. Under the new conditions, college faculties were +forced to recognize personal aptitudes, and to stake intellectual +gains upon them. In assessing the worth of studies, attention was +thus withdrawn from their subject-matter and transferred to the +response they called forth in the apprehender. Hence arose a new +ideal of education, in which temper of mind had preëminence over +_quæsita_, the guidance of the powers of knowing over the store of +matters known. The new education has accordingly passed through two +stages of development: first, in order to avoid superficiality when +knowledge was coming in like a flood, it was found necessary to admit +choice; secondly, in the very necessity of this admission was disclosed +a more spiritual ideal of the relation of the mind of man to knowledge. + +And this new ideal, I hold, should now commend itself not as a thing +good enough if collateral, but as a principle, organic and exclusive. To +justify its dominance a single compendious reason is sufficient: it +uplifts character as no other training can, and through influence on +character it ennobles all methods of teaching and discipline. We say to +our student at Harvard, "Study Greek, German, history, or botany,--what +you will; the one thing of consequence is that you should will to study +something." The moral factor is thus put forward, where it belongs. The +will is honored as of prime consequence. Other systems treat it as a +merely concurrent and auxiliar force. They try to smuggle it into +operation wrapped in a mass of matter-of-course performances. It is the +distinctive merit of the elective system that it strips off disguises, +places the great facts of the moral life in the foreground, forces the +student to be conscious of what he is doing, permits him to become a +partaker in his own work, and makes him perceive that gains and losses +are immediately connected with a volitional attitude. When such a +consciousness is aroused, every step in knowledge becomes a step toward +maturity. There is no sudden transformation, but the boy comes +gradually to perceive that in the determination of the will are found +the promise and potency of every form of life. Many people seem to +suppose that at some epoch in the life of a young man the capacity to +choose starts up of itself, ready-made. It is not so. Choice, like other +human powers, needs practice for strength. To learn how to choose, we +must choose. Keep a boy from exercising his will during the formative +period from eighteen to twenty-two, and you turn him into the world a +child when by years he should be a man. To permit choice is dangerous; +but not to permit it is more dangerous; for it renders dependency +habitual, places outside the character those springs of action which +should be set within it, treats personal adhesion as of little account, +and through anxiety to shield a young life from evil cuts it off from +opportunities of virile good. Even when successful, the directive +process breeds an excellence not to be desired. Plants and stones commit +no errors. They are under a prescribed system and follow given laws. +Personal man is in continual danger, for to self-direction is attached +the prerogative of sin. For building up a moral manhood, the very errors +of choice are serviceable. + +I am not describing theoretic advantages. A manlier type of character +actually appears as the elective principle extends. The signs of the +better life are not easy to communicate to those who have not lived +in the peculiar world of a college. A greater ease in uprightness, a +quicker response to studious appeal, a deeper seriousness, still +keeping relish for merriment, a readier amenability to considerations +of order, an increase of courtesy, a growing disregard of coarseness +and vice, a decay of the boyish fancy that it is girlish to show +enthusiasm,--tendencies in these directions, hardly perceptible to +others, gladden the watchful heart of a teacher and assure him that his +work is not returning to him void. Every company of young men has a +notion of what it is "gentlemanly" to do. Into this current ideal the +most artificial and incongruous elements enter. Perhaps it is +counted "good form" to haze a freshman, to wear the correctest cut of +trousers, to have a big biceps muscle, or to be reputed a man of +brains. Whatever the notion, it is allegiance to some such blind +ideal, rather than the acceptance of abstract principles of conduct, +which guides a young man's life. To change ever so little these +influential ideals is the ambition of the educator; but they are +persistent things, held with the amazing conservatism of youth. When I +say that a better tone prevails as the elective system takes root, I +mean that I find the word "gentleman," as it drops from student +mouths, enlarging and deepening its meaning from year to year, +departing from its usage as a term of outward description and drawing +to itself qualities more interior. Direct evidence on a matter so +elusive can hardly be given, but I can throw a few sidelights upon it. +Hazing, window-smashing, disturbing a lecture-room, are things of the +past. The office of proctor--the literary policeman of the olden +time--has become a sinecure. Several years ago the Faculty awarded +Honorable Mention at graduation to students who attained a high rank +in three or more courses of a single department. The honor was not +an exalted one, but being well within the powers of all it soon became +"not quite the thing" to graduate without it. In the last senior class +91 men out of 191 received Honorable Mention. This last fact shows +that a decent scholarship has become reputable. But more than this is +true: the rank which is reckoned decent scholarship is steadily +rising. I would not overstate the improvement. The scale of marking +itself may have risen slightly. But taking the central scholar of +each class during the last ten years,--the scholar, that is, who stands +midway between the head and the foot,--this presumably average person +has received the following marks, the maximum being 100:-- + + YEAR 1874 1875 1876 1877 1878 1879 1880 1881 1882 1883 + -75 -76 -77 -78 -79 -80 -81 -82 -83 -84 + ----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+----- + Fresh. 59 55 57 56 62 62 65 67 64 63 + Soph. 59 64 63 65 67 68 70 69 69 68 + Jun. 67 65 66 67 70 68 72 75 72 72 + Sen. 67 70 70 73 76 73 77 75 79 81 + +It will be observed that the marks in this table become higher as the +student approaches the end of his course and reaches the years where the +elective principle is least restricted. Let the eye pass from the left +upper corner of the table to the right lower corner and take in the full +significance of a change which has transformed freshmen, doomed to +prescribed studies and half of them ranking below sixty per cent, into +seniors so energetic that half of them win four fifths of a perfect mark +in four electives. It is not only the poor who are affected in this way. +About half the men who appear on the Rank List each year receive no +pecuniary aid, and are probably not needy men. + +But it may be suspected that high marks mean easy studies. The many +different lines of work cannot be equally severe, and it is said that +those which call for least exertion will be sure to prove the favorites. +As this charge of "soft" courses is the stock objection to the elective +system, I shall be obliged to examine it somewhat minutely. Like most of +the popular objections, it rests on an _a priori_ assumption that thus +things must be. Statistics all run the other way. Yet I am not surprised +that people believe it. I believed it once myself when I knew nothing +but prescribed systems. Under these, it certainly is true that ease is +the main factor in making a study popular. When choice is permitted, the +factor of interest gets freer play, and exerts an influence that would +not be anticipated by those who have never seen it in operation. Severe +studies are often highly popular if the subject is attractive and the +teaching clear. Here is a list of the fifteen courses which in 1883-84 +(the last year for which returns are complete) contained the largest +numbers of seniors and juniors, those classes being at that time the +only ones which had no prescribed studies: Mill's political economy, 125 +seniors and juniors; European history from the middle of the eighteenth +century, 102; history of ancient art, 80; comparative zoölogy, 58; +political and constitutional history of the United States, 56; +psychology, 52; geology, 47; constitutional government of England and +the United States, 45; advanced geology, with field work, 43; Homer, +sixteen books, 40; ethics, 38; logic, and introduction to philosophy, +38; Shakespeare, six plays, 37; economic history, advanced course, 36; +legal history of England to the sixteenth century, 35. In these years +the senior and junior classes together contained 404 men, who chose four +electives apiece. In all, therefore, 1616 choices were made. The above +list shows 832; so that, as nearly as may be, one half of the total work +of two years is here represented. The other half was devoted to +interests more special, which were pursued in smaller companies. + +Are these choices unwise? Are they not the studies which should largely +occupy a young man's thoughts toward the close of his college life? They +are the ones most frequently set for the senior and junior years by +colleges which retain prescribed studies. From year to year choices +differ a little. The courses at the lower end of the list may give place +to others which do not appear here. I print the list simply to indicate +the general character of the studies elected. In it appears only one out +of all the modern languages, and that, too, a course in pure literature +in which the marking is not reputed tender. Another year a course of +French or German might come in; but ordinarily--except when chosen by +specialists--the languages, modern and ancient, are elected most largely +during the sophomore year. Following directly the prescribed linguistic +studies of the freshman year, they are deservedly among the most +popular, though not the easiest, courses. In nearly half the courses +here shown no text-book is used, and the amount of reading necessary for +getting an average mark is large. A shelf of books representing original +authorities is reserved by the instructor at the Library, and the pupil +is sent there to prepare his work. + +How, it will be asked, are choices so judicious secured? Simply by +making them deliberate. Last June studies were chosen for the coming +year. During the previous month students were discussing with one +another what their electives should be. How this or that course is +conducted, what are the peculiarities of its teacher, what is the +proportion in it between work given and gains had, are matters which +then interest the inhabitants of Hollis and Holyoke as stocks interest +Wall Street. Most students, too, have some intimacy with one or another +member of the Faculty, to whom they are in the habit of referring +perplexities. This advice is now sought, and often discreetly rejected. +The Elective Pamphlet is for a time the best-read book in college. The +perplexing question is, What courses to give up? All find too many which +they wish to take. The pamphlet of this year offers 189 courses, divided +among twenty departments. The five modern languages, for example, offer, +all told, 34 different courses; Sanskrit, Persian, Assyrian, Hebrew, and +Arabic, 14; Greek and Latin, 18 each; natural history, 19; physics and +chemistry, 18; mathematics, 18; history and philosophy, 12 each; the +fine arts, including music, 11; political economy, 7; Roman law, 2. +These numbers will show the range of choice; on its extent a great deal +of the efficiency of the system depends.[4] After the electives are +chosen and reported in writing to the Dean, the long vacation begins, +when plans of study come under the scrutiny of parents, of the parish +minister, or of the college graduate who lives in the next street. Until +September 21, any elective may be changed on notice sent to the Dean. +During the first ten days of the term, no changes are allowed. This is a +time of trial, when one sees for himself his chosen studies. Afterwards, +for a short time, changes are easy, if the instructors consent. For the +remainder of the year no change is possible, unless the reasons for +change appear to the Dean important. Other restrictions on the freedom +of choice will readily be understood without explanation. Advanced +studies cannot be taken till preliminary ones are passed. Notices are +published by the French and German departments that students who elect +those languages must be placed where proficiency fits them to go. +Courses especially technical in character are marked with a star in the +Elective Pamphlet, and cannot be chosen till the instructor is +consulted. + +By means like these the Faculty try to prevent the wasting of time over +unprofitable studies. Of course they do not succeed. I should roughly +guess that a quarter, possibly a third, of the choices made might be +improved. This estimate is based on the answers I have received to a +question put to some fifty recent graduates: "In the light of your +present experience, how many of your electives would you change?" I +seldom find a man who would not change some; still more rarely one who +would change one half. As I look back on my own college days, spent +chiefly on prescribed studies, I see that to make these serve my needs +more than half should have been different. There was Anglo-Saxon, for +example, which was required of all, no English literature being +permitted. A course in advanced chemical physics, serviceable no doubt +to some of my classmates, came upon me prematurely, and stirred so +intense an aversion to physical study that subsequent years were +troubled to overcome it. One meagre meal of philosophy was perhaps as +much as most of us seniors could digest, but I went away hungry for +more. I loved Greek, but for two years I was subject to the instructions +of a certain professor, now dead, who was one of the most learned +scholars and unprofitable teachers I ever knew. Of the studies which +brought me benefit, few did so in any vigorous fashion. Every reader +will parallel my experience from his own. Prescribed studies may be +ill-judged or ill-adapted, ill-timed or ill-taught, but none the less +inexorably they fall on just and unjust. The wastes of choice chiefly +affect the shiftless and the dull, men who cannot be harmed much by +being wasted. The wastes of prescription ravage the energetic, the +clear-sighted, the original,--the very classes who stand in greatest +need of protection. What I would assert, therefore, is not that in the +elective system we have discovered the secret of stopping educational +waste. That will go on as long as men need teaching. I simply hold that +the monstrous and peculiarly pernicious wastes of the old system are now +being reduced to a minimum. Select your cloth discreetly, order the best +tailor in town to make it up, and you will still require patience for +many misfits; but they will be fewer, at any rate, than when garments +are served out to you and the whole regiment by the government +quartermaster. + +Nobody who has taught both elective and prescribed studies need be told +how the instruction in the two cases differs. With perfunctory students, +a teacher is concerned with devices for forcing his pupils onward. +Teaching becomes a secondary affair; the time for it is exhausted in +questioning possible shirks. Information must be elicited, not imparted. +The text-book, with its fixed lessons, is a thing of consequence. It is +the teacher's business to watch his pupils, to see that they carry off +the requisite knowledge; their business, then, it soon becomes to try to +escape without it. Between teacher and scholar there goes on an ignoble +game of matching wits, in which the teacher is smart if he can catch a +boy, and the boy is smart if he can know nothing without being found +out. Because of this supposed antagonism of interests American higher +education seldom escapes an air of unreality. We seem to be at the opera +bouffe. A boy appears at the learning-shop, purchases his parcel of +knowledge, and then tries to toss it under the counter and dodge out of +the door before the shopman can be quick enough to make him carry off +the goods. Nothing can cure such folly except insistence that pupil's +neglect is not teacher's injury. The elective system points out to a man +that he has something at stake in a study, and so trains him to look +upon time squandered as a personal loss. Where this consciousness can be +presumed, a higher style of teaching becomes possible. Methods spring up +unlike formal lectures, unlike humdrum recitations. The student +acquires--what he will need in after life--the power to look up a single +subject in many books. Theses are written; discussions held; in higher +courses, problems of research supersede defined tasks. During 1860-61, +fifty-six per cent of the Harvard undergraduates consulted the college +library; during 1883-84, eighty-five per cent. + +In a similar way governmental problems change their character. +Formerly, it was assumed that a student who followed his own wishes +would be indisposed to attend recitations. Penalties were accordingly +established to compel him to come. At present, there is not one of his +twelve recitations a week which a Harvard student might not "cut." +Of course I do not mean that unlimited absence is allowed. Any one +who did not appear for a week would be asked what he was doing. But +for several years there has been no mechanical regulation,--so much +absence, so much penalty. I had the curiosity to see how largely, +under this system of trust, the last senior class had cared to stay +away. I counted all absences, excused and unexcused. Some men had been +sick for considerable periods; some had been worthless, and had +shamelessly abused their freedom. Reckoning in all misdeeds and all +misfortunes, I found that on the average each man had been absent a +little less than twice a week.[5] The test of high character is the +amount of freedom it will absorb without going to pieces. The elective +system enlarges the capacity to absorb freedom undisturbed. But it +would be unfair to imply that the new spirit is awakened in students +alone. Professors are themselves instructed. The obstacles to their +proper work, those severest of all obstacles which come from +defective sympathy, are cleared away. A teacher draws near his class, +and learns what he can do for it. Long ago it was said that among the +Gentiles--people spiritually rude--great ones exercised authority, +while in a state of righteousness this should not be so; there the +leader would estimate his importance by his serviceability. It was a +teacher who spoke, and he spoke to teachers. To-day teachers' +dangers lie in the same direction. Always dealing with inferiors, +isolated from criticism, by nature not less sluggish than others, +through the honorable passion which they feel for their subject +disposed to set the private investigation of it above its exposition, +teachers are continually tempted to think of a class as if it existed +for their sakes rather than they for its. Fasten pupils to the +benches, and nothing counteracts this temptation except that individual +conscience which in all of us is a faculty that will well bear +strengthening. It may be just to condemn the dull, the intolerant, the +self-absorbed teacher; but why not condemn also the system which +perpetuates him? Nobody likes to be inefficient; slackness is largely +a fault of inadvertence. That system is good which makes inadvertence +difficult and opens the way for a teacher to discover whether his +instructions hit. Give students choice, and a professor gets the power +to see himself as others see him. + +How this is accomplished appears by examining three possible cases. +Suppose, in the first place, I become negligent this year, am busy with +private affairs, and so content myself with imparting nothing, with +calling off questions from a text-book, or with reading my old lectures; +I shall find out my mistake plainly enough next June, when fewer men +than usual elect my courses. Suppose, secondly, I give my class +important matter, but put it in such a form that young minds cannot +readily assimilate it; the same effect follows, only in this case I +shall probably attract a small company of the hardier spirits,--in some +subjects the very material a teacher desires. Or suppose, lastly, I seek +popularity, aim at entertainment, and give my pupils little work to do; +my elective becomes a kind of sink, into which are drained off the +intellectual dregs of the college. Other teachers will get rid of their +loafers; I shall take them in. But I am not likely to retain them. A +teacher is known by the company he keeps. In a vigorous community a +"soft" elective brings no honor to its founder. I shall be apt to +introduce a little stiffening into my courses each year, till the +appearance of the proper grade of student tells me I am proved to have a +value. There is, therefore, in the new method a self-regulating +adjustment. Teacher and taught are put on their good behavior. A spirit +of faithfulness is infused into both, and by that very fact the +friendliest relation is established between them. + +I have left myself little room to explain why the elective system should +be begun as early as the freshman year, and surely not much room is +needed. A system proved to exert a happy influence over character, and +thence over manners and scholarly disposition, is exactly the maturing +agency needed by the freshman of eighteen. It is the better suited to +him because the early years of college life are its least valuable +portion, which can bear, therefore, most economically the disciplining +losses sure to come when a student is learning to choose. More than +this, the change from school methods to character methods is too grave a +one to be passed over as an incident in the transition from year to +year. A change of residence should mark it. It should stand at the +entrance to a new career. Parents should be warned, and those who have +brought up their sons to habits of luxurious ease should be made fully +aware that a college which appeals to character has no place for +children of theirs. + +Every mode of training has its exclusions. I prefer the one which brings +least profit to our dangerous classes,--the indolent rich. Leslie +Stephen has said that the only argument rascals can understand is the +hangman. The only inducement to study, for boys of loose early life, is +compulsion. But for the plain democratic many, who have sound seed in +themselves, who have known duty early, and who have found in worthy +things their law and impulse, the elective system, even during the +freshman year, gives an opportunity for moral and mental expansion such +as no compulsory system can afford. + + * * * * * + +Perhaps in closing I ought to caution the reader that he has been +listening to a description of tendencies merely, and not of completed +attainment. In no college is the New Education fully embodied. It is an +ideal, toward which all are moving, and a powerfully influential ideal. +In explaining it, for the sake of simplicity I have confined myself to +tracing the working of its central principle, and I have drawn my +illustrations from that Harvard life with which I am most familiar. But +simplicity distorts; the shadows disappear. I am afraid I may seem to +have hinted that the Harvard training already comes pretty near +perfection. It does not--let me say so distinctly. We have much to +learn. Side by side with nobler tendencies to which I have directed +attention, disheartening things appear. The examination paper still +attacks learning on its intellectual side, the marking system on its +moral. All I have sought to establish is this: there is a method which +we and many other colleges in different degrees have adopted, which is +demonstrably a sound method. Its soundness should by this time be +generally acknowledged, and criticism should now turn to the important +work of bettering its details of operation. May what I have written +encourage such criticism and help to make it wise, penetrative, and +friendly. + + +FOOTNOTES: + + [4] But a great deal of the expense also. How much larger the staff of + teachers must be where everything is taught to anybody than where + a few subjects are offered to all, may be seen by comparing the + number of teachers at Harvard--146, instructing 1586 men--with + those of Glasgow University in 1878--42, instructing 2018 men. + + [5] Or sixteen per cent of his recitations. Readers may like to + compare this result with the number of absences elsewhere. At + a prominent New England college, one of the best of those which + require attendance, a student is excused from ten per cent of + his exercises. But this amount does not cover absences of + necessity,--absences caused by sickness, by needs of family, + and by the many other perfectly legitimate hindrances to + attendance. The percentage given for the Harvard seniors + includes all absences whatsoever. + + + + +IX + +ERRONEOUS LIMITATIONS OF THE ELECTIVE SYSTEM + + +In a paper published in the Andover Review a year ago, I called +attention to the fact that a new principle is at work in American +education. That principle, briefly stated, is this: the student now +consciously shares in his own upbuilding. His studies are knitted +closely to his personal life. Under this influence a new species of +power is developed. Scholarship broadens and deepens, boyishness +diminishes, teacher and pupil meet less artificially. The college, as an +institution, wins fresh life. Public confidence awakens; pupils, +benefactions, flow in. Over what I wrote an eager controversy has +arisen, a controversy which must have proved instructive to those who +need instruction most. In the last resort questions of education are +decided by educators, as those of sanitation by sanitary engineers; but +in both cases the decision has reference to public needs, and people +require to be instructed in the working of appliances which are designed +for their comfort. There is danger that such instruction may not be +given. Professional men become absorbed in their art and content +themselves with reticence, leaving the public ignorant of the devices by +which its health is to be preserved. A great opportunity, therefore, +comes to the common householder when these professional men fall foul of +one another. In pressing arguments home they frequently take to ordinary +speech, and anybody who then lends an ear learns of the mysteries. The +present discussion, I am sure, has brought this informatory gain to +every parent who reads the Andover Review and has a studious boy. The +gain will have been greater because of the candor and courtesy with +which the attacking party has delivered its assault. The contest has +been earnest. Its issues have been rightly judged momentous. For good or +for ill, the choice youth of the land are to be shaped by whatever +educational policy finally wins. Yet, so far as I recall, no unkind word +has slipped from the pen of one of my stout opponents; no disparagement +of man or college has mixed with the energetic advocacy of principle; +the discussion has set in well toward things. I cannot call this +remarkable. Of course it is not easy to be fair and strong at once. +Sweetness and light are often parted. Yet we rightly expect the +scholar's life to civilize him who pursues it, and we anticipate from +books a refinement of the spirit and the manners as well as the +understanding. My opponents have been scholars, and have spoken as +scholars speak. It is a pleasure to linger in their kindly contentious +company. So I gladly accept the invitation of the editors of the Review +to sum up our discussion and to add some explanatory last words. + +The papers which have appeared fall into two easily distinguishable +classes, the descriptive and the critical. To the former I devote but a +brief space, so much more direct is the bearing of the latter on the +main topic of debate--the question, namely, what course the higher +education can and what it cannot now take. Yet the descriptive papers +perform a service and deserve a welcome word. Suspecting that I was +showing off Harvard rather favorably, professors planted elsewhere have +attempted to make an equally favorable exhibit of their own colleges. In +my manifesto they have seen "a coveted opportunity to bring forward +corresponding statistics which have not been formed under the Harvard +method." Perhaps this was to mistake my aim a little. I did intend to +advance my college in public esteem; she deserves that of me in +everything I write. But primarily I thought of myself as the expounder +of an important policy, which happens to have been longer perceived and +more elaborately studied at Harvard than elsewhere. I hope I did not +imply that Harvard, having this excellence, has all others. She has many +weaknesses, which should not be shielded from discerning discussion. Nor +did I intend to commit the injustice to Harvard--an injustice as gross +as it is frequent--of treating her as a mere embodiment of the elective +system. Harvard is a complex and august institution, possessed of all +the attractions which can be lent by age, tradition, learning, +continually renewed resources, fortunate situation, widespread +clientage, enthusiastic loyalty, and forceful guidance. She is the +intellectual mother of us all, honored certainly by me, and I believe by +thousands of others, for a multiplicity of subtle influences which +stretch far outside her special modes of instruction. But for the last +half-century Harvard has been developing a new and important policy of +education. Coincident with this development she has attained enormous +popular esteem and internal power. The value and limits of this policy, +the sources of this esteem and power, I wish everybody, colleges and +populace, to scrutinize. To make these things understood is to help the +higher education everywhere. + +In undertaking this _quasi_ philosophical task, I count it a piece of +good fortune to have provoked so many lucid accounts of what other +colleges are doing. The more of these the better. The public cannot be +too persistently reminded of the distinctive merits of this college and +of that. Let each be as zealous as possible; gains made by one are gains +for all. Depreciatory rivalry between colleges is as silly as it is +when religious sects quarrel in the midst of a perishing world. Probably +such rivalries have their rise in the dull supposition that a fixed +constituency of pupils exists somewhere, which if not turned toward one +college may be drawn to another. As the old political economists tell of +a "wages fund," fixed and constant in each community, so college +governors are apt to imagine a public pupil-hoard, not susceptible of +much increase or diminution, which may by inadvertence fall into other +hands than their own. In reality each college creates its constituency. +Its students come, in the main, from the inert mass of the uncollegiate +public. Only one in eight among Harvard students is a son of a Harvard +graduate; and probably the small colleges beget afresh an even larger +percentage of their students. On this account the small colleges have +been a power in the land. To disparage them shall never be my office. In +a larger degree than the great universities they spread the college idea +among people who would not otherwise possess it. The boy who lives +within fifty miles of one of them reflects whether he will or will not +have a college training. Were there no college in the neighborhood, he +might never consider the matter at all. It is natural enough for +undergraduates to decry every college except their own; but those who +love education generously, and who seek to spread it far and wide, +cannot afford the luxury of envy. One common danger besetting us all +should bind us together. In the allurements of commerce boys may forget +that college is calling. They do forget it. According to my computations +the number of persons in the New England colleges to-day is about the +same as the number in the insane asylums; but little more than the +number of idiots. Probably this number is not increasing in proportion +to population. Professor Newton, of Oberlin, finds that the increase of +students during the ten years between 1870 and 1880, in twenty of our +oldest leading colleges, was less than three and a half per cent, the +population of the United States increasing during the same period +twenty-three per cent. In view of facts like these, careful study of the +line along which college growth is still possible becomes a necessity. +It will benefit all colleges alike. No one engaged in it has a side to +maintain. We are all alike seekers. Whatever instructive experience any +college can contribute to the common study, and whatever pupils she may +thereby gain, will be matter for general rejoicing. + +To such a study the second, or critical, class of papers furnishes +important stimulus; for these have not confined themselves to describing +institutions: they have gone on to discuss the value and limits of the +principle which actuates the new education everywhere. In many respects +their writers and I are in full accord. In moral aim we always are, and +generally too in our estimate of the present status. We all confess that +the conditions of college education have changed, that the field of +knowledge has enlarged, that a liberal training nowadays must fit men +for more than the four professions of preaching, teaching, medicine, and +law. We agree that the prescribed systems of the past are outgrown. We +do not want them. We doubt whether they were well suited to their own +time; we are sure they will never fit ours. Readjustments of curricula, +we all declare, must be undertaken if the higher education is to retain +its hold on our people. Further still, we agree in the direction of this +readjustment. My critics, no less than I, believe that a widely extended +scope must be given to individual choice. With the possible exception of +Professor Denison, about whose opinion I am uncertain, everybody who has +taken part in the controversy recognizes the elective principle as a +beneficial one and maintains that in some form or other it has come to +stay, People generally are not aware what a consensus of opinion on this +point late years have brought about. To rid ourselves once for all of +further controversy let us weigh well the words of my opponents. + +Mr. Brearley begins his criticism addressed to the New York Harvard Club +thus: "We premise that every one accepts the elective principle. Some +system based on that principle must be established. No one wants the +old required systems back, or any new required system." Professor +Howison says: "An elective system, in its proper place, and under its +due conditions, is demonstrably sound." Professor Ladd does not express +himself very fully on this point in the Andover Review, but his opinions +may be learned from the New Englander for January, 1885. When, in 1884, +Yale College reformed its curriculum and introduced elective studies, it +became desirable to instruct the graduates about the reasons for a step +which had been long resisted. After a brief trial of the new system, +Professor Ladd published his impressions of it. I strongly commend his +candid paper to the attention of those who still believe the old methods +the safer. He asserts that "a perfect and final course of college study +is, if not an unattainable ideal, at present an impossible achievement." +The considerations which were "the definite and almost compulsory +reasons for instituting a comprehensive change" he groups under the +following heads: (1) the need of modern languages; (2) the crowding of +studies in the senior year; (3) the heterogeneous and planless character +of the total course; (4) the need of making allowance for the tastes, +the contemplated pursuits, and the aptitudes of the individual student. +Substantially, these are the evils of prescription which I pointed out; +only, in my view, they are evils not confined to a single year. Stating +his observation of the results of election, Professor Ladd says: +"Increased willingness in study, and even a new and marked enthusiasm on +the part of a considerable number of students, is another effect of the +new course already realized. The entire body of students in the upper +classes is more attentive, regular, interested, and even eager, than +ever before." "More intimate and effective relations are secured in many +cases between teachers and pupils." + +These convictions in regard to the efficiency which the elective +principle lends to education are not confined to my critics and myself. +Let me cite testimony from representatives of other colleges. The last +Amherst Catalogue records (page 24) that "excellent results have +appeared from this [the elective] method. The special wants of the +student are thus met, his zest and progress in his work are increased, +and his association with his teachers becomes thus more close and +intimate." President Robinson says, in his annual report for 1885 to the +Corporation of Brown University: "There are advantages in a carefully +guarded system of optional studies not otherwise obtainable. The saving +of time in preparing for a special calling in life is something, and the +cumulative zeal in given lines of study, where a gratified and growing +taste is ever beckoning onward, is still more. But above all, some +provision for choice among ever-multiplying courses of study has become +a necessity." In addressing the American Institute of Instruction at Bar +Harbor, July 7, 1886, Professor A. S. Hardy, of Dartmouth, is reported +as saying: "Every educator now recognizes the fact that individual +characteristics are always sufficiently marked to demand his earliest +attention; and, furthermore, that there is a stage in the process of +education where the choice, the responsibility, and the freedom of the +individual should have a wide scope." President Adams, in his inaugural +address at Cornell in 1885, asserted that "there are varieties of gifts, +call them, if you will, fundamental differences, that make it impossible +to train successfully all of a group of boys to the same standard. These +differences are partly matters of sheer ability, and partly matters of +taste; for if a boy has so great an aversion to a given study that he +can never be brought to apply himself to it with some measure of +fondness, he is as sure not to succeed in it as he would be if he were +lacking the requisite mental capacity." + +In determining, then, what the new education may wisely be, let this be +considered settled: it must contain a large element of election. That is +the opinion of these unbiased judges. They find personal choice +necessary for promoting a wider range of topics in the college, a +greater zeal on the part of the student, and more suitable relations +between teacher and pupil. With this judgment I, of course, heartily +agree, though I should make more prominent the moral reason of the +facts. I should insist that a right character and temper in the +receiving mind is always a prerequisite of worthy study.[6] But I +misrepresent these gentlemen if I allow their testimony to stop here. +They maintain that the elective principle as thus far carried out, +though valuable, is still meagre and one-sided. They do not think it +will be found self-sufficing and capable of guarding its own working. +They see that it has dangers peculiar to itself, and believe that to +escape them it will require to be restricted and furnished with +supplemental influences. I believe so too. Choice is important, but it +is also important that one should choose well. The individual is sacred, +but only so far as he is capable of recognizing the sacredness of laws +which he has had no part in making. Unrestricted arbitrary choice is +indistinguishable from chaos; and undoubtedly every method of training +which avoids mechanism and includes choice as a factor leaves a door +open in the direction of chaos. Infinite Wisdom left that door open when +man was created. To dangers from this source I am fully alive. I totally +dissent from those advocates of the elective system who would identify +it with a _laissez-faire_ policy. The cry that we must let nature take +care of itself is a familiar one in trade, in art, in medicine, in +social relations, in the religious life, in education; but in the long +run it always proves inadequate. Man is a personal spirit, a director, a +being fitted to compare and to organize forces, not to take them as they +rise, like a creature of nature. The future will certainly not tolerate +an education less organic than that of the past; but just as certainly +will it demand that the organic tie shall be a living one,--one whose +bond may assist those whom it restricts to become spontaneous, forcible, +and diverse. If I am offered only the alternative of absolutism or +_laissez-faire_, I choose _laissez-faire_. Out of chaotic nature +beautiful forms do continually come forth. But absolutism kills in the +cradle. It cannot tolerate a life that is imperfect, and so it stifles +what it should nourish. + +Up to this point my critics and I have walked hand in hand. Henceforth +we part company. I shall not follow out all our little divergencies. My +object from the first has been to trace the line along which education +may now proceed. It must, it seems, be a line including election; but +election limited how? To disentangle an answer to this vexed question, I +pass by the many points in which my critics have shown that I am +foolish, and the few others in which I might show them so, and turn to +the fundamental issue between us, our judgment of what the supplemental +influences are which will render personal initiative safe. Personal +initiative is assured. The authoritative utterances I have just quoted +show that it can never again be expelled from American colleges. But +what checks are compatible with it? Accepting choice, what treatment +will render it continually wiser? Here differences of judgment begin to +appear, and here I had hoped to receive light from my critics. The +question is one where coöperative experience is essential. But those who +have written against me seem hardly to have realized its importance. +They generally confine themselves to showing how bad my plans are, and +merely hint at better ones which they themselves might offer. But what +are these plans? Wise ways of training boys are of more consequence than +Harvard misdeeds. We want to hear of a constructive policy which can +take a young man of nineteen and so train him in self-direction that +four years later he may venture out alone into a perplexing, and for the +most part hostile, world. The thing to be done is to teach boys how to +manage themselves. Admit that the Harvard discipline does not do this +perfectly at present; what will do it better? Here we are at an +educational crisis. We stand with this aim of self-guidance in our +hands. What are we going to do with it? It is as dangerous as a bomb. +But we cannot drop it. It is too late to objurgate. It is better to +think calmly what possible modes of treatment are still open. When +railroads were found dangerous, men did not take to stage-coaches again; +they only studied railroading the more. + +Now in the mass of negative criticism which the last year has produced I +detect three positive suggestions, three ways in which it is thought +limitation may be usefully applied to supplement the inevitable personal +initiative. These modes of limitation, it is true, are not worked out +with any fulness of practical detail, as if their advocates were +convinced that the future was with them. Rather they are thrown out as +hints of what might be desirable if facts and the public would not +interfere. But as they seem to be the only conceivable modes of +restricting the elective principle by any species of outside checkage, I +propose to devote the remainder of this paper to an examination of their +feasibility. In a subsequent paper I shall indicate what sort of +corrective appears to me more likely to prove congruous and lasting. + +I. The first suggestion is that the elective principle should be +limited from beneath. Universities and schools are to advance their +grade, so that finally the universities will secure three or four years +of purely elective study, while the schools, in addition to their +present labors, will take charge of the studies formerly prescribed by +the college. The schools, in short, are to become German gymnasia, and +the colleges to delay becoming universities until this regeneration +of the schools is accomplished.[7] A certain "sum of topics" is said +to be essential to the culture of the man and the citizen. In the +interest of church and state, young minds must be provided with +certain "fact forms," with a "common consciousness," a "common basis +of humanism." Important as personal election is, to allow it to take +place before this common basis is laid is "to strike a blow at the +historic substance of civilization." How extensive this common +consciousness is to be may be learned from Professor Howison's remark +that "languages, classical and modern; mathematics, in all its +general conceptions, thoroughly apprehended; physics, acquired in a +similar manner, and the other natural sciences, though with much less of +detail; history and politics; literature, especially of the mother +tongue, but, indispensably, the masterpieces in other languages, +particularly the classic; philosophy, in the thorough elements of +psychology, logic, metaphysics, and ethics, each historically +treated, and economics, in the history of elementary principles, must +all enter into any education that can claim to be liberal." + +The practical objections to this monarchical scheme are many. I call +attention to three only. + +In the first place, the argument on which it is based proves too much. +If we suppose a common consciousness to be a matter of such importance, +and that it cannot be secured except by sameness of studies, then that +state is criminally careless which allows ninety-nine hundredths of its +members to get an individual consciousness by the simple expedient of +never entering college. The theory seems to demand that every male--and +why not female?--between sixteen and twenty be indoctrinated in "the +essential subject-matters," without regard to what he or she may +personally need to know or do. This is the plan of religious teaching +adopted by the Roman Church, which enforces its "fact forms" of doctrine +on all alike; without securing, however, by this means, according to the +judgment of the outside world, any special freshness of religious life. +I do not believe the results would be better in the higher secular +culture, and I should be sorry to see Roman methods applied there; but +if they are to be applied, let them fall impartially on all members of +the community. To put into swaddling clothes the man who is wise enough +to seek an education, and to leave his duller brother to kick about as +he pleases, seems a little arbitrary. + +But secondly, there is no more prospect of persuading our high schools +to accept the prescribed subjects of the colleges than there is of +persuading our government to transform itself into the German. Already +the high schools and the colleges are unhappily drawing apart. The only +hope of their nearer approach is in the remission by the colleges of +some of the more burdensome subjects at present exacted. Paid for by +common taxation, these schools are called on to equip the common man for +his daily struggle. That they will one day devote themselves to laying +the foundations of an ideally best education for men of leisure is +grotesquely improbable. Although Harvard draws rather more than +one-third of her students from states outside New England, the whole +number of students who have come to her from the high schools of these +states, during a period of the last ten years, is but sixty-six. Fitting +for college is becoming an alarmingly technical matter, and is falling +largely into the hands of private tutors and academies. + +It may be said, however, thirdly, that it is just these academies which +might advantageously take the present freshmen and sophomore studies. +They would thus become the exclusive avenues to the university of the +future, leaving it free to do its own proper work with elective studies. +Considering the great expense which this lengthening of the curriculum +of the academy implies, it is plain that the number of schools capable +of fitting boys in this way would always be small. These few academies, +with their monopoly of learned training, would lose their present +character and be erected into little colleges,--colleges of a second +grade. That any such thing is likely to occur, I do not believe; but if +it were, would it aid the higher education and promote its wide +dispersion? Precisely the contrary. Instead of going to the university +from the academies, boys would content themselves with the tolerable +education already received. For the most part they would decline to go +farther. It is useless to say that this does not happen in Germany, +where the numbers resorting to the university are so large as to have +become the subject of complaint; for the German government, controlling +as it does all access to the professions, is able to force through the +gymnasia and through special courses at the university a body of young +men who would otherwise be seeking their fortunes elsewhere. Whether +such control would be desirable in this country, I will not consider. +Some questions are not feasible even for discussion. But it is to +English experience we must look to see what our case would be. The great +public schools of England--Eton, Rugby, Harrow, Winchester, Westminster, +Cheltenham--are of no higher order than under the proposed plan Andover +and Exeter would become. From these two academies nearly ninety-five +per cent of the senior classes now enter some college. But of the young +men graduating from the English schools named, so far as I can +ascertain, less than fifty per cent go to the university. With the +greater pressure toward commercial life in this country, the number +would certainly be less than in England. To build up colleges of a +second grade, and to permit none but those who have passed them to enter +colleges of the first, is to cut off the higher education from nearly +all those who do not belong to the privileged classes; it is to make the +"common consciousness" less common, and to turn it, even more +effectually than at present, into the consciousness of a clique. He who +must make a living for himself or for others cannot afford to reach his +profession late. The age of entering college is already too high. With +improved methods of teaching I hope it maybe somewhat reduced. At any +rate, every study now added to the high schools or academies is a fresh +barrier between education and the people. + +II. If, then, by prescribing a large amount of study outside the +university the elective principle is not likely to be successfully +limited, is it not probable that within the college itself the two +counter principles of election and prescription, mutually limiting, +mutually supporting, will always be retained? This is the second +suggestion; to bring studies of choice and studies commanded into +juxtaposition. The backbone of the college is to be kept prescribed, +the fleshy parts to be made elective. By a special modification of the +plan, the later years are turned largely, perhaps wholly, toward +election, and a line is drawn at the junior, or even the sophomore year, +below which elective studies are forbidden to penetrate. Is not this the +plan that will finally be judged safest? It certainly is the safest for +a certain number of years. Before it can securely reach anything else, +every college must pass through this intermediate state. After half a +century of testing election Harvard still retains some prescribed +studies. The Harvard juniors chose for nineteen years before the +sophomores, and the sophomores seventeen years before the freshmen. In +introducing electives a sober pace is commendable. A university is +charged with the greatest of public trusts. The intelligence of the +community is, to a large extent, in its keeping. It is bound to keep +away from risky experiments, to disregard shifting popular fancies, and +to be as conservative as clearness of sight will permit. I do not plead, +therefore, that Harvard and Yale should abolish all prescription the +coming year. They certainly should not. In my opinion most colleges are +moving too fast in the elective direction already. I merely plead that +we must see where we are going. As public guides, we must forecast the +track of the future if we would avoid stumbling into paths which lead +nowhere. That is all I am attempting here. I want to ascertain whether +the dual system of limitation is a stable system, one in which we can +put our trust, or whether it is a temporary convenience, likely to slip +away a little year after year. What does history say? Let us examine the +facts of the past. The following table shows at the left the fifteen New +England colleges. In the next three parallel columns is printed the +percentage of elective studies which existed in these colleges in +1875-76; in the last three, the percentage which exists to-day. To +render the comparison more exact, I print the sophomore, junior, and +senior years separately, reserving the problem of the freshman year for +later discussion. + + | 1875-76 | 1885-86 + +------+-----+-----+------+-----+----- + | Soph.| Jun.| Sen.| Soph.| Jun.| Sen. + ----------+------+-----+-----+------+-----+----- + Amherst | .04 | .20 | .08 | .20 | .75 | .75 + Bates | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 + Boston | 0 | 0 | 0 | .35 | .66 | .82 + Bowdoin | 0 | 0 | 0 | .15 | .25 | .25 + Brown | 0 | .04 | .04 | .14 | .37 | .55 + Colby | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .08 | .16 + Dartmouth | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .41 | .36 + Harvard | .50 | .78 |1.00 | 1.00 |1.00 |1.00 + Middlebury| 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 + Trinity | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .25 | .25 + Tufts | 0 | .17 | .17 | 0 | .28 | .43 + Vermont | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 + Wesleyan | 0 | .47 | .47 | .16 | .47 | .64 + Williams | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .37 + Yale | 0 | 0 | 0 | .13 | .53 | .80 + +This table yields four conclusions: (1) A rapid and fateful revolution +is going on in the higher education of New England. We do not exaggerate +the change when we speak of an old education and a new. (2) The spread +of it is in tolerable proportion to the wealth of the college concerned. +The new modes are expensive. It is not disapproval which is holding the +colleges back; it is inability to meet the cost. I am sorry to point out +this fact. To my mind one of the gravest perplexities of the new +education is the query, What are the small colleges to do? They have a +usefulness altogether peculiar; yet from the life-giving modern methods +of training they are of necessity largely cut off. (3) The colleges +which long ago foresaw their coming necessities have been able to +proceed more cautiously than those which acknowledged them late. (4) The +movement is one of steady advance. There is no going back. It must be +remembered, too, that the stablest colleges have been proceeding with +these changes many more years than the period shown in the table. Are +we, then, prepared to dismiss prejudice from our minds and to recognize +what steadiness of advance means? In other matters when a general +tendency in a given direction is discovered, extending over a long +series of years, visible in individuals widely unlike, and presenting no +solitary case of backward turning, we are apt to conclude that there is +a force in the movement which will carry it still further onward. We +are not disposed to seize on some point in its path and to count that an +ultimate holding-ground. This, I say, would be a natural conclusion +unless we could detect in the movement tendencies at work in an opposite +direction. Are there any such tendencies here? I cannot find them. +Prescription invariably loses; election invariably gains. + +But in order to make a rational prediction about the future we must know +more than the bare facts of the past; we need to know why these +particular facts have arisen. What are the reasons that whenever +elective and prescribed studies are mixed, an extrusive force regularly +appears in the elective? The reasons are not far to seek. Probably every +professor in New England understands them. The two systems are so +incongruous that each brings out the vices rather than the virtues of +its incompatible brother. Prescribed studies, side by side with +elective, appear a bondage; elective, side by side with prescribed, an +indulgence. So long as all studies are prescribed, one may be set above +another in the mind of the pupil on grounds of intrinsic worth; let +certain studies express the pupil's wishes, and almost certainly the +remainder, valuable as they may be in themselves, will express his +disesteem. It is useless to say this should not be so. It always is. The +zeal of work, the freshness of interest, which now appear in the chosen +studies, are deducted from those which are forced. On the latter as +little labor as possible is expended. They become perfunctory and +mechanical, and soon restive pupils and dissatisfied teachers call for +fresh extension of energizing choice. This is why the younger officers +in all the colleges are eager to give increased scope to the elective +studies. They cannot any longer get first-rate work done in the +prescribed. Alarmed by the dangers of the new principle, as they often +and justly are, they find that the presence of prescription, instead of +diminishing the dangers, adds another and a peculiarly enfeebling one to +those which existed before. So certain are these dangers, and so +inevitable the expanding power of the elective principle, that it is +questionable whether it would not be wise for a college to refuse to +have anything to do with elective studies so soon as it knows itself too +weak to allow them to spread. + +For where will the spreading stop? It cannot stop till the causes of it +stop. The table just given shows no likelihood of its stopping at all, +and a little reflection will show that each enlargement increases the +reasons for another enlargement still. If prescribed studies are ever +exceptional, ineffective, and obnoxious, they certainly become more so +as they diminish in number. A college which retains one of them is in a +condition of unstable equilibrium. But is this true of the freshman +year? Will not a special class of considerations keep prescription +enduring and influential there, long after it has lost its usefulness in +the later years? A boy of nineteen comes from home about as untrained in +will as in intelligence. Will it not always be thought best to give him +a year in which to acquaint himself with his surroundings and to learn +what studies he may afterwards profitably select? Possibly it will. I +incline to think not. The case of the freshman year is undoubtedly +peculiar. Taking a large body of colleges, we have direct evidence that +during their last three years the elective principle steadily wins and +never loses. We have but a trifle of such evidence as regards the +freshman year. There the struggle of the two forces has barely begun. It +has begun at Harvard, and the usual result is already foreshadowed. The +prescribed studies are disparaged studies; they are not worked at the +best advantage. Still, I do not like to prophesy on evidence so narrow. +I will merely say I see no reason to suppose that colleges will meet +with permanent success in mingling incompatible kinds of study in their +freshman year. But I can only surmise. Let any college that inclines to +try the experiment do so. + +It may be thought, however, a wiser course to keep the freshman year +untouched by choice. A solid year of prescription is thus secured as a +limitation on the election that is to follow. This plan is so often +advised, especially by persons unacquainted with the practical working +of colleges, that it requires a brief examination by itself. + +Let us suppose the revolution which we have traced in the sophomore, +junior, and senior years to have reached its natural terminus; let us +suppose that in these years all studies have become elective, while the +freshman year remains completely prescribed; the college will then +fall into two parts, a preparatory department and a university +department. In these two departments the character of the instruction, +the methods of study, the consciousness of the students, will be +altogether dissimilar. The freshmen will not be taken by upper +classmen as companions; they will be looked down upon as children. +Hazing will find abundant excuse. An abrupt line will be drawn, on +whose farther side freedom will lie, on whose hither side, bondage. +The sophomore, a being who at best has his peculiarities, will find his +sense of self-sufficiency doubled. Whatever badly-bred boy parents +incline to send to college will seem to them safe enough for a year, +and they will suppose that during this period he will learn how to +behave. Of course he will learn nothing of the sort. Manly discipline +has not yet begun. At the end of the freshman year a boy will be +only so much less a boy as increase of age may make him. Through +being forced to study mathematics this year there comes no sustaining +influence fitted to fortify the judgment when one is called the next +year to choose between Greek and German. On the contrary, the change +from school methods to maturing methods is rendered as dangerous as +possible by allowing it to take place quite nakedly, by itself, +unsupported by other changes, and at the mere dictation of the +almanac. An emancipation so bare and sudden is not usual elsewhere. +For boys who do not go to college, departure from home is commonly +recognized as a fit occasion for putting on that dangerous garment, the +_toga virilis_. Entrance to the university constitutes a similar epoch, +when change of residence, new companions, altered conditions of +living, a realization that the old supports are gone, and the +presumption with which every one now meets the youth that he is to be +treated as a man among men, become helpful influences coöperating to +ease the hard and inevitable transition from parental control to +personal self-direction. A safer time for beginning individual +responsibility cannot be found. At any rate, whether my diagnosis of +reasons is correct or not, the fact is clear,--self-respecting colleges +do not tolerate preparatory departments. They do not work well. They +are an element of weakness in the institution which harbors them. +Even where at first they are judged necessary, so soon as the college +grows strong they are dropped. When we attempt to plan an education +for times to come, we must bear in mind established facts. Turn the +freshman year into a preparatory department, fill it with studies +antithetic in aim, method, and spirit to those of later years, and +something is established which no sober college ever permitted to remain +long within its borders. This is the teaching of the past without an +exception. To suppose the future will be different is but the blind +hope of a timid transitionalism. + +III. The third suggestion for restricting election is the group system. +This deserves a more respectful treatment than the methods hitherto +discussed, for it is something more than a suggestion: it is a system, a +constructive plan of education, thought out in all its parts, and +directed toward an intended end. The definition which I have elsewhere +offered of the elective system, that it demands a fixed quantity and +quality of study with variable topic, would be applicable also to the +group system. Accordingly it belongs to the new education rather than to +the old. No less than the elective system it is opposed to the methods +of restriction thus far described. These latter methods attempt to limit +election by the ballast of an alien principle lodged beneath it or by +its side. They put a weight of prescription into the preparatory +schools, into the early college years, or into parallel lines of study +extending throughout the college course. The source of their practical +trouble lies here: the two principles, election and prescription, are +nowhere united; they remain sundered and at war, unserviceable for each +other's defects. The group system intertwines them. It permits choice in +everything, but at the same time prescribes everything. This it effects +by enlarging the unit of choice and prescribing its constituent factors. +A group or block of studies is offered for choice, not a single study. +All the studies of a group must be taken if any are, the "if" being the +only matter left for the student to settle. The group may include all +the studies open to a student at the university. One decision may +determine his entire course. Or, as in the somewhat analogous +arrangement of the English universities, one group may be selected at +the beginning and another in the middle of the university life. The +group itself is sometimes contrived so as to allow an individual +variation; different students read different books; a special phase of +philosophy, history, or science receives prominence. But the boundaries +of the group cannot be crossed. All the studies selected by the college +authorities to form a single group must be taken; no others can be. + +In this method of limiting choice there is much that is attractive. I +feel that attraction strongly. Under the exceptional conditions which +exist at the Johns Hopkins University, a group system has done +excellent work. Like all the rest of the world, I honor that work and +admire its wise directors. But group systems seem to me to possess +features too objectionable to permit them to become the prevalent type +of the future, and I do not see how these features can be removed +without abandoning what is distinctive, and changing the whole plan +into the elective system, pure and simple. The objectionable features +connect themselves with the size of the unit of choice, with +difficulties in the construction of the groups, and with the attempt +to enforce specialization. But these are enigmatic phrases; let me +explain them. + +Obviously, for the young, foresight is a hard matter. While disciplining +them in the intricate art of looking ahead, I should think it wise to +furnish frequently a means of repairing errors. Penalties for bad +choices should not be too severe. Now plainly the larger the unit of +choice, the graver the consequences of erroneous judgment. The group +system takes a large unit, a body of studies; the simple elective +system, a small unit, the single study. Errors of choice are +consequently less reparable under the group system than under pure +election. To meet this difficulty the college course at Baltimore has +been reduced from four years to three; but even so, a student who +selects a group for which he finds himself unfit cannot bring himself +into proper adjustment without the loss of a year. If he does not +discover his unfitness until the second year has begun, he loses two +years. Under the elective system, the largest possible penalty for a +single mistake is the loss of a single study, one quarter of a year's +work. This necessary difference in ease of reparability appears to me to +mark an inferiority in group systems, considered as methods of educating +choice. To the public it may seem otherwise. I am often astonished to +find people approving irreparable choices and condemning reparable ones. +That youths between nineteen and twenty-three should select studies for +themselves shocks many people who look kindly enough on marriages +contracted during those years. Boys still unbearded have a large share +in deciding whether they will go to college, to a scientific school, to +a store, to sea, or to a cattle-ranch. Their lives are staked on the +wisdom of the step taken. Yet the American mode of meeting these family +problems seems to our community, on the whole, safer than the English +way of regulating them by tradition and dictation. The choice with heavy +stakes of the boy who does not go to college is frequently set off +favorably against the choices with light stakes of the boy who goes. +Perhaps a similarly lenient judgment will in the long run be passed on +the great stakes involved in group systems. I doubt it. I think it will +ultimately be judged less dangerous and more maturing to grant a young +man, in his passage through a period of moral discipline, frequent +opportunities of repair. + +Again, the practical difficulties of deciding what groups shall be +formed are enormous. What studies shall enter into each? How many groups +shall there be? If but one, we have the old-fashioned college with no +election. If two, we have the plan which Yale has just abandoned, a +fixed undergraduate department maintained in parallel vigor with a fixed +scientific school. But in conceding the claims of variety even to this +degree, we have treated the fundamental differences between man and man +as worthy, not reprehensible; and can we say that the proper differences +are only two? Must we not acknowledge a world at least as complex as +that they have in Baltimore, where there appear to be seven reputable +species of mankind: "Those who wish a good classical training; those who +look toward a course in medicine; those who prefer mathematical studies +with reference to engineering, astronomy, and teaching; those who wish +an education in scientific studies, not having chosen a specialty; those +who expect to pursue a course in theology; those who propose to study +law; those who wish a literary training not rigidly classical." Here a +classification of human wishes is attempted, but one suspects that there +are legitimate wishes which lie outside the scheme. It does not, for +example, at once appear why a prospective chemist should be debarred +from all regular study of mathematics. It seems hard that a youth of +literary tastes should be cut off from Greek at entrance unless he will +agree to take five exercises in it each week throughout his college +course. One does not feel quite easy in allowing nobody but a lawyer or +a devotee of modern languages to read a page of English or American +history. The Johns Hopkins programme is the most ingenious and the most +flexible contrivance for working a group system that I have ever seen. +For this reason I mention it as the most favorable type of all. +Considering its purposes, I do not believe it can be much improved. As +applied to its little band of students, 116, it certainly works few +hardships. Yet all the exclusions I have named, and many more besides, +appear in it. I instance these simply to show what barriers to knowledge +the best group system erects. Remove these, and others quite as great +are introduced. Try to avoid them by allowing the student of one group +to take certain studies in another, and the sole line which parts the +group system from the elective is abandoned. In practice, it usually is +abandoned. Confronted with the exigencies of operation, the so-called +group system turns into an elective system, with highly specialized +lines of study strongly recommended. With this more genial working I +have nothing now to do. My point is this: a system of hard and fast +groups presents difficulties of construction and maintenance too great +to recommend it to the average college of the future as the best mode of +limiting the elective principle. + +Probably, however, this difficulty will chiefly be felt by persons +engaged in the actual work of educational organization. The outer public +will think it a more serious objection that grouped colleges are in +reality professional schools carried down to the limits of boyhood. So +far as they hold by their groups, they are nurseries of specialization. +That this is necessarily so may not at first be apparent. A little +consideration of the contrast in aim between group systems and +prescribed will make the matter plain. Prescribed systems have gained +their long hold on popular confidence by aiming at harmonious culture. +They argue, justly enough, that each separate sort of knowledge +furnishes something of its own to the making of a man. This particular +"something," they say, can be had from no other source. The sum of these +"somethings" constitutes a rounded whole. The man who has not +experienced each of them in some degree, however small, is imperfectly +planned. One who has been touched by all has laid the foundations of a +liberal education. Degree of acquaintance with this subject or with that +may subsequently enlarge. Scholarly interest may concentrate. But at the +first, the proper aim is balanced knowledge, harmonious development of +all essential powers, avoidance of one-sidedness. + +On this aim the group system bestows but a secondary attention. +Regarding primarily studies, not men, it attempts to organize single +connected departments of knowledge. Accordingly it permits only those +studies to be pursued together which immediately cohere. It lays out +five, ten, any number of paths through the field of knowledge, and to +one of these paths the pilgrim is confined. Each group constitutes a +specialty,--a specialty intensified in character as, in order to escape +the difficulties of maintenance just pointed out, the number of groups +is allowed to increase. By insistence on specialization regard for +general culture is driven into a subordinate place. The advocates of +prescription maintain that there are not half a dozen ground-plans of +perfected humanity. They say there is but one. If we introduce variety +of design into a curriculum, we neglect that ideal man who resides alike +in all. We trust, on the contrary, in our power to hit some line of +study which may deservedly appeal to one human being while not so +appealing to another. We simply note the studies which are most +congruous with the special line selected, and by this congruity we shape +our group. In the new aim, congruity of studies, adaptation to a +professional purpose, takes precedence of harmonious development of +powers. + +I have no doubt that specialization is destined to become more marked in +the American education of the future. It must become so if we are to +produce the strong departmental scholars who illuminate learning in +other countries; indeed, it must become so if we are to train competent +experts for the affairs of daily life. The popular distrust of +specializing is sure to grow less as our people become familiar with its +effects and see how often narrow and thorough study, undertaken in early +life, leads to ultimate breadth. It is a pretty dream that a man may +start broad and then concentrate, but nine out of every ten strong men +have taken the opposite course. They have begun in some one-sided way, +and have added other sides as occasion required. Almost in his teens +Shakespeare makes a specialty of the theatre, Napoleon of military +science, Beethoven of music, Hunter of medicine, Faraday of chemistry, +Hamilton of political science. The great body of painters, musicians, +poets, novelists, theologians, politicians, are early specialists. In +fact, self-made men are generally specialists. Something has aroused an +interest, and they have followed it out until they have surveyed a wide +horizon from a single point of view. In offering wider opportunities for +specialization, colleges have merely been assimilating their own modes +of training to those which prevail in the world at large. + +It does not, therefore, seem to me objectionable that group systems set +a high value on specialization. That is what every man does, and every +clear-eyed college must do it too. What I object to is that group +systems, so far as they adhere to their aim, _enforce_ specialization. +Among every half-dozen students, probably one will be injured if he +cannot specialize largely; two or three more might wisely specialize in +lower degree; but to force the remaining two or three into curricula +shaped by professional bias is to do them serious damage. There are +sober boys of little intrepidity or positive taste, boys who properly +enough wish to know what others know. They will not make scholars. They +were not born to enlarge the boundaries of knowledge. They have another +function: they preserve and distribute such knowledge as already exists. +Many of them are persons of wealth. To furnish them glimpses of varied +learning is to save them from barbarism. Still another large class is +composed of boys who develop late. They are boys who will one day +acquire an interest of their own, if they are allowed to roam about +somewhat aimlessly in the domain of wisdom until they are twenty-one. +Both of these classes have their rights. The prescribed system was built +to support them; the elective shelters and improves them; but a group +system shuts them all out, if they will not on leaving school adopt +professional courses. Whenever I can hear of a group system which like +the old college has a place for the indistinct young man, and like the +new elective college matures him annually by suggesting that he take +part in shaping his own career, I will accept the group system. Then, +too, the public will probably accept it. Until then, rigid groups will +be thought by many to lay too great a strain on unseasoned powers of +choice, to present too many practical difficulties of construction, and +to show too doctrinaire a confidence that every youth will fit without +pinching into a specialized class. + + +FOOTNOTES: + + [6] These conditions of intellectual nourishment were long ago + recognized in other, less formal, departments of mental training. + In his essays on _Books and Reading_ President Porter wrote in + 1871: "The person who asks. What shall I read? or, With what + shall I begin? may have read for years in a mechanical routine, + and with a listless spirit; with scarcely an independent thought, + with no plans of self-improvement, and few aspirations for + self-culture. To all these classes the advice is full of meaning: + 'Read what will satisfy your wants and appease your desires, and + you will comply with the first condition to reading with interest + and profit.' Hunger and thirst are better than manifold + appliances and directions, in respect to other than the bodily + wants, towards a good appetite and a healthy digestion. If a man + has any self-knowledge or any power of self-direction, he is + surely competent to ask himself what is the subject or subjects + in respect to which he stands most in need of knowledge or + excitement from books. If he can answer this question, he has + gone very far towards answering the question, 'What book or books + can I read with satisfaction and profit?'" (Chap. iv, p. 39.) + + [7] In deference to certain writers I employ their favorite term + "university" in contrast with the term "college," yet I must own + I do not know what it means. An old signification is clear. A + university is an assemblage of schools, as our government is + an assemblage of states. In England, different corporations, + giving substantially similar instruction, are brought together + by a common body which confers the degrees. In this country, a + group of professional schools--law, medicine, theology, and + science--are associated through one governing body with the + college proper, that is, with the candidates for the B.A. degree. + In this useful sense, Tufts and Bowdoin are universities; Amherst + and Brown, colleges. But Germany, which has thrown so many + parts of the world into confusion, has introduced exaltation + and mystery here. A university now appears to mean "a college + as good as it can be," a stimulating conception, but not a + finished or precise one. I would not disparage it. It is a term + of aspiration, good to conjure with. When we want to elevate + men's ideas, or to obtain their dollars, it is well to talk + about creating a true university: just as it is wise to bid the + forward-reaching boy to become "a true gentleman." + + + + +X + +NECESSARY LIMITATIONS OF THE ELECTIVE SYSTEM + + +The preceding paper has sufficiently discussed the impossible +limitations of the elective system, and has shown with some minuteness +the grounds of their impossibility. The methods there examined are the +only ones suggested by my critics. They all agree in this, that they +seek to narrow the scope of choice. They try to combine with it a +hostile factor, and they differ merely in their mode of combination. The +first puts a restraining check before election; the second puts one by +its side; the third makes the two inseparable by allowing nothing to be +chosen which is not first prescribed. The general purpose of all these +methods is mine also. Election must be limited. Unchartered choice is +licentious and self-destructive. I quarrel with them only because the +modes of effecting their purpose tend to produce results of a transient +and inappropriate sort. The aim of education, as I conceive it, is to +spiritualize the largest possible number of persons, that is, to teach +them how to do their own thinking and willing and to do it well. But +these methods effect something widely different. They either +aristocratize where they should democratize, or they belittle where they +should mature, or else they professionalize where they should humanize. +A common trouble besets them all: the limiting authority is placed in +external and arbitrary juxtaposition to the personal initiative which it +professes to support. It should grow out of this initiative and be its +interpreter and realization. By limitation of choice the proposers of +these schemes appear to mean making choice less. I mean fortifying it, +keeping it true to itself, making it more. Control that diminishes the +quantity of choice is one thing; control that raises the quality, quite +another. How important is this distinction and how frequently it is +forgotten! Words like "limitation," "control," "authority," "obedience," +are words of majesty, but words also of doubtful import. They carry a +freight of wisdom or of folly, according to the end towards which they +steer. In order to sanction or discard limitations which induce +obedience, we must bear that end in mind. Let us stop a moment, and see +that we have it in mind now. + +Old educational systems are often said to have erred by excess of +authority. I could not say so. The elective system, if it is to +possess the future, must become as authoritative as they. More +accurately we say that their authority was of a wrong sort. A father may +exercise an authority over his child no less directive than that of +the master over the slave; but the father is trying to accomplish +something which the master disregards; the father hopes to make the +will of another strong, the master to make it weak; the father +commands what the child himself would wish, had he sufficient +experience. The child's obedience accordingly enlightens, steadies, +invigorates his independent will. Invigoration is the purpose of the +command. The authority is akin--secretly akin--to the child's own +desires. No alien power intervenes, as when a slave obeys. Here a +foreign will thwarts the slave's proper motions. Over against his own +legitimate desires, the desire of a totally different being appears +and claims precedence. Obedience like this brings no ennoblement. +The oftener a child obeys, the less of a child is he; the oftener a +slave, the more completely he is a slave. Roughly to say, then, that +submission to authority is healthy for a college boy, argues a mental +confusion. There are two kinds of authority,--the authority of moral +guidance, and the authority of repressive control: parental authority, +respecting and vivifying the individual life and thus continually +tending to supersede itself; and masterly authority, whose command, +out of relation to the obeyer's wish, tends ever to bring the obedient +into bondage. Which shall college authority be? Authority is necessary, +ever-present authority. If the young man's choice is to become a +thing of worth, it must be encompassed with limitations. But as the +need of these limitations springs from the imperfections of choice, +so should their aim be to perfect choice, not to repress it. To impose +limitations which do not ultimately enlarge the youth they bind is to +make the means of education "oblige against its main end." + +This moral authority is what the new education seeks. To a casual eye, +the colleges of to-day seem to be growing disorganized; a closer view +shows construction taking place, but taking place along the lines of the +vital distinction just pointed out. Men are striving to bring about a +germane and ethical authority in the room of the baser mechanical +authorities of the past. In this distinction, then, a clue is to be +found which, if followed up, will lead us away from impossible +limitations of the elective system, and conduct us at length to the +possible, nay, to the inevitable ones. As the elective principle is +essentially ethical, its limitations, if helpfully congruous, must be +ethical too. They must be simply the means of bringing home to the young +chooser the sacred conditions of choice; which conditions, if I rightly +understand them, may compactly be entitled those of intentionality, +information, and persistence. To secure these conditions, limitations +exist. In the very nature of choice such conditions are implied. Choice +is sound as they prevail, whimsical as they diminish. An education +which lays stress on the elective principle is bound to lay stress on +these conditions also. It cannot slip over into lazy ways of letting its +students drift, and still look for credit as an elective system. People +will distrust it. That is why they distrust Harvard to-day. The +objections brought against the elective system of Harvard are in reality +not levelled against the elective system at all. They are directed +against its bastard brother, _laissez-faire_. Objectors suspect that the +conditions of choice which I have named are not fulfilled. They are not +fulfilled, I confess, or rather I stoutly maintain. To come anywhere +near fulfilling them requires long time and study, and action unimpeded +by a misconceiving community. Both time and study Harvard has given, has +given largely. The records of scholarship and deportment which I +exhibited in my first paper show in how high a degree Harvard has +already been able to remove from choice the capricious, ignorant, and +unsteadfast characteristics which rightly bring it into disrepute. But +much remains to do, and in that doing we are hampered by the fact that a +portion of the public is still looking in wrong directions. It cannot +get over its hankering after the delusive modes of limitation which I +have discussed. It does not persistently see that at present the proper +work of education is the study of means by which self-direction may be +rendered safe. Leaders of education themselves see this but dimly, as +the papers of my critics naïvely show. Until choice was frankly accepted +as the fit basis for the direction of a person by a person, its +fortifying limitations could not be studied. Now they must be studied, +now that the old methods of autocratic control are breaking down. As a +moral will comes to be recognized as the best sort of steam power, the +modes of generating that power acquire new claims to attention. +Henceforth the training of the will must be undertaken by the elective +system as an integral part of its discipline. + +I am not so presumptuous as to attempt to prophesy the precise forms +which methods of moral guidance will take. Moral guidance is a delicate +affair. Its spirit is more important than its procedure. Flexibility is +its strength. Methods final, rigid, and minute do not belong to it. Nor +can it afford to forget the one great truth of _laissez-faire_, that +wills which are to be kept fresh and vigorous will not bear much looking +after. Time, too, is an important factor in the shaping of moral +influences. Experiments now in progress at Harvard and elsewhere must +discriminate safe from unsafe limitations. Leaving then to the future +the task of showing how wide the scope of maturing discipline may +become, I will merely try to sketch the main lines along which +experiments are now proceeding, I will give a few illustrative examples +of what is being done and why, and I will state somewhat at large how, +in my judgment, more is yet to be accomplished. To make the matter +clear, a free exposition shall be given of the puzzling headings already +named; that is, I will first ramblingly discuss the limitations on +choice which may deepen the student's intentionality of aim; secondly, +those which increase his information in regard to means; and thirdly, +those which may strengthen his persistence in a course once chosen. + +I. That intentionality should be cultivated, I need not spend many words +in explaining. Everybody acknowledges that without a certain degree of +it choice is impossible. Many persons assert also that boys come to +college with no clear intentions, not knowing what they want, waiting to +be told; for such, it is said, an elective system is manifestly absurd. +I admit the fact. It is true. The majority of the freshmen whom I have +known in the last seventeen years have been, at entrance, deficient in +serious aims. But from this fact I draw a conclusion quite opposite to +the one suggested. It is election, systematized election, which these +boys need; for when we say a young student has no definite aims, we +imply that he has never become sufficiently interested in any given +intellectual line to have acquired the wish to follow that line farther. +Such a state of things is lamentable, and certainly shows that +prescribed methods--the proper methods, in my judgment, for the school +years--have in his case proved inadequate. It is useless to continue +them into years confessedly less suited to their exercise. Perhaps it is +about equally useless to abandon the ill-formed boy to unguided choice. +Prescription says, "This person is unfit to choose, keep him so"; +_laissez-faire_ says, "If he is unfit to choose, let him perish"; but a +watchful elective system must say, "Granting him to be unfit, if he is +not spoiled, I will fit him." And can we fit him? I know well enough +that indifferent teachers incline to shirk the task. They like to divide +pupils into the deceptive classes of good and bad, meaning by the former +those who intend to work, and by the latter those who intend not to. But +we must get rid of indifferent teachers. Teachers with enthusiasm in +them soon discover that the two classes of pupils I have named may as +well be dismissed from consideration. Where aims have become definite, a +teacher has little more to do. The boy who means to work will get +learning under the poorest teacher and the worst system; while the boy +who means not to work may be forced up to the Pierian spring, but will +hardly be made to drink. A vigorous teacher does not assume intention to +be ready-made. He counts it his continual office to help in making it. +On the middle two quarters of a class he spends his hardest efforts, on +students who are friendly to learning but not impassioned for it, on +those who like the results of study but like tennis also, and +popularity, and cigars, and slackness. The culture of these weak wills +is the problem of every college. Here are unintentional boys waiting to +be turned into intentional men. What limitations on intellectual and +moral vagrancy will help them forward? + +The chief limitation, the one underlying all others, the one which no +clever contrivance can ever supersede, is vitalized teaching. Suitable +subjects, attractively taught, awake lethargic intention as nothing else +can. An elective system, as even its enemies confess, enormously +stimulates the zeal of teachers. It consequently brings to bear on +unawakened boys influences of a strangely quickening character. When I +hear a man trained under the old methods of prescription say, "At the +time I was in college I could not have chosen studies for myself, and I +do not believe my son can," I see, and am not surprised to see, that he +does not understand what forces the elective system sets astir. So +powerful an influence have these forces over both teachers and pupils, +that questions of hard and easy studies do not, as outsiders are apt to +suppose, seriously disturb the formation of sound intentions. The many +leaders in education whose opinions on election I quoted in my previous +paper agree that the new modes tend to sobriety and intentionality of +aim. When Professor Ladd speaks of "the unexpected wisdom and manliness +of the choices already made" in the first year of election at New Haven, +he well expresses the gratified surprise which every one experiences on +perceiving in the very constitution of the elective system a sort of +limitation on wayward choice. This limitation seems to me, as Professor +Ladd says he found it,[8] a tolerable preventive of choices directly +aimed at ease. In a community devoted to athletics, baseball is not +played because it is "soft," and football avoided on account of its +difficulty. A similar state of things must be brought about in studies. +In a certain low degree it has come about already. As election breeds +new life in teaching, the old slovenly habit of liking best what costs +least begins to disappear. Easy courses will exist and ought to exist. +Prescribed colleges, it is often forgotten, have more of them than +elective colleges. The important matter is, to see that they fall to the +right persons. Where everything is prescribed, students who do not wish +easy studies are still obliged to take them. Under election, soft +courses may often be pursued with advantage. A student whose other +courses largely depend for their profit on the amount of private +reading or of laboratory practice accomplished in connection with them +is wise in choosing one or more in which the bulk of the work is taken +by the teacher. I do not say that soft courses are always selected with +these wise aims in view. Many I know are not. We have our proper share +of hardened loafers--"tares in our sustaining corn"--who have an +unerring instinct as to where they can most safely settle. But large +numbers of the men in soft courses are there to good purpose; and I +maintain that the superficial study of a subject, acquainting one with +broad outlines, is not necessarily a worthless study. At Harvard to-day +I believe we have too few such superficial courses. As I look over the +Elective Pamphlet, and note the necessarily varying degrees of +difficulty in the studies announced there, I count but six which can, +with any justice, be entitled soft courses; and several of these must be +reckoned by anybody an inspiration to the students who pursue them. +There is a tendency in the elective system, as I have shown elsewhere, +to reduce the number of soft courses somewhat below the desirable +number. + +I insist, therefore, that under a pretty loose elective system boys are +little disposed to intentionally vicious choices. My fears look in a +different direction. I do not expect depravity, but I want to head off +aimless trifling. I agree with the opponents of election in thinking +that there is danger, especially during the early years of college life, +that righteous intention may not be distinct and energetic. Boys drift. +Inadequate influences induce their decisions. The inclinations of the +clique in which a young man finds himself are, without much thought, +accepted as his own. Heedlessness is the young man's bane. It should not +be mistaken for vice; the two are different. A boy who will enter a +dormitory at twelve o'clock at night, and go to the third story +whistling and beating time on the banisters, certainly seems a brutish +person; but he is ordinarily a kind enough fellow, capable of a good +deal of self-sacrifice when brought face to face with need. He simply +does not think. So it is in study: there, too, he does not think. Now in +college a boy should learn perpetually to think; and an excellent way of +helping him to learn is to ask him often what he is thinking about. The +object of the questioning should not be to thwart the boy's aims, rather +to insure that they are in reality his own. Essentially his to the last +they should remain, even though intrinsically they may not be the best. +Young persons, much more than their elders, require to talk over plans +from time to time with an experienced critic, in order to learn by +degrees the difficult art of planning. By such talk intentionality is +fortified. There is much of this talk already; talk of younger students +with older, talk with wise persons at home, and more and more every +year with the teachers of the courses left and the courses entered. All +this is good. Haphazard modes breed an astonishing average of choices +that possess a meaning. The waste of a _laissez-faire_ system comes +nowhere near the waste of a prescribed. But what is good when compared +with a bad thing may be poor when compared with excellence itself. We +must go on. A college, like a man, should always be saying, "Never was I +so good as to-day, and never again will I be so bad." We must welcome +criticisms more than praises, and seek after our weak points as after +hid treasures. The elective system seems to me weak at present through +lacking organized means of bringing the student and his intentions face +to face. Intentions grow by being looked at. At the English universities +a young man on entering a college is put in charge of a special tutor, +without whose consent he can do little either in the way of study or of +personal management.[9] Dependence so extreme is perhaps better suited +to an infant school than to an American college; and even in England, +where respectful subservience on the part of the young has been +cultivated for generations, the system is losing ground. Since the +tutors were allowed to marry and to leave the college home, tutorial +influence has been changing. In most American colleges twenty-five years +ago there were officers known as class tutors, to whom, in case of need, +a student might turn. Petty permissions were received from these men, +instead of from a mechanical central office. So far as this plan set +personal supervision in the place of routine it was, in my eyes, good. +But the relation of a class tutor to his boys was usually one of more +awe than friendship. At the Johns Hopkins University there is a board of +advisers, to some member of which each student is assigned at entrance. +The adviser stands _in loco parentis_ to his charges. The value of such +adjustments depends on the nature of the parental tie. If the relation +is worked so as to stimulate the student's independence, it is good; if +so as to discharge him from responsibility, it unfits for the life that +follows. At Harvard special students not candidates for a degree have +recently been put in charge of a committee, to whom they are obliged to +report their previous history and their plans of study for each +succeeding year. The committee must know at all times what their charges +are doing. Something of this sort, I am convinced, will be demanded at +no distant day, as a means of steadying all students in elective +colleges. Large personal supervision need not mean diminution of +freedom. A young man may possess his freedom more solidly if he +recognizes an obligation to state and defend the reasons which induce +his choice. For myself, I should be willing to make the functions of +such advisory committees somewhat broad. As a college grows, the old +ways of bringing about acquaintance between officers and students become +impracticable. But the need of personal acquaintance, unhappily, does +not cease. New ways should be provided. A boy dropped into the middle of +a large college must not be lost to sight; he must be looked after. To +allow the teacher's work of instruction to become divorced from his +pastoral, his priestly, function is to cheapen and externalize +education. I would have every student in college supplied with somebody +who might serve as a discretionary friend; and I should not think it a +disadvantage that such an expectation of friendship would be as apt to +better the instructor as the student. + +Before leaving this part of my subject, I may mention a subordinate, but +still valuable, means of limiting choice so as to increase its +intentionality. The studies open to choice in the early years should be +few and elementary. The significance of advanced courses cannot be +understood till elementary ones are mastered, and immature choice should +not be confused by many issues. At Harvard this mode of limitation is +largely employed. Although the elective list for 1886-87 shows 172 +courses, a freshman has hardly more than one eighth of these to choose +from; in any given case this number will probably be reduced about one +half by insufficient preparation or conflict of hours. Seemingly about a +third of the list is offered to the average sophomore; but this amount +is again cut down nearly one half by the operation of similar causes. +The practice of hedging electives with qualifications is a growing one. +It may well grow more. It offers guidance precisely at the point where +it is most needed. It protects rational choice, and guards against many +of the dangers which the foes of election justly dread. + +II. A second class of limitations of the elective system, possible and +friendly, springs from the need of furnishing the young elector ample +information about that which he is to choose. The best intentions +require judicious aim. If studies are taken in the dark, without right +anticipation of their subject-matter, or in ignorance of their relation +to other studies, small results follow. Here, I think it will be +generally agreed, prescribed systems are especially weak. Their pupils +have little knowledge beforehand of what a course is designed to +accomplish. Work is undertaken blindly, minds consenting as little as +wills. An elective system is impossible under such conditions. Its +student must know when he chooses, what he chooses. He must be able to +estimate whether the choice of Greek 5 will further his designs better +than the choice of Greek 8. + +At Harvard, methods of furnishing information are pretty fully +developed. In May an elective pamphlet is issued, which announces +everything that is to be taught in the college during the following +year. Most departments, also, issue additional pamphlets, describing +with much detail the nature of their special courses, and the +considerations which should lead a student to one rather than +another. If the courses of a department are arranged properly, pursuing +one gives the most needful knowledge about the available next. This +knowledge is generally supplemented at the close of the year by +explanations on the part of the instructor about the courses that +follow. In the Elective Pamphlet a star, prefixed to courses of an +advanced and especially technical character, indicates that the +instructor must be privately consulted before these courses can be +chosen. Consultations with instructors about all courses are frequent. +That most effective means of distributing information, the talk of +students, goes on unceasingly. With time, perhaps, means may be devised +for informing a student more largely what he is choosing. The fullest +information is desirable. That which is at present most needed is, I +think, some rough indication of the relations of the several provinces +of study to one another. Information of this sort is peculiarly hard +to supply, because the knowledge on which it professes to rest cannot +be precise and unimpeachable. We deal here with intricate problems, +in regard to which experts are far from agreed, problems where the +different point of view provided in the nature of each individual +will rightly readjust whatever general conclusions are drawn. The old +type of college had an easy way of settling these troublesome matters +dogmatically, by voting, in open faculty-meeting, what should be +counted the normal sequence of studies, and what their mixture. But +as the votes of different colleges showed no uniformity, people have +gradually come to perceive that the subject is one where only large +outlines can distinctly be made out.[10] To these large outlines I +think it important to direct the attention of undergraduates. In most +German universities a course of _Encyclopädie_ is offered, a course +which gives in brief a survey of the sciences, and attempts to fix +approximately the place of each in the total organization of knowledge. +I am not aware that such a course exists in any American college. +Indeed, there was hardly a place for it till dogmatic prescription +was shaken. But if something of the kind were now established in the +freshman year, our young men might be relieved of a certain intellectual +short-sightedness, and the choices of one year might better keep in +view those of the other three. + +III. And now granting that a student has started with good intentions +and is well informed about the direction where profit lies, still +have we any assurance that he will push those intentions with a fair +degree of tenacity through the distractions which beset his daily path? +We need, indeed we must have, a third class of helpful limitations +which may secure the persistent adhesion of our student to his chosen +line of work. Probably this class of limitations is the most +important and complex of all. To yield a paying return, study must +be stuck to. A decision has little meaning unless the volition of +to-day brings in its train a volition to-morrow. Self-direction +implies such patient continuance in well-doing that only after +persistence has become somewhat habitual can choice be called mature. To +establish onward-leading habits, therefore, should be one of the +chief objects in devising limitations of election. Only we must not +mistake; we must look below the surface. Mechanical diligence often +covers mental sloth. It is not habits of passive docility that are +desirable, habits of timidity and uncriticising acceptance. Against +forming these pernicious and easily acquired habits, it may be necessary +even to erect barriers. The habit wanted is the habit of spontaneous +attack. Prescription deadened this vital habit; it mechanized. His +task removed, the student had little independent momentum. Election +invigorates the springs of action. Formerly I did not see this, and I +favored prescribed systems, thinking them systems of duty. That +absence of an aggressive intellectual life which prescribed studies +induce, I, like many others, mistook for faithfulness. Experience +has instructed me. I no longer have any question that for the +average man sound habits of steady endeavor grow best in fields of +choice. Emerson's words are words of soberness:-- + + He that worketh high and wise + Nor pauses in his plan, + Will take the sun out of the skies + Ere freedom out of man. + +Furthermore, in attempting to stimulate persistence I believe we must +ultimately rely on the rational interest in study which we can arouse +and hold. Undoubtedly much can be done to save this interest from +disturbance and to hold vacillating attention fixed upon it; but it, and +it alone, is to be the driving force. Methods of college government must +be reckoned wise as they push into the foreground the intrinsic charm of +wisdom, mischievous as they hide it behind fidelity to technical demand. +In other matters we readily acknowledge interest as an efficient force. +We call it a force as broad as the worth of knowledge, and as deep as +the curiosity of man. "Put your heart into your work," we say, "if you +will make it excellent." A dozen proverbs tell that it is love that +makes the world go round. Every employment of life springs from an +underlying desire. The cricketer wants to win the game; the fisherman to +catch fish; the farmer to gather crops; the merchant to make money; the +physician to cure his patient; the student to become wise. Eliminate +desire, put in its place allegiance to the rules of a game, and what, in +any of these cases, would be the chance of persistent endeavor? It seems +almost a truism to say that limitations of personal effort designed to +strengthen persistency must be such as will heighten the wish and clear +its path to its object. + +Obvious as is the truth here presented, it seems in some degree to have +escaped the attention of my critics. After showing that the grade of +scholarship at Harvard steadily rises, that our students become more +decorous and their methods of work less childish, I stated that, under +an extremely loose mode of regulating attendance five sixths of the +exercises were attended by all our men, worst and best, sick and well, +most reckless and most discreet. Few portions of my obnoxious paper have +occasioned a louder outcry. I am told of a neighboring college where the +benches show but three per cent of absentees. I wonder what the +percentage is in Charlestown State Prison. Nobody doubts that attendance +will be closer if compelled. But the interesting question still remains, +"Are students by such means learning habits of spontaneous regularity?" +This question can be answered only when the concealing restraint is +removed. It has been removed at Harvard,--in my judgment too largely +removed,--and the great body of our students is seen to desire learning +and to desire it all the time. Is it certain that the students of other +colleges, if left with little or no restraint, would show a better +record? The point of fidelity and regularity, it is said, is of supreme +importance. So it is. But fidelity and regularity in study, not in +attending recitations. If ever the Harvard system is perfected, so that +students here are as eager for knowledge as the best class of German +university men, I do not believe we shall see a lower rate of absence; +only then, each absence will be used, as it is not at present, for a +studious purpose. The modern teacher stimulates private reading, exacts +theses, directs work in libraries. Pupils engaged in these things are +not dependent on recitations as text-book schoolboys are. The grade of +higher education cannot rise much so long as the present extreme stress +is laid on appearance in the class-room. + +In saying this I would not be understood to defend the method of dealing +with absences which has for some years been practised at Harvard. I +think the method bad. I have always thought it so, and have steadily +favored a different system. The behavior of our students under a +regulation so loose seems to me a striking testimony to the scholarly +spirit prevalent here. As such I mentioned it in my first paper, and as +such I would again call attention to it. But I am not satisfied with the +present good results. I want to impress on every student that absence +from the class-room can be justified by nothing short of illness or a +scholarly purpose. For a gainful purpose the merchant is occasionally +absent from his office; for a gainful purpose a scholar of mine may omit +a recitation. But Smith can be absent profitably when Brown would meet +with loss. I accordingly object to methods of limiting absence which +exact the same numerical regularity of all. College records may look +clean, yet students be learning little about duty. Limitation, in my +judgment, should be so adjusted as to strengthen the man's personal +adhesion to plans of daily study. Such limitations cannot be fixed by +statute and worked by a single clerk. Moral discipline is not a thing to +be supplied by wholesale. Professors must be individually charged with +the oversight of their men. I would have excuses for occasional absence +made to the instructor, and I should expect him to count it a part of +his work to see that the better purposes of his scholars did not grow +feeble. A professor who exercised such supervisory power slackly would +make his course the resort of the indolent; one who was over-stringent +would see himself deserted by indolent and earnest alike. My rule would +be that no student be allowed to present himself at an examination who +could not show his teacher's certificate that his attendance on daily +work was satisfactory. Traditions in this country and in Germany are so +different that I should have confidence in a method working well here +though it worked ill there. At any rate, whenever it fell into decay, it +could--a proviso necessary in all moral matters--be readjusted. A rule +something like this the Harvard Faculty has recently adopted by voting +that "any instructor, with the approval of the Dean, may at any time +exclude from his course any student who in his judgment has neglected +the work of the course." Probably the amount of absence which has +hitherto occurred at Harvard will under this vote diminish. + +Suppose, then, by these limitations on a student's caprice we have +secured his persistence in outward endeavor, still one thing more is +needed. We have brought him bodily to a recitation room; but his mind +must be there too, his aroused and active mind. Limitations that will +secure this slippery part of the person are difficult to devise. +Nevertheless, they are worth studying. Their object is plain. They are +to lead a student to do something every day; to aid him to overcome +those tendencies to procrastination, self-confidence, and passive +absorption which are the regular and calculable dangers of youth. They +are to teach him how not to cram, to inspire him with respect for steady +effort, and to enable him each year to find such effort more habitual to +himself. These are hard tasks. The old education tried to meet them by +the use of daily recitations, a plan not without advantages. The new +education is preserving the valuable features of recitations by adopting +and developing the _Seminar_. But recitations pure and simple have +serious drawbacks. They presuppose a text-book, which, while it brings +definiteness, brings also narrowness of view. The learner masters a +book, not a subject. After-life possesses nothing analogous to the +text-book. A struggling man wins what he wants from many books, from his +own thought, from frequent consultations. Why should not a student be +disciplined in the ways he must afterwards employ? Moreover, recitations +have the disadvantage that no large number of men can take part on any +single day. The times of trial either become amenable to reckoning, or, +in order to prevent reckoning, a teacher must resort to schemes which do +not commend him to his class. Undoubtedly in recitation the reciter +gains, but the gains of the rest of the class are small. The listeners +would be more profited by instruction. An hour with an expert should +carry students forward; to occupy it in ascertaining where they now +stand is wasteful. For all these reasons there has been of late years a +strong reaction against recitations. Lectures have been introduced, and +the time formerly spent by a professor in hearing boys is now spent by +boys in hearing a professor. Plainly in this there is a gain, but a gain +which needs careful limitation if the student's persistence in work is +to be retained. A pure lecture system is a broad road to ignorance. +Students are entertained or bored, but at the end of a month they know +little more than at the beginning. Lectures always seem to me an +inheritance from the days when books were not. Learning--how often must +it be said!--is not acceptance; it is criticism, it is attack, it is +doing. An active element is everywhere involved in it. Personal sanction +is wanted for every step. One who will grow wise must perform processes +himself, not sit at ease and behold another's performance. + +These simple truths are now tolerably understood at Harvard. There +remain in the college few courses of pure recitations or of pure +lectures. I wish all were forbidden by statute. In almost all courses, +in one way or another, frequent opportunity is given the student to show +what he is doing. In some, especially in elementary courses, lectures +run parallel with a text-book. In some, theses, that is, written +discussions, are exacted monthly, half-yearly, annually, in addition to +examinations. In some, examinations are frequent. In some, a daily +question, to be answered in writing on the spot, is offered to the whole +class. Often, especially in philosophical subjects, the hour is occupied +with debate between officer and students. More and more, physical +subjects are taught by the laboratory, linguistic and historical by the +library. In a living university a great variety of methods spring up, +according to the nature of the subject and the personality of the +teacher. Variety should exist. In constantly diversified ways each +student should be assured that he is expected to be doing something all +the time, and that somebody besides himself knows what he is doing. As +yet this assurance is not attained; we can only claim to be working +toward it. Every year we discover some fresh limitation which will make +persistence more natural, neglect more strange. I believe study at +Harvard is to-day more interested, energetic, and persistent than it has +ever been before. But that is no ground for satisfaction. A powerful +college must forever be dissatisfied. Each year it must address itself +anew to strengthening the tenacity of its students in their zeal for +knowledge. + +By the side of these larger limitations in the interest of persistency, +it may be well to mention one or two examples of smaller ones which have +the same end in view. By some provision it must be made difficult to +withdraw from a study once chosen. Choice should be deliberate and then +be final. It probably will not be deliberate unless it is understood to +be final. A few weeks may be allowed for an inspection of a chosen +course, but at the close of the first month's teaching the Harvard +Faculty tie up their students and allow change only on petition and for +the most convincing cause. An elective college which did not make +changes of electives difficult would be an engine for discouraging +intentionality and persistence. + +I incline to think, too, that a regulation forbidding elementary courses +in the later years would render our education more coherent. In this +matter elective colleges have an opportunity which prescribed ones +miss. In order to be fair to all the sciences, college faculties are +obliged to scatter fragments of them throughout the length and breadth +of prescribed curricula. Twenty-five years ago every Harvard man waited +till his senior year before beginning philosophy, acoustics, history, +and political economy. To-day the fourteen other New England colleges, +most of whom, like the Harvard of twenty-five years ago, offer a certain +number of elective studies, still show senior years largely occupied +with elementary studies. Five forbid philosophy before the senior year; +eight, political economy; two, history; six, geology. Out of the seven +colleges which offer some one of the eastern languages, all except +Harvard oblige the alphabet to be learned in the senior year. Of the six +which offer Italian or Spanish, Harvard alone permits a beginning to be +made before the junior year, while two take up these languages for the +first time in the senior year. In three New England colleges German +cannot be begun till the junior year. In a majority, a physical subject +is begun in the junior and another in the senior year. At Yale nobody +but a senior can study chemistry. Such postponement, and by consequence +such fragmentary work, may be necessary where early college years are +crowded with prescribed studies. But an elective system can employ its +later years to better advantage. It can bring to a mature understanding +the interests which freshmen and sophomores have already acquired. +Elementary studies are not maturing studies; they do not make the fibre +of a student firm. To studies of a solidifying sort the last years +should be devoted. I should like to forbid seniors to take any +elementary study whatever, and to forbid juniors all except philosophy, +political economy, history, fine arts, Sanskrit, Hebrew, and law. Under +such a rule we should graduate more men who would be first rate at +something; and a man who is first rate at something is generally pretty +good at anything. + +Such, then, are a few examples of the ways in which choice may be +limited so as to become strong. They are but examples, intended merely +to draw attention to the three kinds of limitation still possible. +Humble ways they may seem, not particularly interesting to hear about; +business methods one might call them. But by means of these and such +as these the young scholar becomes clearer in intention, larger in +information, hardier in persistence. In urging such means I shall be +seen to be no thick and thin advocate of election. That I have never +been. Originally a doubter, I have come to regard the elective +system, that is, election under such limitations as I have described, as +the safest--indeed as the only possible--course which education can +now take, I advocate it heartily as a system which need not carry us +too fast or too far in any one direction, as a system so inherently +flexible that its own great virtues readily unite with those of an alien +type. Under its sheltering charge the worthier advantages of both +grouped and prescribed systems are attainable. I proclaim it, +therefore, not as a popular cry nor as an educational panacea, but as +a sober opportunity for moral and intellectual training. Limited as +it is at Harvard, I see that it works admirably with the studious, +stimulatingly with those of weaker will, not unendurably with the +depraved. These are great results. They cannot be set aside by calling +them the outcome of "individualism." In a certain sense they are. But +"individualism" is an uncertain term. In every one of us there is a +contemptible individuality, grounded in what is ephemeral and +capriciously personal. Systematic election, as I have shown, puts +limitations on this. But there is a noble individuality which should +be the object of our fostering care. Nothing that lends it strength +and fineness can be counted trivial. To form a true individuality +is, indeed, the ideal of the elective system. Let me briefly sketch my +conception of that ideal. + +George Herbert, praising God for the physical world which He has made, +says that in it "all things have their will, yet none but thine." Such a +free harmony between thinking man and a Lord of his thought it is the +office of education to bring about. At the start it does not exist. The +child is aware of his own will, and he is aware of little else. He +imagines that one pleasing fancy may be willed as easily as another. As +he matures, he discovers that his will is effective when it accords with +the make of the world and ineffective when it does not. This discovery, +bringing as it does increased respect for the make of the world and even +for its Maker, degrades or ennobles according as the facts of the world +are now viewed as restrictive finalities or as an apparatus for larger +self-expression. Seeing the power of that which is not himself, a man +may become passively receptive, and say, "Then I am to have no will of +my own"; or he may become newly energetic, knowing that though he can +have no will of his separate own, yet all the power of God is his if he +will but understand. A man of the latter sort is spiritually educated. +Much still remains to be done in understanding special laws; and with +each fresh understanding, a fresh possibility of individual life is +disclosed. The worth, however, of the whole process lies in the man's +honoring his own will, but honoring it only as it grows strong through +accordance with the will of God. + +Now into our colleges comes a mixed multitude made up of all the three +classes named: the childish, who imagine they can will anything; the +docile, so passive in the presence of an ordered world that they have +little individual will left; the spiritually-minded or original, who +with strong interests of their own seek to develop these through living +contact with truths which they have not made. Our educational modes must +meet them all, respecting their wills wherever wise, and teaching the +feeble to discriminate fanciful from righteous desires. For carrying +forward such a training the elective system seems to me to have peculiar +aptitudes. What I have called its limitations will be seen to be +spiritual assistances. To the further invention of such there is no end. +A watchful patience is the one great requisite, patience in directors, +instructed criticism on the part of the public, and a brave expression +of confidence when confidence is seen to have been earned. + + +FOOTNOTES: + + [8] Doubtless some have carried out the intention of making everything + as soft as possible for themselves. But the choices, in fact, do + not as yet show the existence of any such intention in any + considerable number of cases; they show rather the very + reverse.--Professor Ladd in _The New Englander_, January, 1885, + p. 119. + + [9] As the minute personal care given to individual students in the + English universities is often and deservedly praised, I may as + well say that it costs something. Oxford spends each year about + $2,000,000 on 2500 men; Harvard, $650,000 on 1700. + + [10] I may not have a better opportunity than this to clear up a petty + difficulty which seems to agitate some of my critics. They say + they want the degree of A.B. to mean something definite, while at + present, under the elective system, it means one thing for John + Doe, and something altogether different for his classmate, + Richard Roe. That is true. Besides embodying the general + signification that the bearer has been working four years in a + way to satisfy college guardians, the stately letters do take on + an individual variation of meaning for every man who wins them. + They must do so as long as we are engaged in the formation of + living persons. If the college were a factory, our case would be + different. We might then offer a label which would keep its + identity of meaning for all the articles turned out. Wherever + education has been a living thing, the single degree has always + contained this element of variety. The German degree is as + diverse in meaning as ours. The degree of the English university + is diverse, and more diverse for Honors men--the only ones who + can properly be said to deserve it--than for inert Pass men. + Degrees in this country have, from the first, had considerable + diversity, college differing from college in requirement, and + certainly student from student in attainment. That twenty-five + years ago we were approaching too great uniformity in the + signification of degrees, I suppose most educators now admit. + That was a mechanical and stagnant period, and men have brought + over from it to the more active days of the present ideals formed + then. Precision of statement goes with figures, with etiquette, + with military matters; but descriptions of the quality of persons + must be stated in the round. + + + + +XI + +COLLEGE EXPENSES[11] + + +The subject of college expenses has been much debated lately. At our +Commencement dinner, a year ago, attention was called to it. Our +chairman on that occasion justly insisted that the ideal of the +University should be plain living and high thinking. And certainly there +is apt to be something vulgar, as well as vicious, in the man of books +who turns away from winning intellectual wealth and indulges in tawdry +extravagance. Yet every friend of Harvard is obliged to acknowledge with +shame that the loose spender has a lodging in our yard. No clear-sighted +observer can draw near and not perceive that in all his native +hideousness the man of the club and the dog-cart is among us. + +I do not think this strange. In fact, I regard it as inevitable. It is +necessarily connected with our growth. The old College we might compare, +for moral and intellectual range, with a country village; our present +University is a great city, and we must accept the many-sided life, the +temptations as well as the opportunities, of the great city. Probably +nowhere on this planet can a thousand young men be found, between the +ages of eighteen and twenty-four, who will not show examples of the +heedless, the temptable, and the depraved. Let us not, then, shrink from +acknowledging the ugly fact; extravagance is here,--shameless, coarse +extravagance. I hope nothing I say may diminish our sense of its +indecency. But how widespread is it? We must not lose sight of that +important question. How largely does it infect the College? Are many +students large spenders? Must a man of moderate means on coming here be +put to shame? Will he find himself a disparaged person, out of accord +with the spirit of the place, and unable to obtain its characteristic +advantages? These are the weighty questions. Only after we have answered +them can we determine the moral soundness of the University. Wherever we +go on earth we shall find the insolently rich and wasteful. They, like +the poor, are always with us; their qualities are cheap. But what we +want to know is whether, side by side with them, we have a company of +sober men, who care for higher things and who spend no more than the +higher things require. Facts of proportion and degree form the firm +basis of general judgments, and yet I am aware that these are the +hardest facts to obtain. Hitherto nobody has known any such facts in +regard to the expenses of Harvard. Assertions about the style of living +here have only expressed the personal opinion of the assertor, or at +best have been generalizations from a few chance cases. No systematic +evidence on the subject has existed. It is time it did exist, and I have +made an attempt to obtain it. To each member of the graduating class I +sent a circular, a month ago, asking if he would be willing to tell me +in confidence what his college course had cost. I desired him to include +in his report all expenses whatever. He was to state not merely his +tuition, board, and lodging, but also his furniture, books, clothing, +travel, subscriptions, and amusements; in fact, every dollar he had +spent during the four years of his study, except his charges for Class +Day and the summer vacations; these times varying so widely, it seemed +to me, in their cost to different men that they could not instructively +enter into an average. + +The reply has been very large indeed. To my surprise, out of a class of +two hundred and thirty-five men actually in residence, two hundred and +nineteen, or ninety-three per cent, have sent reports. Am I wrong in +supposing that this very general "readiness to tell" is itself a sign of +upright conduct? But I would not exaggerate the worth of the returns. +They cannot be trusted to a figure. It has not been possible to obtain +itemized statements. College boys, like other people, do not always +keep accounts. But I requested my correspondents, in cases of +uncertainty, always to name the larger figure; and though those who have +lived freely probably have less knowledge about what they have spent +than have their economical classmates, I think we may accept their +reports in the rough. We can be reasonably sure whether they have +exceeded or fallen below a certain medium line, and for purposes more +precise I shall not attempt to use them. Anything like minute accuracy I +wish expressly to repudiate. The evidence I offer only claims to be the +best that exists at present; and I must say that the astonishing +frankness and fulness of the reports give me strong personal assurance +of the good faith of the writers. In these letters I have seen a vivid +picture of the struggles, the hopes, the errors, and the repentings of +the manly young lives that surround me. + +What, then, are the results? Out of the two hundred and nineteen men who +have replied, fifty-six, or about one quarter of the class, have spent +between $450 and $650 in each of the four years of residence; +fifty-four, or again about a quarter, have spent between $650 and $975; +but sixty-one, hardly more than a quarter, have spent a larger sum than +$1200. The smallest amount in any one year was $400; the largest, +$4000.[12] + +I ask you to consider these figures. They are not startling, but they +seem to me to indicate that a soberly sensible average of expense +prevails at Harvard. They suggest that students are, after all, merely +young men temporarily removed from homes, and that they are practising +here, without violent change, the habits which the home has formed. +Those who have been accustomed to large expenditure spend freely here; +those of quiet and considerate habits do not lightly abandon them. I +doubt if during the last twenty-five years luxury has increased in the +colleges as rapidly as it has in the outside world. + +There is no reason, either, to suppose that the addition of the sixteen +men who have not replied would appreciably affect my results. The +standing of these men on the last annual rank-list was sixty-eight per +cent. They seem to me average persons. Their silence I attribute to +mistakes of the mail, to business, to neglect, or to the very natural +disinclination to disclose their private affairs. To refuse to answer my +intrusive questions, or even to acknowledge that college days were +costly, is not in itself evidence of wantonness. Small spenders are +usually high scholars; but this is by no means always the case. In the +most economical group I found seven who did not reach a rank of seventy +per cent. last year; whereas out of the seven largest spenders of the +class three passed seventy-five per cent. It would be rash to conclude +that large sums cannot be honorably employed. + +But it may seem that the smallest of the sums named is large for a poor +man. It may be believed that even after restraint and wisdom are used, +Harvard remains the college of the rich. There is much in our +circumstances to make it so. An excellent education is unquestionably a +costly thing, and to live where many men wish to live calls for a good +deal of money. We have, it is true, this splendid hall, which lessens +our expense for food and encompasses us with ennobling influences; but +it costs $150 a year to board here. Our tuition bill each year is $150. +The University owns 450 rooms; but not a third of them rent for less +than $150 a year, the average rent being $146. These large charges for +tuition and room-rent are made necessary by the smallness of the general +fund which pays the running expenses of the college. Very few of the +professorships are endowed, and so the tuition-fee and room-rent must +mainly carry the expenses of teaching. + +Still, there is another side to the story. Thus far I have figured out +the expenses, and have said nothing about the means of meeting them. +Perhaps to get the advantages of Harvard a student may need to spend +largely; but a certain circumstance enables him to do so,--I mean the +matchless benevolence of those who have preceded us here. The great sums +intrusted to us for distribution in prizes, loan-funds, and scholarships +make it possible for our students to offset the cost of their education +to such a degree that the net output of a poor boy here is probably less +than in most New England colleges. At any rate, I have asked a large +number of poor students why they came to expensive Harvard, and again +and again I have received the reply: "I could not afford to go +elsewhere." + +The magnitude of this beneficiary aid I doubt if people generally +understand, and I have accordingly taken pains to ascertain what was the +amount given away this year. I find that to undergraduates alone it was +$36,000; to members of the graduate department, $11,000; and to the +professional schools $6000: making in a single year a total of +assistance to students of the University of more than $53,000. Next year +this enormous sum will be increased $13,000 by the munificent bequest of +Mr. Price Greenleaf. Fully to estimate the favorable position of the +poor man at Harvard, we should take into account also the great +opportunities for earning money through private tuition, through +innumerable avenues of trade, and through writing for the public press. +A large number of my correspondents tell of money earned outside their +scholarships.[13] + +These immense aids provided for our students maintain a balance of +conditions here, and enable even the poorest to obtain a Harvard +education. And what an education it is; how broad and deep and +individually stimulating,--the most truly American education which the +continent affords! But I have no need to eulogize it. It has already +entered into the very structure of you who listen. Let me rather close +with two pieces of advice. + +The first shall be to parents. Give your son a competent allowance when +you send him to Harvard, and oblige him to stick to it. To learn +calculation will contribute as much to his equipment for life as any +elective study he can pursue; and calculation he will not learn unless, +after a little experience, you tell him precisely what sum he is to +receive. If in a haphazard way you pour $2000 into his pocket, then in +an equally haphazard way $2000 will come out. Whatever extravagance +exists at Harvard to-day is the fault of you foolish parents. The +college, as a college, cannot stop extravagance. It cannot take away a +thousand dollars from your son and tell him--what would be perfectly +true--that he will be better off with the remaining thousand; that you +must do yourselves. And if you ask, "What is a competent allowance?" out +of what my correspondents say I will frame you five answers. If your son +is something of an artist in economy, he may live here on $600, or less; +he will require to be an artist to accomplish it. If he will live +closely, carefully, yet with full regard to all that is required, he may +do so, with nearly half his class, on not more than $800. If you wish +him to live at ease and to obtain the many refinements which money will +purchase, give him $1000. Indeed, if I were a very rich man, and had a +boy whose character I could trust, so that I could be sure that all he +laid out would be laid out wisely, I might add $200 more, for the +purchase of books and other appliances of delicate culture. But I should +be sure that every dollar I gave him over $1200 would be a dollar of +danger. + +Let my second piece of advice be to all of you graduates. When you meet +a poor boy, do not rashly urge him to come to Harvard. Estimate +carefully his powers. If he is a good boy,--docile, worthy, +commonplace,--advise him to go somewhere else. Here he will find himself +borne down by large expense and by the crowd who stand above him. But +whenever you encounter a poor boy of eager, aggressive mind, a youth of +energy, one capable of feeling the enjoyment of struggling with a +multitude and of making his merit known, say to him that Harvard College +is expressly constituted for such as he. Here he will find the largest +provision for his needs and the clearest field for his talents. Money is +a power everywhere. It is a power here; but a power of far more +restricted scope than in the world at large. In this magnificent hall +rich and poor dine together daily. At the Union they debate together. At +the clubs which foster special interests,--the Finance Club, the +Philological Club, the Philosophical Club, the French Club, the Signet, +and the O. K.--considerations of money have no place. If the poor man is +a man of muscle, the athletic organizations will welcome him; if a man +skilled in words, he will be made an editor of the college papers; and +if he has the powers that fit him for such a place, the whole body of +his classmates will elect him Orator, Ivy Orator, Odist, or Poet, +without the slightest regard to whether his purse is full or empty. The +poor man, it is true, will not be chosen for ornamental offices, for +positions which imply an acquaintance with etiquette, and he may be cut +off from intimacy with the frequenters of the ballroom and the opera; +but as he will probably have little time or taste for these things, his +loss will not be large. In short, if he has anything in him,--has he +scholarship, brains, wit, companionability, stout moral purpose, or +quiet Christian character,--his qualities will find as prompt a +recognition at Harvard as anywhere on earth. + + +FOOTNOTES: + + [11] Delivered in Memorial Hall, Cambridge, June 29, 1887. Since this + date the scale of expenditure in college, as elsewhere, has been + steadily rising. + + [12] Perhaps I had better mention the adjustments by which these results + have been reached. When a man has been in college during only the + closing years of the course, I assume that he would have lived at + the same rate had he been here throughout it. I have added $150 + for persons who board at home, and another hundred for those who + lodge there. Though I asked to have the expenses of Class Day and + the summer vacations omitted, in some instances I have reason to + suspect that they are included; but of course I have been obliged + to let the error remain, and I have never deducted the money + which students often say they expect to recover at graduation by + the sale of furniture and other goods. There is a noticeable + tendency to larger outlay as the years advance. Some students + attribute this to the greater cost of the studies of the later + years, to the more expensive books and the laboratory charges; + others, to societies and subscriptions; others, to enlarged + acquaintance with opportunities for spending. + + [13] For the sake of lucidity, I keep the expense account and the income + account distinct. For example, a man reports that he has spent + $700 a year, winning each year a scholarship of $200, and earning + by tutoring $100, and $50 by some other means. The balance + against him is only $350 a year; but I have included him in the + group of $700 spenders. + + + + +XII + +A TEACHER OF THE OLDEN TIME + + +On the 14th of February, 1883, Evangelinus Apostolides Sophocles, +Professor of Ancient, Byzantine, and Modern Greek in Harvard University, +died at Cambridge, in the corner room of Holworthy Hall which he had +occupied for nearly forty years. A past generation of American +schoolboys knew him gratefully as the author of a compact and lucid +Greek grammar. College students--probably as large a number as ever sat +under an American professor--were introduced by him to the poets and +historians of Greece. Scholars of a riper growth, both in Europe and +America, have wondered at the precision and loving diligence with which, +in his dictionary of the later and Bzyantine Greek, he assessed the +corrupt literary coinage of his native land. His brief contributions to +the Nation and other journals were always noticeable for exact knowledge +and scrupulous literary honesty. As a great scholar, therefore, and one +who through a long life labored to beget scholarship in others, +Sophocles deserves well of America. At a time when Greek was usually +studied as the schoolboy studies it, this strange Greek came among us, +connected himself with our oldest university, and showed us an example +of encyclopædic learning, and such familiar and living acquaintance with +Homer and Æschylus--yes, even with Polybius, Lucian, and Athenæus--as we +have with Tennyson and Shakespeare and Burke and Macaulay. More than +this, he showed us how such learning is gathered. To a dozen generations +of impressible college students he presented a type of an austere life +directed to serene ends, a life sufficient for itself and filled with a +never-hastening diligence which issued in vast mental stores. + +It is not, however, the purpose of this paper to trace the influence +over American scholarship of this hardly domesticated wise man of +the East. Nor will there be any attempt to narrate the outward events +of his life. These were never fully known; and could they be discovered, +there would be a kind of impiety in reporting them. Few traits were +so characteristic of him as his wish to conceal his history. His +motto might have been that of Epicurus and Descartes: "Well hid is well +lived." Yet in spite of his concealments, perhaps in part because of +them, few persons connected with Harvard have ever left behind them +an impression of such massive individuality. He was long a notable +figure in university life, one of those picturesque characters who by +their very being give impulse to aspiring mortals and check the +ever-encroaching commonplace. It would be ungrateful to allow one +formerly so stimulating and talked about to fall into oblivion. Now +that a decent interval after death has passed, a memorial to this +unusual man may be reverently set up. His likeness may be drawn by a +fond though faithful hand. Or at least such stories about him may be +kindly put into the record of print as will reflect some of those +rugged, paradoxical, witty, and benignant aspects of his nature which +marked him off from the humdrum herd of men. + +My own first approach to Sophocles was at the end of my Junior year in +college. It was necessary for me to be absent from his afternoon +recitation. In those distant days absences were regarded by Harvard law +as luxuries, and a small fixed quantity of them, a sort of sailor's +grog, was credited with little charge each half-year to every student. I +was already nearing the limit of the unenlargeable eight, and could not +well venture to add another to my score. It seemed safer to try to win +indulgence from my fierce-eyed instructor. Early one morning I went to +Sophocles's room. "Professor Sophocles," I said, "I want to be excused +from attending the Greek recitation this afternoon." "I have no power to +excuse," uttered in the gruffest of tones, while he looked the other +way. "But I cannot be here. I must be out of town at three o'clock." "I +have no power. You had better see the president." Finding the situation +desperate, I took a desperate leap. "But the president probably would +not allow my excuse. At the play of the Hasty Pudding Club to-night I am +to appear as leading lady. I must go to Brookline this afternoon and +have my sister dress me." No muscle of the stern face moved; but he +rose, walked to a table where his class lists lay, and, taking up a +pencil, calmly said: "You had better say nothing to the president. You +are here _now_. I will mark you so." He sniffed, he bowed, and, without +smile or word from either of us, I left the room. As I came to know +Sophocles afterwards, I found that in this trivial early interview I had +come upon some of the most distinctive traits of his character; here was +an epitome of his _brusquerie_, his dignity, his whimsical logic, and +his kind heart. + +Outwardly he was always brusque and repellent. A certain savagery marked +his very face. He once observed that, in introducing a character, Homer +is apt to draw attention to the eye. Certainly in himself this was the +feature which first attracted notice; for his eye had uncommon alertness +and intelligence. Those who knew him well detected in it a hidden +sweetness; but against the stranger it burned and glared, and guarded +all avenues of approach. Startled it was, like the eye of a wild animal, +and penetrating, "peering through the portals of the brain like the +brass cannon." Over it crouched bushy brows, and all around the great +head bristled white hair, on forehead, cheeks, and lips, so that little +flesh remained visible, and the life was settled in two fiery spots. +This concentration of expression in the few elementary features of +shape, hair, and eyes made the head a magnificent subject for painting. +Rembrandt should have painted it. But he would never allow a portrait of +himself to be drawn. Into his personality strangers must not intrude. +Venturing once to try for memoranda of his face, I took an artist to his +room. The courtesy of Sophocles was too stately to allow him to turn my +friend away, but he seated himself in a shaded window, and kept his head +in constant motion. When my frustrated friend had departed, Sophocles +told me, though without direct reproach, of two sketches which had +before been surreptitiously made,--one by the pencil of a student in his +class, another in oils by a lady who had followed him on the street. +Toward photography his aversion was weaker; perhaps because in that art +a human being less openly meddled with him. + +From this sense of personal dignity, which made him at all times +determined to keep out of the grasp of others, much of his brusqueness +sprang. On the morning after he returned from his visit to Greece a +fellow professor saw him on the opposite side of the street, and, +hastening across, greeted him warmly: "So you have been home, Mr. +Sophocles; and how did you find your mother?" "She was up an +apple-tree," said Sophocles, confining himself to the facts of the case. +A boy who snowballed him on the street he prosecuted relentlessly, and +he could not be appeased until a considerable fine was imposed; but he +paid the fine himself. Many a bold push was made to ascertain his age; +yet, however suddenly the question came, or however craftily one crept +from date to date, there was a uniform lack of success. "I see +Allibone's Dictionary says you were born in 1805," a gentleman remarked. +"Some statements have been nearer, and some have been farther from the +truth." One day, when a violent attack of illness fell on him, a +physician was called for diagnosis. He felt the pulse, he examined the +tongue, he heard the report of the symptoms, then suddenly asked, "How +old are you, Mr. Sophocles?" With as ready presence of mind and as +pretty ingenuity as if he were not lying at the point of death, +Sophocles answered: "The Arabs, Dr. W., estimate age by several +standards. The age of Hassan, the porter, is reckoned by his wrinkles; +that of Abdallah, the physician, by the lives he has saved; that of +Achmet, the sage, by his wisdom. I, all my life a scholar, am nearing my +hundredth year." To those who had once come close to Sophocles these +little reserves, never asserted with impatience, were characteristic and +endearing. I happen to know his age; hot irons shall not draw it from +me. + +Closely connected with his repellent reserve was the stern independence +of his modes of life. In his scheme, little things were kept small and +great things large. What was the true reading in a passage of +Aristophanes, what the usage of a certain word in Byzantine +Greek,--these were matters on which a man might well reflect and labor. +But of what consequence was it if the breakfast was slight or the coat +worn? Accordingly, a single room, in which a light was seldom seen, +sufficed him during his forty years of life in the college yard. It was +totally bare of comforts. It contained no carpet, no stuffed furniture, +no bookcase. The college library furnished the volumes he was at any +time using, and these lay along the floor, beside his dictionary, his +shoes, and the box that contained the sick chicken. A single bare table +held the book he had just laid down, together with a Greek newspaper, a +silver watch, a cravat, a paper package or two, and some scraps of +bread. His simple meals were prepared by himself over a small open +stove, which served at once for heat and cookery. Eating, however, was +always treated as a subordinate and incidental business, deserving no +fixed time, no dishes, nor the setting of a table. The peasants of the +East, the monks of southern monasteries, live chiefly on bread and +fruit, relished with a little wine; and Sophocles, in spite of +Cambridge and America, was to the last a peasant and a monk. Such simple +nutriments best fitted his constitution, for "they found their +acquaintance there." The western world had come to him by accident, and +was ignored; the East was in his blood, and ordered all his goings. Yet, +as a grave man of the East might, he had his festivities, and could on +occasion be gay. Among a few friends he could tell a capital story and +enjoy a well-cooked dish. But his ordinary fare was meagre in the +extreme. For one of his heartier meals he would cut a piece of meat into +bits and roast it on a spit, as Homer's people roasted theirs. "Why not +use a gridiron?" I once asked. "It is not the same," he said. "The juice +then runs into the fire. But when I turn my spit it bastes itself." His +taste was more than usually sensitive, kept fine and discriminating by +the restraint in which he held it. Indeed, all his senses, except sight, +were acute. + +The wine he drank was the delicate unresinated Greek wine,--Corinthian, +or Chian, or Cyprian; the amount of water to be mixed with each being +carefully debated and employed. Each winter a cask was sent him from a +special vineyard on the heights of Corinth, and occasioned something +like a general rejoicing in Cambridge, so widely were its flavorous +contents distributed. Whenever this cask arrived, or when there came a +box from Mt. Sinai filled with potato-like sweetmeats,--a paste of +figs, dates, and nuts, stuffed into sewed goatskins,--or when his hens +had been laying a goodly number of eggs, then under the blue cloak a +selection of bottles, or of sweetmeats, or of eggs would be borne to a +friend's house, where for an hour the old man sat in dignity and calm, +opening and closing his eyes and his jack-knife; uttering meanwhile +detached remarks, wise, gruff, biting, yet seldom lacking a kernel of +kindness, till bedtime came, nine o'clock, and he was gone, the +gifts--if thanks were feared--left in a chair by the door. There were +half a dozen houses and dinner tables in Cambridge to which he went with +pleasure, houses where he seemed to find a solace in the neighborhood of +his kind. But human beings were an exceptional luxury. He had never +learned to expect them. They never became necessities of his daily life, +and I doubt if he missed them when they were absent. As he slowly +recovered strength, after one of his later illnesses, I urged him to +spend a month with me. Refusing in a brief sentence, he added with +unusual gentleness: "To be alone is not the same for me and for you. I +have never known anything else." + +Unquestionably much of his disposition to remain aloof and to resist the +on-coming intruder was bred by the experiences of his early youth. His +native place, Tsangarada, is a village of eastern Thessaly, far up +among the slopes of the Pindus. Thither, several centuries ago, an +ancestor led a migration from the west coast of Greece, and sought a +refuge from Turkish oppression. From generation to generation his +fathers continued to be shepherds of their people, the office of +Proëstos, or governor, being hereditary in the house. Sturdy men those +ancestors must have been, and picturesque their times. In late winter +afternoons, at 3 Holworthy, when the dusk began to settle among the elms +about the yard, legends of these heroes and their far-off days would +loiter through the exile's mind. At such times bloody doings would be +narrated with all the coolness that appears in Cæsar's Commentaries, and +over the listener would come a sense of a fantastic world as different +from our own as that of Bret Harte's Argonauts. "My great-grandfather +was not easily disturbed. He was a young man and Proëstos. His stone +house stood apart from the others. He was sitting in its great room one +evening, and heard a noise. He looked around, and saw three men by the +farther door. 'What are you here for?' 'We have come to assassinate +you.' 'Who sent you?' 'Andreas.' It was a political enemy. 'How much did +Andreas promise you?' 'A dollar.' 'I will promise you two dollars if you +will go and assassinate Andreas.' So they turned, went, and assassinated +Andreas. My great-grandfather went to Scyros the next day, and remained +there five years. In five years these things are forgotten in Greece. +Then he came back, and brought a wife from Scyros, and was Proëstos once +more." + +Another evening: "People said my grandfather died of leprosy. Perhaps he +did. As Proëstos he gave a decision against a woman, and she hated him. +One night she crept up behind the house, where his clothes lay on the +ground, and spread over his clothes the clothes of a leper. After that +he was not well. His hair fell off and he died. But perhaps it was not +leprosy; perhaps he died of fear. The Knights of Malta were worrying the +Turks. They sailed into the harbor of Volo, and threatened to bombard +the town. The Turks seized the leading Greeks and shut them up in the +mosque. When the first gun was fired by the frigate, the heads of the +Greeks were to come off. My grandfather went into the mosque a young +man. A quarter of an hour afterwards, the gun was heard, and my +grandfather waited for the headsman. But the shot toppled down the +minaret, and the Knights of Malta were so pleased that they sailed away, +satisfied. The Turks, watching them, forgot about the prisoners. But two +hours later, when my grandfather came out of the mosque, he was an old +man. He could not walk well. His hair fell off, and he died." + +Sometimes I caught glimpses of Turkish oppression in times of peace. "I +remember the first time I saw the wedding gift given. No new-made bride +must leave the house she visits without a gift. My mother's sister +married, and came to see us. I was a boy. She stood at the door to go, +and my mother remembered she had not had the gift. There was not much to +give. The Turks had been worse than usual, and everything was buried. +But my mother could not let her go without the gift. She searched the +house, and found a saucer,--it was a beautiful saucer; and this she gave +her sister, who took it and went away." + +"How did you get the name of Sophocles?" I asked, one evening. "Is your +family supposed to be connected with that of the poet?" "My name is not +Sophocles. I have no family name. In Greece, when a child is born, it is +carried to the grandfather to receive a name." (I thought how, in the +Odyssey, the nurse puts the infant Odysseus in the arms of his mother's +father, Autolycus, for naming.) "The grandfather gives him his own name. +The father's name, of course, is different; and this he too gives when +he becomes a grandfather. So in old Greek families two names alternate +through generations. My grandfather's name was Evangelinos. This he gave +to me; and I was distinguished from others of that name because I was +the son of Apostolos, Apostolides. But my best schoolmaster was fond of +the poet Sophocles, and he was fond of me. He used to call me his little +Sophocles. The other boys heard it, and they began to call me so. It was +a nickname. But when I left home people took it for my family name. They +thought I must have a family name. I did not contradict them. It makes +no difference. This is as good as any." One morning he received a +telegram of congratulation from the monks in Cairo. "It is my day," he +said. "How did the monks know it was your birthday?" I asked. "It is not +my birthday. Nobody thinks about that. It is forgotten. This is my +saint's day. Coming into the world is of no consequence; coming under +the charge of the saints is what we care for. My name puts me in the +Virgin's charge, and the feast of the Annunciation is my day. The monks +know my name." + +To the Greek Church he was always loyal. Its faith had glorified his +youth, and to it he turned for strength throughout his solitary years. +Its conventual discipline was dear to him, and oftener than of his +birthplace at the foot of Mt. Olympus he dreamed of Mt. Sinai. On Mt. +Sinai the Emperor Justinian founded the most revered of all Greek +monasteries. Standing remote on its sacred mountain, the monastery +depends on Cairo for its supplies. In Cairo, accordingly, there is a +branch or agency which during the boyhood of Sophocles was presided over +by his Uncle Constantius. At twelve he joined this uncle in Cairo. In +the agency there, in the parent monastery on Sinai itself, and in +journeyings between the two, the happy years were spent which shaped his +intellectual and religious constitution. Though he never outwardly +became a monk, he largely became one within. His adored uncle +Constantius was his spiritual father. Through him his ideals had been +acquired,--his passion for learning, his hardihood in duty, his +imperturbable patience, his brief speech which allowed only so many +words as might scantily clothe his thought, his indifference to personal +comfort. He never spoke the name of Constantius without some sign of +reverence; and in his will, after making certain private bequests, and +leaving to Harvard College all his printed books and stereotype plates, +he adds this clause: "All the residue and remainder of my property and +estate I devise and bequeath to the said President and Fellows of +Harvard College in trust, to keep the same as a permanent fund, and to +apply the income thereof in two equal parts: one part to the purchase of +Greek and Latin books (meaning hereby the ancient classics) or of Arabic +books, or of books illustrating or explaining such Greek, Latin, or +Arabic books; and the other part to the Catalogue Department of the +General Library.... My will is that the entire income of the said fund +be expended in every year, and that the fund be kept forever unimpaired, +and be called and known as the Constantius Fund, in memory of my +paternal uncle, Constantius the Sinaite, Kônstantios Sinaitnês." + +This man, then, by birth, training, and temper a solitary; whose +heritage was Mt. Olympus, and the monastery of Justinian, and the Greek +quarter of Cairo, and the isles of Greece; whose intimates were Hesiod +and Pindar and Arrian and Basilides,--this man it was who, from 1842 +onward, was deputed to interpret to American college boys the hallowed +writings of his race. Thirty years ago too, at the period when I sat on +the green bench in front of the long-legged desk, college boys were boys +indeed. They had no more knowledge than the high-school boy of to-day, +and they were kept in order by much the same methods. Thus it happened, +by some jocose perversity in the arrangement of human affairs, that +throughout our Sophomore and Junior years we sportive youngsters were +obliged to endure Sophocles, and Sophocles was obliged to endure us. No +wonder if he treated us with a good deal of contempt. No wonder that his +power of scorn, originally splendid, enriched itself from year to year. +We learned, it is true, something about everything except Greek; and the +best thing we learned was a new type of human nature. Who that was ever +his pupil will forget the calm bearing, the occasional pinch of snuff, +the averted eye, the murmur of the interior voice, and the stocky +little figure with the lion's head? There in the corner he stood, as +stranded and solitary as the Egyptian obelisk in the hurrying Place de +la Concorde. In a curious sort of fashion he was faithful to what he +must have felt an obnoxious duty. He was never absent from his post, nor +did he cut short the hours, but he gave us only such attention as was +nominated in the bond; he appeared to hurry past, as by set purpose, the +beauties of what we read, and he took pleasure in snubbing expectancy +and aspiration. + +"When I entered college," says an eminent Greek scholar, "I was full of +the notion, which I probably could not have justified, that the Greeks +were the greatest people that had ever lived. My enthusiasm was fanned +into a warmer glow when I learned that my teacher was himself a Greek, +and that our first lesson was to be the story of Thermopylæ. After the +passage of Herodotus had been duly read, Sophocles began: 'You must not +suppose these men stayed in the Pass because they were brave; they were +afraid to run away.' A shiver went down my back. Even if what he said +had been true, it ought never to have been told to a Freshman." + +The universal custom of those days was the hearing of recitations, and +to this Sophocles conformed so far as to set a lesson and to call for +its translation bit by bit. But when a student had read his suitable +ten lines, he was stopped by the raised finger; and Sophocles, fixing +his eyes on vacancy and taking his start from some casual suggestion of +the passage, began a monologue,--a monologue not unlike one of +Browning's in its caprices, its involvement, its adaptation to the +speaker's mind rather than to the hearer's, and its ease in glancing +from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven. During these intervals the +sluggish slumbered, the industrious devoted themselves to books and +papers brought in the pocket for the purpose, the dreamy enjoyed the +opportunity of wondering what the strange words and their still stranger +utterer might mean. The monologue was sometimes long and sometimes +short, according as the theme which had been struck kindled the +rhapsodist and enabled him, with greater or less completeness, to forget +his class. When some subtlety was approached, a smile--the only smile +ever seen on his face by strangers--lifted for a moment the corner of +the mouth. The student who had been reciting stood meanwhile, but sat +when the voice stopped, the white head nodded, the pencil made a record, +and a new name was called. + +There were perils, of course, in records of this sort. Reasons for the +figures which subsequently appeared on the college books were not +easy to find. Some of us accounted for our marks by the fact that we +had red hair or long noses; others preferred the explanation that +our professor's pencil happened to move more readily to the right +hand or to the left. For the most part we took good-naturedly whatever +was given us, though questionings would sometimes arise. A little +before my time there entered an ambitious young fellow, who cherished +large purposes in Greek. At the end of the first month under his queer +instructor he went to the regent and inquired for his mark in Plato. +It was three, the maximum being eight. Horror-stricken, he penetrated +Sophocles's room. "Professor Sophocles," he said. "I find my mark is +only three. There must be some mistake. There is another Jones in the +class, you know, J. S. Jones" (a lump of flesh), "and may it not be +that our marks have been confused?" An unmoved countenance, a little +wave of the hand, accompanied the answer: "You must take your +chance,--you must take your chance." In my own section, when anybody +was absent from a certain bench, poor Prindle was always obliged to go +forward and say, "I was here to-day, Professor Sophocles," or else the +gap on the bench where six men should sit was charged to Prindle's +account. In those easy-going days, when men were examined for entrance +to college orally and in squads, there was a good deal of eagerness +among the knowing ones to get into the squad of Sophocles; for it was +believed that he admitted everybody, on the ground that none of us +knew any Greek, and it was consequently unfair to discriminate. +Fantastic stories were attributed to him, for whose truth or error none +could vouch, and were handed on from class to class. "What does +Philadelphia mean?" "Brotherly love," the student answers. "Yes! It is +to remind us of Ptolemy Philadelphus, who killed his brother." A German +commentator had somewhere mentioned lions in connection with the +Peloponnesus, and Sophocles inquires of Brown if he knows the date when +lions first appeared in the Peloponnesus. He does not, nor does Smith +nor Robinson. At length Green, driven to bay, declares in desperation +that he doesn't believe there ever were lions in the Peloponnesus. To +whom Sophocles: "You are right. There were none." "Do you read your +examination books?" he once asked a fellow instructor. "If they are +better than you expect, the writers cheat; if they are no better, time +is wasted." "Is to-day story day or contradiction day?" he is reported +to have said to one who, in the war time, eagerly handed him a +newspaper, and asked if he had seen the morning's news. + +How much of this cynicism of conduct and of speech was genuine perhaps +he knew as little as the rest of us; but certainly it imparted a +pessimistic tinge to all he did and said. To hear him talk, one would +suppose the world was ruled by accident or by an utterly irrational +fate; for in his mind the two conceptions seemed closely to coincide. +His words were never abusive; they were deliberate, peaceful even; +but they made it very plain that so long as one lived there was no use +in expecting anything. Paradoxes were a little more probable than +ordered calculations; but even paradoxes would fail. Human beings +were altogether impotent, though they fussed and strutted as if they +could accomplish great things. How silly was trust in men's goodness and +power, even in one's own! Most men were bad and stupid,--Germans +especially so. The Americans knew nothing, and never could know. A +wise man would not try to teach them. Yet some persons dreamed of +establishing a university in America! Did they expect scholarship where +there were politicians and business men? Evil influences were far too +strong. They always were. The good were made expressly to suffer, the +evil to succeed. Better leave the world alone, and keep one's self +true. "Put a drop of milk into a gallon of ink; it will make no +difference. Put a drop of ink into a gallon of milk; the whole is +spoiled." + +I have felt compelled to dwell at some length on these cynical, +illogical, and austere aspects of Sophocles's character, and even to +point out the circumstances of his life which may have shaped them, +because these were the features by which the world commonly judged +him, and was misled. One meeting him casually had little more to +judge by. So entire was his reserve, so little did he permit close +conversation, so seldom did he raise his eye in his slow walks on the +street, so rarely might a stranger pass within the bolted door of his +chamber, that to the last he bore to the average college student the +character of a sphinx, marvellous in self-sufficiency, amazing in +erudition, romantic in his suggestion of distant lands and customs, +and forever piquing curiosity by his eccentric and sarcastic sayings. +All this whimsicality and pessimism would have been cheap enough, and +little worth recording, had it stood alone. What lent it price and +beauty was that it was the utterance of a singularly self-denying and +tender soul. The incongruity between his bitter speech and his kind +heart endeared both to those who knew him. Like his venerable cloak, his +grotesque language often hid a bounty underneath. How many students +have received his surly benefactions! In how many small tradesmen's +shops did he have his appointed chair! His room was bare: but in his +native town an aqueduct was built; his importunate and ungrateful +relatives were pensioned; the monks of Mt. Sinai were protected against +want; the children and grand-children of those who had befriended his +early years in America were watched over with a father's love; and by +care for helpless creatures wherever they crossed his path he kept +himself clean of selfishness. + +One winter night, at nearly ten o'clock, I was called to my door. There +stood Sophocles. When I asked him why he was not in bed an hour ago, "A. +has gone home," he said. "I know it," I answered; for A. was a young +instructor dear to me. "He is sick," he went on. "Yes." "He has no +money." "Well, we will see how he will get along." "But you must get him +some money, and I must know about it." And he would not go back into the +storm--this graybeard professor, solicitous for an overworked +tutor--till I assured him that arrangements had been made for continuing +A.'s salary during his absence. I declare, in telling the tale I am +ashamed. Am I wronging the good man by disclosing his secret, and saying +that he was not the cynical curmudgeon for which he tried to pass? But +already before he was in his grave the secret had been discovered, and +many gave him persistently the love which he still tried to wave away. + +Toward dumb and immature creatures his tenderness was more frank, for +these could not thank him. Children always recognized in him their +friend. A group of curly-heads usually appeared in his window on Class +Day. A stray cat knew him at once, and, though he seldom stroked her, +would quickly accommodate herself near his legs. By him spiders were +watched, and their thin wants supplied. But his solitary heart went out +most unreservedly and with the most pathetic devotion toward fragile +chickens; and out of these uninteresting little birds he elicited a +degree of responsive intelligence which was startling to see. One of his +dearest friends, coming home from a journey, brought him a couple of +bantam eggs. When hatched and grown, they developed into a little +five-inch burnished cock, which shone like a jewel or a bird of +paradise, and a more sober but exquisite hen. These two, Frank and Nina, +and all their numerous progeny for many years, Sophocles trained to the +hand. Each knew its name, and would run from the flock when its +white-haired keeper called, and, sitting upon his hand or shoulder, +would show queer signs of affection, not hesitating even to crow. The +same generous friend who gave the eggs gave shelter also to the winged +consequences. And thus it happened that three times a day, so long as he +was able to leave his room, Sophocles went to that house where Radcliffe +College is now sheltered to attend his pets. White grapes were carried +there, and the choicest of corn and clamshell; and endless study was +given to devising conveniences for housing, nesting, and the promenade. +But he did not demand too much from his chickens. In their case, as in +dealing with human beings, he felt it wise to bear in mind the limit and +to respect the foreordained. When Nina was laying badly, one springtime, +I suggested a special food as a good egg-producer. But Sophocles +declined to use it. "You may hasten matters," he said, "but you cannot +change them. A hen is born with just so many eggs to lay. You cannot +increase the number." The eggs, as soon as laid, were pencilled with the +date and the name of the mother, and were then distributed among his +friends, or sparingly eaten at his own meals. To eat a chicken itself +was a kind of cannibalism from which his whole nature shrank. "I do not +eat what I love," he said, rejecting the bowl of chicken broth I pressed +upon him in his last sickness. + +For protecting creatures naturally so helpless, sternness--or at least +its outward seeming--became occasionally necessary. One day young +Thornton's dog leaped into the hen-yard and caused a commotion there. +Sophocles was prompt in defence. He drew a pistol and fired, while the +dog, perceiving his mistake, retreated as he had come. The following day +Thornton Senior, walking down the street, was suddenly embarrassed by +seeing Sophocles on the same sidewalk. Remembering, however, the old +man's usually averted gaze, he hoped to pass unnoticed. But as the two +came abreast, gruff words and a piercing eye signalled stoppage. "Mr. +Thornton, you have a son." "Yes, Mr. Sophocles, a boy generally +well-meaning but sometimes thoughtless." "Your son has a dog." "A +nervous dog, rather difficult to regulate." "The dog worried my +chickens." "So I heard, and was sorry enough to hear it." "I fired a +pistol at him." "Very properly. A pity you didn't hit him." "The pistol +was not loaded." And before Mr. Thornton could recover his wits for a +suitable reply Sophocles had drawn from his pocket one of his long +Sinaitic sweetmeats, had cut off a lump with his jack-knife, handed it +to Mr. Thornton, and with the words, "This is for the boy who owns the +dog," was gone. The incident well illustrates the sweetness and savagery +of the man, his plainness, his readiness to right a wrong and protect +the weak, his rejection of smooth and unnecessary words, his rugged +exterior, and the underlying kindness which ever attended it. + +If in ways so uncommon his clinging nature, cut off from domestic +opportunity, went out to children and unresponsive creatures, it may be +imagined how good cause of love he furnished to his few intimates +among mankind. They found in him sweet courtesy, undemanding gentleness, +an almost feminine tact in adapting what he could give to what they +might receive. To their eyes the great scholar, the austere monk, +the bizarre professor, the pessimist, were hidden by the large and +lovable man. Even strangers recognized him as no common person, so +thoroughly was all he did and said purged of superfluity, so veracious +was he, so free from apology. His everyday thoughts were worthy +thoughts. He knew no shame or fear, and had small wish, I think, for +any change. Always a devout Christian, he seldom used expressions of +regret or hope. Probably he concerned himself little with these or +other feelings. In the last days of his life, it is true, when his +thoughts were oftener in Arabia than in Cambridge, he once or twice +referred to "the ambition of learning" as the temptation which had drawn +him out from the monastery, and had given him a life less holy than he +might have led among the monks. But these were moods of humility +rather than of regret. Habitually he maintained an elevation above +circumstances,--was it Stoicism or Christianity?--which imparted to +his behavior, even when most eccentric, an unshakable dignity. When I +have found him in his room, curled up in shirt and drawers, reading the +"Arabian Nights," the Greek service book, or the "Ladder of the +Virtues" by John Klimakos, he has risen to receive me with the bearing +of an Arab sheikh, and has laid by the Greek folio and motioned me +to a chair with a stateliness not natural to our land or century. It +would be clumsy to liken him to one of Plutarch's men; for though +there was much of the heroic and extraordinary in his character and +manners, nothing about him suggested a suspicion of being on show. The +mould in which he was cast was formed earlier. In his bearing and +speech, and in a certain large simplicity of mental structure, he was +the most Homeric man I ever knew. + + + + +III + +PAPERS BY ALICE FREEMAN PALMER + + +While Mrs. Palmer always avoided writing, and thought--generous +prodigal!--that her work was best accomplished by spoken words, her +complying spirit could not always resist the appeals of magazine +editors. I could wish now that their requests had been even more urgent. +And I believe that those who read these pages will regret that one +possessed of such breadth of view, clearness, charm and cogency of style +should have left a literary record so meagre. All these papers are +printed precisely as she left them, without the change of a word. I have +not even ventured on correction in the printed report of one of her +addresses, that on going to college. Its looser structure well +illustrates her mode of moving an audience and bringing its mothers to +the course of conduct she approved. + + + + +XIII + +THREE TYPES OF WOMEN'S COLLEGES[14] + + +American college education in the quarter-century since the Civil War +has undergone more numerous and more fundamental changes than befell it +in a hundred years before. These changes have not occurred unnoticed. A +multitude of journals and associations are busy every year discussing +the results of the experiments in teaching which go on with increasing +daring and fruitfulness in nearly all our colleges and schools. There +still exists a wide divergence of opinion among the directors of men's +colleges in regard to a variety of important questions: the conditions +and proper age for entrance; the length of the course of study; the +elective system, both of government and instruction; the requirements +for the bachelor's and master's degrees; the stress to be laid on +graduate work--these, and many sequents of these, touching the physical, +social, and religious life of the young men of the land, are undergoing +sharp discussion. + +The advanced education of young women is exposed to all the +uncertainties which beset the education of men, but it has perplexities +of its own in addition. After fifty years of argument and twenty-five of +varied and costly experiment, it might be easy to suppose that we are +still in chaos, almost as far from knowing the best way to train a woman +as we were at the beginning. No educational convention meets without a +session devoted to the difficulties in "the higher education of women," +so important has the subject become, and so hard is it to satisfy in any +one system the variety of its needs. Yet chaos may be thought more +chaotic than it really is. In the din of discussion it would not be +strange if the fair degree of concord already reached should sometimes +be missed. We are certainly still far from having found the one best +method of college training for girls. Some of us hope we may never find +it, believing that in diversity, no less than in unity, there is +strength. But already three tolerably clear, consistent, and accredited +types of education appear, which it will be the purpose of this paper to +explain. The nature of each, with its special strengths and weaknesses, +will be set forth in no spirit of partisanship, but in the belief that a +cool understanding of what is doing at present among fifty thousand +college girls may make us wiser and more patient in our future growth. +What, then, are the three types, and how have they arisen? + +When to a few daring minds the conviction came that education was a +right of personality rather than of sex, and when there was added to +this growing sentiment the pressing demand for educated women as +teachers and as leaders in philanthropy, the simplest means of equipping +women with the needful preparation was found in the existing schools and +colleges. Scattered all over the country were colleges for men, young +for the most part and small, and greatly lacking anything like a proper +endowment. In nearly every state west of the Alleghanies, "universities" +had been founded by the voluntary tax of the whole population. Connected +with all the more powerful religious denominations were schools and +colleges which called upon their adherents for gifts and students. These +democratic institutions had the vigor of youth, and were ambitious and +struggling. "Why," asked the practical men of affairs who controlled +them, "should not our daughters go on with our sons from the public +schools to the university which we are sacrificing to equip and +maintain? Why should we duplicate the enormously expensive appliances of +education, when our existing colleges would be bettered by more +students? By far the large majority of our boys and girls study together +as children; they work together as men and women in all the important +concerns of life; why should they be separated in the lecture room for +only the four years between eighteen and twenty-two, when that +separation means the doubling of an equipment already too poor by +half?" + +It is not strange that with this and much more practical reasoning of a +similar kind, coeducation was established in some colleges at their +beginning, in others after debate and by a radical change in policy. +When once the chivalrous desire was aroused to give girls as good an +education as their brothers, western men carried out the principle +unflinchingly. From the kindergarten to the preparation for the +doctorate of philosophy, educational opportunities are now practically +alike for men and women. The total number of colleges of arts and +sciences empowered by law to give degrees, reporting to Washington in +1888, was three hundred and eighty-nine. Of these two hundred and +thirty-seven, or nearly two thirds, were coeducational. Among them are +all the state universities, and nearly all the colleges under the +patronage of the Protestant sects. + +Hitherto I have spoken as if coeducation were a western movement; and in +the West it certainly has had greater currency than elsewhere. But it +originated, at least so far as concerns superior secondary training, in +Massachusetts. Bradford Academy, chartered in 1804, is the oldest +incorporated institution in the country to which boys and girls were +from the first admitted; but it closed its department for boys in 1836, +three years after the foundation of coeducational Oberlin, and in the +very year when Mount Holyoke was opened by Mary Lyon, in the large hope +of doing for young women what Harvard had been founded to do for young +men just two hundred years before. Ipswich and Abbot Academies in +Massachusetts had already been chartered to educate girls alone. It has +been the dominant sentiment in the East that boys and girls should be +educated separately. The older, more generously endowed, more +conservative seats of learning, inheriting the complications of the +dormitory system, have remained closed to women. The requirements for +the two sexes are thought to be different. Girls are to be trained for +private, boys for public life. Let every opportunity be given, it is +said, for developing accomplished, yes, even learned women; but let the +process of acquiring knowledge take place under careful guardianship, +among the refinements of home life, with graceful women, their +instructors, as companions, and with suitable opportunities for social +life. Much stress is laid upon assisting girl students to attain +balanced characters, charming manners, and ambitions that are not +unwomanly. A powerful moral, often a deeply religious earnestness, +shaped the discussion, and finally laid the foundations of woman's +education in the East. + +In the short period of the twenty years after the war the four women's +colleges which are the richest in endowments and students of any in the +world were founded and set in motion. These colleges--Vassar, opened in +1865, Wellesley and Smith in 1875, and Bryn Mawr in 1885--have received +in gifts of every kind about $6,000,000, and are educating nearly two +thousand students. For the whole country the Commissioner of Education +reports two hundred and seven institutions for the superior instruction +of women, with more than twenty-five thousand students. But these +resources proved inadequate. There came an increasing demand, especially +from teachers, for education of all sorts; more and more, too, for +training in subjects of advanced research. For this, only the best +equipped men's universities were thought sufficient, and women began to +resort to the great universities of England and Germany. In an attempt +to meet a demand of this sort the Harvard Annex began, twelve years ago, +to provide women with instruction by members of the Harvard Faculty. + +Where, in a great centre of education, for many years books have +accumulated, and museums and laboratories have multiplied, where the +prestige and associations of a venerable past have grown up, and +cultivated surroundings assure a scholarly atmosphere; in short, in the +shadow of all that goes to make up the gracious influences of an old and +honorable university, it was to be expected that earnest women would +gather to seek a share in the enthusiasm for scholarship, and the +opportunities for acquiring it, which their brothers had enjoyed for two +hundred and fifty years. + +These, then--coeducation, the woman's college, and the annex--are the +three great types of college in which the long agitation in behalf of +women's education has thus far issued. Of course they are but +types--that is, they do not always exist distinct and entire; they are +rather the central forms to which many varieties approximate. The +characteristic features of each I must now describe, and, as I promised +at the beginning, point out their inherent strengths and weaknesses; for +each, while having much to recommend it, still bears in itself the +defects of its qualities. To explain dangers as well as promises is the +business of the critic, as contrasted with that of the advocate. To this +business I now turn, and I may naturally have most in mind the +University of Michigan, my own Alma Mater, Wellesley College, with whose +government I have been connected for a dozen years, and the Harvard +Annex, whose neighbor I now am. + +Coeducation involves, as its name implies, the education of a company of +young men and women as a single body. To the two sexes alike are +presented the same conditions of admission, of opportunities during the +course, of requirements for the degrees, of guardianship, of discipline, +of organization. The typical features are identical classrooms, +libraries, and laboratories, occupied at the same time, under the same +instructors; and the same honors for like work. Ordinarily all the +instructors are men, although in a few universities professorships are +held by women. Usually no dormitories or boarding-houses are provided +for either the young men or women, and no more surveillance is kept over +the one than over the other. This feature, however, is not essential. At +Cornell, Oberlin, and elsewhere, often out of local necessity, buildings +have been provided where the young women may--in some instances, +must--live together under the ordinary regulations of home life, with a +lady in charge. But in most of the higher coeducational institutions the +principle has from the first been assumed that students of both sexes +become sufficiently matured by eighteen years of home, school, and +social life--especially under the ample opportunities for learning the +uses of freedom which our social habits afford--safely to undertake a +college course, and advantageously to order their daily lives. Of course +all have a moral support in the advice and example of their teachers, +and they are held to good intellectual work by the perpetual demand of +the classroom, the laboratory, and the thesis. + +The girl who goes to the University of Michigan to-day, just as when I +entered there in 1872, finds her own boarding-place in one of the quiet +homes of the pleasant little city whose interest centres in the two +thousand five hundred students scattered within its borders. She makes +the business arrangements for her winter's fuel and its storage; she +finds her washerwoman or her laundry; she arranges her own hours of +exercise, of study, and of sleep; she chooses her own society, clubs, +and church. The advice she gets comes from another girl student of +sophomoric dignity who chances to be in the same house, or possibly from +a still more advanced young woman whom she met on the journey, or sat +near in church on her first Sunday. Strong is the comradeship among +these ambitious girls, who nurse one another in illness, admonish one +another in health, and rival one another in study only less eagerly than +they all rival the boys. In my time in college the little group of +girls, suddenly introduced into the army of young men, felt that the +fate of our sex hung upon proving that "lady Greek" involved the +accents, and that women's minds were particularly absorptive of the +calculus and metaphysics. And still in those sections where, with +growing experience, the anxieties about coeducation have been allayed, a +healthy and hearty relationship and honest rivalry between young men and +women exists. It is a stimulating atmosphere, and develops in good stock +a strength and independent balance which tell in after-life. + +In estimating the worth of such a system as this, we may say at once +that it does not meet every need of a woman's nature. No system can--no +system that has yet been devised. A woman is an object of attraction to +men, and also in herself so delicately organized as to be fitted +peculiarly for the graces and domesticities of life. The exercise of her +special function of motherhood demands sheltered circumstances and +refined moral perceptions. But then, over and above all this, she is a +human being--a person, that is, who has her own way in the world to +make, and who will come to success or failure, in her home or outside +it, according as her judgment is fortified, her observations and +experiences are enlarged, her courage is rendered strong and calm, her +moral estimates are trained to be accurate, broad, and swift. In a large +tract of her character--is it the largest tract?--her own needs and +those of the young man are identical. Both are rational persons, and the +greater part of the young man's education is addressed to his rational +personality rather than to the peculiarities of his sex. Why, the +defenders of coeducation ask, may not the same principles apply to +women? Why train a girl specifically to be a wife and mother, when no +great need is felt for training a boy to be a husband and father? In +education, as a public matter, the two sexes meet on common ground. The +differences must be attended to privately. + +At any rate, whatever may be thought of the relative importance of the +two sides--the woman side and the human side--it will be generally +agreed that the training of a young woman is apt to be peculiarly weak +in agencies for bringing home to her the importance of direct and +rational action. The artificialities of society, the enfeebling +indulgence extended to pretty silliness, the gallantry of men glad ever +to accept the hard things and leave to her the easy--by these influences +any comfortably placed and pleasing girl is pretty sure to be surrounded +in her early teens. The coeducationists think it wholesome that in her +later teens and early twenties she should be subjected to an impartial +judgment, ready to estimate her without swerving, and to tell her as +freely when she is silly, ignorant, fussy, or indolent as her brother +himself is told. Coeducation, as a system, must minimize the different +needs of men and women; it appeals to them and provides for them alike, +and then allows the natural tastes and instincts of each scope for +individuality. The strengths of this system, accordingly, are to be +found in its tendency to promote independence of judgment, individuality +of tastes, common-sense and foresight in self-guidance, disinclination +to claim favor, interest in learning for its own sake; friendly, +natural, unromantic, non-sentimental relations with men. The early fear +that coeducation would result in classroom romances has proved +exaggerated. These young women do marry; so do others; so do young men. +Marriage is not in itself an evil, and many happy homes have been +founded in the belief that long and quiet acquaintance in intellectual +work, and intimate interests of the same deeper sort, form as solid a +basis for a successful marriage as ballroom intercourse or a summer at +Bar Harbor. + +The weaknesses of this system are merely the converse of its strengths. +It does not usually provide for what is distinctively feminine. Refining +home influences and social oversight are largely lacking; and if they +are wanting in the home from which the student comes, it must not be +expected that she will show, on graduation, the graces of manner, the +niceties of speech and dress, and the shy delicacy which have been +encouraged in her more tenderly nurtured sister. + +The woman's college is organized under a different and far more complex +conception. The chief business of the man's college, whether girls are +admitted to it or not, is to give instruction of the best available +quality in as many subjects as possible; to furnish every needed +appliance for the acquirement of knowledge and the encouragement of +special investigation. The woman's college aims to do all this, but it +aims also to make for its students a home within its own walls and to +develop other powers in them than the merely intellectual. At the +outset this may seem a simple matter, but it quickly proves as +complicated as life itself. When girls are gathered together by +hundreds, isolated from the ordinary conditions of established +communities, the college stands to them preëminently _in loco parentis_. +It must provide resident physicians and trained nurses, be ready in case +of illness and, to prevent illness, must direct exercise, sleep, hygiene +and sanitation, accepting the responsibility not only of the present +health of its students, but also in large degree of their physical power +in the future. It generally furnishes them means of social access to the +best men and women of their neighborhood; it draws to them leaders in +moral and social reforms, to give inspiration in high ideals and +generous self-sacrifice, and it undertakes religious instruction while +seeking still to respect the varied faiths of its students. In short, +the arrangements of the woman's college, as conceived by founders, +trustees, and faculty, have usually aimed with conscious directness at +building up character, inspiring to the service of others, cultivating +manners, developing taste, and strengthening health, as well as +providing the means of sound learning. + +It may be said that a similar upbuilding of the personal life results +from the training of every college that is worthy of the name; and +fortunately it is impossible to enlarge knowledge without, to some +extent, enlarging life. But the question is one of directness or +indirectness of aim. The woman's college puts this aim in the foreground +side by side with the acquisition of knowledge. By setting its students +apart in homogeneous companies, it seeks to cultivate common ideals. Of +its teaching force, a large number are women who live with the students +in the college buildings, sit with them at table, join in their +festivities, and in numberless intimate ways share and guide the common +life. Every student, no matter how large the college, has friendly +access at any time to several members of the faculty, quite apart from +her relations with them in the classroom. In appointing these women to +the faculty no board of trustees would consider it sufficient that a +candidate was an accomplished specialist. She must be this, but she +should be also a lady of unobjectionable manners and influential +character; she should have amiability and a discreet temper, for she is +to be a guiding force in a complex community, continually in the +presence of her students, an officer of administration and government no +less than of instruction. Harvard and Johns Hopkins can ask their pupils +to attend the lectures of a great scholar, however brusque his bearing +or unbrushed his hair. They will not question their geniuses too +sharply, and will trust their students to look out for their own +proprieties of dress, manners, and speech. But neither Wellesley nor any +other woman's college could find a place in its faculty for a woman +Sophocles or Sylvester. Learning alone is not enough for women. + +Not only in the appointment of its teaching body, but in all its +appliances the separate college aims at a rounded refinement, at +cultivating a sense of beauty, at imparting simple tastes and +generous sympathies. To effect this, pictures are hung on the walls, +statues and flowers decorate the rooms, concerts bring music to the +magnified home, and parties and receptions are paid for out of the +college purse. The influence of hundreds of mentally eager girls +upon the characters of one another, when they live for four years in +the closest daily companionship, is most interesting to see. I have +watched the ennobling process go on for many years among Wellesley +students, and I am confident that no more healthy, generous, democratic, +beauty-loving, serviceable society of people exists than the girls' +college community affords. That choicest product of modern civilization, +the American girl, is here in all her diverse colors. She comes from +more than a dozen religious denominations and from every political +party; from nearly every state and territory in the Union, and from +the foreign lands into which English and American missionaries, +merchants, or soldiers have penetrated. The farmer's daughter from +the western prairies is beside the child whose father owns half a dozen +mill towns of New England. The pride of a Southern senator's home +rooms with an anxious girl who must borrow all the money for her +college course because her father's life was given for the Union. Side +by side in the boats, on the tennis-grounds, at the table, arm in arm on +the long walks, debating in the societies, vigorous together in the +gymnasium and the library, girls of every grade gather the rich +experiences which will tincture their future toil, and make the world +perpetually seem an interesting and friendly place. They here learn to +"see great things large, and little things small." + +This detailed explanation of the peculiarities of the girls' college +renders unnecessary any long discussion of its strengths and weaknesses. +According to the point of view of the critic these peculiarities +themselves will be counted means of invigoration or of enfeeblement. +Living so close to one another as girls here do, the sympathetic and +altruistic virtues acquire great prominence. Petty selfishness retreats +or becomes extinct. An earnest, high-minded spirit is easily cultivated, +and the break between college life and the life from which the student +comes is reduced to a minimum. + +It is this very fact which is often alleged as the chief objection to +the girls' college. It is said that its students never escape from +themselves and their domestic standard, that they do not readily acquire +a scientific spirit, and become individual in taste and conduct. Is it +desirable that they should? That I shall not undertake to decide. I have +merely tried to explain the kinds of human work which the different +types of higher training-schools are best fitted to effect for women. +Whether the one or the other kind of work needs most to be done is a +question of social ethics which the future must answer. I have set forth +a type, perhaps in the endeavor after clearness exaggerating a little +its outlines, and contrasting it more sharply with its two neighbor +types than individual cases would justify. There are colleges for women +which closely approximate in aim and method the colleges for men. No +doubt those which move furthest in the directions I have indicated are +capable of modification. But I believe what I have said gives a +substantially true account of an actually existing type--a type powerful +in stirring the enthusiasm of those who are submitted to it, subtle in +its penetrating influences over them, and effective in winning the +confidence of a multitude of parents who would never send their +daughters to colleges of a different type. + +The third type is the "annex," a recent and interesting experiment in +the education of girls, whose future it is yet difficult to predict. +Only a few cases exist, and as the Harvard Annex is the most +conspicuous, by reason of its dozen years of age and nearly two hundred +students, I shall describe it as the typical example. In the Harvard +Annex groups of young women undertake courses of study in classes whose +instruction is furnished entirely by members of the Harvard Faculty. No +college officer is obliged to give this instruction, and the Annex staff +of teachers is, therefore, liable to considerable variation from year to +year. Though the usual four classes appear in its curriculum, the large +majority of its students devote themselves to special subjects. A +wealthy girl turns from fashionable society to pursue a single course in +history or economics; a hard-worked teacher draws inspiration during a +few afternoons each week from a famous Greek or Latin professor; a woman +who has been long familiar with French literature explores with a +learned specialist some single period in the history of the language. +Because the opportunities for advanced and detached study are so +tempting, many ladies living in the neighborhood of the Annex enter one +or more of its courses. There are consequently among its students women +much older than the average of those who attend the colleges. + +The business arrangements are taken charge of by a committee of ladies +and gentlemen, who provide classrooms, suggest boarding-places, secure +the instructors, solicit the interest of the public--in short, manage +all the details of an independent institution; for the noteworthy +feature of its relation to its powerful neighbor is this: that the two, +while actively friendly, have no official or organic tie whatever. In +the same city young men and young women of collegiate rank are studying +the same subjects under the same instructors; but there are two +colleges, not one. No detail in the management of Harvard College is +changed by the presence in Cambridge of the Harvard Annex. If the +corporation of Harvard should assume the financial responsibility, +supervise the government, and give the girl graduates degrees, making no +other changes whatever, the Annex would then become a school of the +university, about as distinct from Harvard College as the medical, law, +or divinity schools. The students of the medical school do not attend +the same lectures or frequent the same buildings as the college +undergraduates. The immediate governing boards of college and medical +school are separate. But here comparison fails, for the students of the +professional schools may elect courses in the college and make use of +all its resources. This the young women cannot do. They have only the +rights of all Cambridge ladies to attend the many public lectures and +readings of the university. + +The Harvard Annex is, then, to-day a woman's college, with no degrees, +no dormitories, no women instructors, and with a staff of teachers made +up from volunteers of another college. The Fay House, where offices, +lecture and waiting rooms, library and laboratories are gathered, is in +the heart of Old Cambridge, but at a little distance from the college +buildings. This is the centre of the social and literary life of the +students. Here they gather their friends at afternoon teas; here the +various clubs which have sprung up, as numbers have increased, hold +their meetings and give their entertainments. The students lodge in all +parts of Cambridge and the neighboring towns, and are directly +responsible for their conduct only to themselves. The ladies of the +management are lavish in time and care to make the girls' lives happy +and wholesome; the secretary is always at hand to give advice; but the +personal life of the students is as separate and independent as in the +typical coeducational college. + +It is impossible to estimate either favorably or adversely the +permanent worth of an undertaking still in its infancy. Manifestly, +the opportunities for the very highest training are here superb, if +they happen to exist at all. In this, however, is the incalculable +feature of the system. The Annex lives by favor, not by right, and it is +impossible to predict what the extent of favor may at any time be. A +girl hears that an admirable course of lectures has been given on a +topic in which she is greatly interested. She arranges to join the +Annex and enter the course, but learns in the summer vacation that +through pressure of other work the professor will be unable to teach in +the Annex the following year. The fact that favor rules, and not +rights, peculiarly hampers scientific and laboratory courses, and +for its literary work obliges the Annex largely to depend on its own +library. Yet when all these weaknesses are confessed--and by none are +they confessed more frankly than by the wise and devoted managers of the +Annex themselves--it should be said that hitherto they have not +practically hindered the formation of a spirit of scholarship, +eager, free and sane to an extraordinary degree. The Annex girl +succeeds in remaining a private and unobserved gentlewoman, while still, +in certain directions, pushing her studies to an advanced point seldom +reached elsewhere. + +A plan in some respects superficially analogous to the American annex +has been in operation for many years at the English, and more recently +at some of the Scotch universities, where a hall or college for women +uses many of the resources of the university. But this plan is so +complicated with the peculiar organization of English university life +that it cannot usefully be discussed here. In the few colleges in this +country where, very recently, the annex experiment is being tried, its +methods vary markedly. + +Barnard College in New York is an annex of Columbia only in a sense, for +not all her instruction is given by Columbia's teaching force, though +Columbia will confer degrees upon her graduates. The new Woman's College +at Cleveland sustains temporarily the same relations to Adelbert +College, though to a still greater extent she provides independent +instruction. + +In both Barnard and Cleveland women are engaged in instruction and in +government. Indeed, the new annexes which have arisen in the last three +years seem to promise independent colleges for women in the immediate +neighborhood of, and in close relationship with, older and better +equipped universities for men, whose resources they can to some extent +use, whose standards they can apply, whose tests they can meet. When +they possess a fixed staff of teachers they are not, of course, liable +to the instabilities which at present beset the Harvard Annex. So far, +however, as these teachers belong to the annex, and are not drawn from +the neighboring university, the annex is assimilated to the type of the +ordinary woman's college, and loses its distinctive merits. If the +connection between it and the university should ever become so close +that it had the same right to the professors as the university itself, +it would become a question whether the barriers between the men's and +the women's lecture rooms could be economically maintained. + +The preceding survey has shown how in coeducation a woman's study is +carried on inside a man's college, in the women's college outside it, +in the annex beside it. Each of these situations has its advantage. But +will the community be content to accept this; permanently to forego the +counter advantages, and even after it fully realizes the powers and +limitations of the different types, firmly to maintain them in their +distinctive vigor? Present indications render this improbable. Already +coeducational colleges incline to more careful leadership for their +girls. The separate colleges, with growing wealth, are learning to value +intrepidity, and are carrying their operations close up to the lands of +the Ph.D. The annex swings in its middle air, sometimes inclining to the +one side, sometimes to the other. And outside them all, the great body +of men's colleges continually find it harder to maintain their +isolation, and extend one privilege after another to the seeking sex. + +The result of all these diversities is the most instructive body of +experiment that the world has seen for determining the best ways of +bringing woman to her powers. While the public mind is so uncertain, so +liable to panic, and so doubtful whether, after all, it is not better +for a girl to be a goose, the many methods of education assist one +another mightily in their united warfare against ignorance, selfish +privileges, and antiquated ideals. It is well that for a good while to +come woman's higher education should be all things to all mothers, if by +any means it may save girls. Those who are hardy enough may continue to +mingle their girls with men; while a parent who would be shocked that +her daughter should do anything so ambiguous as to enter a man's college +may be persuaded to send her to a girls'. Those who find it easier to +honor an old university than the eager life of a young college, may be +tempted into an annex. The important thing is that the adherents of +these differing types should not fall into jealousy, and belittle the +value of those who are performing a work which they themselves cannot do +so well. To understand one another kindly is the business of the +hour--to understand and to wait. + + +FOOTNOTES: + + [14] Published in _The Forum_ for September, 1891. + + + + +XIV + +WOMEN'S EDUCATION IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY[15] + + +One of the most distinctive and far-reaching movements of the nineteenth +century is that which has brought about the present large opportunities +for the higher education of women. Confining itself to no country, this +vast movement has advanced rapidly in some, slowly and timidly in +others. In America three broad periods mark its progress: first, the +period of quiescence, which ends about 1830; second, the period of +agitation, ending with the civil war; the third, though far as yet from +completion, may be called the period of accomplishment. + +For the first two hundred years in the history of our country little +importance was attached to the education of women, though before the +nineteenth century began, twenty-four colleges had been founded for the +education of men. In the early years of this century private schools for +girls were expensive and short-lived. The common schools were the only +grades of public instruction open to young women. In the cities of +Massachusetts, where more was done for the education of boys than +elsewhere, girls were allowed to go to school only a small part of the +year, and in some places could even then use the schoolroom only in the +early hours of the day, or on those afternoons when the boys had a +half-holiday. Anything like a careful training of girls was not yet +thought of. + +This comparative neglect of women is less to be wondered at when we +remember that the colleges which existed at the beginning of this +century had been founded to fit men for the learned professions, +chiefly for the ministry. Neither here nor elsewhere was it customary to +give advanced education to boys destined for business. The country, +too, was impoverished by the long struggle for independence. The +Government was bankrupt, unable to pay its veteran soldiers. Irritation +and unrest were everywhere prevalent until the ending of the second war +with England, in 1815. Immediately succeeding this began that great +migration to the West and South-west which carried thousands of the +most ambitious young men and women from the East to push our frontiers +farther and farther into the wilderness. Even in the older parts of +the country the population was widely scattered. The people lived for +the most part in villages and isolated farms. City life was uncommon. As +late as 1840 only nine per cent of the population was living in +cities of 8000 or more inhabitants. Under such conditions nothing more +than the bare necessities of education could be regarded. + +But this very isolation bred a kind of equality. In district schools it +became natural for boys and girls to study together and to receive the +same instruction from teachers who were often young and enthusiastic. +These were as a rule college students, granted long winter vacations +from their own studies that they might earn money by teaching village +schools. Thus most young women shared with their brothers the best +elementary training the country afforded, while college education was +reserved for the few young men who were preparing for the ministry or +for some other learned profession. + +From the beginning it had been the general custom of this country to +educate boys and girls together up to the college age. To-day in less +than six per cent of all our cities is there any separate provision of +schools for boys and girls. This habitual early start together has made +it natural for our men and women subsequently to read the same books, to +have the same tastes and interests, and jointly to approve a large +social freedom. On the whole, women have usually had more leisure than +men for the cultivating of scholarly tastes. + +The first endowment of the higher education of women in this country was +made by the Moravians in the seminary for girls which they founded at +Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, in 1749. They founded another girls' seminary +at Lititz in 1794. Though both of these honorable foundations continue +in effective operation to-day, their influence has been for the most +part confined to the religious communion of their founders. In 1804 an +academy with wider connections was founded at Bradford, Massachusetts, +at first open to boys and girls, since 1836 limited to girls. From that +time academies and seminaries for girls increased rapidly. One of the +most notable was Troy Seminary, founded by Emma Hart Willard and +chartered in 1819. Miss Willard drew up broad and original plans for the +higher education of girls, laid them before President Monroe, appealed +to the New York Legislature for aid, and dreamed of establishing +something like collegiate training. More than three hundred students +entered her famous seminary, and for seventeen years she carried it on +with growing reputation. Her address to the President in 1819 is still a +strong statement of the importance to the republic of an enlightened and +disciplined womanhood. + +Even more influential was the life and work of Mary Lyon, who in 1837 +founded Mount Holyoke Seminary, and labored for the education of women +until her death, in 1849. Of strong religious nature, great courage and +resource, she went up and down New England securing funds and pupils. +Her rare gift of inspiring both men and women induced wide acceptance +of her ideals of character and intelligence. Seminaries patterned after +Mount Holyoke sprang up all over the land, and still remain as centres +of powerful influence, particularly in the Middle West and on the +Pacific Coast. + +With this development, through the endowment of many excellent +seminaries, of the primary education of girls into something like +secondary or high-school opportunities, the period of quiescence comes +to an end. There follows a period of agitation when the full privilege +of college training side by side with men was demanded for women. This +agitation was closely connected on the one hand with the antislavery +movement and the general passion for moral reform at that time current; +and, on the other, with the interest in teaching and that study of its +methods which Horace Mann fostered. From 1830 to 1865 it was becoming +evident that women were destined to have a large share in the +instruction of children. For this work they sought to fit themselves, +and the reformers aided them. Oberlin College, which began as a +collegiate institute in 1833, was in 1850 chartered as a college. From +the beginning it admitted women, and in 1841 three women took its +diploma. Antioch College, under Horace Mann's leadership, opened in +1853, admitting women on equal terms with men. In 1855 Elmira College +was founded, the first institution chartered as a separate college for +women. + +Even before the Civil War the commercial interests of the country had +become so much extended that trade was rising into a dignity comparable +to that of the learned professions. Men were more and more deserting +teaching for the business life, and their places, at first chiefly in +the lower grades, were being filled by women. During the five years of +the war this supersession of men by women teachers advanced rapidly. It +has since acquired such impetus that at present more than two thirds of +the training of the young of both sexes below the college grade has +fallen out of the hands of men. In the mean time, too, though in smaller +numbers, women have invaded the other professions and have even entered +into trade. These demonstrations of a previously unsuspected capacity +have been both the cause and the effect of enlarged opportunities for +mental equipment. The last thirty or forty years have seen the opening +of that new era in women's education which I have ventured to call the +period of accomplishment. + +From the middle of the century the movement to open the state +universities to women, to found colleges for men and women on equal +terms, and to establish independent colleges for women spread rapidly. +From their first organization the state universities of Utah (1850), +Iowa (1856), Washington (1862), Kansas (1866), Minnesota (1868), +Nebraska (1871) admitted women. Indiana, founded in 1820, opened its +doors to women in 1868, and was followed in 1870 by Michigan, at that +time the largest and far the most influential of all the state +universities. From that time the movement became general. The example of +Michigan was followed until at the present time all the colleges and +universities of the West, excepting those under Catholic management, are +open to women. The only state university in the East, that of Maine, +admitted women in 1872. Virginia, Georgia, and Louisiana alone among all +the state universities of the country remain closed to women. This +sudden opening to women of practically all universities supported by +public funds is not more extraordinary than the immense endowments which +during the same period have been put into independent colleges for +women, or into colleges which admit men and women on equal terms. Of +these privately endowed colleges, Cornell, originally founded for men, +led the way in 1872 in opening its doors to women. The West and South +followed rapidly, the East more slowly. Of the 480 colleges which at the +end of the century are reported by the Bureau of Education, 336 admit +women; or, excluding the Catholic colleges, 80 per cent of all are open +to women. Of the sixty leading colleges in the United States there are +only ten in which women are not admitted to some department. These ten +are all on the Atlantic seaboard and are all old foundations. + +This substantial accomplishment during the last forty years of the right +of women to a college education has not, however, resulted in fixing a +single type of college in which that education shall be obtained. On the +contrary, three clearly contrasted types now exist side by side. These +are the independent college, the coeducational college, and the +affiliated college. + +To the independent college for women men are not admitted, though the +grade, the organization, and the general aim are supposed to be the same +as in the colleges exclusively for men. The first college of this type, +Elmira (1855), has been already mentioned. The four largest women's +colleges--Vassar, opened in 1861; Smith, in 1875; Wellesley, in 1875, +and Bryn Mawr, in 1885--take rank among the sixty leading colleges of +the country in wealth, equipment, teachers and students, and variety of +studies offered. Wells College, chartered as a college in 1870, the +Woman's College of Baltimore, opened in 1888, and Mt. Holyoke, +reorganized as a college in 1893, have also large endowments and +attendance. All the women's colleges are empowered to confer the same +degrees as are given in the men's colleges. + +The development of coeducation, the prevailing type of education in the +United States for both men and women, has already been sufficiently +described. In coeducational colleges men and women have the same +instructors, recite in the same classes, and enjoy the same freedom in +choice of studies. To the faculties of these colleges women are +occasionally appointed, and, like their male colleagues, teach mixed +classes of men and women. Many coeducational colleges are without halls +of residence. Where these exist, special buildings are assigned to the +women students. + +The affiliated colleges, while exclusively for women, are closely +connected with strong colleges for men, whose equipment and +opportunities they are expected in some degree to share. At present +there are five such: Radcliffe College, the originator of this type, +connected with Harvard University, and opened in 1879; Sophie Newcomb +Memorial College, at Tulane University, opened in 1886; the College for +Women of Western Reserve University, 1888; Barnard College, at Columbia +University, 1889; the Woman's College of Brown University, 1892. In all +these colleges the standards for entrance and graduation are the same as +those exacted from men in the universities with which they are +affiliated. To a considerable extent the instructors also are the same. + +During the last quarter-century many professional schools have been +opened to women--schools of theology, law, medicine, dentistry, +pharmacy, technology, agriculture. The number of women entering these +professions is rapidly increasing. Since 1890 the increase of women +students in medicine is 64 per cent, in dentistry 205 per cent, in +pharmacy 190 per cent, in technology and agriculture 194 per cent. + +While this great advance has been accomplished in America, women in +England and on the Continent, especially during the last thirty years, +have been demanding better education. Though much more slowly and in +fewer numbers than in this country, they have everywhere succeeded in +securing decided advantages. No country now refuses them a share in +liberal study, in the instruction of young children, and in the +profession of medicine. As might be expected, English-speaking women, +far more than any others, have won and used the opportunities of +university training. Since 1860 women have been studying at Cambridge, +England, and since 1879 at Oxford. At these ancient seats of learning +they have now every privilege except the formal degree. To all other +English and Scotch universities, and to the universities of the British +colonies, women are admitted, and from them they receive degrees. + +In the most northern countries of Europe--in Iceland, Finland, Norway, +Sweden, Denmark--the high schools and universities are freely open to +women. In eastern Europe able women have made efforts to secure advanced +study, and these efforts have been most persistent in Russia and since +the Crimean war. When denied in their own land, Russian women have +flocked to the Swiss and French universities, and have even gone in +considerable numbers to Finland and to Italy. Now Russia is slowly +responding to its women's entreaties. During the last ten years the +universities of Rumania, Bulgaria, Hungary, and Greece have been open to +women; while in Constantinople the American College for Girls offers the +women of the East the systematic training of the New England type of +college. In western, central, and southern Europe all university doors +are open. In these countries, degrees and honors may everywhere be had +by women, except in Germany and Austria. Even here, by special +permission of the Minister of Education, or the professor in charge, +women may hear lectures. Each year, too, more women are granted degrees +by special vote and as exceptional cases. + +In brief, it may be said that practically all European universities are +now open to women. No American woman of scholarship, properly qualified +for the work she undertakes, need fear refusal if she seeks the +instruction of the greatest European scholars in her chosen field. Each +year American women are taking with distinction the highest university +degrees of the Continent. To aid them, many fellowships and graduate +scholarships, ranging in value from $300 to $1000, are offered for +foreign study by our colleges for women and by private associations of +women who seek to promote scholarship. Large numbers of ambitious young +women who are preparing themselves for teaching or for the higher fields +of scientific research annually compete for this aid. Three years ago an +association was formed for maintaining an American woman's table in the +Zoölogical Station at Naples. By paying $500 a year they are thus able +to grant to selected students the most favorable conditions for +biological investigation. This association has also just offered a prize +of $1000, to be granted two years hence, for the best piece of original +scientific work done in the mean time by a woman. The American Schools +of Classical Studies in Athens and Rome admit women on the same terms as +men, and award their fellowships to men and women indifferently. One of +these fellowships, amounting to $1000 a year, has just been won by a +woman. + +The experience, then, of the last thirty years shows a condition of +women's education undreamed of at the beginning of the century. It shows +that though still hampered here and there by timorous restrictions, +women are in substantial possession of much the same opportunities as +are available for men. It shows that they have both the capacity and the +desire for college training, that they can make profitable and approved +use of it when obtained, and that they are eager for that broader and +more original study after college work is over which is at once the +most novel and the most glorious feature of university education to-day. +Indeed, women have taken more than their due proportion of the prizes, +honors, and fellowships which have been accessible to them on the same +terms as to men. Their resort to institutions of higher learning has +increased far more than that of men. In 1872 the total number of college +students in each million of population was 590. Last year it had risen +to 1270, much more than doubling in twenty-seven years. During this time +the number of men had risen from 540 to 947, or had not quite doubled. +The women rose from 50 in 1872 to 323 in 1899, having increased their +former proportional number more than six times, and this advance has +also been maintained in graduate and professional schools. + +The immensity of the change which the last century has wrought in +women's education may best be seen by setting side by side the +conditions at its beginning and at its close. In 1800 no colleges for +women existed, and only two endowed schools for girls--these belonging +to a small German sect. They had no high schools, and the best grammar +schools in cities were open to them only under restrictions. The +commoner grammar and district schools, and an occasional private school +dedicated to "accomplishments," were their only avenues to learning. +There was little hostility to their education, since it was generally +assumed by men and by themselves that intellectual matters did not +concern them. No profession was open to them, not even that of teaching, +and only seven possible trades and occupations. + +In 1900 a third of all the college students in the United States are +women. Sixty per cent of the pupils in the secondary schools, both +public and private, are girls--_i.e._ more girls are preparing for +college than boys. Women having in general more leisure than men, there +is reason to expect that there will soon be more women than men in our +colleges and graduate schools. The time, too, has passed when girls went +to college to prepare themselves solely for teaching or for other +bread-winning occupations. In considerable numbers they now seek +intellectual resources and the enrichment of their private lives. Thus +far between 50 and 60 per cent of women college graduates have at some +time taught. In the country at large more than 70 per cent of the +teaching is done by women, in the North Atlantic portion over 80 per +cent. Even in the secondary schools, public and private, more women than +men are teaching, though in all other countries the advanced instruction +of boys is exclusively in the hands of men. Never before has a nation +intrusted all the school training of the vast majority of its future +population, men as well as women, to women alone. + + +FOOTNOTES: + + [15] Published in _The New York Evening Post_, 1900. + + + + +XV + +WOMEN'S EDUCATION AT THE WORLD'S FAIR[16] + + +Few persons have stood in the Court of Honor at Chicago and felt the +surpassing splendors gathered there, without a certain dismay over its +swiftly approaching disappearance. Never in the world before has beauty +been so lavish and so transient. Probably in all departments of the Fair +a hundred million dollars have been spent. Now the nation's holiday is +done, the little half-year is over, and the palaces with their widely +gathered treasures vanish like a dream. Is all indeed gone? Will nothing +remain? Wise observers perceive some permanent results of the +merry-making. What these will be in the busy life of men, others may +decide: I point out chiefly a few of the beneficial influences of the +great Fair on the life of women. + +The triumph of women in what may be called their detached existence, +that is, in their guidance of themselves and the separated affairs of +their sex, has been unexpectedly great. The Government appointed an +independent Board of Lady Managers who, through many difficulties, +gathered from every quarter of the globe interesting exhibits of +feminine industry and skill. These they gracefully disposed in one of +the most dignified buildings of the Fair, itself a woman's design. Here +they attractively illustrated every aspect of the life of women, +domestic, philanthropic, commercial, literary, artistic, and traced +their historic advance. Close at hand, in another building also of their +own erection, they appropriately appeared as the guardians and teachers +of little children. Their halls were crowded, their dinners praised, +their reception invitations coveted. Throughout they showed organizing +ability on a huge scale; they developed noteworthy leaders; what is +more, they followed them, and they have quarrelled no more, and have +pulled wires less, than men in similar situations; their courage, their +energy, their tact in the erection of a monument to woman were +astonishing; and the efforts of their Central Board were efficiently +seconded by similar companies in every state. As in the Sanitary and +Christian Commissions and the hospital service of the war, in the +multitude of women's clubs, the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, the +King's Daughters, the associations for promoting women's suffrage, so +once more here women found an opportunity to prove their ability as a +banded sex; and it is clear that they awakened in the nation a deeper +respect for their powers. + +But the very triumph does away with its further necessity. Having amply +proved what they can do when banded together, women may now the more +easily cease to treat themselves as a peculiar people. Henceforth they +are human beings. Women's buildings, women's exhibits, may safely become +things of the past. At any future fair no special treatment of women +is likely to be called for. After what has been achieved, the +self-consciousness of women will be lessened, and their sensitiveness +about their own position, capacity, and rights will be naturally +outgrown. The anthropologist may perhaps still assemble the work of a +single sex, the work of people of a single color, or of those having +blue eyes. But ordinary people will find less and less interest in +these artificial classifications, and will more and more incline to +measure men's and women's products by the same scale. Even at Chicago +large numbers of women preferred to range their exhibits in the common +halls rather than under feminine banners, and their demonstration of +the needlessness of any special treatment of their sex must be reckoned +as one of the most considerable of the permanent gains for women from +the Fair. + +If, then, women have demonstrated that they are more than isolated +phenomena, that they should indeed be treated as integral members of the +human family, in order to estimate rightly the lasting advantages they +have derived from the Fair we must seek those advantages not in +isolations but in conjunctions. In the common life of man there is a +womanly side and a manly side. Both have profited by one splendid event. +Manufactures and transportation and mining and agriculture will +hereafter be different because of what has occurred at Chicago; but so +will domestic science, the training of the young, the swift intellectual +interest, the finer patriotism, the apprehension of beauty, the moral +balance. It is by growth in these things that the emancipation of women +is to come about, and the Fair has fostered them all in an extraordinary +degree. + +Although the Fair was officially known as a World's Fair, and it did +contain honorable contributions from many foreign countries, it was, in +a sense that no other exhibition has been before, a nation's fair. It +was the climacteric expression of America's existence. It gathered +together our past and our present, and indicated not uncertainly our +future. Here were made visible our beginnings, our achievements, our +hopes, our dreams. The nation became conscious of itself and was strong, +beautiful, proud. All sections of the country not only contributed their +most characteristic objects of use and beauty, but their inhabitants +also came, and learned to know one another, and their land. During the +last two years there has hardly been a village in the country which has +not had its club or circle studying the history of the United States. No +section has been too poor to subscribe money for maintaining national +or state pride. In order to see the great result, men have mortgaged +their farms, lonely women have taken heavy life insurance, stringent +economy will gladly be practised for years. A friend tells me that she +saw an old man, as he left the Court of Honor with tears in his eyes, +turn to his gray-haired wife and say, "Well, Susan, it paid even if it +did take all the burial money." + +Once before, we reached a similar pitch of national consciousness,--in +war. Young, unprepared, divided against ourselves, we found ourselves +able to mass great armies, endure long strains, organize campaigns, +commissariats, hospitals, in altogether independent ways, and on a scale +greater than Europe had seen. Then men and women alike learned the value +of mutual confidence, the strength of coöperation and organization. Once +again now, but this time in the interest of beauty and of peace, we have +studied the art of subordinating fragmentary interests to those of a +whole. The training we have received as a nation in producing and +studying the Fair, must result in a deeper national dignity, which will +both free us from irritating sensitiveness over foreign criticism, and +give us readiness to learn from other countries whatever lessons they +can teach. Our own provinces too will become less provincial. With +increased acquaintance, the East has begun to drop its toleration of the +West, and to put friendliness and honor in its place. No more will it +be believed along the Atlantic coast that the Mississippi Valley cares +only for pork, grain and lumber. As such superstitions decay, a more +trustful unity becomes possible. The entire nation knows itself a +nation, possessed of common ideals. In this heightened national dignity, +women will have a large and ennobling share. + +But further, from the Fair men, and women with them, have acquired a new +sense of the gains that come from minute obedience to law. Hitherto, "go +as you please" has been pretty largely the principle of American life. +In the training school of the last two years of preparation and the six +months of the holding of the Fair, our people, particularly our women, +have been solidly taught the hard and needful lesson that whims, +waywardness, haste, inaccuracy, pettiness, personal considerations, do +not make for strength. Wherever these have entered, they have flawed the +beautiful whole, and flecked the honor of us all. Where they have been +absent results have appeared which make us all rejoice. Never in so wide +an undertaking was the unity of a single design so triumphant. As an +unknown multitude coöperated in the building of a mediæval cathedral, so +throughout our land multitudes have been daily ready to contribute their +unmarked best for the erection of a common glory. We have thus learned +to prize second thoughts above first thoughts, to league our lives and +purposes with those of others, and to subordinate the assertion of +ourselves to that of a universal reason. Hence has sprung a new trust in +one another and a new confidence in our future. The friendliness of our +people, already rendered natural by our democratic institutions, has +received a deeper sanction. How distinctly it was marked on the faces of +the visitors at the Fair! I was fortunate enough to spend several hours +there on Chicago Day, when nearly seven hundred and fifty thousand +people were admitted. The appearance of those plain, intelligent, happy, +helpful thousands, all strangers and all kind, was the most encouraging +sight one woman had at the Fair. It has been said that the moral +education of a child consists in imparting to him the three qualities, +obedience, sympathy, dignity. These all have been taught by the Fair, +and women, more swiftly perceptive than men, have probably learned their +lesson best. + +One more profound effect of the Fair upon human character must be +mentioned, on character in those features which are of especial +importance to women. Our people have here gained a new sense of beauty, +and of beauty at its highest and rarest, not the beauty of ornament and +decoration, but that of proportion, balance, and ordered suitability of +parts. Every girl likes pretty things, but the rational basis of beauty +in the harmonious expression of use, and in furnishing to the eye the +quiet satisfaction of its normal demands, seldom attracts attention. At +Chicago these things became apparent. Each building outwardly announced +its inner purpose. Each gained its effect mainly by outline and balance +of masses rather than by richness of detail. Each was designed in +reference to its site and to its neighbor buildings. Almost every one +rested the eye which it still stimulated. Color, form, purpose, +proportion, sculpture, vegetation, stretches of water, the brown earth, +all coöperated toward the happy effect. What visitor could see it and +not have begotten in him the demand for beauty in his own surroundings? +It is said that the Centennial Exhibition affected the domestic +architecture and the household decoration of the whole eastern seaboard. +The Fair will do the same, but it will bring about a beauty of a higher, +simpler sort. In people from every section, artistic taste has been +developed, or even created; and not only in their houses, but in the +architecture of their public buildings and streets shall we see the +results of this vision of the White City by the Lake. Huddled houses in +incongruous surroundings will become less common. At heart we Americans +are idealists, and at a time when the general wealth is rapidly +increasing, it is an indescribable gain to have had such a training of +the æsthetic sense as days among the great buildings and nights on the +lagoons have brought to millions of our people. The teachability of the +common American is almost pathetic. One building was always crowded--the +Fine Arts Building; yet great pictures were the one thing exhibited with +which Americans have hitherto had little or no acquaintance. This +beauty, connected essentially with the feminine side of life, will +hereafter, through the influence of the Fair, become a more usual +possession of us all. + +If such are the permanent gains for character which women in common with +men, yet even more than they, have derived from the Fair, there remain +to be considered certain helps which have been brought to women in some +of their most distinctive occupations. Of course they have had here an +opportunity to compare the different kinds of sewing-machines, pianos, +type-writers, telegraphs, clothes-wringers, stoves, and baby-carriages, +and no doubt they will do their future work with these complicated +engines more effectively because of such comparative study. But there +are three departments which ancestral usage has especially consecrated +to women, and to intelligent methods in each of these the Fair has given +a mighty impulse. These three departments are the care of the home, the +care of the young, and the care of the sick, the poor, and the +depraved. + +At Philadelphia in 1876 Vienna bread was made known, and the native +article, sodden with saleratus, which up to that time had desolated the +country, began to disappear. The results in cookery from the Chicago +Exhibition will be wider. They touch the kitchen with intelligence at +more points. Where tradition has reigned unquestioned, science is +beginning to penetrate, and we are no longer allowed to eat without +asking why and what. This new "domestic science"--threatening word--was +set forth admirably in the Rumford Kitchen, where a capital thirty-cent +luncheon was served every day, compounded of just those ingredients +which the human frame could be demonstrated to require. The health-food +companies, too, arrayed their appetizing wares. Workingmen's homes +showed on how small a sum a family could live, and live well. +Arrangements for sterilizing water and milk were there, Atkinson +cookers, gas and kerosene stoves. The proper sanitation of the home +was taught, and boards of health turned out to the plain gaze of the +world their inquisitorial processes. Numberless means of increasing +the health, ease, and happiness of the household with the least +expenditure of time and money were here studied by crowds of despairing +housekeepers. Many, no doubt, were bewildered; but many, too, went away +convinced that the most ancient employment of women was rising to the +dignity and attractiveness of a learned profession. + +When it is remembered that nine tenths of the teachers of elementary +schools are women, it can be seen how important for them was the +magnificent educational exhibit. Here could be studied all that the age +counts best in kindergarten, primary, grammar, high and normal schools, +and in all the varieties of training in cookery, sewing, dressmaking, +manual training, drawing, painting, carving. Many of the exhibitors +showed great skill in making their methods apprehensible to the +stranger. + +And then there were the modes of bodily training, and the lamentable +image of the misformed average girl; and in the children's building +classes could actually be seen engaged in happy exercise, and close at +hand appliances for the nursery and the playground. Nor in the enlarged +appliances for woman's domestic life must those be omitted which tell +how cheaply and richly the girl may now obtain a college training like +her brother, and become as intelligent as he. No woman went away from +the educational exhibits of the Fair in the belief that woman's sphere +was necessarily narrow. + +There is no need to dilate on the light shed by the Fair upon problems +of sickness, poverty, and crime. Everybody knows that nothing so +complete had been seen before. The Anthropological Building was a museum +of these subjects, and scattered in other parts of the Fair was much to +interest the puzzled and sympathetic soul. One could find out what an +ideal hospital was like, and how its service and appliances should be +ordered. One studied under competent teachers the care of the dependent +and delinquent classes. One learned to distinguish surface charity from +sound. As men grow busier and women more competent, the guidance of +philanthropy passes continually more and more into the gentler hands. +Women serve largely on boards of hospitals, prisons, charities, and +reforms, and urgently feel the need of ampler knowledge. The Fair did +much to show them ways of obtaining it. + +Such are the permanent results of the Fair most likely to affect +women. They fall into three classes: the proofs women have given of +their independent power, their ability to organize and to work toward +a distant, difficult, and complex end; the enlargement of their +outlook, manifesting itself in a new sense of membership in a +nation, a more willing obedience to law, and a higher appreciation of +beauty; and, lastly, the direct assistance given to women in their +more characteristic employments of housekeeping, teaching, and +ministering to the afflicted. That these are all, or even the most +important, results which each woman will judge she has obtained, is not +pretended. Everybody saw at the Fair something which brought to +individual him or her a gain incomparable. + +And, after all, the greatest thing was the total, glittering, murmurous, +restful, magical, evanescent Fair itself, seated by the blue waters, +wearing the five crowns, served by novel boatmen, and with the lap so +full of treasure that as piece by piece it was held up, it shone, was +wondered at, and was lost again in the pile. This amazing spectacle will +flash for years upon the inward eye of our people, and be a joy of their +solitude. + + +FOOTNOTES: + + [16] Published in _The Forum_ for December, 1891. + + + + +XVI + +WHY GO TO COLLEGE? + + +To a largely increasing number of young girls college doors are opening +every year. Every year adds to the number of men who feel as a friend of +mine, a successful lawyer in a great city, felt when in talking of the +future of his four little children he said, "For the two boys it is not +so serious, but I lie down at night afraid to die and leave my daughters +only a bank account." Year by year, too, the experiences of life are +teaching mothers that happiness does not necessarily come to their +daughters when accounts are large and banks are sound, but that on the +contrary they take grave risks when they trust everything to accumulated +wealth and the chance of a happy marriage. Our American girls themselves +are becoming aware that they need the stimulus, the discipline, the +knowledge, the interests of the college in addition to the school, if +they are to prepare themselves for the most serviceable lives. + +But there are still parents who say, "There is no need that my daughter +should teach; then why should she go to college?" I will not reply that +college training is a life insurance for a girl, a pledge that she +possesses the disciplined ability to earn a living for herself and +others in case of need; for I prefer to insist on the importance of +giving every girl, no matter what her present circumstances, a special +training in some one thing by which she can render society service, not +of amateur but of expert sort, and service too for which it will be +willing to pay a price. The number of families will surely increase who +will follow the example of an eminent banker whose daughters have been +given each her specialty. One has chosen music, and has gone far with +the best masters in this country and in Europe, so far that she now +holds a high rank among musicians at home and abroad. Another has taken +art; and has not been content to paint pretty gifts for her friends, but +in the studios of New York, Munich, and Paris she has won the right to +be called an artist, and in her studio at home to paint portraits which +have a market value. A third has proved that she can earn her living, if +need be, by her exquisite jellies, preserves, and sweetmeats. Yet the +house in the mountains, the house by the sea, and the friends in the +city are not neglected, nor are these young women found less attractive +because of their special accomplishments. + +While it is not true that all girls should go to college any more than +that all boys should go, it is nevertheless true that they should go in +greater numbers than at present. They fail to go because they, their +parents, and their teachers, do not see clearly the personal benefits +distinct from the commercial value of a college training. I wish here to +discuss these benefits, these larger gifts of the college life,--what +they may be, and for whom they are waiting. + +It is undoubtedly true that many girls are totally unfitted by home and +school life for a valuable college course. These joys and successes, +these high interests and friendships, are not for the self-conscious and +nervous invalid, nor for her who in the exuberance of youth recklessly +ignores the laws of a healthy life. The good society of scholars and of +libraries and laboratories has no place and no attraction for her who +finds no message in Plato, no beauty in mathematical order, and who +never longs to know the meaning of the stars over her head or the +flowers under her feet. Neither will the finer opportunities of college +life appeal to one who, until she is eighteen (is there such a girl in +this country?), has felt no passion for the service of others, no desire +to know if through history, or philosophy, or any study of the laws of +society, she can learn why the world is so sad, so hard, so selfish as +she finds it, even when she looks upon it from the most sheltered life. +No, the college cannot be, should not try to be, a substitute for the +hospital, reformatory, or kindergarten. To do its best work it should be +organized for the strong, not for the weak; for the high-minded, +self-controlled, generous, and courageous spirits, not for the +indifferent, the dull, the idle, or those who are already forming their +characters on the amusement theory of life. All these perverted young +people may, and often do, get large benefit and invigoration, new +ideals, and unselfish purposes from their four years' companionship with +teachers and comrades of a higher physical, mental, and moral stature +than their own. I have seen girls change so much in college that I have +wondered if their friends at home would know them,--the voice, the +carriage, the unconscious manner, all telling a story of new tastes and +habits and loves and interests, that had wrought out in very truth a new +creature. Yet in spite of this I have sometimes thought that in college +more than elsewhere the old law holds, "To him that hath shall be given +and he shall have abundance, but from him who hath not shall be taken +away even that which he seemeth to have." For it is the young life which +is open and prepared to receive which obtains the gracious and uplifting +influences of college days. What, then, for such persons are the rich +and abiding rewards of study in college or university? + +Preëminently the college is a place of education. That is the ground of +its being. We go to college to know, assured that knowledge is sweet and +powerful, that a good education emancipates the mind and makes us +citizens of the world. No college which does not thoroughly educate can +be called good, no matter what else it does. No student who fails to get +a little knowledge on many subjects, and much knowledge on some, can be +said to have succeeded, whatever other advantages she may have found by +the way. It is a beautiful and significant fact that in all times the +years of learning have been also the years of romance. Those who love +girls and boys pray that our colleges may be homes of sound learning, +for knowledge is the condition of every college blessing. "Let no man +incapable of mathematics enter here," Plato is reported to have +inscribed over his Academy door. "Let no one to whom hard study is +repulsive hope for anything from us," American colleges might +paraphrase. Accordingly in my talk to-day I shall say little of the +direct benefits of knowledge which the college affords. These may be +assumed. It is on their account that one knocks at the college door. But +seeking this first, a good many other things are added. I want to point +out some of these collateral advantages of going to college, or rather +to draw attention to some of the many forms in which the winning of +knowledge presents itself. + +The first of these is happiness. Everybody wants "a good time," +especially every girl in her teens. A good time, it is true, does not +always in these years mean what it will mean by and by, any more than +the girl of eighteen plays with the doll which entranced the child of +eight. It takes some time to discover that work is the best sort of +play, and some people never discover it at all. But when mothers ask +such questions as these: "How can I make my daughter happy?" "How can I +give her the best society?" "How can she have a good time?" the answer +in most cases is simple. Send her to college--to almost any college. +Send her because there is no other place where between eighteen and +twenty-two she is so likely to have a genuinely good time. Merely for +good times, for romance, for society, college life offers unequalled +opportunities. Of course no idle person can possibly be happy, even for +a day, nor she who makes a business of trying to amuse herself. For full +happiness, though its springs are within, we want health and friends and +work and objects of aspiration. "We live by admiration, hope, and love," +says Wordsworth. The college abounds in all three. In the college time +new powers are sprouting, and intelligence, merriment, truthfulness, and +generosity are more natural than the opposite qualities often become in +later years. An exhilarating atmosphere pervades the place. We who are +in it all the time feel that we live at the fountain of perpetual youth, +and those who take but a four years' bath in it become more cheerful, +strong, and full of promise than they are ever likely to find +themselves again; for a college is a kind of compendium of the things +that most men long for. It is usually planted in a beautiful spot, the +charm of trees and water being added to stately buildings and +stimulating works of art. Venerable associations of the past hallow its +halls. Leaders in the stirring world of to-day return at each +Commencement to share the fresh life of the new class. Books, pictures, +music, collections, appliances in every field, learned teachers, +mirthful friends, athletics for holidays, the best words of the best men +for holy days,--all are here. No wonder that men look back upon their +college life as upon halcyon days, the romantic period of youth. No +wonder that Dr. Holmes's poems to his Harvard classmates find an echo in +college reunions everywhere; and gray-haired men, who outside the +narrowing circle of home have not heard their first names for years, +remain Bill and Joe and John and George to college comrades, even if +unseen for more than a generation. + +Yet a girl should go to college not merely to obtain four happy years, +but to make a second gain, which is often overlooked, and is little +understood even when perceived; I mean a gain in health. The old notion +that low vitality is a matter of course with women; that to be delicate +is a mark of superior refinement, especially in well-to-do families; +that sickness is a dispensation of Providence,--these notions meet with +no acceptance in college. Years ago I saw in the mirror frame of a +college freshman's room this little formula: "Sickness is carelessness, +carelessness is selfishness, and selfishness is sin." And I have often +noticed among college girls an air of humiliation and shame when obliged +to confess a lack of physical vigor, as if they were convicted of +managing life with bad judgment, or of some moral delinquency. With the +spreading scientific conviction that health is a matter largely under +each person's control, that even inherited tendencies to disease need +not be allowed to run their riotous course unchecked, there comes an +earnest purpose to be strong and free. Fascinating fields of knowledge +are waiting to be explored; possibilities of doing, as well as of +knowing, are on every side; new and dear friendships enlarge and sweeten +dreams of future study and work, and the young student cannot afford +quivering nerves or small lungs or an aching head any more than bad +taste, rough manners, or a weak will. Handicapped by inheritance or bad +training, she finds the plan of college life itself her supporter and +friend. The steady, long-continued routine of mental work, physical +exercise, recreation, and sleep, the simple and wholesome food, in place +of irregular and unstudied diet, work out salvation for her. Instead of +being left to go out of doors when she feels like it, the regular +training of the gymnasium, the boats on lake and river, the tennis +court, the golf links, the basket ball, the bicycle, the long walk among +the woods in search of botanical or geological specimens,--all these and +many more call to the busy student, until she realizes that they have +their rightful place in every well-ordered day of every month. So she +learns, little by little, that buoyant health is a precious possession +to be won and kept. + +It is significant that already statistical investigation in this country +and in England shows that the standard of health is higher among the +women who hold college degrees than among any other equal number of the +same age and class. And it is interesting also to observe to what sort +of questions our recent girl graduates have been inclined to devote +attention. They have been largely the neglected problems of little +children and their health, of home sanitation, of food and its choice +and preparation, of domestic service, of the cleanliness of schools and +public buildings. Colleges for girls are pledged by their very +constitution to make persistent war on the water cure, the nervine +retreat, the insane asylum, the hospital,--those bitter fruits of the +emotional lives of thousands of women. "I can never afford a sick +headache again, life is so interesting and there is so much to do," a +delicate girl said to me at the end of her first college year. And while +her mother was in a far-off invalid retreat, she undertook the battle +against fate with the same intelligence and courage which she put into +her calculus problems and her translations of Sophocles. Her beautiful +home and her rosy and happy children prove the measure of her hard-won +success. Formerly the majority of physicians had but one question for +the mother of the nervous and delicate girl, "Does she go to school?" +And only one prescription, "Take her out of school." Never a suggestion +as to suppers of pickles and pound-cake, never a hint about midnight +dancing and hurried daytime ways. But now the sensible doctor asks, +"What are her interests? What are her tastes? What are her habits?" And +he finds new interests for her, and urges the formation of out-of-door +tastes and steady occupation for the mind, in order to draw the morbid +girl from herself into the invigorating world outside. This the college +does largely through its third gift of friendship. + +Until a girl goes away from home to school or college, her friends are +chiefly chosen for her by circumstances. Her young relatives, her +neighbors in the same street, those who happen to go to the same school +or church,--these she makes her girlish intimates. She goes to college +with the entire conviction, half unknown to herself, that her father's +political party contains all the honest men, her mother's social circle +all the true ladies, her church all the real saints of the community. +And the smaller the town, the more absolute is her belief. But in +college she finds that the girl who earned her scholarship in the +village school sits beside the banker's daughter; the New England +farmer's child rooms next the heiress of a Hawaiian sugar plantation; +the daughters of the opposing candidates in a sharply fought election +have grown great friends in college boats and laboratories; and before +her diploma is won she realizes how much richer a world she lives in +than she ever dreamed of at home. The wealth that lies in differences +has dawned upon her vision. It is only when the rich and poor sit down +together that either can understand how the Lord is the Maker of them +all. + +To-day above all things we need the influence of men and women of +friendliness, of generous nature, of hospitality to new ideas, in short, +of social imagination. But instead, we find each political party +bitterly calling the other dishonest, each class suspicious of the +intentions of the other, and in social life the pettiest standards of +conduct. Is it not well for us that the colleges all over the country +still offer to their fortunate students a society of the most democratic +sort,--one in which a father's money, a mother's social position, can +assure no distinction and make no close friends? Here capacity of every +kind counts for its full value. Here enthusiasm waits to make heroes of +those who can lead. Here charming manners, noble character, amiable +temper, scholarly power, find their full opportunity and inspire such +friendships as are seldom made afterward. I have forgotten my chemistry, +and my classical philology cannot bear examination; but all round the +world there are men and women at work, my intimates of college days, who +have made the wide earth a friendly place to me. Of every creed, of +every party, in far-away places and in near, the thought of them makes +me more courageous in duty and more faithful to opportunity, though for +many years we may not have had time to write each other a letter. The +basis of all valuable and enduring friendships is not accident or +juxtaposition, but tastes, interests, habits, work, ambitions. It is for +this reason that to college friendship clings a romance entirely its +own. One of the friends may spend her days in the laboratory, eagerly +chasing the shy facts that hide beyond the microscope's fine vision, and +the other may fill her hours and her heart with the poets and the +philosophers; one may steadfastly pursue her way toward the command of a +hospital, and the other toward the world of letters and of art; these +divergences constitute no barrier, but rather an aid to the fulness of +friendship. And the fact that one goes in a simple gown which she has +earned and made herself, and the other lives when at home in a +merchant's modern palace--what has that to do with the things the girls +care about and the dreams they talk over in the walk by the river or the +bicycle ride through country roads? If any young man to-day goes through +Harvard lonely, neglected, unfriended, if any girl lives solitary and +wretched in her life at Wellesley, it is their own fault. It must be +because they are suspicious, unfriendly, or disagreeable themselves. +Certainly it is true that in the associations of college life, more than +in any other that the country can show, what is extraneous, artificial, +and temporary falls away, and the every-day relations of life and work +take on a character that is simple, natural, genuine. And so it comes +about that the fourth gift of college life is ideals of personal +character. + +To some people the shaping ideals of what character should be, often +held unconsciously, come from the books they read; but to the majority +they are given by the persons whom they most admire before they are +twenty years old. The greatest thing any friend or teacher, either in +school or college, can do for a student is to furnish him with a +personal ideal. The college professors who transformed me through my +acquaintance with them--ah, they were few, and I am sure I did not have +a dozen conversations with them outside their classrooms--gave me, each +in his different way, an ideal of character, of conduct, of the scholar, +the leader, of which they and I were totally unconscious at the time. +For many years I have known that my study with them, no matter whether +of philosophy or of Greek, of mathematics or history or English, +enlarged my notions of life, uplifted my standards of culture, and so +inspired me with new possibilities of usefulness and of happiness. Not +the facts and theories that I learned so much as the men who taught me, +gave this inspiration. The community at large is right in saying that it +wants the personal influence of professors on students, but it is wholly +wrong in assuming that this precious influence comes from frequent +meetings or talks on miscellaneous subjects. There is quite as likely to +be a quickening force in the somewhat remote and mysterious power of the +teacher who devotes himself to amassing treasures of scholarship, or to +patiently working out the best methods of teaching; who standing +somewhat apart, still remains an ideal of the Christian scholar, the +just, the courteous man or woman. To come under the influence of one +such teacher is enough to make college life worth while. A young man who +came to Harvard with eighty cents in his pocket, and worked his way +through, never a high scholar, and now in a business which looks very +commonplace, told me the other day that he would not care to be alive if +he had not gone to college. His face flushed as he explained how +different his days would have been if he had not known two of his +professors. "Do you use your college studies in your business?" I +asked. "Oh, no!" he answered. "But I am another man in doing the +business; and when the day's work is done I live another life because of +my college experiences. The business and I are both the better for it +every day." How many a young girl has had her whole horizon extended by +the changed ideals she gained in college! Yet this is largely because +the associations and studies there are likely to give her permanent +interests--the fifth and perhaps the greatest gift of college life of +which I shall speak. + +The old fairy story which charmed us in childhood ended with "And they +were married and lived happy ever after." It conducted to the altar, +having brought the happy pair through innumerable difficulties, and left +us with the contented sense that all the mistakes and problems would now +vanish and life be one long day of unclouded bliss. I have seen devoted +and intelligent mothers arrange their young daughters' education and +companionships precisely on this basis. They planned as if these pretty +and charming girls were going to live only twenty or twenty-five years +at the utmost, and had consequently no need of the wealthy interests +that should round out the fullgrown woman's stature, making her younger +in feeling at forty than at twenty, and more lovely and admired at +eighty than at either. + +Emerson in writing of beauty declares that "the secret of ugliness +consists not in irregular outline, but in being uninteresting. We love +any forms, however ugly, from which great qualities shine. If command, +eloquence, art, or invention exists in the most deformed person, all +the accidents that usually displease, please, and raise esteem and +wonder higher. Beauty without grace is the head without the body. +Beauty without expression tires." Of course such considerations can +hardly come with full force to the young girl herself, who feels aged +at eighteen, and imagines that the troubles and problems of life and +thought are hers already. "Oh, tell me to-night," cried a college +freshman once to her president, "which is the right side and which is +the wrong side of this Andover question about eschatology?" The +young girl is impatient of open questions, and irritated at her +inability to answer them. Neither can she believe that the first +headlong zest with which she throws herself into society, athletics, +into everything which comes in her way, can ever fail. But her elders +know, looking on, that our American girl, the comrade of her parents +and of her brothers and their friends, brought up from babyhood in the +eager talk of politics and society, of religious belief, of public +action, of social responsibility--that this typical girl, with her +quick sympathies, her clear head, her warm heart, her outreaching +hands, will not permanently be satisfied or self-respecting, though she +have the prettiest dresses and hats in town, or the most charming of +dinners, dances, and teas. Unless there comes to her, and comes early, +the one chief happiness of life,--a marriage of comradeship,--she must +face for herself the question, "What shall I do with my life?" + +I recall a superb girl of twenty as I overtook her one winter morning +hurrying along Commonwealth Avenue. She spoke of a brilliant party at a +friend's the previous evening. "But, oh!" she cried, throwing up her +hands in a kind of hopeless impatience, "tell me what to do. My dancing +days are over!" I laughed at her, "Have you sprained your ankle?" But I +saw I had made a mistake when she added, "It is no laughing matter. I +have been out three years. I have not done what they expected of me," +with a flush and a shrug, "and there is a crowd of nice girls coming on +this winter; and anyway, I am so tired of going to teas and ball-games +and assemblies! I don't care the least in the world for foreign +missions, and," with a stamp, "I am not going slumming among the +Italians. I have too much respect for the Italians. And what shall I do +with the rest of my life?" That was a frank statement of what any girl +of brains or conscience feels, with more or less bitter distinctness, +unless she marries early, or has some pressing work for which she is +well trained. + +Yet even if that which is the profession of woman _par excellence_ be +hers, how can she be perennially so interesting a companion to her +husband and children as if she had keen personal tastes, long her own, +and growing with her growth? Indeed, in that respect the condition of +men is almost the same as that of women. It would be quite the same were +it not for the fact that a man's business or profession is generally in +itself a means of growth, of education, of dignity. He leans his life +against it. He builds his home in the shadow of it. It binds his days +together in a kind of natural piety, and makes him advance in strength +and nobility as he "fulfils the common round, the daily task." And that +is the reason why men in the past, if they have been honorable men, have +grown old better than women. Men usually retain their ability longer, +their mental alertness and hospitality. They add fine quality to fine +quality, passing from strength to strength and preserving in old age +whatever has been best in youth. It was a sudden recognition of this +fact which made a young friend of mine say last winter, "I am not going +to parties any more; the men best worth talking with are too old to +dance." + +Even with the help of a permanent business or profession, however, the +most interesting men I know are those who have an avocation as well as a +vocation. I mean a taste or work quite apart from the business of life. +This revives, inspires, and cultivates them perpetually. It matters +little what it is, if only it is real and personal, is large enough to +last, and possesses the power of growth. A young sea-captain from a New +England village on a long and lonely voyage falls upon a copy of +Shelley. Appeal is made to his fine but untrained mind, and the book of +the boy poet becomes the seaman's university. The wide world of poetry +and of the other fine arts is opened, and the Shelleyian specialist +becomes a cultivated, original, and charming man. A busy merchant loves +flowers, and in all his free hours studies them. Each new spring adds +knowledge to his knowledge, and his friends continually bring him their +strange discoveries. With growing wealth he cultivates rare and +beautiful plants, and shares them with his fortunate acquaintances. +Happy the companion invited to a walk or a drive with such observant +eyes, such vivid talk! Because of this cheerful interest in flowers, and +this ingenious skill in dealing with them, the man himself is +interesting. All his powers are alert, and his judgment is valued in +public life and in private business. Or is it more exact to say that +because he is the kind of man who would insist upon having such +interests outside his daily work, he is still fresh and young and +capable of growth at an age when many other men are dull and old and +certain that the time of decay is at hand? + +There are two reasons why women need to cultivate these large and +abiding interests even more persistently than men. In the first place, +they have more leisure. They are indeed the only leisured class in the +country, the only large body of persons who are not called upon to win +their daily bread in direct, wage-earning ways. As yet, fortunately, few +men among us have so little self-respect as to idle about our streets +and drawing-rooms because their fathers are rich enough to support them. +We are not without our unemployed poor; but roving tramps and idle +clubmen are after all not of large consequence. Our serious +non-producing classes are chiefly women. It is the regular ambition of +the chivalrous American to make all the women who depend on him so +comfortable that they need do nothing for themselves. Machinery has +taken nearly all the former occupations of women out of the home into +the shop and factory. Widespread wealth and comfort, and the inherited +theory that it is not well for the woman to earn money so long as father +or brothers can support her, have brought about a condition of things in +which there is social danger, unless with the larger leisure are given +high and enduring interests. To health especially there is great danger, +for nothing breaks down a woman's health like idleness and its resulting +ennui. More people, I am sure, are broken down nervously because they +are bored, than because they are overworked; and more still go to +pieces through fussiness, unwholesome living, worry over petty details, +and the daily disappointments which result from small and superficial +training. And then, besides the danger to health, there is the danger to +character. I need not dwell on the undermining influence which men also +feel when occupation is taken away and no absorbing private interest +fills the vacancy. The vices of luxurious city life are perhaps hardly +more destructive to character than is the slow deterioration of barren +country life. Though the conditions in the two cases are exactly +opposite, the trouble is often the same,--absence of noble interests. In +the city restless idleness organizes amusement; in the country deadly +dulness succeeds daily toil. + +But there is a second reason why a girl should acquire for herself +strong and worthy interests. The regular occupations of women in their +homes are generally disconnected and of little educational value, at +least as those homes are at present conducted. Given the best will in +the world, the daily doing of household details becomes a wearisome +monotony if the mere performance of them is all. To make drudgery divine +a woman must have a brain to plan and eyes to see how to "sweep a room +as to God's laws." Imagination and knowledge should be the hourly +companions of her who would make a fine art of each detail in kitchen +and nursery. Too long has the pin been the appropriate symbol of the +average woman's life--the pin, which only temporarily holds together +things which may or may not have any organic connection with one +another. While undoubtedly most women must spend the larger part of life +in this modest pin-work, holding together the little things of home and +school and society and church, it is also true, that cohesive work +itself cannot be done well, even in humble circumstances, except by the +refined, the trained, the growing woman. The smallest village, the +plainest home, give ample space for the resources of the trained college +woman. And the reason why such homes and such villages are so often +barren of grace and variety is just because these fine qualities have +not ruled them. The higher graces of civilization halt among us; dainty +and finished ways of living give place to common ways, while vulgar +tastes, slatternly habits, clouds and despondency reign in the house. +Little children under five years of age die in needless thousands +because of the dull, unimaginative women on whom they depend. Such women +have been satisfied with just getting along, instead of packing +everything they do with brains, instead of studying the best possible +way of doing everything small or large; for there is always a best way, +whether of setting a table, of trimming a hat, or teaching a child to +read. And this taste for perfection can be cultivated; indeed, it must +be cultivated, if our standards of living are to be raised. There is now +scientific knowledge enough, there is money enough, to prevent the vast +majority of the evils which afflict our social organism, if mere +knowledge or wealth could avail; but the greater difficulty is to make +intelligence, character, good taste, unselfishness prevail. + +What, then, are the interests which powerfully appeal to mind and heart, +and so are fitted to become the strengthening companions of a woman's +life? I shall mention only three, all of them such as are elaborately +fostered by college life. The first is the love of great literature. I +do not mean that use of books by which a man may get what is called a +good education and so be better qualified for the battle of life, nor do +I mention books in their character as reservoirs of knowledge, books +which we need for special purposes, and which are no longer of +consequence when our purpose with them is served. I have in mind the +great books, especially the great poets, books to be adopted as a +resource and a solace. The chief reason why so many people do not know +how to make comrades of such books is because they have come to them too +late. We have in this country enormous numbers of readers,--probably a +larger number who read, and who read many hours in the week, than has +ever been known elsewhere in the world. But what do these millions read +besides the newspapers? Possibly a denominational religious weekly and +another journal of fashion or business. Then come the thousands who read +the best magazines, and whatever else is for the moment popular in +novels and poetry--the last dialect story, the fashionable poem, the +questionable but talked-of novel. Let a violent attack be made on the +decency of a new story, and instantly, if only it is clever, its author +becomes famous. + +But the fashions in reading of a restless race--the women too idle, the +men too heavily worked--I will not discuss here. Let light literature be +devoured by our populace as his drug is taken by the opium-eater, and +with a similar narcotic effect. We can only seek out the children, and +hope by giving them from babyhood bits of the noblest literature, to +prepare them for the great opportunities of mature life. I urge, +therefore, reading as a mental stimulus, as a solace in trouble, a +perpetual source of delight; and I would point out that we must not +delay to make the great friendships that await us on the library shelves +until sickness shuts the door on the outer world, or death enters the +home and silences the voices that once helped to make these friendships +sweet. If Homer and Shakespeare and Wordsworth and Browning are to have +meaning for us when we need them most, it will be because they come to +us as old familiar friends whose influences have permeated the glad and +busy days before. The last time I heard James Russell Lowell talk to +college girls, he said,--for he was too ill to say many words,--"I have +only this one message to leave with you. In all your work in college +never lose sight of the reason why you have come here. It is not that +you may get something by which to earn your bread, but that every +mouthful of bread may be the sweeter to your taste." + +And this is the power possessed by the mighty dead,--men of every time +and nation, whose voices death cannot silence, who are waiting even at +the poor man's elbow, whose illuminating words may be had for the price +of a day's work in the kitchen or the street, for lack of love of whom +many a luxurious home is a dull and solitary spot, breeding misery and +vice. Now the modern college is especially equipped to introduce its +students to such literature. The library is at last understood to be the +heart of the college. The modern librarian is not the keeper of books as +was his predecessor, but the distributer of them, and the guide to their +resources, proud when he increases the use of his treasures. Every +language, ancient or modern, which contains a literature is now taught +in college. Its history is examined, its philology, its masterpieces, +and more than ever is English literature studied and loved. There is now +every opportunity for the college student to become an expert in the +use of his own tongue and pen. What other men painfully strive for he +can enjoy to the full with comparatively little effort. + +But there is a second invigorating interest to which college training +introduces its student. I mean the study of nature, intimacy with the +strange and beautiful world in which we live. "Nature never did betray +the heart that loved her," sang her poet and high priest. When the world +has been too much with us, nothing else is so refreshing to tired eyes +and mind as woods and water, and an intelligent knowledge of the life +within them. For a generation past there has been a well-nigh universal +turning of the population toward the cities. In 1840 only nine per cent +of our people lived in cities of eight thousand inhabitants or more. Now +more than a third of us are found in cities. But the electric car, the +telephone, the bicycle, still keep avenues to the country open. Certain +it is that city people feel a growing hunger for the country, +particularly when grass begins to grow. This is a healthy taste, and +must increase the general knowledge and love of nature. Fortunate are +the little children in those schools whose teachers know and love the +world in which they live. Their young eyes are early opened to the +beauty of birds and trees and plants. Not only should we expect our +girls to have a feeling for the fine sunset or the wide-reaching +panorama of field and water, but to know something also about the less +obvious aspects of nature, its structure, its methods of work, and the +endless diversity of its parts. No one can have read Matthew Arnold's +letters to his wife, his mother, and his sister, without being struck by +the immense enjoyment he took throughout his singularly simple and +hard-working life in flowers and trees and rivers. The English lake +country had given him this happy inheritance, with everywhere its sound +of running water and its wealth of greenery. There is a close connection +between the marvellous unbroken line of English song and the passionate +love of the Englishman for a home in the midst of birds, trees, and +green fields. + + The world is so full of a number of things, + That I think we should all be as happy as kings, + +is the opinion of everybody who knows nature as did Robert Louis +Stevenson. And so our college student may begin to know it. Let her +enter the laboratories and investigate for herself. Let her make her +delicate experiments with the blowpipe or the balance; let her track +mysterious life from one hiding-place to another; let her "name all the +birds without a gun," and make intimates of flower and fish and +butterfly--and she is dull indeed if breezy tastes do not follow her +through life, and forbid any of her days to be empty of intelligent +enjoyment. "Keep your years beautiful; make your own atmosphere," +was the parting advice of my college president, himself a living +illustration of what he said. + +But it is a short step from the love of the complex and engaging world +in which we live to the love of our comrades in it. Accordingly the +third precious interest to be cultivated by the college student is an +interest in people. The scholar to-day is not a being who dwells apart +in his cloister, the monk's successor; he is a leader of the thoughts +and conduct of men. So the new subjects which stand beside the classics +and mathematics of mediæval culture are history, economics, ethics, and +sociology. Although these subjects are as yet merely in the making, +thousands of students are flocking to their investigation, and are going +out to try their tentative knowledge in College Settlements and City +Missions and Children's Aid Societies. The best instincts of generous +youth are becoming enlisted in these living themes. And why should our +daughters remain aloof from the most absorbing work of modern city life, +work quite as fascinating to young women as to young men? During many +years of listening to college sermons and public lectures in Wellesley, +I always noticed a quickened attention in the audience whenever the +discussion touched politics or theology. These are, after all, the +permanent and peremptory interests, and they should be given their full +place in a healthy and vigorous life. + +But if that life includes a love of books, of nature, of people, it will +naturally turn to enlarged conceptions of religion--my sixth and last +gift of college life. In his first sermon as Master of Balliol College, +Dr. Jowett spoke of the college, "First as a place of education, +secondly as a place of society, thirdly as a place of religion." He +observed that "men of very great ability often fail in life because they +are unable to play their part with effect. They are shy, awkward, +self-conscious, deficient in manners, faults which are as ruinous as +vices." The supreme end of college training, he said, "is usefulness in +after life." Similarly, when the city of Cambridge celebrated in +Harvard's Memorial Hall the life and death of the gallant young +ex-Governor of Massachusetts, William E. Russell, men did well to hang +above his portrait some wise words he had lately said, "Never forget the +everlasting difference between making a living and making a life." That +he himself never forgot; and it was well to remind citizens and students +of it, as they stood there facing too the ancient words all Harvard men +face when they take their college degrees and go out into the world, +"They that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament, and +they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever." +Good words these to go out from college with. The girls of Wellesley +gather every morning at chapel to bow their heads together for a moment +before they scatter among the libraries and lecture rooms and begin the +experiments of the new day. And always their college motto meets the +eyes that are raised to its penetrating message, "Not to be ministered +unto, but to minister." How many a young heart has loyally responded, +"And to give life a ransom for many." That is the "Wellesley spirit"; +and the same sweet spirit of devout service has gone forth from all our +college halls. In any of them one may catch the echo of Whittier's noble +psalm,-- + + Our Lord and Master of us all! + Whate'er our name or sign, + We own Thy sway, we hear Thy call, + We test our lives by Thine. + +That is the supreme test of life,--its consecrated serviceableness. The +Master of Balliol was right; the brave men and women who founded our +schools and colleges were not wrong. "For Christ and the Church" +universities were set up in the wilderness of New England; for the large +service of the state they have been founded and maintained at public +cost in every section of the country where men have settled, from the +Alleghanies across the prairies and Rocky Mountains down to the Golden +Gate. Founded primarily as seats of learning, their teachers have been +not only scientists and linguists, philosophers and historians, but men +and women of holy purposes, sound patriotism, courageous convictions, +refined and noble tastes. Set as these teachers have been upon a hill, +their light has at no period of our country's history been hid. They +have formed a large factor in our civilization, and in their own +beautiful characters have continually shown us how to combine religion +and life, the ideal and practical, the human and the divine. + +Such are some of the larger influences to be had from college life. It +is true all the good gifts I have named may be secured without the aid +of the college. We all know young men and women who have had no college +training, who are as cultivated, rational, resourceful, and happy as any +people we know, who excel in every one of these particulars the college +graduates about them. I believe they often bitterly regret the lack of a +college education. And we see young men and women going through college +deaf and blind to their great chances there, and afterwards curiously +careless and wasteful of the best things in life. While all this is +true, it is true too that to the open-minded and ambitious boy or girl +of moderate health, ability, self-control, and studiousness, a college +course offers the most attractive, easy, and probable way of securing +happiness and health, good friends and high ideals, permanent interests +of a noble kind, and large capacity for usefulness in the world. It has +been well said that the ability to see great things large and little +things small is the final test of education. The foes of life, +especially of women's lives, are caprice, wearisome incapacity, and +petty judgments. From these oppressive foes we long to escape to the +rule of right reason, where all things are possible, and life becomes a +glory instead of a grind. No college, with the best teachers and +collections in the world, can by its own power impart all this to any +woman. But if one has set her face in that direction, where else can she +find so many hands reached out to help, so many encouraging voices in +the air, so many favoring influences filling the days and nights? + + + The Riverside Press + CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS + U. S. A + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Teacher, by +George Herbert Palmer and Alice Freeman Palmer + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TEACHER *** + +***** This file should be named 36774-8.txt or 36774-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/6/7/7/36774/ + +Produced by Katherine Ward, Jonathan Ingram, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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