Essays on the Higher Education/Chapter 4
THE ESSENTIALS OF A MODERN LIBERAL EDUCATION
I beg permission to preface the main body of this address with two remarks, partly apologetic and partly explanatory. The subject brought before you this evening may seem to some quite lacking in that freshness of interest which promotes a flow of novel and entertaining thoughts. Only last February 20, in this city, an elaborate report from a number of experts was presented which dealt primarily with studies in elementary education. This report, however, suggested important modifications in that subsequent training of the smaller number which is traditionally esteemed worthy of being called a liberal education. And for some years past, not only in this country, but in France, in Germany, and even in conservative England, discussion has been rife over the order and the character of studies proper for collegiate and university students. In spite of writings and speeches innumerable, on the part of men and women most competent or very incompetent, it can scarcely be claimed by the non-partisan observer of this contention that agreement has been reached even upon the more important and fundamental of the numerous considerations involved. Yet how important it seems to us all to have some settlement of the contention! For the children of to-day will not meantime stop growing into young manhood and young womanhood; and the youth of to-day are constantly being converted into teachers of the generation following them.
The other remark which you will please consider as a part of my preface is the following: Education is one of those subjects which, from their very nature, do not admit of a very close approach to demonstrative argument. Neither from history, nor from our knowledge of nature and of the human soul, nor from study of the details of experience in the past, can we construct a science—strictly speaking—of education. Pedagogics will probably never hold a place among the exact sciences. We may, however, form comprehensive and defensible opinions on this subject; and these opinions will be the more entitled to respect and acceptance, as the mind holding them is itself genial and truly liberal, and is also acquainted with the truths of history, of nature, and especially of the human soul. I close this remark, then, by saying that, without pretence of drawing irresistible conclusions, much less of infallibility in argument, I merely offer for your friendly consideration some of my opinions.
But first of all let us see clearly just what the question before us really is. For I cannot help thinking that, while the spirit in which it is debated and the inducements brought forward are often much too narrow, the question itself is rarely defined with sufficient limitation. As to the very meaning of the question, then, I offer these three statements:—
It is a liberal education the nature of which we are briefly to discuss. Now this term necessarily implies some sort of differentiation. Freeing it, as far as possible, from all false pride and also from jealousy and unreasoning opprobrium, the term must be held to signify something more than mere education. It must signify—let us frankly confess—education for the few as distinguished from education for the great multitude, or for the very many. The public schools, then, however supplemented by private generosity, cannot reasonably be expected to provide the body of the people with a liberal education. I wish this declaration, however, to be considered as different trom the important and closely connected practical question: "What part should the public schools take in starting a few selected pupils on their way to a truly liberal education?"
Neither is a liberal education properly a technical education, such as our manual-training and trades schools, our business colleges, and even most of our so-called scientific schools, aim to give. This may be admitted without in the least depreciating the character of the training given by these schools, or the value of the results which many of them produce. But if we mean anything distinctive by the words, "a liberal education," it is something more than such an education as these schools furnish.
We may now come closer to the meaning of the phrase by laying emphasis upon the word "liberal." Of course this word once meant, in this connection, such an education as befits a free man or a gentleman. On this account there is still clinging to our usage something of pride on the one hand, and of jealousy and odium on the other hand. For are not all men now equally free; and where is now the class of gentlemen, unique and distinctively so-called? By a justifiable turn of meaning, however, a "liberal education" may be defined as that which makes the free mind, which furnishes the liberalizing culture of the trained gentleman. And here it must be remembered that all specialists' studies have their peculiar prejudices and peculiar temptations—almost irresistible—to particular forms of narrowness. A truly liberal education ought therefore to tend toward the setting of the mind free from all classes of scholastic prejudices. It ought to work in the direction of freedom from the philologue's narrowness, from the "scientist's" narrowness, from the circle of such illiberality as distinguishes the mere student of economics, or of social problems, of psychology, or of theology.
But, again, I am to speak of the "essentials" of that education which is worthy to be called liberal. Now, amid wide disagreements as to what and how much the constitution of a liberal education involves, and as to the order and proportion in which its studies should be taken, there prevails the universal assumption that some things are entitled to be considered indispensable factors in this constitution. Important changes have undoubtedly taken place in opinion on almost all the subordinate points under discussion. The oldfashioned, substantial agreement as to what are essential subjects of instruction in this particular form or degree of education has been of late largely broken up. There is even more diversity of view as to how far subjects admitted to be essential should be carried before specialization in nonessentials is permitted or encouraged. Scarcely any two curricula in any of the institutions in this country which design and claim to afford a truly liberal education, precisely agree. Yet, theoretically, all are agreed as to the validity of a distinction between essentials and non-essentials. And, practically, certain subjects are everywhere required, at least to some extent, in the earlier stages of this form of education.
Once more, let it be borne in mind that the very inquiry as to what a "modern" liberal education should be admits the propriety, and even the necessity, of making changes in many of the factors of such an education. And here J must insist upon a distinction which has been of late almost wholly overlooked in all discussions of this subject. This is the distinction between a truly modern education and the recent great extension of the elective system in the education offered by the higher institutions of this country. That kind of freedom, or "liberality" if you please, which gives to the youth under education the choice of his subjects of pursuit, and largely of the order and manner of their pursuit, has been carried among us to an extent which astonishes the European students of educational problems. But neither the exercise nor the withdrawal of this freedom in itself determines the question whether the student is receiving a genuinely modern education. What is necessarily implied in this word "modern" I shall try to make clear in another connection. I now wish only to say that the term signifies some kind of change which shall adapt the so-called liberal education to the age, but that the particular kind of change required is by no means necessarily to be reached through an elective system.
And now as I inquire, "What, then, are the essentials of a modern liberal education? What studies must be pursued in order to secure, as far as possible, the truly free and cultured mind in accordance with the actual conditions of modern life?" I find no insuperable difficulty in making up a fairly defensible opinion. For amid many and conflicting changes, all is by no means changed. History still lies back of us with its great lessons there, although we must undoubtedly take pains in reading them into clear and convincing formulas. The primary and essential facts and laws of man's environment—what we call nature, in which human nature has its setting, and in which human life develops with a certain reciprocity of influences—also remain the same as ever. And the soul of man, that which is to be educated,—the real being whose culture to the point of highest freedom and perfection it is hoped by all changes in processes the better to attain,—the soul of man is not essentially different in this boastful nineteenth century from the soul of man in the so-called "Dark Ages," or when Plato and Aristotle undertook its informing, purifying, and elevating.
From history, from nature without, and from the nature of the mind, I think we may confidently derive a body of rational conclusions as to what are the essentials of the most modern liberal education, or of all truly liberal education. And now, without making any show of argument, deductive or inductive, as though you could not avoid being convinced and agreeing with me, I will frankly state my own opinions and some of the reasons which, in my own reflections, support them.
A truly liberal education includes, I think, as essential to it, the prolonged and scholastic pursuit of three subjects, or groups of subjects. These three are, language and literature, mathematics and natural science, and the soul of man, including the products of his reflective thinking. Any education which is markedly defective on any one of these three sides comes, so far, short of being liberal,—of being, that is to say, the kind of culture which sets the mind most truly free, and which is worthy of the cultivated gentleman in the nobler meaning of that latter word.
It is difficult indeed to separate the scientific study of literature from the study of history, or to separate the proper pursuit of philosophy from the study of both literature and history. But in a qualified, though meaningful, way we may declare that the supreme expression of human mental life is in literature,—of man's life, that is, of thought and feeling. To get the supreme expression of man in action, in the exercise of those activities which we somewhat loosely call practical, we must turn to the study of history. But literature is, of course, a certain form of human language, put on record so that the thoughts and feelings thus expressed can remain for other generations of thinking, feeling men to contemplate sympathetically and yet critically.
Language, then, is the only pass-key to literature; and to be a cultured student of language is the only possible way to possess the key which unlocks the treasure-house of literature. You will notice that I have used this important word in the singular number. I have not said that a liberal education includes of necessity the prolonged scholastic study of many languages, much less the glib-tongued use of many languages. It is undoubtedly a very convenient thing in these days to speak in several of the principal forms of human speech; it is even, if you please, a pretty accomplishment quite worth spending some years of time and some thousands of dollars upon. But it is not an essential, it is not even a very vital and impressive, part of a truly liberal education. The empty-headed hotel clerk, the boorish globetrotter, the frivolous boarding-school miss, may have this accomplishment of languages, and not have the first rudiments of a liberal culture in language.
When, then, I speak of the prolonged and scholastic study of language as an essential of a liberal education, I have reference to acquiring the science and art of interpretation and the cognate science and art of expression. For the appreciation of literature can never come by mere untrained reading: I do not care to what kind of literature, or in what language expressed, you apply my denial. He who has made no such study of language as a liberal education implies cannot enter the inner temple of literature, he can scarcely cross the threshold of its outer courts; for the key to the temple is the knowing how to get at the meaning of any literature; and the knowing how to get at the meaning can only be acquired by the study—not of many languages as many, necessarily, but of at least some one language as the supreme expression of human thought and feeling.
In order to illustrate and enforce my opinion I turn somewhat aside for a moment to the current discussions over the place of the ancient classical languages—especially of the Greek—in a modern liberal education. The larger part of the arguments used against continuing these languages in the place they have formerly held seem to me beyond all doubt justifiable. The answers which the defenders of these languages have most employed are scarcely sufficient to ward off or to foil the attacks of their opponents. At the same time I most firmly believe in keeping the ancient classics substantially where they have been in the scheme of a truly liberal education; and I do not believe in the proposed substitution of any of the modern languages for the ancient classics. These seemingly conflicting sympathies I harmonize by answering the inquiry, why Latin and Greek should be required, in a way far more satisfactory to me than that followed by the classicists themselves. The ancient classical languages, and especially Greek, are, on account of their very construction and on account of the superiority of their equipment, by far the best media for the study of language, for the acquiring of the science and art of interpretation, for the possession and use of the key to literature.
It seems to me that very insufficient account is customarily made of the difference between the man who has enjoyed and improved this part of a liberal education and the equally intelligent and serious man who is lacking here. The latter can never, try as hard as he may, read a choice piece of literature, of any sort or in any language, as the other readily can. The value of studying Greek, under skilful and judicious teaching, is not set at its highest even when we consider how choice are the stores of Greek literature which are thus opened to the student, if only he can master—a thing possible to only a few professors of Greek in this country—the language so as to move about at all freely in its literature. That value is rather seen at its highest when we consider how in this way a man may be best trained in skill and interest really to get at a good piece of literature in any language—even in his own language.
An acquaintance of mine had some years ago a confidential conversation with the public servant to whom had been committed, for a long period of years, the engrossing of the bills proposed by the successive ministries of one of the most powerful and intelligent nations on the face of the earth. This work this official had done for two prime ministers, one of whom was a classical scholar, the other a man of literary training and tastes, but without a liberal education in language study. The clear-cut, intelligible, interpretable character of the bills drafted by the former were, as a rule, in marked contrast with the confused, uninterpretable, but "flourishing" style of the latter.
As a rule, the Japanese cultivated classes acquire the speaking and writing of foreign languages with an uncommon speed and deftness. But I never knew a scholar of that nation—no matter, we will suppose, how well acquainted both with Japanese and with English—who could furnish you an exact interpretation of either one of these languages in terms of the other. This inability is doubtless partly due to the immense difference in the so-called genius of the two languages. But it is also, I venture to believe, largely due to the fact that exact interpretation—the telling precisely what do you understand this to mean as a matter of careful construing—is not made a study among the Japanese in acquiring a liberal education.
For myself, I do not hesitate to say that if I had forgotten all I ever knew of the Greek language and of the Greek literature, its study would still be worth double the time it cost in making me able to sit down with a good book, in whatever language written, and let its author tell me just what was in his mind and on his heart. I insist upon it that the practical consequences of retiring the study of the classical languages from the curriculum of a liberal education will be something quite incalculable in the way of wresting from those who call themselves cultured the key to every form of good literature.
It would scarcely seem necessary to argue that a somewhat wide acquaintance with, and fondness for, good literature is a necessary part of a truly liberal education. For theoretically few indeed are found ready to dispute this truth. But, in my opinion, this is one of the truths most likely at the present time to be left practically out of the account in making up our estimate of the studies indispensable to such an education. There is reading enough done—there is far too much reading done—by the multitude of the people and by the so-called educated classes. And of the making of many books, the gross, materialistic, sordid manufacture of something to be read—something, no matter what, if you can only so construct and advertise it that it will be read,—there is no promise of an end. But the simple undisputed matter of fact is that what is read is not literature, and would, almost all of it, better be left unread.
It is somewhat shocking to discover how few men and women, even among those who claim the title of "educated," know or care much about really good literature. They read—the newspapers (Heaven pity them), the magazines, and the latest, most sensational novels. But with these persons there is little acquaintance or affection having for its object what is really pure, noble, and elevating in the world's best books. I regard it, then, as of the utmost importance to hold up a high standard of literary culture as an aspiration and aim of all those who would lay claim to a truly liberal education.
And here I will venture to speak quite frankly though with perfect friendliness, concerning certain efforts of some of the modern devotees of a more purely scientific education. They are often obviously irritated at the distinction which has not as yet been wholly abolished between the degree of B. A. and the other degrees given at the end of courses which do not emphasize in the same way the linguistic and literary side of culture. They think it unjust and intolerable that graduates of scientific schools, who have been serious and successful in their studies, should not be eligible—for example—to the distinction of Phi Beta Kappa, or to other similar distinctions. Now, speaking for myself, I certainly have no exaggerated estimate of the worth of titles or of membership in any form of learned societies. But I do care a great deal about the truth, and about maintaining in this country a high standard, a sound basis, and a comprehensive range, for the recipients of a liberal education. And in my opinion, anyone who claims that a larger amount of scholastic study of the physical and natural sciences can be substituted for studies in language and literature, so as to obtain in this way that kind of cultured mind which belongs to the intellectual freeman, is simply maintaining what, from the very nature of the case, cannot be made true. Neither bestowing nor withholding titles and membership in learned societies will alter the fundamental facts of the soul's life and development. Connected with these trifles, however, impressions and tendencies may be strengthened which will work a mischief to the cause of liberal education in this country from which it will not readily recover, even if a long time be allowed for the recovery.
I hasten at once, however, to say that prolonged scholastic training in mathematics and in the elements of the physical and natural sciences is also a necessary part of a truly liberal education.
The relation in which mathematics stands to the science of nature is somewhat akin to that in which language stands to literature. In a true and important meaning of the figure of speech, mathematics gives the key into the hand of him who wishes to make a scientific study of nature. The man who is to have any education whatever must have some knowledge of mathematics; he must know enough to be honest and accurate in his business transactions, if he wishes to exercise those virtues. To conduct well many forms of business, one must know much more than the rudiments of mathematics; while the successful pursuit of certain branches of mechanical industry and invention requires a considerable training in this branch of education. But it is for a certain amount of the scholastic study of mathematics, as a necessary factor in a liberal education, that I now plead. Much has been made, by the advocates of a high value for the mental training that comes through this form of study, of the kind of close deductive reasoning which it employs. Such an estimate is partially justified; although it has, I think, very often been exaggerated. Of more educational value is that training which mathematics imparts in respect of quickness of insight and deftness of handling bestowed upon set problems. To enjoy, and to be skilful in, attacking problems is a not insignificant attainment for any educated mind. For is not life one prolonged succession of problems that demand to be solved? To be sure, most of these problems are not of the mathematical order and do not admit of solution by the methods of mathematics. But it is a thoroughly good thing for a man not to be a coward or a sluggard when he is brought face to face with any hard problem.
The truly liberalizing power of mathematics, however, is felt only when two things are attained. The first of these is a certain amount of free and joyful movement in the handling of mathematical symbols and formulæ. The other is a certain grasp upon the beautiful ideas and the wonderful laws which are represented by these symbols and formulæ. A friend of mine, who stands in the very front rank of the world's great mathematicians (a rank so thin that two men could probably count its numbers on the fingers of their two hands), has recently declared that for him the higher mathematics is chiefly an æsthetical affair; and that no man ought to study it who does not rejoice in the beauty of the ideas with which it deals. Now, of course, it cannot be maintained that such very high mathematics shall be made a necessary part of all liberal culture. But, in my opinion, it is desirable for one in pursuit of this culture to go far enough in mathematics to get some glimpse of the ideality, and the beautiful ideality, of the world in which mathematical conceptions reign supreme.
Moreover, a truly liberal education implies enough knowledge of mathematics to use it as a key for getting at those more elementary and fundamental principles upon which external nature is built. A knowledge of these principles is itself an indispensable part of an education. The extreme advocates of a scientific, as distinguished from a literary and philosophical culture, are accustomed to consider themselves as the only representatives of a really modern education. And it is undoubtedly true that natural science has only comparatively recently begun to come to the front as a claimant of rights—of something more than mere bits of tardily granted concessions. These advocates too often forget, however, that this is because natural science is itself so new, and is still so comparatively crude and ill instructed as to the most effective methods of liberal culture; is even so doubtful as to the actual results which it could show if the higher education of the country were more fully committed to its hands. For here again it is simple matter of fact that literature and philosophy were brought to a very high pitch of cultivation centuries before the first crude beginnings of real natural science were made. It is true also that the equipment and accredited method of these two-thirds of a liberalizing education are still superior to that of natural science. And now I wish I might be pardoned (though I am sure I shall not be) for saying that the products hitherto turned out, as the results of too exclusively scientific training, do not make me incline to trust the promise of substituting in this way something satisfactory for the more old-fashioned curricula. I have not observed that these products are actually men of a truly liberal mind.
On the other hand, I hold most firmly to the opinion that an interest in, and a knowledge of, nature which goes beyond that of a man who has merely the lower education, is a necessary factor in a truly liberal culture. Especially in these days it seems to me that no man is wholly worthy to hold the title belonging to such a culture who has not had a somewhat prolonged scholastic training in natural science. Here again I make deliberate use of the singular rather than of the plural number; and I have said a training in "science" rather than in the sciences. This training implies such a course of study as will impart, in accordance with the average capacity, a conception of what is now understood by the term "science," and of the recognized method of scientific investigation, so far at least as it is in the main common to all the natural sciences.
Undoubtedly, the larger part of the entire body of liberal culture will always consist of intelligent opinions to which it is difficult to give a truly scientific form, in the stricter meaning of the word "scientific." Undoubtedly also—to repeat the remark of a colleague, a professor of physics—"most of the advances in science consist in correcting mistakes." Notwithstanding the hardship which would be involved in the effort to draw a fixed line between the region where opinion dwells and the domain ruled over by science, the characacter of the conception to which the latter word answers should be made clear to every educated mind. How often does one meet men of fine literary culture who still show no little bigotry, and commit not a few important mistakes, because they simply do not know what science really is. And again, if they wanted to attain knowledge on any subiect which should be worthy of being called scientific, they simply do not know how to go to work; they know nothing about scientific method in the investigation of any subject.
It seems to me, then, especially desirable in these days that the somewhat prolonged scholastic study of natural science should be made a required part of every liberal education. And if I were asked that difficult practical question, "How much?" I should be inclined to answer: "Enough to give the student a pretty firm grasp on those fundamental physical principles upon which the world of things is built, and enough of the pursuit of some form of descriptive natural science to impart the training of the powers of observation and the habit of properly connecting newly observed natural objects with groups of similar objects known before." I find myself disinclined more and more, on the other hand, to consider liberally educated, in accordance with the spirit and the needs of the age, any man who knows nothing certain of the fundamental things in physics, or who cannot turn a trained eye on at least one group of natural objects—be this group stars or stones, trees, flowers, ferns, or the human body, birds, beetles, the animals in the zoölogical garden, or those domesticated in the city house or back-yard.
I am also quite as firmly persuaded that a somewhat prolonged study of the human soul—of logic, psychology, ethics, and of those problems which have formed the themes of reflective thinking since man first began really to think at all, of philosophy, that is to say—is a necessary part of a truly liberal education. I find it difficult to understand how any man can attain the genuine scholar's liberal mind, who takes no interest in the processes and laws of his own mental and moral life, and in the progress and laws of the mental and moral lives of other men. If I were to argue in detail for a portion of these studies in the required work of every college curriculum, I think I could show how close is the relation they sustain to the most successful pursuit of every other kind of studies. Modern psychology is certainly making large claims and rapid advances, in the direction of proving itself an indispensable auxiliary to the entire group of liberalizing pursuits. Certainly no one of those learned professions, including the fourth profession of teachers, into which the great body of liberally educated youth annually pour themselves, can in these days afford to neglect the somewhat prolonged and scholastic study of the human mind; of the four, certainly neither the preacher nor the teacher. The former has been traditionally a student of philosophy. The latter is now compelled, even by the authorities in charge of our higher public and normal schools, to know something, in appearance at least, of psychology. It must be a truly humiliating experience for a college graduate, who has had no work in this subject as a part of his collegiate education, to be compelled to sit down beside the girl graduate of the highschool and get his lesson in psychology.
My task will doubtless be hardest of all when I insist on some philosophical study as a necessary part of a truly liberal education. Yet in my own opinion there is no other study which is so distinctly liberalizing as philosophy. Just to face these profound problems concerning the being of the world; concerning the being, the origin, and the destiny of man; and concerning God and his relations to the world and man's relation to him; just to know that there are such problems, and what they are, and something of how the soul of man has in thought and feeling responded to them, is of itself no small part of a liberal culture. And here I speak, not from theory alone, but from experience with several thousand pupils. I affirm without hesitation, on the basis of this experience, that it does make the mind more liberal, more serious, gentle, interesting, cultured, and vigorous, to have some face-to-face acquaintance with the principal problems of philosophy. As a cure of souls afflicted with those shallow and coarse views of life, and of its most profound, most mysterious realities, which dominate the age and the land, there is nothing superior to this which I could recommend. It is true pastoral and soul-saving work to induct youth, who are in process of the higher education, into the calm and reasonable consideration of these problems.
These, then, as it seems to me, are still the essentials of a truly liberal education,—now, as they have always been to some extent ever since the conception and practice corresponding to the phrase a "liberal education" emerged in the life of the race. An appeal to the history of education would show that the more ancient authorities, as well as the reformers of education on the hither edge of the Middle Ages, and the most trustworthy writers on pedagogics in modern times, are in substantial agreement. The chief differences of opinion are differences as to proportionate values, as to methods and lengths of time, rather than as to the essentials of the higher scholastic training.
But now, very briefly, I wish to indicate my opinion as to how the emphasis should be laid upon the word " modern " in the theme we are examining. What changes are desirable in the course of scholastic training to make it better accord with the modern spirit and the modern needs? For in spite of any seeming of extreme conservatism which the opinions thus far expressed may have had, I am a pronounced advocate of modernizing the curriculum of our liberal education. I do not believe, however, that the best way of accomplishing this involves either any further extension of the elective system in our American colleges, or the exclusion from their required courses of any of the essentials of such an education.
On the other hand, our efforts should be directed toward meeting the increased and altered demands of the age, in the following ways. Some readjustment of proportions is plainly required in order better to adapt the college curriculum to these demands. It is not at all certain that any ultimate diminution is required in the actual amount of work now done in either of these three great branches of scholastic training by even the most exacting of our collegiate institutions.
Within these institutions the relative—but not necessarily the absolute—amount of training in mathematics and in the classical languages will probably be lessened; while the amount of training given in natural science, and the acquirement of the modern languages so far as is necessary to a possible familiarity with the French and German literatures will be increased. The way to solve such a seeming paradox is, I think, steadily to improve our facilities and effectiveness in the teaching which precedes admission to college as well as during the college course. The ten years from six to sixteen are enough, and more than enough, to prepare the average mind for the most exacting of our American colleges. But alas! how much of this time is wasted, and worse than merely wasted, by the poor teaching that prevails in the intermediate schools.
Now the men and women who have a truly liberal education must somehow sweep away these evils which lie lower down; and this as the best manner of clearing the ground for a progressive improvement in the adjustment of later studies to the modern changes of educational values. But if, in making this adjustment, we relax our hold upon what we know, by centuries of experience, to have a high degree of such value, and then prematurely substitute—especially if we do so wholly at the option of the pupil—a large amount of that whose value is as yet less a matter of long experience, I fear we shall not really raise our standard of liberal education. Practically, then, I think that, as fast as college time is set free by improvement in the preparatory education, that time should for the present needs be largely turned over to required work in natural science and in the modern languages. In this way it probably will not take long to bring about a more satisfactory adjustment of proportions among the three essentials of a modern liberal education.
Second: The education at which the college aims should meet the demands of the age by the fullest possible use of modern equipments and of modern methods. It is surprising how much of the objection urged against the required study of the classical languages is really based on the supposition that methods of teaching them now almost obsolete still prevail. The same thing is also true of the objections urged against the study of psychology, of ethics, and of philosophy as essentials of a liberal education. Looking back to the time when I was in college, I have no hesitation in saying that the teaching of these languages was, as respects the interest and effectiveness of its methods, on the whole superior to the teaching of mathematics and the natural sciences. But what a change has really taken place since then in the methods employed by both these classes of scholastic pursuits! I am inclined to believe that, on the whole, the improvement of the methods of teaching Latin and Greek has been quite as marked as that made by the teachers of the natural sciences.
As to psychology and philosophy, whenever these subjects are in the hands of men who have themselves received a thorough modern training, the same claim can be established. Unfortunately, however, the impression still prevails widely that any one can teach psychology, ethics, and philosophy who can read in advance of his pupils a text-book on these subjects—especially if he happens to have had training in a peculiar set of prejudices by having been a student of theology.
But in all three groups of essentials—in language and literature, in mathematics and natural science, and in psychology and philosophy—the present generation has seen more advances in equipment and in method than all the rest of the world's past history. What is chiefly needed, in order properly to modernize our liberal culture, is the possession of this equipment in the hands of men who know how to use it. Here I am tempted to make a side remark which has an important bearing on all higher educational development in this country. The conduct of many educational institutions and the estimate placed upon them by the American public are such as to depreciate the teaching functions. But in time it will be discovered here—a truth already better recognized in France and in Germany—that it is the character of its faculty which chiefly determines the rank to be allotted to any educational institution. Money and all that money will buy —immense sums of money and incredible extensions of equipment—are a necessity for the most successful promotion of liberal culture. But, after all, these things and all mere things are subordinate to the man who knows how to employ them so as to develop in his pupils the truly liberal mind. And if he is himself illiberal, a bigot,—whether his bigotry be that of the philologue, or that of the economist, or that of the "scientist," or that of the advocate of the new psychology,—the teacher may have boundless fame as a specialist, and unlimited enthusiasm for his specialty, but he is not wholly fit to take part in the bestowal of a truly liberal education. Never before was the need so great that the teacher should himself be a man of the widest intellectual interests and sympathies, and of the broadest culture.
It will be seen, then, that the changes in studies which appear to me necessary to meet the changes in the demands made upon the educated man are not to be sought in the character of these studies so much as in the proportions of each and in the method of pursuing them. These changes I believe should be in the main determined by those who have their education in charge, rather than by the choice of those who are in process of being educated.
But beyond the liberal culture given to the average college-bred man, and higher up, lies the sphere of the specialist who puts his highly specialized pursuits upon the basis of a broad and well-proportioned more general education. He who rises into, and remains long enough within, that sphere becomes one of the few most nobly and highly cultured. He is the liberally educated specialist,—a man quite superior, in respect of education, both to the specialist who has no thorough liberal education and also to the man who, having the fundamentals of a liberal education, has not also the special attainments of a master of some one subject.
I close the presentation of my opinions on this theme with a remark calling attention to its great practical importance in the near future of our country. We are all familiar with the often repeated thought that our national destiny is closely bound up with the education of the multitude of the citizens. Tliis thought is, of course, true; and the significance of its truth may reasonably make all patriots serious; for the condition of the public education in the United States is very far indeed from satisfactory at the present time. Taking all sections of the nation into the account, we are an illiterate nation. And under political and selfish business influences, even in the best section of the nation, there is much in our educational condition to cause shame and alarm.
But itis not the condition of public education, not the character and amount of training which the state undertakes to provide for every citizen, that is the subiect of my present inquiry and solicitude. There is another truth respecting the relations of education to the public welfare, which, if less obvious, is no less important. The destiny of any nation is dependent on the character of its aristocracy; and the character of the aristocracy is dependent upon the kind of education which this aristocracy enjoys. I know that there is something which sounds unrepublican and un-American, in our ears, about such a declaration as this. But I should undertake to show from history that the welfare of any nation is quite as really dependent upon the character of its clergy, its lawyers, its doctors, its teachers, and the classes that have leisure, social standing, and wealth as upon the character of the so-called common people. I know you will remind me that the most liberal culture will not make the so-called "upper" classes good, or furnish true friends and trusted leaders of the people. But neither does a so-called common-school education make the common people good.
Only as education enters into the sphere of the ethical, æsthetical, and religious life docs it become a real safeguard of either the aristocracy or the multitude of the citizens. But it is just the peculiar potency of the truly liberal education that it can lay so much emphasis upon what is not merely necessary to live as a smart and successful citizen, but is rather necessary in order to enter into and possess the larger, richer, and higher life of the soul.
There is one other consideration which it seems desirable to connect with this subject. Rightly or wrongly, temporarily or permanently, there exists a widespread lack of confidence in representative government. Here in this country, where the powers of the representative bodies, both in the state and in the nation, are more extensive and unlimited for good or for evil than anywhere else in the world, this distrust is perhaps most strong and most on the increase. The simple truth is that no class, neither the so-called laboring class nor the cultivated class, has any large amount of confidence left in the men who make laws for them all. Municipal, state, and national legislative bodies are almost universally distrusted, feared, and despised. This is a fact, whether it is a fact that admits of rational justification or not.
There are plain signs that some form of virtual aristocratic government is likely to be widely established in reaction from the extreme evils of democracy,—a rule of the best, in some meaning of the word "best." But shall it be the man "best" to lead the populace by deceiving them, as the self-deceived or shrewdly hypocritical demagague has done so frequently in the past history of governments? Or shall it be the man, or the corporation, or the syndicate, whose length of purse and elasticity of conscience best stand the drain upon it made by the demands of the law-makers; shall it be the rule, by bribery, of the plutocracy? Or shall it be the rule of the men of liberal minds, of minds set free from bonds of prejudice and of avarice, and well acquainted with those laws of nature and of the soul, of man as a thinking, speaking, social, and religious being, which it is the business of a liberal education to impart? I sincerely hope that our really governing aristocracy in the country will be of this third class. And it is in the fitting of this class for the life which lies before them as the genuine aristocrats that the supreme value of a truly liberal education consists.