Page:Education and Life; (IA educationlife00bakerich).pdf/140

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  • tures, and his daily walk and conversation. Entire

freedom in student life belongs only to the graduate schools, and to place both undergraduate and graduate students under one system can but prove harmful.

The ethical problems of college life are not to be solved wholly by perfunctory religious exercises, but by the spirit that pervades the whole teaching and student body, and by the many ways and means that the united efforts of earnest and devoted faculties may employ. It is a favorable circumstance that the student to an extent can choose subjects in accord with his tastes; that his powers may reach out toward some great intellectual interest. That the spirit of education is broader, more liberal, and scientific is significant; the fact makes for truth and honesty. The historical method succeeds the dogmatic in history, social science, philosophy, and ethics. Men are better because they are broader and wiser and are coming to a higher realization of truth.

No doubt the ethical life has the deepest significance for man. The great Fichte was right in claiming that, if this is merely a subjectively phenomenal world, it is a necessary creation of mind that we may have it wherein to work and ethically develop. That institution will turn out the best men where the Baconian philosophy is combined with the Platonic, the scientific with the ideal. By some means the student should constantly come in contact with strong manhood and high ideals. It makes a practical difference whether the student believes in his transcendent nature and possibilities or in mere materialism and utilitarianism, whether his ethics is