Page:Essays on the Higher Education.djvu/114

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98
THE HIGHER EDUCATION

accepted as conclusive upon this point. I should be very loath to admit, however, that the kind of spirit and method which he justly considers admirable in the teacher are inseparably connected with the system in vogue at Harvard. It seems to me that a teacher who suffers himself to grow dull and slack because his pupils must come to him whether or no is scarcely fit to be a teacher under any so-called system. Certainly there have been not a few inspiring instructors in our American colleges before the New Education was discovered. Is it at all likely that there will be only afew poor ones in case the triumph of the New Education is everywhere secured? Is it not even possible that certain methods of instruction may in time be developed by a system that makes so much depend upon the favor of those instructed which will not conduce to the highest efficiency in education?

A word of personal experience will be in place at this point. I cannot follow Professor Palmer, who looks back upon his college days and feels that more than half his studies should have been different. The studies in my college curriculum were wholly prescribed; they included the ancient classics in junior year, and calculus, both integral and differential. Like him, I was especially fond of Greek and philosophy; but I studied calculus with more carefulness on that very account. I