Page:Essays on the Higher Education.djvu/118

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102
THE HIGHER EDUCATION

erature; in mathematics and physical science; in the history of his race; in the knowledge of the human mind in its relations to all else. It is, then, precisely because I do not believe that the New Education draws its lines in the right place that I am opposed to what I regard as its extreme measures and not well-guarded ideas. In an enlarged use of option for the later years of college life I do believe; but my belief in the elective system at all in the American college is not so strong as my distrust of the lengths to which it is being carried by the so-called New Education.

There is one argument of Professor Palmer which is so much a matter of taste and impression, and so little a matter of statistics and logic, that it is not open to discussion. I refer to his conviction that a better type of manliness is developed at Harvard in the students than is to be found in other colleges that have less completely adopted the principles of the New Education. In behalf of my own pupils, and on the ground of careful observations, I will simply say,—I do not believe that any manlier men than those at Yale are to be found in any college in the country.

Upon the subject of cultured manliness in the undergraduate student, I find myself holding the same ideal as that presented by Professor Palmer, but differing from him considerably in my judgment as to the best way of realizing it. It seems