Page:Essays on the Higher Education.djvu/155

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A MODERN LIBERAL EDUCATION
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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