THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 RIVERSIDE
 
 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 ACADEMIC ESSAYS^ 
 
 BY 
 
 EPHRAIM EMERTON 
 
 WINN PROFESSOR OF ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY 
 
 IN HARVARD UNIVERSITY 
 
 (EMERITUS') 
 
 CAMBRIDGE 
 HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS 
 
 LONDON: HUMPHREY MILFORD 
 OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS 
 
 1921
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1921 
 HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS
 
 TO 
 
 CHARLES WILLIAM ELIOT 
 
 IN GRATITUDE FOR 
 
 HIS LIFE-LONG DEFENSE OF THE RIGHT 
 
 MOST PRECIOUS TO EVERY SCHOLAR 
 
 THE RIGHT TO DIFFER
 
 vi PREFATORY NOTE 
 
 for reaching it; the folly of educational tricks and 
 short-cuts; finally, the justification of all educational 
 effort by its bearing upon the associated life of men. 
 In the continuous interrelation of Learning and Living 
 lies the hope of the Republic. 
 
 E. E. 
 
 CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS 
 June, 1921
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. THE ACADEMIC LIFE 3 
 
 II. WHAT TO DO WITH A BOY? 45 
 
 III. THE DISCIPLINE OF A UNIVERSITY COLLEGE 85 
 
 IV. GENTLEMAN AND SCHOLAR 131 
 
 V. THE CHOICE OF STUDIES IN COLLEGE . . . 145 
 
 VI. TRAVEL AS EDUCATION 197 
 
 VII. THE ACADEMIC STUDY OF HISTORY .... 233 
 
 VIII. THE RATIONAL EDUCATION OF THE MODERN 
 
 MINISTER 269 
 
 IX. THE PLACE OF HISTORY IN THEOLOGICAL 
 
 STUDY 309 
 
 vii
 
 THE ACADEMIC LIFE 
 
 I CANNOT claim any qualification for speaking of 
 the academic life except that I have lived it and 
 loved it and believed in it during a working lifetime. 
 I have passed through all its varied experiences of 
 preparation, candidacy, probation, recognition, pro- 
 motion and finally of honorable retirement. I have 
 shared in its drudgery, have felt its temptations, been 
 thrilled with its enthusiasms, perceived its limitations 
 and enjoyed its modest rewards. I have borne my 
 share in the obvious criticisms to which the academic 
 person is always subject, but have never for a moment 
 doubted that, after all allowance has been made for such 
 adverse comment, enough is left to make this kind of 
 life worth living. More, I think, than most careers that 
 of the university man involves a continual adjustment 
 of the claims of the individual and of the society in 
 which he forms a part. These claims are always in ap- 
 parent conflict. As our universities are at present con- 
 stituted the two pursuits of scholarship and teaching 
 are necessarily combined, not only in the institution 
 itself but also in the life of the individual member. 
 The university is both a society for the advancement 
 of science in its manifold activities and a school for 
 teaching. So the academic person is at once an inves- 
 tigator in the peculiar field he tries to make his own 
 and also a teacher of youth. 
 
 This persistent dualism has not failed to attract the 
 attention of all observers, and numerous attempts have
 
 4 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 been made to resolve it. Such attempts have assumed 
 as a matter of course that it is in itself an evil. Schemes 
 to get rid of it appear as solutions of a problem that has 
 impeded true progress in both science and education. 
 Certain catch-words have come to indicate the line 
 of reform: "endowment of research," "research pro- 
 fessorships," "relief from teaching," all alluring 
 phrases pointing toward an academic millennium. 
 There is probably no university man who has not at 
 times felt deeply the strain of this double duty, and 
 yet, with all the arguments in mind, I doubt whether 
 on the whole the dualism is quite the evil thing it ap- 
 pears. The reform measures I have referred to have 
 affected sometimes the learned society, sometimes the 
 individual scholar. Separate institutions have been 
 founded with the deliberate purpose of fostering the 
 scientific spirit through unlimited practice of investi- 
 gation and publication. It would be rash to say that 
 such institutions have actually fallen behind their dual- 
 ist compeers in the amount and value of their contri- 
 butions to science; but so far the scholarly standards 
 of our best administered older universities have not 
 been lowered in view of this competition. 
 
 Other reforms have touched the individual. There 
 have been endowments for the maintenance of re- 
 search or for securing time to the teaching professor 
 for the publication of his results. "Sabbatical years" 
 have made possible many productive activities that 
 otherwise would have been indefinitely postponed. All 
 these have helped, but they have not yet gone so far 
 as to draw the line sharply and permanently between
 
 THE ACADEMIC LIFE 5 
 
 the teaching and the learning sides of the scholar's 
 work. 
 
 Another device has been employed, perhaps with 
 greater success. It is one of the commonplaces of aca- 
 demic comment that equally valuable university men 
 may be distinguished by wide diversity of gifts. One 
 is obviously, as we say, "a born teacher," another 
 seems specially qualified for the work of investigation, 
 while a third takes his peculiar satisfaction in the prob- 
 lems of administration. The solution of the whole 
 matter, therefore, would seem to lie in the widest pos- 
 sible differentiation among these several functions. 
 Let the teacher teach, the investigator study and write 
 books, and the executive person run the machine. 
 Each, it is supposed, would be happier doing the thing 
 for which he is by nature best fitted, and, because he 
 is happier his work will be the better done, and the 
 university as a whole will be the gainer. 
 
 This argument is attractive, but I do not find it con- 
 vincing. It proves a little too much. The life of the 
 university is not like that of a manufactory where the 
 accomplished product is the result of so many separate 
 contributory processes. The three functions I have 
 named cannot be separated from each other without 
 detriment to the product. Freedom from class-room 
 routine is a very alluring prospect to the eager scholar; 
 but that very freedom brings with it its special dan- 
 gers of introspection, of over anxiety in detail, of hesi- 
 tation to form conclusions, which are the snare of the 
 student temperament. It is a wholesome thing for such 
 a mind to be compelled at frequent intervals to give
 
 6 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 out what it has been taking in, to restate its results so 
 that they can be understood by unprepared minds, to 
 get out of the receptive and into the outgiving attitude. 
 The ultimate product in the printed book will be so 
 much the more widely appealing. 
 
 And the same thing in the reverse sense is true of the 
 specially gifted teacher. His work as teacher cannot be 
 of the best unless it be continually fed at the source 
 by wide and serious study. A colleague of mine, speak- 
 ing of a certain schoolmaster, said with a sad smile: "I 
 suppose he has learned his lessons for the rest of his 
 life." As he said it he was thinking grimly of the long 
 vista of weary days and nights that stretched out be- 
 fore himself as he looked ahead over the years of pro- 
 fessional activity before him. Such a man loves the 
 work of teaching. He feels its stimulus in the rest of his 
 academic service, but he knows, certainly after some 
 experience, that it would be fatal to his success here if 
 he were to be cut off by any kind of university restric- 
 tion from the continuous pursuit of his own private 
 and personal scholarly interests. 
 
 These same considerations have still greater force 
 when we come to the administrative side of the aca- 
 demic profession. "So-and-So likes to run things; let 
 him run them ! So much the more time for me to give 
 to my laboratory or my library or my classes." Such is 
 the not infrequent comment of the zealous scholar or 
 teacher on the vexed question of the distribution of 
 university work. "College work seems to me rather 
 more important than college business" said an elder 
 colleague of mine a good many years ago. His thesis
 
 THE ACADEMIC LIFE 7 
 
 was unanswerable in that form, but the result in his 
 case was sadly instructive for our present purpose. In 
 pursuance of his doctrine he withdrew himself com- 
 pletely from the discussions of the Faculty, which in 
 just those years dealt with the most important prob- 
 lems of university policy. Instead of making his own 
 contribution to these discussions and keeping himself 
 informed on the gradual movement of thought within 
 the university he put himself into the attitude of crit- 
 icism toward those of his colleagues who felt that their 
 duty and their interest as well called for their steady 
 and active participation in the monotonous, often 
 dreary and seemingly unprofitable debates by which 
 the course of things was after all determined. He got 
 what he thought he wanted, exemption from the dis- 
 tractions of "college business," but in the end "college 
 work," even his own work, suffered thereby instead of 
 gaining. 
 
 The moral of this is that the scholars and teachers of 
 the university cannot look with complacency on the 
 development of a separate class of university admin- 
 istrators, and this for two reasons: they need a certain 
 experience of this kind for their own sakes, and if 
 they try to escape it they are sure to find themselves 
 caught in the toils of a separated administrative sys- 
 tem that will block them in their highest endeavors. 
 There is no greater danger before the university world 
 to-day than precisely this. The portentous growth of 
 our larger institutions has seemed to demand ever more 
 and more administrative activity, and the smaller have 
 thought they must follow in the same road. A col-
 
 8 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 league of mine burst out in the midst of a debate on the 
 details of college discipline: "What we need is to en- 
 large the Dean's office. One dean is not enough. We 
 ought to have three or four of them!" There were 
 others who thought that the Dean's office administered 
 as it was with a fatal zeal and fidelity and self-sacrifice, 
 was precisely the evil that needed remedy, not by in- 
 creasing it, but by lopping off the greater part of its 
 functions. Needless to remark that their views did not 
 prevail; for administrative machinery grows by what 
 it feeds upon. In the university, as in the nation, the 
 executive is in danger of crowding the other elements 
 of the community into a willing obscurity and inactiv- 
 ity. Administrative standards are bound to be on a 
 lower level than those of the really important workers; 
 standardization, uniformity, bookkeeping regularity, 
 a semblance of discipline without its reality, quick and 
 obvious results, these are the ideals sure to appeal to 
 the administrative mind. These are the things easily 
 understood by the "university public" upon which the 
 institution has to rely for its material support. And 
 yet these are just the things against which the true 
 scholar and wise teacher has to struggle with all his 
 might if his work is not to slip constantly backward and 
 downward toward the level of the things that are seen 
 and away further and further from the " things that are 
 not seen." 
 
 This is a large and weighty subject worthy of treat- 
 ment by itself. I have touched upon it here only to 
 show its relation to our definition of the academic life 
 as inevitably a complex one. The youth who looks for-
 
 THE ACADEMIC LIFE 9 
 
 ward to this career cannot too thoughtfully consider 
 this aspect of it. He will have to make up his mind that 
 he cannot be merely either a scholar or a teacher or a 
 man of affairs, but must be prepared to distribute his 
 energies over all three of these activities. In what pro- 
 portion, will depend upon circumstances; the point 
 now is that any one of these functions will suffer if the 
 others are too far neglected. The individual will suffer, 
 and the institution will in so far be less well served. 
 The rational policy of a university government would 
 seem to be to draw a just line of division between the 
 diversities of gifts on the one hand and the demand 
 upon all its servants to give as they can of their services 
 in each of the several fields of academic usefulness on 
 the other. For the man who is merely a teacher or 
 merely a scholar or merely a good office head there is 
 no permanently useful place in a university. 
 
 The academic profession in America is compara- 
 tively a new one. Less than two generations ago a 
 young American of scholarly tastes considering what 
 he should do with his life had before him hardly more 
 range than a choice among the three so-called learned 
 professions, the law, medicine, and the Christian min- 
 istry. If his tastes excluded medicine and inclined 
 rather to the practical sides of life he was led naturally 
 into the law, not because he cared specially about law, 
 but because it might eventually give him some oppor- 
 tunity to carry out the more purely scholarly ambitions 
 which, after all, were the real guiding motive of his 
 choice. If, on the other hand, after eliminating med- 
 icine he still found himself unattracted by the sterner
 
 io LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 conflicts of affairs he might find refuge in the ministry 
 of religion as promising him in the long run the largest 
 share in the purely intellectual life. At that time it 
 probably seldom occurred to a youth of parts to aim 
 definitely and from the beginning at the university 
 career as a life work. 
 
 The teaching profession, as a profession, had then 
 hardly come into existence. Teachers were mainly ac- 
 cidents, drawn or driven or drifting into their work 
 through failure or necessity or inertia. The line be- 
 tween the teacher in a school or in a college was not 
 sharply drawn, and men passed from the lower to the 
 higher grade without violent change of quality or intel- 
 lectual outlook. Our young man standing in the valley 
 of decision, if the thought of the academic career oc- 
 curred to him at all, may have dreamed about it as of 
 something immeasurably beyond him to which he 
 might conceivably be called by some mysterious proc- 
 ess, but not as a legitimate object of his own exertions. 
 He liked to think of his professors as men of monstrous 
 learning, though it must be confessed that the methods 
 of instruction of that time tended more to conceal than 
 to display whatever equipment they may have had. 
 That they had ever been much younger than they were, 
 or less the autocrats of their world of knowledge, he 
 could scarcely believe. 
 
 As to the younger instructors, the suggestion of an 
 open profession of learning could hardly come with any 
 greater weight from them. They were largely exper- 
 iments, temporary makeshifts taken out of one or an- 
 other professional school and utilizing their teaching
 
 THE ACADEMIC LIFE u 
 
 appointments only as helps toward their ultimate aims, 
 furthering their own ends at the expense of the luckless 
 youth intrusted to their ignorance and indifference. 
 Only here and there did he encounter among these 
 younger men one and another actuated by the true 
 scholar's purpose, perhaps already trained in some 
 foreign school or gifted with the insight that led him 
 straight toward the academic goal. From some such 
 pioneer the young man may have received suggestion 
 and encouragement to follow his higher leadings and 
 make a way for himself into the kind of life that, how- 
 ever vaguely, appealed to the best there was in him. 
 Seen through the veil of mystery that beclouded it, the 
 professor's life may have seemed to him the most at- 
 tractive of all lives, but how to reach it was still to him 
 a perplexing puzzle. 
 
 All this was quite natural, for, if it is true that there 
 was no recognized profession of teaching, still less could 
 it be said that there was a recognized career for the 
 "liberally" educated scholar. Obviously there could 
 be no easily perceived way to a non-existent profession. 
 The case of Henry Adams, recently described by him- 
 self in his "Education," is a typical one. A man of 
 thirty-two, untrained in any regular fashion for the 
 work of teaching or of historical investigation, living at 
 the time in England as private secretary to the Ameri- 
 can Minister he was suddenly invited to take the posi- 
 tion of an Assistant Professor of History in Harvard 
 College. To his protest that he knew little history and 
 least of all in the period he was expected to teach, the 
 far-seeing President replied that if he would name any
 
 12 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 one better prepared he would appoint him. The plain 
 fact was that there were no technically prepared men 
 ready to take up the work of teaching history in 
 America. 
 
 What was true of history was pretty nearly true of 
 other subjects. A contemporary of mine, a brilliant 
 classical scholar while in college, finding himself in 
 Europe a year after graduation with the world before 
 him, conceived the unusual idea of becoming a well- 
 fitted college teacher. He had a modest income which 
 made some years of study possible, but he was propos- 
 ing to earn his way in the world. He wrote to the great 
 college he had recently left stating his case. He was 
 willing to follow any course of study and submit to any 
 tests the college might prescribe. All he asked was a 
 reasonable certainty that upon the satisfactory com- 
 pletion of such a course the college would give him a 
 chance to try his hand. Unaccountably to him his let- 
 ters remained unanswered, and, after waiting a reason- 
 able time, he threw himself heart and soul into the 
 study of the law. Several years later, just after he had 
 begun a successful practice in a distant city, quite sud- 
 denly, without a word of warning, he received from his 
 alma mater the offer of a classical tutorship. Of course 
 it was too late, and a man of real genius was lost to 
 scholarship and to the academic life because as yet 
 there was no well-marked road leading thither. 
 
 To-day the whole situation is in this respect pretty 
 radically changed. A young man of this type would 
 now be singled out from an early stage of his studies as 
 a prize for whom in a few years universities would be
 
 THE ACADEMIC LIFE 13 
 
 competing. There is to-day in America a well-defined 
 academic profession. The roads leading up to it are 
 almost too clearly marked, and yet it may be doubted 
 whether there is any other profession, unless it be that 
 of the stage, about which the intelligent public knows 
 so little. The real life of the professor, like that of the 
 actor, is lived behind a curtain and is revealed to the 
 public only by occasional glimpses at moments of 
 special readiness for exhibition. The processes of his 
 work are wholly concealed. He works at different times 
 and in different places from those affected by other 
 workmen. He is seldom seen abroad except at his play 
 times, and his public appearances as an expert are 
 limited to audiences interested for the moment in his 
 special field of learning. His own particular college 
 community knows him hardly more intimately. To his 
 students he is a more or less mysterious being who, at 
 stated intervals during the week, emerges from his ob- 
 scurity and imparts to them something of the results of 
 his habitual seclusion. Their scraps of tradition about 
 his personality and his history are more often than not 
 grotesquely inaccurate. 
 
 True, the professor of to-day is in these matters 
 somewhat more happily placed than his predecessors 
 of two generations ago. He is, or at all events likes to 
 fancy himself, more of a man of the world. He is a 
 more movable person. He stands in closer relation 
 with his professional colleagues all over the world. He 
 goes to frequent gatherings of men of his own kind and 
 thus gains a more just measure of himself and his sur- 
 roundings. He is more apt to feel that he owes certain
 
 i 4 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 duties to the community at large and lends himself 
 more readily to this or that form of public service. But 
 after all allowance has been made for this change of 
 attitude, the hard fact remains that all these things 
 have to be treated as so many interruptions to the 
 regular business of his life. If he allows them to fill too 
 large a space, this real business, namely his teaching 
 and the study that supports it and supplies the sources 
 of his contribution to the world's learning, will suffer 
 in proportion. 
 
 I have dwelt thus upon the seclusion of the academic 
 life because this is one of the first things which our 
 young man looking forward to it ought carefully to 
 consider. It makes one of the charms, but it forms also 
 one of the chief limitations of the university career. 
 The young scholar, conscious of power and eager, as he 
 should be, to make it felt in the world has his visions of 
 what learning can do among men. Perhaps he thinks, 
 albeit unconsciously, of the university as the medium 
 between himself and a waiting world. He will use the 
 university as his stalking horse to capture fame and 
 opportunity. "When I began my work" said a col- 
 league after a quarter of a century in the service, "I 
 used to see before me my Complete Works in thirty- 
 seven volumes octavo standing in beautiful order on 
 the library shelf. And now!" He had done a man's 
 work, and the volume of his publication was respect- 
 able, but that fair vision of a waiting world had re- 
 solved itself into the full sight of a world that could 
 still afford to wait. 
 
 I would be the last person to dim by any shadow of
 
 THE ACADEMIC LIFE 15 
 
 experience the splendor of youthful vision, but if any 
 beginner starts with the idea that he can use the uni- 
 versity for his own ends, he is on a false trail. There is 
 a far greater chance that the university will use him 
 and will do it so effectually that there will be little of 
 him left for other service. The law is proverbially a 
 jealous mistress, and though the university profession 
 in America is hardly old enough to have a set of prov- 
 erbs of its own, it can without hesitation apply to itself 
 the claim of the law to the undivided allegiance of its 
 votaries. It is true that a healthful interchange be- 
 tween the university and the active world outside 
 sometimes takes place to the great advantage of both. 
 The university occasionally draws its teachers from the 
 professions and sometimes, though more rarely, the 
 professions are enriched by the transfer to them of men 
 who have gained their early strength in the more the- 
 oretical school of the university. At present mobility 
 seems to be one of the characteristics of the academic 
 person. We hear much of "university extension " "ex- 
 change of professors," "utilizing the plant" and other 
 devices whereby the ingrowing tendencies of the uni- 
 versity body may be checked and its influence in the 
 larger community be increased. All that is well if due 
 limits be observed. What we have to guard against is 
 that wider usefulness may not become distraction, that 
 the call to new activity may not become a sign of mere 
 restlessness. In so far as this is the case the regular, 
 solid movement of academic life will be interrupted, its 
 true foundations of quiet study and productive reflec- 
 tion will be weakened and the long result will be dimin-
 
 16 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 ished. With the greater development of the university 
 career as a profession by itself the process of inter- 
 change between the university and "the world" is not 
 likely to be greatly extended. Young men will go into 
 this new profession in the hope of promotion as the 
 natural reward of success, and if they are to see their 
 way to promotion barred by the introduction of men of 
 larger reputation who have climbed up by some other 
 way, they are going to think several times before they 
 incur the risk. 
 
 A few years ago the academic community was not a 
 little stirred by the discussion of the advisability of 
 establishing "prize professorships" with salaries ap- 
 proximating the incomes of highly successful business 
 or professional men and to be filled by drawing into the 
 service of the university men who had already "ar- 
 rived" in their several fields of action. It was interest- 
 ing to note that in this discussion it was not the obvious 
 financial difficulty, but the probable effect upon the 
 university profession that was most dwelt upon. It 
 was felt that such exceptional chairs would inevitably 
 become rather decorations than positive forces and 
 that their establishment could act only as discourage- 
 ments to modest effort within the university limits. 
 Rather, it was said, let the university do all in its 
 power to develop in its own carefully selected mem- 
 bers the kind of eminence in science that seeks and 
 finds its best reward in the obscure but precious rec- 
 ognitions of those best qualified to judge. 
 
 The candidate for university honors must make up 
 his mind from the start that he is entering on a career
 
 THE ACADEMIC LIFE 17 
 
 that will claim all there is of him and that this claim 
 will not relax as years go on, but will rather increase in 
 intensity and in variety of forms. That is his first sac- 
 rifice, to give up once for all the kind of ambition 
 which looks forward to making a great place in the 
 world. His life is to be mainly a life of seclusion, filled 
 chiefly with a more or less monotonous routine and 
 giving him only now and then points of contact with 
 other interests. Again, he must be prepared to sac- 
 rifice every prospect of worldly advantage. As things 
 go now he can hardly look for permanent employment 
 much before the age of thirty, and he is fortunate if at 
 that time his salary is two thousand dollars. At some 
 point between forty and fifty he may reach a per- 
 manent position with an income of from three to six 
 thousand, but beyond this he is not likely to go. Wife 
 and children under these circumstances are obviously 
 something to be postponed to an age well beyond the 
 normal. And yet nothing ought to commend an other- 
 wise promising young man to permanent employment 
 in the academic world than precisely the fact that he 
 has given his hostages to fortune early and wisely. 
 
 The figures just given will vary, of course, with place 
 and grade of standing, but they are fairly indicative of 
 what the young man thoroughly trained by years of 
 expensive preparation may reasonably expect. They 
 represent doubtless the average appreciation of learn- 
 ing on the part of the great American public. They 
 mean sacrifice of many kinds, but they do not mean 
 poverty. They place the university man, so far as 
 money is concerned, below the average moderately
 
 18 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 successful tradesman or industrial manager or profes- 
 sional practitioner. On the whole they compare pretty 
 well with the figures in other countries, and since the 
 noble foundation of Andrew Carnegie, this comparison 
 is still more favorable to America. Still the cold fact 
 remains that our academic population, in so far as it 
 depends upon its salaries, is living always on the verge 
 of distress if any misfortune befall the wage-earner 
 of the family. To make such provision for the future 
 as will enable him and the rest to meet old age with 
 approximately the same resources as they have en- 
 joyed during his active years involves continual sac- 
 rifice of a kind which inevitably reacts upon the value 
 of the work on which the whole establishment de- 
 pends. It means inconvenient lodging with perhaps no 
 suitable working place for the worker of the family. It 
 means a diminished table with consequent depression 
 of working power. It means lack of books, the tools of 
 the worker's trade. It means denial of recreation, the 
 necessary condition of successful work. It means often 
 a kind of social deprivation especially wearing to a sen- 
 sitive nature. Finally, and worst of all, it means the 
 acceptance of "extra work," that insidious allurement, 
 that "one thing more" which the man always thinks he 
 can do, but which crowds him just so much closer to the 
 wall the private pupil, the course in a secondary 
 school, or, latest and most fatal product of the educa- 
 tional machine, the Summer School. 
 
 This is no plea for the maintenance of a privileged 
 class of scholars. Access to the scholar's life should be 
 difficult, and progress in it should be determined solely
 
 THE ACADEMIC LIFE 19 
 
 by the tests of personal fitness; but it is well that our 
 public should understand what chances of satisfaction 
 in life it is offering to men from whom it demands the 
 highest service of character and laborious devotion to 
 an exacting ideal. It is doubtless true that the public 
 can always count upon a certain supply of academic 
 material, for the scholar's life has its own attraction 
 sure always to outweigh many material considerations. 
 The question is how far the public can afford to specu- 
 late in the scholar's readiness to take chances. It can- 
 not in the long run be satisfied with men in academic 
 positions who make positively low demands upon life. 
 It ought to expect them to seek suitable mates at a 
 reasonably early age, to live easily and in a civilized 
 manner. The home of the academic man ought to be a 
 center of light to the youth who are privileged to enter 
 it. The public owes it to itself to see to it that its uni- 
 versity service be well done, and it cannot be well done 
 by men who are under the continual stress of personal 
 anxiety. 
 
 It is, of course, impossible here to name any exact 
 standards, but it is not extravagant to ask that the 
 position in life of the academic man be not made 
 greatly inferior to that of the picked men among law- 
 yers and physicians. Somewhat inferior it is sure to be, 
 for it would be a millennial conception to place the in- 
 terests of men's minds or souls upon as high a level as 
 the interests of their bodies or of their pockets. But, 
 taking into account the element of comparative secur- 
 ity essential to scholarly success, the standard I have 
 suggested can hardly seem unreasonably high. In a
 
 20 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 community, for example, where a fairly successful 
 lawyer or physician at the age of forty-five would be 
 earning ten thousand a year, it can hardly seem too 
 much to ask that the university professor who has 
 stood all the tests should expect about six thousand. 
 This maximum should ordinarily be reached by stages 
 long enough to give ample guarantee of satisfaction, 
 and governing boards should not be held to have com- 
 mitted themselves to further advance by any action 
 during the earlier stages. 
 
 The ways to permanent appointment at maximum 
 pay should be kept as difficult as they are at present, 
 and the candidate for promotion should be made to 
 feel that his fate is in his own hands. The question how 
 far the probationary stage should be extended is a se- 
 rious one. In a recent conversation with a newly ap- 
 pointed member of the corporation of an important 
 university we discussed the advisability of adding one 
 more stage to the already existing normal steps of ap- 
 proach to the full professorship. He enlarged upon the 
 beneficial moral effect of long probation. "In a very 
 true sense" he said "we are all on probation as long as 
 we live. It is a wholesome thing to feel that we are 
 under inspection and responsible to some superior 
 power for the best exercise of our faculties. To remove 
 that sense of responsibility would be to slacken the 
 tension of our working machinery and lead gradually 
 to less efficient service." I admitted fully the force of 
 these general propositions, but ventured to warn my 
 friend of certain limits to them. I reminded him that 
 the university service is not like that of the business
 
 THE ACADEMIC LIFE 21 
 
 houses with which he was familiar. The professor is 
 not the employe of a superior individual or corporation. 
 The controlling corporation is not an employer, but a 
 trustee bound by the nature of his trust to procure ex- 
 pert service of which he is only imperfectly capable of 
 judging. The professor on his side serves, not the cor- 
 poration but the cause of learning and education. He 
 is a partner with the corporation in this larger service. 
 His pay comes, not from the corporation but partly 
 from the students and partly from endowments which 
 again are not the property of the corporation but of the 
 community at large which through its lawful agencies 
 entrusts them to the corporation for the purposes of 
 their foundation. 
 
 This peculiar quality of the university service has 
 certain consequences. "You and I," said a colleague 
 with whom I was discussing, as professors will, certain 
 frailties of the executive branch, "can stand a good 
 deal of this sort of thing because we love the place." 
 Our loyalty, tried and proved in many an encounter 
 was, we believed, proof against almost any strain. But 
 how about the loyalty of men without these ties of af- 
 fection and these memories of storm and stress ? Can 
 they be counted upon for unselfish service at critical 
 moments? Will they withstand the temptation of 
 higher offers from other institutions? Will they bear 
 patiently what they feel to be encroachments upon 
 their rights as members of the university family? 
 Upon the answer to these questions must depend very 
 greatly the whole problem of university morale. The 
 creation throughout the whole working staff of this
 
 22 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 spirit of loyalty is one of the most important I had 
 almost said, the most important object of university 
 policy. Without it the movement of the academic life 
 is crippled and hampered at every turn. Mutual mis- 
 understanding and mistrust are sure to creep in and 
 impede that harmony of effort which is essential to a 
 successful administration of the common trust. 
 
 Now, what is the bearing of all this upon the ques- 
 tion of prolonged probation? It is this: that nothing 
 contributes more effectively to the spirit of loyalty 
 than the sense of confidence that one is no longer under 
 suspicion of any sort whatever. Say what we will about 
 the stimulating effect of a constant supervision, it is 
 infinitely less than the stimulation of confidence. It is 
 not merely the sense of security, great as the relief of 
 that is. It is the spur of finding that one's effort is 
 recognized beyond all cavil. It is the uplifting sense 
 that one is fully admitted to partnership in a great and 
 worthy undertaking. Looking back over my own ex- 
 perience I find that on twelve different occasions I was 
 made to feel that my service was acceptable to the 
 government of the university, and as I recall those 
 occasions I feel anew the glow of satisfaction and the 
 stimulus to renewed effort that accompanied them. 
 And among these occasions one stands out above all 
 the rest the moment when, quite without any ex- 
 pectation of mine, I was given the duties and respon- 
 sibilities of permanent appointment. It cannot have 
 been the material advancement, for that was set at an 
 irreducible minimum; it was certainly no overpowering 
 conviction of my own value, for never before or since
 
 THE ACADEMIC LIFE 23 
 
 was I in a more humble frame of mind. It was the 
 sense, almost greater than I could bear, of loyal deter- 
 mination to prove that so far as depended upon me the 
 corporation had not made a mistake. 
 
 I draw from that experience and from long observa- 
 tion of many men the principle that university gov- 
 ernments should be concerned with the question, "how 
 short"rather than with the question, " how long"ought 
 they in a given case to make the period of probation. 
 Whenever they are satisfied that, barring accidents, 
 the man is of the kind they need, it would generally be 
 wise policy to bind him to their service by giving him 
 the fullest possible share in the responsibilities of mem- 
 bership in their company of scholars. At present the 
 only effective reminder to them of such wisdom is a 
 "call" elsewhere. Into that painful subject I will not 
 go. The ins and outs of it are familiar to all academic 
 citizens. It may well be maintained that the loss of a 
 good man in this way is readily made up by calling an- 
 other equally good man in his place, and that such 
 interchange of services is on the whole a wholesome 
 incident of our academic system. This is all true, but 
 it is not the whole truth. Back of all these outward 
 considerations lies the appeal to that spirit of loyal 
 cooperation among the several elements of the uni- 
 versity body with which we are here concerned. Pro- 
 bation is good; but the deliverance from probation is 
 better. 
 
 In making the comparison between the academic 
 profession and those of the law and medicine I ven- 
 tured to use the expression "picked men." Lest that
 
 24 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 comparison should seem exaggerated it is well to re- 
 mind ourselves that the modern professor is a picked 
 man in a very literal sense. He is picked first by some 
 natural endowment, in virtue of which he may be ex- 
 pected to be more successful in his chosen line of work 
 than others. He is picked again by a very long and 
 very arduous process of selection, and this process is 
 carried on by experts who watch at every step for indi- 
 cations of fitness and of unfitness for the career he has 
 in view. As his preparation advances the strain of this 
 constant inspection becomes more intense. One after 
 another the candidates fall out of the race. The sur- 
 vivors plod along through their repeated tests until 
 finally with more or less reluctance their judges grant 
 them the certificate which admits them, not to any 
 great reward, but only to the privilege of beginning a 
 still more arduous struggle. If they are fortunate 
 enough to obtain temporary positions they are again 
 subjected to long and expert observation. The com- 
 munity sees the cases of success; we on the inside know 
 the story of a long procession of silent failures, of 
 worthy men slipping quietly out of the competition 
 and accepting occupation, often more lucrative, in 
 other lines. Comparisons are always dangerous, and 
 one hears sometimes such as this: "Professor So-and- 
 So may be a very competent man, but what kind of a 
 lawyer or doctor would he have made?" There is only 
 one answer to this kind of comparison, and that is: 
 "What kind of a professor would your successful law- 
 yer or doctor have made ? " They have been picked by 
 the process which brought out their special endow-
 
 THE ACADEMIC LIFE 25 
 
 ment. The professor has been picked by the process 
 suited to his needs. It is fair that they should all be 
 judged on an equal scale. 
 
 It is a pleasure to record that on the whole the tend- 
 ency of things academic is in the direction of a policy of 
 largeness and confidence in the treatment of the teach- 
 ing staff. Truth requires us, however, to face the fact 
 that the material rewards of scholarship are still not 
 such as to weigh very heavily in the balance of a young 
 man considering his chances in life. As we are ventur- 
 ing upon comparisons another distinction between 
 academic and other rewards may be pointed out. In 
 other professions there is a certain direct and obvious 
 relation between work done and the return. The law- 
 yer or the physician undertakes a case; he expends so 
 much effort and may claim so much compensation. 
 Extra work counts for extra pay in something more 
 than direct proportion; for success here brings not only 
 immediate reward but draws more and more demand 
 with a steadily increasing scale of prices for specialized 
 service. A rising young city physician of my acquaint- 
 ance was called to visit a patient at a summer resort 
 and was kept in attendance during a long illness. 
 Meanwhile another similar case presented itself in the 
 neighborhood, and our young man returned to the 
 city with six thousand dollars in his pocket. The col- 
 lege teacher, worn out as he is almost sure to be with 
 his year of work, yields perhaps to the temptation of 
 the Summer School, goes on wearing himself out still 
 more and droops at the end with two or three hundred 
 dollars to his account.
 
 26 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 The best work of the scholar has no equivalent in 
 material things. The book on which he spends his 
 spare time and his reserves of strength for years brings 
 him no money return. The text-book, often most suc- 
 cessful when it is stripped of every scholarly quality, 
 may prove an investment profitable in proportion to 
 the lowness of the grade it reaches. The real contribu- 
 tion to learning, the laborious investigation, the long 
 self-denial of years bring no other reward than the 
 sense of a thing well done and the precious approval of 
 the few who can understand. I shall never forget a 
 remark made to me in the last year of his life by an 
 elder colleague the fragrance of whose life was well 
 typified by the roses he loved: " I have always dreamed 
 of having a nice little place in the country with one 
 of those great big Norman horses to drive back and 
 forth to the station; but I shall never have it now." It 
 was a modest ambition. His life would have been the 
 longer and his work the richer for its realization but 
 he would not sacrifice to it one iota of the precious 
 time and strength he gave without stint to the unre- 
 warded work that has made his name one of the glories 
 of American scholarship. 
 
 Every observer of the academic life is conscious of 
 the wear and tear of it, but the explanation of this is 
 not always so clearly perceived. Study, we are told, is 
 a very pleasant occupation. The man of affairs often 
 says in all honesty: "There is nothing I should so much 
 enjoy as a chance to study. In what little of it I can 
 do I find the greatest happiness of my life." The presi- 
 dent of a great railway system said to me: "I come
 
 THE ACADEMIC LIFE 27 
 
 home from a long day full of perplexing problems. I 
 throw myself into an easy chair in my library and in 
 the pages of some historian or in a book of travel I for- 
 get that there is a railroad in the world." So study, it 
 would seem, is a rest rather than a weariness, and the 
 life of the professional student is one prolonged repose. 
 As to the teaching: we are well accustomed to the 
 somewhat pitying expression that comes over the face 
 of our man of affairs when he hears that we are, as he 
 might say, "on duty" not more than six or eight or ten 
 hours a week and that duty only the telling over again 
 of a story we know so well that we could tell it in our 
 sleep. 
 
 Well, study is a pleasant thing, but it is a pleasure to 
 be compared, not to the irresponsible comfort of the 
 railroad president "off duty" in his evening chair, but 
 rather to the joy he feels when he has just made a suc- 
 cessful "deal" or overcome some great engineering 
 problem. Teaching too is a pleasure, but, done with 
 the whole man, it is a pleasure like that of the lawyer 
 before a court, which fills him for the moment with a 
 glow of excitement but leaves him for some time there- 
 after a nerveless wreck. Study and teaching both make 
 exacting demands upon the scholar's strength and 
 vitality; \>ut this is not the whole of it. The real strain, 
 year in and year out, comes from a peculiar cause less 
 urgent if not unknown in other professions, and, so far 
 as I know, not reckoned with in the numerous popular 
 descriptions of academic life. I mean the expenditure 
 offeree in keeping the mental machinery up to working 
 pitch. Much of the work of the world can be done
 
 28 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 mechanically, and the more mechanically such work is 
 done the better, because it leaves the worker so much 
 the fresher for the severer effort. The scholar's work 
 cannot be done in this way. If it is not done heart and 
 soul, it is not done at all. 
 
 Again cautious comparison may help us. The law- 
 yer, having finished one case turns at once to another 
 that is calling him. The physician makes his daily 
 round in obedience to definite calls. The clergyman 
 has his weekly sermon to prepare and is besides sum- 
 moned hither and yon by immediate calls he must 
 obey. Even the business man, after his business is 
 fairly started, is kept going by direct and peremptory 
 demands of trade. All, of course, chafe at times under 
 this incessant pressure from the outside, but they little 
 realize how much help it is to them in overcoming the 
 inevitable dead points in the rotation of human energy. 
 It is a common saying that when a man has on hand a 
 long job and a short one, it is always the short job that 
 gets done. That is because it makes a definite, tan- 
 gible demand, whereas the longer job, the work de 
 tongue haleine, can always be indefinitely postponed. 
 The professor's work is of this type. 
 
 So far as his student world is concerned, he can keep 
 himself right with that by a minimum of effort. His 
 few regular appointments during the week he meets 
 with little inconvenience to himself. During about 
 four months of the year he can, without attracting any 
 special comment, absent himself entirely from the 
 scenes of his regular activity. All this sounds like a life 
 of absolute liberty, a charmed existence free from the
 
 THE ACADEMIC LIFE 29 
 
 strain and fret of most human things. In reality he is 
 the servant of a master more jealous than any clientele 
 of the successful man of the world. Body and soul he 
 has given himself to his profession, and his only aim is 
 to get out of himself all he can in fulfilment of this 
 obligation. Whatever his vices may be, laziness is not 
 often one of them. The inalienable right to grumble he 
 retains like other men, but the form his grumbling 
 takes is usually that his powers or his opportunities for 
 work are not what they ought to be. I cannot recall a 
 case of complaint of overwork on the part of a col- 
 league, unless it were of work of such a kind that it 
 interfered with what seemed to him his highest pro- 
 fessional activity. In many ways, to be sure, he is like 
 any employe owing service in return for pay, but his 
 service is so much the more exacting in that it is a 
 service of honor. He has no master's eye upon him to 
 check him in a momentary weakness. He may absent 
 himself from his functions occasionally at will without 
 giving account of himself. He may, for a long time, be 
 neglectful of many details of his study without crit- 
 icism. He is not controlled in the use of his time out- 
 side the regular tabular view. He may work in the 
 morning or he may sleep till noon and sit at his books 
 till daybreak. His original output is not produced at 
 any word of command. It has to be wrought out of his 
 innermost self by the force of personal self-control. 
 There is never any positive reason why a given piece of 
 work should be done at one time rather than at an- 
 other. His only safety lies in making for himself a rigid 
 division of his week and holding to it in the face of the
 
 30 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 numerous distractions which the collective life of the 
 university continually offers. He has to be his own 
 taskmaster, and only those who have tried this know 
 what it means. It is almost as if an engine had not 
 only to do its work but to furnish also the energy by 
 which it is set in motion. That would be perpetual mo- 
 tion, and indeed the life of the professor, like the 
 proverbial life of woman, comes as near that impossible 
 achievement as is possible under human conditions. 
 His work is never done. It goes to bed with him at 
 night and rises with him in the morning. It can never 
 quite satisfy his own exacting standards, and he always 
 sees around the borders of the accomplished a wide and 
 never diminishing margin of the unattainable. 
 
 That brings us again to vacations. Ah! Happy pro- 
 fessors! For three months of the year they are free to 
 wander as they will. They hie them to mountain and 
 seashore, and there, lying under the spreading shad- 
 ows of the forest or floating on the surface of summer 
 seas they dream away the time until they are called 
 back to their pleasant labors of the autumn. Such is 
 the fancy picture so often drawn and firmly believed in 
 by those who see the academic life only from "the 
 front of the house." In fact there are very few mem- 
 bers of a college staff who give themselves anything 
 like a full summer of idle recreation. Almost everyone 
 has work on hand which he has been putting off from 
 day to day in the pressure of term time and for which 
 he now sees, or thinks he sees, a clear space before him. 
 The academic stay-at-home finds no lack of compan- 
 ionship. He has sent off his family and entered upon
 
 THE ACADEMIC LIFE 31 
 
 that "peace, perfect peace, the loved ones far away" 
 which invites him to long hours of quiet work. He 
 goes to the library, and, as he turns the corners of the 
 books tacks, one after another his colleagues appear, 
 until he wonders if the whole Faculty is not in the 
 same conspiracy. Others are with their families but 
 within easy reach of library or laboratory. Others 
 again have betaken themselves to their more distant 
 summer homes armed with boxes of books and ready to 
 attack the unfinished manuscript, the new edition of a 
 classic text, the new course of lectures for the coming 
 winter. 
 
 The establishment of summer schools has brought a 
 new and very serious kind of pressure upon the uni- 
 versity teacher. He is urged to this additional task by 
 the sense of loyalty to his college and by the prospect of 
 adding a pittance to his income. He is really worn out 
 by the work of the year, or if not he ought to be, but 
 the effect of that strain is not immediately felt. There 
 is a certain exaltation of weariness which keys its vic- 
 tim up to new exertion. Every physician will bear wit- 
 ness to this fact. The tired teacher enters gaily upon 
 his summer work, but he will almost certainly droop 
 under it. Other forms of summer occupation have at 
 least the merit of a change of work and of scene. The 
 teacher is tied to the same spot and subjected to the 
 same kind of strain as at other times. He is prevented 
 from making any further profitable use of his vacation 
 and goes back to his work of the next year with a 
 diminished vitality that must tell upon his usefulness. 
 Colleges ought to consider very seriously whether the
 
 3 a LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 good results of the summer term really outweigh this 
 sapping of the energies of their best men. If the sum- 
 mer term is a necessity, if as the phrase now is "the 
 plant must be kept going at capacity," there should 
 be some system of "shifts" whereby the teaching force 
 can be more evenly distributed and the wear and tear 
 of the individual be measurably diminished. To sug- 
 gest that in the intellectual life periods of complete 
 rest, with that possibility of calm reflection which alone 
 can place things in a true perspective, are actually 
 periods of productivity is to invite the undeserved re- 
 proach of dilettantism. The razor's edge sharpens itself 
 while lying idle, through the adjustment of the particles 
 that compose it. 
 
 Therein lies the true value of the vacation. It is not, 
 and it ought not to be a period of idleness, but of that 
 otium which through wise activity keeps the mind in 
 readiness for renewed action in the routine of daily 
 service. Viewed in this way the incident of long vaca- 
 tions becomes indeed an attraction of the academic 
 life, a legitimate attraction which may well influence a 
 young man in striking the balance of opportunities 
 before him. As for the shorter holidays at Christmas 
 and Easter: they have almost entirely disappeared 
 through the extraordinary growth of learned associa- 
 tions, the meetings of which every university man now 
 feels it his duty to attend. These associations have 
 proved of immense value during the past generation 
 in creating and maintaining a quite new sense of com- 
 mon professional interest. They offer a medium of pub- 
 lication for the results of investigation; their meetings
 
 THE ACADEMIC LIFE 33 
 
 give valuable opportunities for comparing notes on 
 methods and conditions of work; older men have there 
 the chance to review the field of talent coming forward 
 in their profession, and younger men gain a useful 
 personal knowledge of those to whom they have been 
 looking up as leaders in the way they are going. None 
 can afford entirely to neglect these organizations, but 
 even a very moderate devotion to them suffices to con- 
 sume the entire time of the shorter holidays. To those 
 who take an active part in the reunions of many sorts 
 that properly and usefully accompany them they 
 prove stimulating indeed, but not altogether refresh- 
 ing. It is proverbial that three days of convention 
 require at least a week of recovery. 
 
 Thus far we have been giving our attention mainly 
 to those aspects of the academic life which may well 
 cause the youth who is considering it among the pos- 
 sibilities of his future to pause upon the threshold and 
 ask himself very seriously whether this is indeed the 
 kind of life he wishes to lead. The sacrifice of public 
 recognition; the narrowness of income; the long pro- 
 bation; the persistent pressure of work demanding a 
 constant strain on the conscience and with no corre- 
 sponding external advancement these are all things 
 to be weighed most carefully before a decision is made. 
 The decision will after all have to rest upon that in- 
 stinct for the right which even in a very young man 
 gives the truest counsel as to what life is for. I remem- 
 ber asking a venerable German professor how it was 
 that university authorities could allow a candidate for 
 his profession after long years of training, and after
 
 34 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 he had given every evidence of fitness, to serve the 
 university, perhaps for years, without pay or other 
 academic recognition. His reply was: "We regard the 
 position of university professor as so desirable and so 
 honorable that we propose to make the approach to it 
 as difficult as possible." 
 
 For Germany that was a perfectly satisfactory an- 
 swer. Would it be equally so for America? With al- 
 lowance for difference of conditions, I think it would. 
 The kind of obstacles we have been considering are not 
 such as daunt the spirit of an ambitious youth con- 
 scious of power and willing to work. Rather they are 
 likely to stimulate ambition and give him the feeling 
 that the work is worth doing because it will eventually 
 give him the things he values most highly. The desir- 
 ability of any position depends in the last resort upon 
 its social distinction. Sometimes this distinction ex- 
 presses itself in terms of money and what money can 
 buy, and if the things so bought are worthy things, 
 then this is an honorable distinction and money-mak- 
 ing becomes a worthy pursuit. But there is a social 
 regard which money cannot buy, and it is a just source 
 of pride that on the whole, in civilized America, the 
 scholar, definitely excluded from consideration on the 
 ground of wealth, is respected for his calling. In fact 
 the scholar who inherits wealth or acquires it by mar- 
 riage falls under a certain suspicion of slackening in the 
 motive power of his life and must justify himself by an 
 increased tension of application. 
 
 Many years ago a rich young man of great promise 
 just finishing his college course came to me for advice
 
 THE ACADEMIC LIFE 35 
 
 about further study. He outlined his plans with be- 
 coming modesty and added that his circumstances 
 would permit him to spend as long a time in prepara- 
 tion as he might choose. I heard him through with 
 interest, gave him what help I could and closed our 
 conversation with a word of warning: "If you ex- 
 pect to succeed in the scholar's life you must make 
 yourself believe that you are a poor man." He took 
 my warning kindly, perhaps forgot it, but followed its 
 spirit. He began at the bottom, took his punishment 
 with his mates, earned his advanced degree, avoided 
 the distractions that so easily beset the foot-free stu- 
 dent abroad, started on the lowest round of the aca- 
 demic ladder and rose to the highest with the cordial 
 esteem of his colleagues and the growing approval of 
 the authorities. 
 
 Quite different was the attitude of another can- 
 didate, a man with his living to earn, who came to 
 America after a residence of some years at a foreign 
 university where his personal and social gifts had won 
 for him an enviable reputation. He desired, as he 
 might have phrased it, to "adopt the university 
 career," but there was one hopeless flaw in his reckon- 
 ing he wanted to begin at the top. He would not 
 put himself down to the task of building up from the 
 bottom the foundations of patient study on which a 
 serious candidacy could be based. So the university 
 career refused to adopt him, and he drifted into more 
 congenial occupation. 
 
 Neither wealth nor the absence of it has any specific 
 relation to the consideration enjoyed by the academic
 
 36 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 person. His social status depends upon the regard for 
 learning in the community in which his lot is cast. A 
 young man of parts coming to a great eastern univer- 
 sity said to me: "You cannot imagine the relief it is 
 to be in a place where people are not all the time asking 
 me why I am such a fool as to be spending my time 
 over books when I might be making big money in 
 some decent business." That state of things has dis- 
 tinctly changed with the wider spread of civilized con- 
 ditions. On the whole it is safe to say that to-day the 
 college citizen may assume that he will be persona 
 grata in any society which may seem to him worth cul- 
 tivating. If such association involves the spending of 
 more money than he can afford he cannot have it, as he 
 cannot have many other pleasant things; but ordinar- 
 ily this is not the case. The man of learning, provided, 
 of course, that he is otherwise acceptable, can look 
 forward to as "good society" as the community af- 
 fords. He can accept hospitality as it is offered and 
 can return it in such fashion as fits his purse without 
 fear that any one worth considering will think the less 
 of him. A recent magazine gave a would-be pathetic 
 sketch of the social miseries of a young couple in their 
 first year of academic life. The pathos fell flat because 
 the couple were silly persons, each in his own way, and 
 the academic community was represented by a clique 
 of hopeless snobs. Those are not normal American 
 conditions. No person has a right to any more social 
 regard than his personal quality can command, and 
 academic society is the last place for the display of 
 fictitious superiorities.
 
 THE ACADEMIC LIFE 37 
 
 An evidence of popular respect and confidence is to 
 be found in security of tenure. Americans are prover- 
 bially jealous of long tenures of public office. Only 
 here and there has this jealousy been so far overcome 
 as to admit of life appointments for judicial officers. 
 It is, therefore, a matter for congratulation that life- 
 tenures for university professors are as widely estab- 
 lished as they are. True, such appointments for life are 
 seldom or never guaranteed, but practice, and a senti- 
 ment stronger than any contract have made them the 
 rule in most of our older communities, and the newer 
 are falling into line as they come more and more to ap- 
 preciate the importance of education in the making of a 
 state. Nearly a generation ago a western university 
 president of long experience and accumulated wisdom 
 gave to a young candidate for a university presidency 
 this advice: "Don't turn out all your professors in 
 the first year." To-day that advice would hardly be 
 needed. Insecurity of tenure is the natural accom- 
 paniment of ill-advised appointment, and all those 
 factors in the preparation of candidates which we have 
 been considering as so many deterrent agencies show 
 their value also as so many guarantees of good ap- 
 pointment and therefore as justification for security of 
 tenure. We have every reason to hope that as appoint- 
 ments become increasingly difficult, and probation is 
 more effectively enforced, the conditions of tenure will 
 improve in proportion. 
 
 Another evidence of public consideration is the in- 
 creasing readiness of communities to look to the uni- 
 versities for expert service of many kinds. Passing by
 
 38 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 the monumental instance of a president of the United 
 States who served his apprenticeship as a university 
 professor and then as university president, one recalls 
 without effort professors of law appointed on legislative 
 commissions for the reform of procedure, professors of 
 economic science on state tax commissions, professors 
 of geology in charge of state and national surveys, and 
 a long series of professors serving on school boards and 
 otherwise doing public duty in educational matters. 
 The list of university men who have been employed by 
 our government upon long and arduous and delicate 
 negotiations with foreign powers is a striking and 
 honorable one. It may fairly be said that it depends 
 only upon the quality of the man how far he may be 
 brought into relation with public affairs. 
 
 I speak of this here only to illustrate the considera- 
 tion of our public for the profession of the scholar. I 
 am not referring to it as a motive for the ambitious 
 youth looking forward to the academic life. It would 
 be a misfortune if his mind were to be directed to any 
 other goal than that of the highest distinction possible 
 to him within the limits of the profession itself. To 
 make his profession a means of attaining distinction 
 elsewhere would be to belittle it in his own eyes and in 
 the estimation of the community in general. It is a 
 wholesome sign that the community should turn to the 
 university for expert service, and universities will do 
 well to make it possible for their members to respond to 
 such calls for brief periods. The reaction upon their 
 proper work cannot fail to be beneficial, provided only 
 that they be not thereby led to think of this proper
 
 39 
 
 work as something less important or less worthy than 
 the "larger" service. 
 
 But these are all external and material considera- 
 tions. There are others involving more nearly questions 
 of the inner life. If the academic career can seldom 
 offer the attractions of the world of affairs, it has the 
 charm of freedom from its anxieties and its strifes. In 
 most other occupations there are inevitable competi- 
 tions and rivalries full of stimulation to energy but 
 bringing men down every now and then to the primi- 
 tive law of the survival of fitness with its heart-break- 
 ing accompaniments. What one gains another loses; 
 the weakest to the wall ! Vae metis! In the academic 
 life there is indeed competition, plenty of it, from 
 bottom to top; but it is never a competition in which 
 the gain of one is a loss to another. In the world of 
 knowledge the success of each contributes to the ad- 
 vancement of all. The rivalries of the scholar are the 
 wholesome strife in which both parties are always vic- 
 torious. He who makes the final discovery, deciphers 
 the precious manuscript, or solves the riddle of the 
 historian, conquers, not those who have striven with 
 him in the same endeavor, but the obstacle itself. His 
 rivals are his colleagues and his friends, and they profit 
 by his success as much as he. In the rivalries of com- 
 merce the discoverer or the inventor of some new thing 
 hastens to protect himself by law against the encroach- 
 ments of competitors. In science the discoverer seeks 
 only to proclaim his results as soon as they are estab- 
 lished, that others may build upon them and rise to 
 still greater heights. Now and again, to be sure, one
 
 40 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 meets a scholar, it may be a very eminent one, who 
 finds his special satisfaction in belittling and begrudg- 
 ing the success of another, but such a man is the pariah 
 of the academic society, not its type. 
 
 More too than in most other occupations the re- 
 wards of the scholar and teacher are found in the work 
 itself. He is drawn into his profession primarily by 
 some special attraction it has for him, and this attrac- 
 tion grows naturally greater as he goes deeper and 
 deeper into his subject. The inevitable drudgery and 
 monotony of his routine he comes to think of as the 
 price he has to pay for the privilege of doing the thing 
 in which, on the whole, he takes the greatest delight. 
 His problem is to keep the routine from obscuring the 
 larger and higher satisfactions of his life. Sometimes, 
 under the stress of the daily round, it seems to him as if 
 life were very much of a treadmill with an immense 
 amount of treading to a very small proportion of 
 power gained. But then, quite unexpectedly, some little 
 turn of the wheel opens up a new glimpse of possibility. 
 He feels the power really working and accomplishing 
 something. Long standing puzzles seem to be clearing 
 themselves up. Results are actually visible. Some- 
 thing may be put aside as really done at last, and one 
 goes on again with the routine enlarged and brightened 
 by the vision of success. 
 
 Academic rewards are few and slow in coming, but 
 they are extremely precious. Their value comes, not 
 merely from their rarity, but because they are unmixed 
 with any alloy of baser motive. One goes on teaching 
 week in and week out, putting one's whole life into it
 
 THE ACADEMIC LIFE 41 
 
 and wondering from day to day at the unresponsive- 
 ness of youth. A sense of failure haunts one's thoughts 
 and makes one question whether it is worth while after 
 all. But then, it may be years afterward, there comes 
 to one out of that same unresponsive group, a word of 
 gratitude, a reminder of some chance remark of ours 
 which has turned the current of a young man's thought, 
 and we are ashamed of our depression and our little 
 faith. 
 
 One often hears this perpetual contact with youth re- 
 ferred to as one of the chief dangers of the academic 
 life. Youth, we are told, is so uncritical, so ready to 
 take us for more than we are worth. We must suffer 
 from it as the clergyman proverbially suffers from over 
 much dealing with admiring women. All this is partly 
 true. The teacher like the clergyman feels at times the 
 temptation to lean too hard upon his official character 
 and too lightly upon the legitimate sanctions of his 
 subject and his own interpretation of it. I doubt, how- 
 ever, if academic teachers who appeal directly and 
 naturally to the student mind find it an uncritical 
 mind or one over ready to take them at their price 
 rather than at its own. In mere knowledge, of course, 
 the student world owns its inferiority at once; but as 
 to every other academic quality it has its own stand- 
 ards and enforces them at times with the remorseless 
 cruelty of the youthful savage. Well for the superior 
 person if early in his career he touches upon this stra- 
 tum of primitive humanity in his students and learns 
 to respect it. But woe to him if he presumes too far 
 upon their simplicity! At some unexpected moment he
 
 42 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 will find his assumed superiority toppling over in 
 hopeless ruin. 
 
 But in fact this is such an obvious danger that it 
 must be a very dull person who should surrender him- 
 self easily to it. The man of sense recognizes it at the 
 start and begins at once to feel it as only another as- 
 pect of what ought to be one of the greatest charms of 
 his academic experience. This continual contact with 
 minds that are all facing forward is a happiness we can 
 thoroughly appreciate only when our own minds begin 
 to be divided between the forward looking and the 
 backward looking views of life, with a certain increas- 
 ing tendency toward the backward. It is then espe- 
 cially, if we are wise, that we learn to refresh our 
 sometimes failing hope and courage at these ever re- 
 newed springs of energy and faith. 
 
 One of our most devoted teachers and most famous 
 scholars used to say in his moments of semi-depression : 
 "We shall never have a university here till we get rid 
 of all the students." Another expressed the same senti- 
 ment: "If it weren't for these plaguy lectures what 
 a pleasant life this would be!" Now neither of these 
 eminent men meant quite what he said. For the mo- 
 ment each was feeling rather heavily the burden of 
 his teaching as a check upon the other and to him more 
 precious work of pure scholarship he was trying to do. 
 For that moment each had lost sight of the debt his 
 scholarship itself owed to the reaction of the young life 
 that had surrounded it. Certainly neither of them 
 would have been willing to miss the tributes of grateful 
 affection which brightened the closing years of their 
 academic lives.
 
 THE ACADEMIC LIFE 43 
 
 The obvious corrective against an overplus of youth 
 is to be sought in the companionship of elders and 
 equals in age, and, after all is said, it is here that is to be 
 found the greatest happiness of the university career. 
 The scholar gives up the great world, but he enters into 
 a little world as free from the meaner passions as any 
 human society is likely to be. In his study he enjoys 
 the immense privilege of an inviolable solitude, but 
 when he leaves his study he feels himself at once an 
 active member of a society of kindred tastes, of quick 
 response to the best that he has to offer and with pro- 
 fessional aims for which he has comprehension if not 
 understanding. He may make what excursions he can 
 into the larger world, but it is here that he will have to 
 look for the intimate associations and the real satisfac- 
 tions of his life. True, in these days of specialization he 
 can hope to enter into the technical detail of the work 
 of but a few of his colleagues, but our day is no more 
 remarkable for its specialization than it is for its mar- 
 velous revelation of the essential unity of method in all 
 science. If specializing tends, as it certainly does, to 
 divide men pretty sharply into technical groups, it is 
 one of the functions of the academic unit we call the 
 university to remind them in every way that they are 
 but parts in a something greater than the several 
 sciences they represent. 
 
 Membership in this unit brings with it the privilege 
 which the isolated scholar can never enjoy of con- 
 stantly verifying the method of one science by com- 
 parison with others. The historian learns from the 
 physicist, and the biologist from the philosopher, many
 
 44 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 a thing that will illuminate his own science. The man 
 who withdraws himself from such association suffers 
 inevitably. A mathematician once confessed to me 
 early in his career that he had so confined himself to 
 the mathematical process that he had lost the power of 
 following an ordinary train of reasoning by other than 
 mathematical principles. A very eminent philologian 
 who had spent the best years of his life in making a 
 dictionary was accustomed to deplore his incapacity 
 for logical and continuous thought. In both these 
 cases it was conspicuously true that the usefulness of 
 the man in his own sphere was sadly diminished by his 
 limited conception of his function as a scholar. The 
 free give and take of the university offers ample scope 
 for specialization, but tends to preserve the specialist 
 from the worst dangers of learned narrowness. If the 
 university man fails to see his opportunity, buries him- 
 self in his books, willing to let the devil pipe to his own, 
 that is his own mistake and, consciously or not, he is 
 the worst sufferer from it. 
 
 In retrospect the dominant feeling in regard to the 
 academic life is not of its burdens or its limitations, but 
 of the happiness of it. To the young man weighing the 
 chances of the future I would leave no better message 
 than this: It is a happy life.
 
 WHAT TO DO WITH A BOY? 
 
 A FRIEND of mine, a man of wealth and real cul- 
 ture living in an agreeable suburb of a large west- 
 ern city, wrote me to inquire as to the very best school 
 at which his sons might, as the phrase is, prepare them- 
 selves to enter Harvard College. The inquiry was in 
 several ways characteristic of the American state of 
 mind in regard to the education of a boy between the 
 ages of ten and eighteen. The father used the phrase 
 "prepare for Harvard College" because that was the 
 idea uppermost in his mind as he thought of the im- 
 mediate future of his sons. The boys were to enter 
 Harvard College; that was the one fixed point in his 
 outlook. They would enter at about eighteen, and the 
 handiest summary of their life during several years 
 previous to entrance was that of a "preparation" for 
 college. It probably never occurred to the father, as it 
 seldom occurs to American fathers situated as he was, 
 to consider that precisely these years of the boy's life 
 had most important bearings upon his whole future, 
 and that this relation to the whole future was of far 
 greater moment than their relation to the immediate 
 future of the college course. 
 
 Furthermore, it was not merely the college that filled 
 the foreground of this anxious father's thought. It was 
 one particular college, and it was with a view to getting 
 light upon the best way of preparation for entrance 
 there that he did me the honor to consult me as a sup- 
 posed expert. That there was such a "best" way, he 
 
 45
 
 46 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 did not doubt, and the form of his inquiry showed that 
 he thought I could answer it promptly and very briefly. 
 In this respect also I think he was typical of his kind. 
 The same question: what to do with a boy? arises 
 in hundreds of American homes, and in every case the 
 search is for some "first best" school, where all the 
 highest requirements of the modern favored boy shall 
 be met. In fact, my answer was rather longer than one 
 ordinarily can make to such inquiries, and I was much 
 interested in its reception. For some time I received no 
 word from my friend; but then came an almost pathet- 
 ically grateful response. The delay, he wrote, was 
 because my letter had been sent around through the 
 various family connections most concerned, and the 
 effect of it had been a feeling of general relief. The gist 
 of my advice had been that the boys should, if possible, 
 be kept at home. Deep down, this had been the wish of 
 the family also, but they had supposed, unwillingly, 
 that the "preparation" thus to be obtained would not 
 be of the " best " variety and were correspondingly re- 
 lieved by my " expert " opinion. The sons were kept at 
 home until the last year before their entrance into col- 
 lege, and were then sent to a school of the type to 
 which I had given a certain qualified approval. 
 
 It has seemed to me possible that the reasons for the 
 advice given then to a personal friend might be of in- 
 terest to a larger audience. That the general question: 
 what to do with a boy? should interest so many Ameri- 
 can families is a fact at once significant and hopeful. It 
 is significant first of the absence of any general stand- 
 ards in regard to the education of our youth. Compar-
 
 WHAT TO DO WITH A BOY? 47 
 
 ing class for class with any civilized European country 
 the difference here is most striking. The "best" way 
 for the well-to-do English boy is clearly marked from 
 the beginning. He will be sent to a so-called public 
 school, which means an endowed school not conducted 
 primarily as a business enterprise by a private person. 
 Such a school stands ordinarily in some relation with 
 one of the two great universities of Oxford and Cam- 
 bridge, so that the progress of the youth from school to 
 college is at least indicated pretty clearly from the out- 
 set. The British public freely criticizes its educational 
 system, and this criticism produces gradual changes in 
 administration; but on the whole the system itself has 
 remained singularly uniform and continues to appeal 
 powerfully to those elements of society which give 
 tone to English life. 
 
 Much the same may be said of Germany and France. 
 There too there is a distinctly best course for the nor- 
 mal youth. It is determined to a far greater extent by 
 governmental activity. It is much more definitely re- 
 lated to professional life; but its appeal to the ordinary 
 studious youth is equally strong. In no other way can 
 he reach the results he and his family naturally set be- 
 fore themselves in planning his career. It is only in the 
 case of exceptionally endowed or exceptionally incap- 
 able individuals that any acute problem arises. Or- 
 dinarily the successive stages of the national schools 
 are passed through without any special crisis at which 
 the question of method presses for an answer. 
 
 In America no such universally accepted standard 
 exists. We pride ourselves indeed upon our system of
 
 48 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 public schools in which, we like to tell the foreign visi- 
 tor, every boy and girl in the land may receive an edu- 
 cation in the rudiments of learning without cost. We 
 point to splendid buildings equipped with every device 
 for this universal training. We show the figures of state 
 appropriation for this purpose and regret only that 
 they do not bear a still larger proportion to the rest of 
 the public outlay. We conceal from ourselves and 
 others that there are vast areas of our country into 
 which the blessings of free education have not pene- 
 trated, and we readily forget the alarming percentages 
 of illiteracy revealed whenever, as in the case of the 
 recent war, our adult population is subjected to rigid 
 statistical inquiry. 
 
 But, taking our public school system at its best, we 
 Americans are inclined to treat it as we treat many an- 
 other privilege that lies close to our hand. We praise it 
 as the palladium of our liberties, the essential instru- 
 ment in that mysterious process we call " americaniza- 
 tion," the glory of our free institutions, the noblest 
 witness to that idealism we like to think of as our chief 
 national trait. It stands to us as the most vivid expres- 
 sion of that democracy we all worship in the abstract 
 and so few of us practise in the concrete. For the 
 curious fact is that, in spite of all our glorification of the 
 public school, one of the first instincts of the American 
 parent, the moment he feels himself well enough off in 
 this world's goods, is to deny his children the precious 
 privilege of sharing its blessings. He continues to de- 
 fend it in theory. For other people's children it is a 
 magnificent asset. For his own there must, he feels, be
 
 WHAT TO DO WITH A BOY? 49 
 
 something better. Just as he will give them better 
 clothes, a better house, better social surroundings, or, 
 as he would say, a better "chance," so he begins to cast 
 about him for a better education. 
 
 Wherein this improvement is to consist he has not a 
 glimmer of an idea. He only knows that while the 
 thing near at hand is undoubtedly good enough for the 
 multitude, he has won for himself through his effort in 
 life the right to something different. Especially if this 
 parent has himself been obliged to be content with the 
 means of education offered by public provision, he is 
 likely to be all the more determined that his children 
 shall not be subjected to the indignity of this handicap. 
 Only the best will do for them, and the best is accord- 
 ing to the standards familiar to him, that which costs 
 the most costs in money and in sacrifice. It is a 
 noble instinct; the logic of it is plausible, and the ex- 
 cuses for its exercise are readily found. It rests upon 
 that sound principle to which we owe all the best in 
 American life, the principle that the welfare of a com- 
 munity depends upon a constant effort to improve, 
 never to be content with what we have, but to strive 
 constantly for something that eludes us, to be willing to 
 experiment and not be discouraged by failure. 
 
 As long as parents are saying "I want to give my 
 child every advantage in the game of life, and especially 
 those advantages I lacked myself" there is hope for the 
 Republic. It is a spirit no wise adviser would wish to 
 quench. The critical question it raises is, what "ad- 
 vantages" are. The parent means by the word, posi- 
 tive and direct helps for his boy toward the ends he has
 
 50 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 in view. He thinks most of all of the removal of what 
 he feels to have been obstacles in the way of his own 
 progress. He says to himself "if only I had had this or 
 that kind of help at the right moment, how much 
 easier it would have been for me to do what I wanted 
 to do." Now in this reflection of his mature life he is 
 probably wrong. The chances are a thousand to one 
 that what he now conceives of as obstacles were really 
 so many spurs to his own energy. Not in spite of them, 
 probably, but because of them, he has reached that 
 measure of success which now enables him to do for his 
 children what he thinks he wishes somebody had done 
 for him. The world moves; everything is being im- 
 proved; the new must be better than the old; nothing 
 short of the newest, and therefore the best, will do for 
 the favored youth in whose welfare he is most con- 
 cerned. 
 
 Moved by some such reasoning as this, the conscien- 
 tious but perplexed parent begins his inquiries as to 
 where he can find the solution of his problem. The 
 names of a few well-known schools are familiar to him, 
 but they are only names. Why one should be prefer- 
 able to another is not clear to him. The one thing clear 
 is that he must send the boy away, and here is where I 
 should be glad, if it is possible, to say to him what I 
 wrote to my inquiring friend, and perhaps to give him 
 an equal relief. As a general proposition, I believe it to 
 be true, that for the normal American boy, the best 
 place is the normal American home. By the normal 
 boy I mean just what the word implies, one who is not 
 distinguished by any such gifts or deficiencies as indi-
 
 WHAT TO DO WITH A BOY? 51 
 
 cate the need of any special treatment. By the normal 
 home I mean one in which there exists no specific 
 obstacle to the reasonable development of a child. 
 
 These definitions suggest two cautions against errors 
 of judgment frequently observed in those responsible 
 for the education of a boy. The first is against the no- 
 tion that the boy is "peculiar," a favorite delusion of 
 parents, encouraged and even deliberately cultivated 
 by educational doctors of many types. In a sense, we 
 may almost say that every boy is abnormal. Every 
 one has qualities that mark him from all the rest, and 
 authorities differ as to the wisdom of cultivating these 
 qualities or trying, as far as possible, to repress them. 
 On the one side we shall be told that only through the 
 full development of these special characteristics can 
 the most complete personality of this individual be at- 
 tained. On the other we shall be warned that this 
 course will produce a warped and one-sided character, 
 lacking in all that belongs to a well-rounded ideal of a 
 human being. 
 
 The wholesome attitude of the parent toward his 
 hopeful son is that in all probability he is very much 
 like other boys, a puzzling mixture of good and evil pro- 
 pensities, of capacities and incapacities. The puzzle is 
 not going to be solved by any rule of thumb, by any 
 prescriptions of educational experts. It is going to un- 
 tangle itself gradually through the growth of the boy in 
 body and in mind. Sooner or later the boy will classify 
 himself, roughly at first, more precisely afterward, but 
 this process of classification will in all probability be a 
 long one. It will probably cover a period much longer
 
 52 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 than any which the parent has in view, and for that 
 reason he need not greatly concern himself with it. He 
 will do the best for his son if for the present he thinks 
 of him as quite an ordinary human being, a bundle of 
 possibilities, but not much more. It will be well if all 
 the evidence of his phenomenal qualities during the 
 nursery years can be forgotten. My friend the Dean 
 used to say: "If only these office mothers wouldn't tell 
 me what beautiful babies their scapegrace sons used to 
 be!" 
 
 A word here as to expectations arising from inheri- 
 tance. The man of business who sees a vision of his 
 son following his lead, succeeding to his own interests 
 and building up the fortunes of his house to still greater 
 heights is a familiar figure in our literature. His dis- 
 appointments furnish the pathetic element in many a 
 romance of American life. Even more pathetic is the 
 attitude of the man of learning, the scholar, the clergy- 
 man, the lawyer, the writer, who dreams of a son who 
 shall carry on still further the tradition he has made 
 honorable. Such a man is especially likely to plan the 
 education of his boy from the beginning with a view to 
 this consummation. He assumes that the same impulse 
 which led him to sacrifice everything to the cause of 
 learning is going to reappear in the next generation 
 and do the same work. Let such a parent stop and cast 
 about him for illustrations. Here and there is a family 
 that for several generations has seemed marked by a 
 striking continuity of taste and capacity. Certain 
 special aptitudes "run" as we say, "in the family," but 
 these indications do not go very far as guides in the
 
 WHAT TO DO WITH A BOY? 53 
 
 planning of a boy's school life. Far safer to disregard 
 them and treat the youth as a very commonplace in- 
 dividual, much like his mates in the average of his 
 qualities, however much he may seem to be distin- 
 guished from them by certain superiorities or certain 
 defects. Of one thing the parent may be quite sure: 
 if heredity, through the accumulation of generations, is 
 going to affect greatly the course of his boy's life noth- 
 ing that he can do will have very much effect in the 
 long result. Our knowledge of heredity is still but ele- 
 mentary. Its working is too subtle to be reduced to any 
 workable formulas. As we watch our children it seems 
 at times to be determining absolutely their tastes and 
 their accomplishments, but again these seem to be just 
 as completely opposite to everything heredity would 
 lead us to expect. 
 
 To say that we often confuse the influence of hered- 
 ity with that of environment is to state a commonplace, 
 but the remark may be of service here. In a condition 
 of society where class distinctions are fairly fixed, the 
 son succeeds the father almost as a matter of course, 
 and then we say that the son inherits the tastes and 
 capacities of the father. In reality it may not be a mat- 
 ter of inheritance at all, but only the perpetuation of a 
 tradition too firmly fixed to be easily changed. It is a 
 social or an economic phenomenon, not a physical or a 
 psychic one. At the present time one may almost say 
 that there are no such fixed traditions. Classes cross 
 and recross with the utmost freedom. I asked a fa- 
 mous German theologian in the days before the war 
 whether any of his seven children were preparing to
 
 54 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 follow in his footsteps. "Only one," he answered sadly, 
 "and that a daughter. The boys all want to be en- 
 gineers!" A few days ago the university granted a 
 high degree in theology to a youth who had begun life 
 as an engineer. And so it goes. Heredity may deter- 
 mine moral qualities, but the parent who should allow 
 his mind to dwell very much upon the possibilities in 
 this respect is doomed to many and great disappoint- 
 ments. 
 
 The second caution touches the phrase " the normal 
 home." To enlarge a little upon the brief definition al- 
 ready given: I do not mean a home which is in any 
 special sense a center of light and leading, where the 
 intellectual life is specially cultivated or even where 
 the virtues are illustrated with any special brilliancy. 
 The more of all these good things, of course, the better, 
 but the absence of them in some degree does not dis- 
 qualify the home as the place where the boy is best off 
 during those formative years we are here considering. 
 His parents may not be the models his maturer judg- 
 ment would select as the best for him to follow. This 
 might be a better world if we were all permitted to se- 
 lect our parents, but it would certainly not be this 
 world. The grim fact is that the boy belongs to these 
 parents, and they belong to him. All that he is and all 
 that he has comes to him through them. He begins to 
 see the world through their eyes, and only gradually 
 comes into the critical attitude toward them. He en- 
 ters from the start into the motives that animate 
 them, he shares their struggles in the conflicts of life, 
 feels their sacrifices, understands something of their
 
 WHAT TO DO WITH A BOY? 55 
 
 ambitions, suffers with them in their failures and tri- 
 umphs in their successes. His measure is a different 
 one from theirs, but so far as it goes its standards are 
 the same. Everything tends to deepen and strengthen 
 the impression conveyed by the one phrase, that they 
 belong together. 
 
 And what is true of the parents is equally true of the 
 place in which the boy's lot is cast. It also need not 
 provide him with precisely the environment he would 
 have chosen, but, as the master hand of English ro- 
 mance wrote, "We cannot choose our duties," and his 
 duty lies here and not elsewhere. It is not a primary 
 question whether the place of his origin provides a 
 "best" school or natural surroundings best fitted to 
 give him scope for his ranging spirit, or great libraries 
 to feed his curiosity, or a society that may or may 
 not teach him the manners we should like him to 
 have. These are all secondary requirements. The es- 
 sential point is that this is where the boy belongs. He 
 belongs to the place and the place belongs to him, for 
 him to make use of in all the ways his growing powers 
 and expanding nature demand. It is a false pedagogy 
 which calls upon families to send out their boys search- 
 ing by external processes for the things that can come 
 only through the awakening of the inner impulse, and 
 which, if that impulse is once awakened, will come. It 
 is idle for the dweller in a cabin to push his boy out 
 looking for electric lights to read the latest and best by. 
 Let him throw a pine knot on the open fire and see 
 what the boy will do with a dogs-eared primer after his 
 day's work as a member of the family !
 
 56 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 Exceptions? Of course there are. Families are 
 broken up; homes are desolated by selfish passions; 
 fathers lose themselves in the mad race for more and 
 more wealth to feed the insatiable call of mothers for 
 more spending. Mothers sink into the empty whirl of 
 "society" and make the word "home" a travesty of 
 everything it ought to mean. From such homes as 
 these the remote school may be deliverance. Or again, 
 specific requirements for admission to a college may 
 make a year or two of residence at a school almost im- 
 perative. Provision must be made for exceptional 
 cases, but what I am insisting upon is that the separa- 
 tion of the normal boy from his normal home should 
 frankly be understood as an exceptional and in itself 
 an undesirable thing. 
 
 This insistence is made necessary at the present 
 time because there is a widely spread and growing 
 sentiment among our well-to-do classes that precisely 
 the opposite is true. The boarding school, no matter 
 how remote, is represented as the ideal place for the 
 making of a man. The local school is scorned, not 
 primarily because it is inadequate, but simply because 
 it is local. There are schools with long waiting lists 
 upon which the names of candidates are entered as 
 soon as they are born. Not to succeed in placing their 
 boy in such a school would seem to these parents a 
 failure in their highest duty toward him. They think 
 of it, not as a necessary evil, but as the greatest good. 
 They do not act upon a reasoned consideration of 
 what the boy is to lose, but only upon a vague notion 
 of something he is to gain. They know little of the
 
 WHAT TO DO WITH A BOY? 57 
 
 actual conditions of boarding-school life and are prob- 
 ably about equally ignorant of the advantages or 
 otherwise of the schools near at hand. They are gov- 
 erned by considerations primarily social, and "social" 
 is in these days a word of very elastic meaning. 
 
 My thesis on this point is that the very greatest 
 "advantage " an American boy can have is to strike 
 his roots deep down into the soil of some place which 
 he can call his own. Every gardener knows that the 
 worst thing you can do in a dry time is to sprinkle the 
 surface of your ground. That treatment draws the 
 roots upward, and exposes them to the blasting rays of 
 the pitiless sun. The wise gardener stirs the surface 
 and only at long intervals digs down deep beneath the 
 roots and fills the lower earth with water to draw the 
 thirsty roots farther and farther downward. The root 
 system of a man responds to similar treatment. Keep 
 the tiny fibres near the surface and they grow con- 
 stantly weaker; send them down into the moist, cool 
 spaces of the under soil, and they will gather strength 
 and throw out new branches to seek still new life and 
 transmit it to stem and leaf. 
 
 It is of the highest importance to the future citizen 
 of the American democracy that he should feel him- 
 self from the first a member of a true social unit. First 
 of the family, then of the neighborhood, then of the 
 town and the state. I say, a true social unit, and what 
 makes it true is that the boy comes into it by natural 
 processes, without reflection of his own or the con- 
 scious planning of any one else. It is all his, just as his 
 body and his soul are his. That means that he has to-
 
 58 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 ward this social unit certain obligations. As a member 
 of the family he is bound to help in carrying forward 
 the work of the home, to be responsible in his degree 
 for his part of the family life. As a member of the 
 larger community he is bound to respect its laws, to 
 help make it a cleaner, a safer, and a happier place. In 
 a natural community, where there is wholesome ming- 
 ling of industry and trade and rational living, the boy 
 feels himself from his earliest years part and parcel of 
 all these things. The movement of the community 
 catches him up into the current of its varied life and 
 carries him on to happy usefulness. 
 
 Contrast this opportunity with that of the best en- 
 dowed, best equipped, best organized, best intentioned 
 boarding school. After all that can be said, this proud 
 aggregation of " bests " is an institution, and the boy 
 adjusted to its well-oiled machinery is an institution- 
 alized being. It is only by a fiction that he can be 
 called a "member" of the institution at all. To be a 
 member of anything means to be a living, organic part 
 of it, with functions that no other member can per- 
 form, so that if this member be injured the function 
 ceases, and "all the members suffer with it." Cut off 
 the orphan from the asylum or the boy from the board- 
 ing school and nothing happens, but if the boy be cut 
 out from the family, or the neighborhood, or the town, 
 there is a loss that can never quite be repaired. The 
 reason is that the boarding school has no soil for the 
 roots that go to nourish the life of the individual as a 
 member of a true community. The youth entrusted to 
 its fostering care may be supplied from above and from
 
 WHAT TO DO WITH A BOY? 59 
 
 without with all the nourishment for body and soul he 
 seems to require, but the tap-roots will not run down 
 far because there is no water there. 
 
 It is a singular fact that institutionalism in educa- 
 tion should have taken on such an extraordinary de- 
 velopment at the very time when it is being repudiated 
 in every other field of social effort. Our organizations 
 for charity and for the physical and mental welfare of 
 the community have long since come to see that the 
 best results are obtained by distributing the persons 
 needing help as widely as possible. We do not now 
 send the dependent orphan into an "asylum," but into 
 a family. We do this precisely because we want him to 
 feel the pressure of necessity in the supply of his daily 
 wants. We do not wish him to have food and clothing 
 shed upon him like the gentle rain from heaven; we 
 want him to take his little part in the struggle for 
 existence. The older method we stigmatize as "pauper- 
 izing." Only in the education of our "best" youths we 
 are more than ready to pauperize. We deliberately de- 
 prive them of the very advantages we are so anxious to 
 give to our really dependent classes. We pull them out 
 of the natural relations into which they are happily 
 born and set them into highly organized mechanisms, 
 expecting these to do the work of the free but dis- 
 ciplined will. 
 
 But here we are met by the argument from England. 
 Time out of mind, we are told, English boys have been 
 sent away from home as early as possible, at the age of 
 ten or twelve, and they have grown into the men who 
 have made England great. Moreover these men have
 
 60 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 not ceased to be home lovers and home makers; they 
 have gone on generation after generation building those 
 English homes which have become the home ideal for 
 all the peoples of the earth. The argument sounds con- 
 vincing, but like most comparisons with foreign cus- 
 toms, it does not prove very instructive. There are too 
 many sides to it, too many questions bound up with it. 
 The English society which has sent its infant sons 
 away to school has always been in its essentials a rural 
 and aristocratic society. It could not keep its boys at 
 home and educate them in day schools for the simple 
 reason that such schools did not exist. The public 
 school in our sense of the word is a recent institu- 
 tion in England, and so far has had but slight effect 
 upon the general sentiment as to what is best for a 
 boy. 
 
 The English "public school" is above all else a social 
 institution. The public which supports it desires to 
 keep its sons aloof from those of another "class" by 
 placing them where they will meet only, or chiefly, 
 youths of their own kind. Do we really wish to import 
 this ideal into American life? If we do, let us acknowl- 
 edge it frankly and not pretend to be leading the world 
 in democratic feeling and practice. The conditions 
 that produced the English system do not exist here. 
 Our social standards, so far as we have any, are not 
 rural but distinctly urban. To speak of a man as "in- 
 land bred" does not convey quite the impression of 
 culture in America that it did in Shakespeare's Eng- 
 land. The city here does not imitate the country, but 
 the reverse. "Back to the land" means with us to
 
 WHAT TO DO WITH A BOY? 61 
 
 import into the country the standards of life we have 
 learned to demand in the city. It is one of the results of 
 this demand that our public free schools have pene- 
 trated, at least in theory, into every corner. Happily 
 the wholesome practice among the "best people" of 
 sending their sons to these schools has gone far to make 
 them in a very true sense a social institution as well as 
 an agency of learning. They have commanded a type 
 of loyalty in every way comparable to that called out 
 by the English school or by the private schools which 
 have grown up to supplement them here. 
 
 We are not driven, therefore, as Englishmen have 
 been, to send our sons away in order to have them as 
 well taught as the standards of our society require, and 
 more than this no system of education anywhere can 
 be asked to provide. The boy in an American home 
 learns to know the friends of his family. He listens to 
 the conversation of his elders and his superiors; he 
 knows what public events are interesting them and 
 comes to feel that he has his part in them. Best of all, 
 he grows up in natural and wholesome relations with 
 women, young and old. The sacred mystery of sex im- 
 presses him long before he knows what it means, and in 
 those critical years when he is first feeling its compell- 
 ing allurement he is given a sweet and healthful senti- 
 ment about it that may hold him upright through 
 many a storm of later temptation. There can be no 
 safeguard for the youth so powerful as the constant 
 thought of the women who have surrounded and beau- 
 tified his childhood. That is an influence which the 
 school cannot supply.
 
 62 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 So I say: keep the boy at home, but make the home a 
 consecrated place worthy of the high mission to which 
 it is called. Alarmists are calling our attention to the 
 dangers which to-day seem to threaten the very exist- 
 ence of our homes, and it is idle to deny that there are 
 powerful and subtle influences at work to undermine 
 those sanctities on which the homes of the past were 
 built. But, as one looks about, one sees a steady flow of 
 young lives launching out into the untried responsi- 
 bilities of the future with the same courage, the same 
 devotion, the same high hopes that sustained their 
 fathers and mothers, and one feels the right to assume 
 that the homes they are going to found will be indeed 
 consecrated places where childhood will find its best 
 development. 
 
 Let the home be a sanctuary of tenderness, but not of 
 softness. Give the boy all the freedom of motion that a 
 young growing organism demands. Let him make his 
 own mistakes and, within reasonable limits, take the 
 consequences, but let him feel that his home is the sure 
 haven to which he may always return and where he is 
 certain to find his ideals of justice and sympathy. Let 
 him choose his own friends, but supply him always 
 with the standards that shall help him to choose them 
 wisely. His school will give him all needed security 
 against the perils of coddling. The local school forms 
 for him another center of interest and affection, and 
 year by year the discipline of contact with his mates in 
 the free give and take of school life will develop his 
 independence of thought and action. Home and school 
 work thus naturally together, carrying the boy along
 
 WHAT TO DO WITH A BOY? 63 
 
 up to his sixteenth or seventeenth year in a harmonious 
 development of his capacities and his affections. By 
 that time he will be getting restless, and he ought to be. 
 The limitations of school, the routine of home will 
 begin to gall him a little, and then comes the time to 
 put to the test all that has been done for him hitherto. 
 Then he must spread his wings and fly, but not till 
 then. 
 
 I wish that by what I have said so far I might have 
 convinced some American parents that their boys will 
 be better off at home than in any possible remote in- 
 stitution, but I am aware how strong the appeal of the 
 highly organized and amply advertised establishment 
 is. Not every parent has the rugged sense of the western 
 father who made a careful inquiry into his son's con- 
 duct of life in a great eastern college because he "didn't 
 want to be spending two thousand dollars a year on a 
 two dollar boy." The typical American father is more 
 than willing to spend money, and the typical mother of 
 every race is ready to spend her affections as the price 
 of bringing a man into the world. I asked the head of a 
 famous boarding school whether the majority of par- 
 ents sent him their boys gladly. "No" he replied "to 
 most of them it is a heart-breaking experience. They 
 do it because they believe it is best for the boy." The 
 same master assured me that the chief obstacle to the 
 entire success of his school in stamping upon its boys a 
 definite school hall-mark was the unfortunate incident 
 of vacations. For some months of the year the boys 
 were allowed to feel that they had families, homes, 
 relatives, friends, native towns and other inconvenient
 
 64 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 belongings not always in entire harmony with the free- 
 masonry of the school. 
 
 So we are not dealing with an imaginary danger. 
 From both sides, from the side of the community and 
 from that of the schools the ideal of a separated school 
 life for boys of twelve to eighteen is in fact being pre- 
 sented to our people. It is commending itself, not by 
 any scientific definition, but by the subtle process of 
 social distinction and through the thinly disguised 
 imitation of foreign ways. Its attraction can be coun- 
 teracted only by strengthening in every way the con- 
 viction here expressed, that, ideal for ideal, the very 
 theory of such an institution is a false one, and that for 
 the normal American boy up to the age of seventeen 
 the best place is a normal American home. 
 
 So far we have been speaking of ideals; but it must 
 be confessed that circumstances often arise which com- 
 pel a departure from the ideal. Many homes are not 
 normal, and are not likely to become so. Day schools 
 even tolerably adequate are not everywhere acces- 
 sible. There is a legitimate sense in which the query 
 we are trying to answer becomes a pressing one and 
 must be answered. I visited in a military school not 
 far from New York a class of thirty boys of from four- 
 teen to nineteen studying, for the first time in their 
 lives, the geography of the United States. These boys, 
 some with bass voices, did not know where the Mis- 
 sissippi river was, nor what states touched its banks. 
 In answer to my inquiry, in what uncivilized corner of 
 the world they had spent their early years the Principal 
 replied: " Most of them come from New York City, and
 
 WHAT TO DO WITH A BOY? 65 
 
 if I should tell you their names you would be still more 
 surprised." "The fact is" he went on to say, "their 
 fathers are too busy with business and their mothers 
 too busy with pleasure to know much about them. 
 They are handed over to nurses and governesses until, 
 all of a sudden, the parents wake up to the idea that 
 their children are growing up in ignorance. Then they 
 look about for schools, and we get our share." 
 
 Nor can it be denied that, in spite of all the cautions 
 we have been urging, there are boys in whom some 
 peculiar quality of mind or character makes separation 
 from home at an age earlier than the college period 
 desirable. It may, then, be helpful to some anxious 
 parent lost in the maze of glittering advertisements 
 that embellish the pages of our magazines, to hear, 
 even from one who claims no authority whatever for 
 his information or his judgments, a brief classification 
 of the types of school offered for his choice. In making 
 this survey we shall follow as nearly as may be the or- 
 der suggested by the resemblance of the several school 
 types to the ideal we have set forth above. 
 
 To come as nearly as possible to the conditions of a 
 good day school in the boy's own town, it may be 
 worth remembering that in many cities there are excel- 
 lent public high schools to which a non-resident pupil 
 may be admitted for a very modest fee, and that in 
 such a city it is often possible to find a family where the 
 boy can be placed under conditions so closely resem- 
 bling those of his home that in all outward respects the 
 difference is hardly worth remarking. It is not, to be 
 sure, his own place, but it becomes his by adoption.
 
 66 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 He is in a home, though it be an adopted one; he has 
 the natural surroundings of an orderly society; he is 
 under the wholesome restraints of a community whose 
 interests he may learn to share. The unspeakable loss 
 of his own family life is made up to him by substitutes 
 which are not purely fictitious and are as far as possible 
 from being institutional. I do not hesitate to say that, 
 if the boy must go away, this device is likely to give as 
 good results as any other. 
 
 The type of institutional school which comes nearest 
 to the local public or private day school is that vener- 
 able New England product, the country or town acad- 
 emy. It is not confined to New England, but wherever 
 found it partakes of the character given to it in the 
 older communities of the East. It owes its foundation 
 often to the piety of some private citizen who gave to 
 it the modest endowment that carried it through the 
 early years of its strictly local usefulness. It served 
 ordinarily as a day school for the town, but received 
 pupils from the neighboring country at a low rate of 
 tuition. It might or might not have dormitories of its 
 own. The traditional method of caring for the outside 
 pupils was to house them with worthy citizens who 
 were expected to stand in loco parentis to them. How- 
 ever diligent such supervision might be there was al- 
 ways a certain sense of freedom and its accompanying 
 responsibility that had their educative influence upon 
 the growing boy. 
 
 Even more, perhaps, than our colleges these old 
 country academies have contributed powerfully to the 
 intellectual life of their several communities. As time
 
 WHAT TO DO WITH A BOY? 67 
 
 went on and the wave of sentiment in favor of free 
 public instruction swept over the land these ancient 
 foundations were in danger of being completely over- 
 shadowed or replaced by the local high schools. That 
 they have not entirely disappeared is owing to the 
 good sense with which they have been adapted to the 
 needs of the time. Their endowments, often increased 
 by the gifts of successful sons, have been applied to en- 
 large their equipment and thus make them more at- 
 tractive to pupils from abroad. On the other hand the 
 towns fortunate enough to have such an institution 
 among their assets have contributed to its usefulness by 
 adopting it as the local high school, paying it for the 
 work of instruction required by the laws of the state. 
 
 In quite recent times many of these older schools 
 have grown with almost dangerous rapidity. Endow- 
 ments have been provided for them, and the increasing 
 resort has enabled them to establish tuition fees com- 
 mensurate with the ever increasing demands. The 
 interesting thing in the development of these old acad- 
 emies is that on the whole they have retained a great 
 deal of their original character as representatives of a 
 sound local sentiment. Some of them have become 
 places of national resort, and in the process have not 
 escaped the inevitable temptations to laxity and excess. 
 These dangers, however, have been perceived in time 
 and for the most part have been overcome. Without 
 abandoning the traditions of freedom wise restraints 
 have been provided, unwholesome tendencies checked 
 and rational standards of living and working main- 
 tained. The famous dictum of the honored head of one
 
 68 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 such school in his address to new pupils: "There are 
 no rules here until they are broken ! " expresses well the 
 spirit of liberty in order which has marked the whole 
 history of these typical products of our early, largely 
 rural society. 
 
 In a school of this type the restraints are in many 
 ways comparable to those of a well-ordered home. Just 
 as in the home it is not the restraint of rule and com- 
 pulsion that really helps in the upbuilding of personal 
 character, but is rather the wise direction of a large 
 liberty, so, in the easy and natural life of a half rural 
 community there are restraints felt more or less uncon- 
 sciously which may work in the same way. Doubtless 
 the evils of a small community are often greater than 
 those of a larger one, but there is always the whole- 
 some corrective of publicity, and the boy who can 
 persistently defy that is sure to have a pretty hard 
 time of it wherever he is. The sentiment underlying 
 the country academy, as it still exists in the older parts 
 of our country is one of the most admirable incentives 
 to honest work and cleanly living. It is doing well and 
 is likely to do better under the new impulses of our 
 active day. A boy placed under its influence is saved 
 from a premature cosmopolitanism and is brought into 
 a healthy competition with other youths whose oppor- 
 tunities in life may have been greatly superior to his 
 own. Those who are responsible for him may safely 
 feel that in sending him thither they are giving him a 
 rational substitute for a boyhood at home. 
 
 Out of this class of local, rural academies there has 
 been developed a group of large and highly organized
 
 WHAT TO DO WITH A BOY? 69 
 
 schools generally distinguished by the unfortunate 
 name of "fitting schools." The name is unfortunate 
 because it emphasizes one function of the school in its 
 relation to a higher grade of instruction rather than its 
 own proper mission as a preparation for life. It calls 
 attention too sharply and too exclusively to the stand- 
 ard of success represented by the passing of examina- 
 tions for entrance to college and tends to diminish in 
 porportion all effort not directed to this end. Our 
 American education can never take the place it ought 
 to hold among the educational systems of the world 
 until each of its grades has a standard of its own set 
 firmly upon the basis of the specific work it has to do. 
 Elsewhere such standards are fixed by some supreme 
 authority which represents on the whole the ripest 
 judgment of those best qualified to judge. Here there 
 is no such authority, and we can only be thankful that 
 we have so far escaped the kind of standardization we 
 must have had if it had been entrusted to the kind of 
 tribunals we should have been sure to create. Mean- 
 while the only safe method of securing passable results 
 in the lower grades is to pull them up by some pressure 
 from above. To fit the higher to the lower is to drag 
 the whole structure down to disastrous failure. 
 
 The "fitting school," whether we like the phrase or 
 not is, therefore, a reality in our educational scheme. 
 The problem of those who have it in charge is to make 
 it so worthy a thing in itself that it will command the 
 respect of the community, not primarily because it "is 
 sure to get the boy into college," but because it is a 
 good place for a boy to learn to be a man. This prob-
 
 70 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 lem has been clearly perceived by far seeing managers. 
 A few years ago we were told with very great authority 
 that our colleges were in danger of being wiped out of 
 existence by the growth of such schools as these on the 
 one hand and the professional schools on the other. 
 This calamity has not happened, and we hear but little 
 about it now. The warning interests us only as show- 
 ing that the greater academies were becoming to a 
 threatening extent the resort of boys whose liberal 
 education was to end there. In other words that they 
 were to that degree not "fitting schools" in the usual 
 sense, but independent institutions with standards 
 that appealed to a considerable public. That is as it 
 should be. The parent seeking the best resort for his 
 boy will feel himself freer in his choice if he is not re- 
 stricted to the idea of getting him "fitted" to the re- 
 quirements of college. And the school, on the other 
 hand, will be strengthened in its whole attitude by the 
 demand of the colleges for the very best it can do to 
 satisfy them. 
 
 To say that the older academies are the outgrowth 
 of the early New England spirit is only another way of 
 saying that they had at first predominantly a religious 
 character. They were but another expression of the 
 uncompromising independence of New England Con- 
 gregationalism, and that temper they have still largely 
 preserved. Some of them have remained under a 
 nominal denominational control, but even there the 
 spirit of independence has been working with decisive 
 effect. From time to time the religious organization 
 may make a vigorous effort to give to its schools a pre-
 
 WHAT TO DO WITH A BOY? 71 
 
 dominantly sectarian character; but the happy in- 
 ability of any denomination in these days to bring all 
 of its members under any one description of faith is 
 sure to prevent any such dragooning of the schools. 
 There is a religious body in New England which has its 
 academy, its college and its theological seminary. The 
 academy is expected to feed the college and the college 
 to feed the seminary, and then in turn the seminary is 
 expected to furnish teachers both to the college and the 
 academy. It is a scheme of intellectual inbreeding 
 cleverly calculated to ruin the mind and corrupt the 
 soul of the denomination that controls it. Happily, 
 however, it does not work. The demand for excellence 
 in each stage of education is too great. 
 
 An academy which should surrender itself to any 
 such combination would find itself lagging behind in all 
 the competitions that test its quality, and there would 
 soon be enough clear-sighted men in the denomina- 
 tional ranks to insist upon fresh blood and a larger 
 ideal. Indeed, the more strict the nominal control of a 
 denomination, the more loudly its leaders to-day are 
 wont to claim for it a thoroughly liberal administra- 
 tive policy. It is safe to say that in the great academies 
 of the East the denominational element is of little ac- 
 count so far as the instruction and discipline of the 
 place are concerned. It is brought out on state oc- 
 casions as a means of appealing to the loyalty of grad- 
 uates and others upon whom its material support de- 
 pends, but it may well be questioned whether a boy not 
 verystr ong on his catechism would know whether he 
 were under Baptist or Methodist or Congregationalist
 
 72 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 or even Unitarian influence. It is greatly to the credit 
 of all concerned that, on the whole, the main effort of 
 the past generation has been to make good schools 
 rather than to hold them within precise theological 
 limits. There have been notable rights, but the tend- 
 ency is clear. With an increasing supply of well-trained 
 teachers, not produced by theological seminaries, these 
 well-endowed schools have been able to pick their men. 
 They have been learning to respect the scholarly am- 
 bitions of their teachers and thus to raise the tone of 
 their own scholarship. It is a pleasure to record here 
 the extraordinary insight and self-control of the late 
 Dwight L. Moody in the management of his school at 
 Mt. Hermon, Mass. Although a religious place in a 
 very emphatic sense, this school gave to its teachers 
 and its pupils a freedom of thought and action quite in 
 advance of that allowed at many a place of larger 
 opportunity and loftier pretensions. 
 
 So far as the scholarly side of the question is con- 
 cerned parents need have no hesitation in entrusting 
 their boys to any of the schools we have here been try- 
 ing to describe. The question of discipline, taking that 
 word in its widest meaning, is the serious one. The 
 principle of largest liberty, absolutely sound in the 
 abstract, has to be administered, in the case of boys 
 under eighteen with the greatest caution. A boy of 
 fourteen not to say of twelve dropped into a com- 
 munity of from one to four or five hundred youngsters 
 is put upon a strain for which a previous tempering is 
 an essential. If the experiment works well, it may work 
 very well; if ill, very ill indeed. The sound nature
 
 WHAT TO DO WITH A BOY? 73 
 
 meets the strain and grows stronger under it. The 
 feeble will, the pleasure-loving, self-indulgent tempera- 
 ment, not roused to interest either in work or play, is 
 lost in such a place. If the boy ever finds himself it will 
 be through the awakening of some impulse drawn out 
 by the eager young life around him. 
 
 The best that can be said of the discipline of a great 
 academy is that it is based upon the natural and spon- 
 taneous working of young human instincts, with faith 
 that they will justify themselves if let alone. Of course 
 the application of this principle will vary greatly in dif- 
 ferent hands. There is enough that is distinctive in it 
 to mark off the large schools where it prevails into a 
 class by themselves. The parent who selects such a 
 place for his boy must do so with the full consciousness 
 that the boy has his own salvation to work out. Such 
 a school has no formula for the making of a man. It 
 will take the boy, keep him at work, give him a chance 
 to play, take care of his health and bring him up short 
 when he has gone too far out of the straight way. But 
 it is not seeking to put a stamp on him. It has no 
 stamp which it recognizes as a guarantee of quality. It 
 is satisfied if he does his work, keeps his health and 
 goes no farther wrong than he can make good by re- 
 pentance and honest effort. 
 
 This brings us naturally to another category of 
 schools, which differ from the great academies chiefly 
 in the fact that they do, more or less avowedly, seek to 
 impress upon their pupils a certain stamp. These 
 schools are in connection with the Protestant Episcopal 
 Church in America, but are not, as a rule, under its
 
 74 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 official control. Their principals and many of their 
 teachers are men who have advanced to one or an- 
 other stage of that ministry. Their religious services 
 are conducted under the forms of the Anglican wor- 
 ship, and whatever religious influence they have is 
 toward conformity with these traditions. We may, 
 therefore, without prejudice describe them as Church 
 Schools. 
 
 They have also another quality which marks them 
 off into a class by themselves: they are based very 
 largely on English models. Their vocabulary is en- 
 riched with English words, they encourage the English 
 spirit in their sports; they have to a greater or less ex- 
 tent the English theories of self-government among 
 the boys. Unsympathetic critics would find in all these 
 matters a certain danger of affectation. Doubtless 
 each and all of these schools would repel with some heat 
 the charge of Anglicanism or of exclusive sectarian in- 
 fluence. They would defend their Americanism and 
 their liberality in religious matters to the last breath. 
 And in this defense they would be perfectly honest. 
 Their directors are not foolish enough to imagine that 
 American boys can be made into English men, or that 
 any one type of religious life can be made to include all 
 that there is of hope and safety for the future of our 
 society. The day is gone by when a school aiming at 
 the largest usefulness could venture to require of all its 
 pupils more than a formal conformity to its religious 
 usages or make itself the agent of any very active 
 propaganda. 
 
 Still the fact remains, that the group of schools we
 
 WHAT TO DO WITH A BOY? 75 
 
 are now considering has, in a sense quite different from 
 the other groups, a fairly definite ideal to which it 
 would be glad, if it could, to make its pupils conform. 
 The Church School is not quite satisfied that its grad- 
 uates should have learned " to speak the truth and ride 
 horseback." It would like to fix upon their minds a 
 certain definite form of truth and to see them riding 
 horseback after a model approved by a great and an- 
 cient, even if it be a measurably foreign, tradition. It 
 will not force these things upon them; it will honestly 
 refrain from prescriptions and directions which might 
 call attention too sharply to the end in view. But, on 
 the other hand, it would be unfaithful to its trust, if it 
 did not, by every proper means, in the thousand and 
 one little details of daily life, gently and steadily build 
 up in the mind of the boy the ideal it has set before 
 itself. 
 
 Much more easily than the old-fashioned free 
 academies, the Church School may come to regard it- 
 self as a desirable substitute for even the best of homes. 
 It aims to get its boys young, so that, in their tenderest 
 years, while the affections of the child are still active, 
 it may win him to its plan and stamp its mark inef- 
 faceably upon him. It aims to make his relation to the 
 school the governing thing in his life. Its tendency is 
 to make him sink his individuality in the school ideal, 
 to work for that and through that. The principle of 
 liberty must necessarily play a lesser part in such a 
 plan of school life as this, and that is really what the 
 parent has to consider when he is thinking what to do 
 with his boy. It is not a question of this or that little
 
 76 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 matter of detail in study or discipline, but whether, on 
 the whole, he desires to place his boy under the exper- 
 iment of fitting him to any given ideal standard what- 
 ever. He may comfort himself with the reflection that 
 his boy will be strong enough to stand the strain or, 
 perhaps, indifferent enough not to perceive that any 
 strain exists. But then comes the further question, 
 whether the reaction against a system which, if not 
 successful, must appear tyrannical, would not be a 
 doubtful blessing to a growing boy. Under conditions 
 of greater freedom the youth who finds himself chafed 
 by one or another feature of his school discipline can 
 probably adjust himself without great difficulty; but 
 in the Church School the system as a whole counts for 
 so much, that, if it once began to gall, it seems as if life 
 under it would hardly be tolerable to a boy of inde- 
 pendent spirit. 
 
 On the other hand, it cannot be denied that, if one 
 does respond to it, the attraction of the Anglican ideal 
 is very great. The regular and orderly movement of 
 this mass of well-meaning lads from their uprising in 
 the morning, through all the routine of study and play 
 to their lying down at night, without friction and with 
 utter good feeling is a most charming thing to look 
 upon. Even the absence of that occasional solitude 
 which many believe to be one of the most essential 
 elements in the making of a sound imagination, may 
 be overlooked in the wonderful charm of the whole. 
 Such schools have generally been fairly endowed and 
 through tuition fees higher, doubtless, than their 
 directors could wish, have been able to maintain a
 
 WHAT TO DO WITH A BOY? 77 
 
 standard of simple refinement of living which seems to 
 reflect or to surpass the standards of the best homes. 
 
 As to scholarship, the danger which we have already 
 described as "inbreeding" lies especially near to the 
 avowedly Church School. Happily various causes 
 have contributed to prevent this danger from becom- 
 ing serious. For one thing, these schools have been 
 anxious to draw pupils from as wide an area of popula- 
 tion as possible, and with this in view they could not 
 venture to draw their teachers exclusively from their 
 own denominational ranks. They have had to seek the 
 best wherever they were to be found and to make the 
 conditions of residence as attractive as possible. It is a 
 positive asset for them to be able to say that neither 
 pupils nor teachers are to be subjected to rigid religious 
 tests. Then again, they have had to prepare their 
 pupils to enter the best colleges whether these were or 
 were not in sympathy with their methods. They have 
 had to face the wholesome competition of schools 
 quite positively opposed to their theories, 'and this 
 competition is not limited to college entrance examina- 
 tions. Still more, in the far more serious tests of the 
 college years the Church School has had to be always 
 on its mettle to show that boys trained in its way can 
 stand the strain intellectually and morally as well as 
 any others. 
 
 It is not the place here to pass judgment upon the 
 value of this comparatively new contribution to the 
 resources of our country in the matter of secondary 
 education. As the older academies were the outgrowth 
 of Congregationalism with its spirit of independence, so
 
 78 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 these schools have grown out of a new emphasis upon 
 ecclesiasticism with its spirit of conformity. The prob- 
 lem of the parent is to determine under which of these 
 ideals of life and duty he prefers to bring his growing 
 boy. 
 
 Another class of schools includes the private acad- 
 emies or "fitting schools" without endowment and 
 without the backing of any special sentiment, religious 
 or local. These are frankly business undertakings in 
 which, as in all other business, the question of profit 
 and loss must take precedence of all others. This is not 
 to depreciate the sincerity of the effort made by con- 
 scientious masters to maintain high standards of schol- 
 arship and discipline. In the long run such standards 
 are sure to prove the best investment; but the run may 
 be a very long one indeed, and meanwhile the pressure 
 toward lowering of standards is inevitably greater than 
 where the safeguards of endowment or of corporate in- 
 terest exist. The quality of such a school is absolutely 
 dependent upon the personality of its principal. It is, 
 therefore, impossible to lay down any general prin- 
 ciples by which the claims of one or another institution 
 of this kind can be judged. 
 
 A variety of the private academy is the so-called 
 military school. Here the existence of a daily drill, the 
 wearing of a uniform and the general military or- 
 ganization of the place are supposed to do for the boy 
 very much the same kind of service which is expected 
 from the less picturesque theory of the Church School. 
 They are intended to cultivate a corporate spirit, a 
 high standard of personal honor, a dignity of bearing
 
 WHAT TO DO WITH A BOY? 79 
 
 and a sense of the responsibility of each for the welfare 
 of all. It would be absurd to suppose that these admir- 
 able traits do not prevail in any of the military schools, 
 but one may be permitted to doubt whether this is not 
 owing to the personal quality of some individual rather 
 than to any intrinsic merit in the system itself. The 
 answer made to the writer by the principal of a mili- 
 tary academy: "Without the military organization I 
 would not undertake to run this school for a moment" 
 seemed to be the all-sufficient explanation of its 
 wretched quality. The incompetent man found in the 
 military system a crutch by which he managed to keep 
 himself going. It is possible that a competent man 
 might find it a useful tool, but for him it would cer- 
 tainly not be an indispensable one. It is not machinery 
 of any kind, military or otherwise, that will save the 
 soul of a boy. Beyond that there is not much to be 
 said. 
 
 The same is true, even in a higher degree, of still 
 another class of schools, the strictly limited Home 
 Schools, of which the name is legion. Here the per- 
 sonal element is the all-determining factor. The attrac- 
 tion of such a place to the inquiring parent is the hope 
 that his boy may receive there the kind of "personal 
 attention" which he fancies may be the best substitute 
 for the influence of his home. The limited numbers 
 seem to insure continuous watchfulness and helpful- 
 ness. On this point we have already said enough to 
 show the danger of the whole theory of "special treat- 
 ment," but there remain cases where, to use a medical 
 phrase, such treatment seems "indicated," and it is a
 
 8o LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 function of the home school to supply it. One of its 
 chief advantages is that the boy may here be brought 
 into wholesome relation with women of refinement and 
 find thus, in some measure, a compensation for the un- 
 speakable loss of his home life. It hardly needs to be 
 said that, just in proportion to the greater intimacy of 
 the home school, greater care is needed in its choice. 
 As to this, there is no resource but the parent's sense 
 for what is best and soundest in a home. One is 
 tempted to say that a parent who knew how to select 
 a home school for his boy would thereby prove himself 
 the best person in the world to make a home for him. 
 This suggests a device rather more common a gen- 
 eration ago than it is now, by which parents of large 
 means and generous intentions thought to avoid the 
 ills of remote boarding schools for their sons by keep- 
 ing them strictly at home and employing resident tu- 
 tors for their instruction and entertainment. At first 
 thought and in view of all that has been said here this 
 might seem the very most desirable plan. It would 
 seem to be supplementing all the good of family life by 
 introducing into it a stimulating and broadening in- 
 fluence. The young tutor thus brought into close rela- 
 tions with the family is supposed to be a kind of elder 
 brother to the younger fry, leading them in study and 
 in sport, setting their minds to work on the glories of 
 the distant college life to which they are destined and 
 meanwhile encouraging them at every stage of their 
 progress thither. All this under the watchful eye of 
 parents ready with curb or spur to correct any imme- 
 diate danger of excess. It is a pretty picture; but one
 
 WHAT TO DO WITH A BOY? 81 
 
 has only to consider the almost infinite difficulties of 
 the situation thus created to realize how small are the 
 chances of success. The selection of a young man to 
 whom one would be willing to entrust such responsi- 
 bility is a problem of the utmost delicacy. The wrong 
 man will do far more harm than can come from almost 
 any influence in a school of any type whatever. Little 
 frictions are sure to grow greater. The triangular rela- 
 tion of family, boy and tutor is prolific of causes of 
 stumbling. The wear and tear on the tutor is bound to 
 be reflected in the nervous tension of the boy and the 
 hypersensitiveness of parents. 
 
 But even supposing the best of conditions, there re- 
 mains the question of the value of the system for the 
 boy. My own feeling, based on considerable observa- 
 tion and a little early experience is that it should be 
 resorted to only as a necessity, certainly not as a lux- 
 ury. It tends to exaggerate to the utmost the evils of 
 "special attention." It separates the boy from the 
 wholesome competitions of his mates. It unfits him for 
 the rough and ready contacts that surely await him 
 whenever he is released from this gentle surveillance. 
 It gives him fictitious standards of values. I dislike to 
 say that it is "undemocratic," because that is a word 
 which may mean something or nothing according to 
 the point of view, but perhaps after all this is the word 
 which best conveys to the most hearers the fatal dan- 
 ger of this private tutorial method. It may be neces- 
 sary, but that is the best that can be said for it. 
 
 Finally there is one other device against which I 
 should like to register an even more serious warning,
 
 82 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 and that is the sending of young boys to Europe for 
 what is called "a foreign education." I have tried 
 elsewhere to set forth with some detail the reasons why 
 this should not be done. 1 Here I would touch only 
 upon the argument in favor as it presents itself to the 
 parent of large, or sometimes even more forcibly to one 
 of small means, who wishes to do the best for his, or 
 more often for her boy. The first step is that European 
 schools are better than American schools. This idea is 
 probably based upon little more than a vague notion 
 that, since European civilization is older than Ameri- 
 can, and has done many greater things, the schools 
 which form a part of that great result must be better 
 than those which have grown up as a part of our own 
 more rapid and more casual progress. I am afraid we 
 must admit that in certain respects this impression is a 
 true one. The school systems of England, France, Ger- 
 many, and Switzerland rest upon a kind of valuation of 
 the teacher's profession which has so far been unhap- 
 pily lacking in America. Let us grant this superiority 
 and accept the conclusion that, for the boys of those 
 countries, these systems are the best available. 
 
 The question is whether they are desirable for our 
 boys. Of course all that has been said hitherto against 
 sending our lads away from home applies with double 
 force to this much greater experiment. The inexpe- 
 rienced parent, often a mother confronted suddenly 
 with the responsibility of decision, is caught by the 
 glamor of the argument. Her boy shall have the oppor- 
 tunity denied to less favored youths. She is prepared 
 
 1 Pages 197 sqq.
 
 WHAT TO DO WITH A BOY? 83 
 
 to make the sacrifice if such it be, of breaking up her 
 home and plunging into the glittering uncertainties of 
 foreign residence. But what does she find? The regu- 
 lar schools, the only ones really worth considering, are 
 far from easy of access to the foreign pupil. Those of 
 the Continent are generally closed to him by the barrier 
 of language. It is not the business of these schools to 
 teach their own language to the foreigner. Only after 
 he has acquired a really adequate speaking knowledge 
 of it can they accept him as a regular member of their 
 classes. 
 
 This implies an interval in which the luckless boy is 
 to be subjected to the tortures of isolation from the 
 sound of his own speech. The length of this interval 
 will depend upon the completeness of the isolation. 
 The chances are that it will be spent in one of the 
 numerous hybrid schools that have sprung up to meet 
 precisely this demand. There the American boy will 
 meet other American boys mingled with English, Ger- 
 man, Italian, Russian, all supposed to be learning the 
 language of the country, but all, boylike, dodging their 
 opportunities and snatching every occasion to speak 
 and hear the dear native tongue and to cultivate hatred 
 of the odious foreign things about them. Such schools 
 are purely commercial enterprises, depending upon 
 numbers for their success and consequently interested 
 to prolong the residence of their pupils as far as pos- 
 sible. As to the moral conditions likely to prevail in 
 such a place: I leave that to the intelligence of the 
 reader.
 
 84 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 Fancy the holidays of a boy thus torn up by the 
 roots! If his parents are in Europe he spends his free 
 time in the wretched luxury of hotels or lodgings or in 
 the aimless wanderings miscalled " travel." If, through 
 the apprenticeship of the mixed school he succeeds in 
 entering one of the regular government schools he will 
 certainly have the opportunity to learn certain lessons 
 of thoroughness and seriousness that are in themselves 
 valuable, but at what a sacrifice of the things worth 
 most to him as a future American citizen ! I heard only 
 the other day an American mother of good intelligence, 
 but limited experience, say that the best educated men 
 she had known had been educated abroad, and for that 
 reason she was prepared to transplant her little son to 
 Europe. I doubted her premise and deplored her con- 
 clusion. The value of what foreign study and residence 
 can give can be realized only after the youth has got the 
 best he can out of what is offered him at home. 
 
 To sum up: keep the American boy at home up to his 
 seventeenth year; but make the home all that it ought 
 to be for his sake. If it is becoming anything less than 
 this, do not sacrifice the boy, but sacrifice the thing, no 
 matter what it is, that is making the home less worthy 
 of him. Send him to the best available day school, and 
 as a good citizen do all you can to make the school 
 what it ought to be. If he must go away consider, not 
 "social opportunity," not any single detail of school 
 life, but what on the whole offers him the best chance 
 of a full and harmonious development in body, mind, 
 and feeling, the best preparation, not for a college 
 course, but for the life of a citizen of the Republic.
 
 THE DISCIPLINE OF A UNIVERSITY 
 COLLEGE 
 
 THE nomenclature of American education is so far 
 from uniform, is so much a matter of local usage 
 and is so destitute of common standards that, before 
 employing even its most familiar terms we must define 
 them anew. For our present purpose I mean by a "col- 
 lege" what has always been meant by it in our best 
 educational traditions, a school of liberal culture fol- 
 lowing in due succession the school of preparation in 
 the elements of sound learning and preceding the 
 schools for training in the several professions. Precisely 
 what such general culture ought to be is matter for dis- 
 cussion, and will, it is to be hoped, always continue to 
 be so; for in such discussion lies the best guarantee of 
 rational progress, the best hope for the continuous ad- 
 justment of the educational process to the needs of the 
 time. All that we require for the moment in our defini- 
 tion of the college as distinguished from the technical 
 school is that it stands for a period of "liberal," that is 
 unprofessional study, the aim of which is the develop- 
 ment of intellectual character and capacity through 
 occupation with the things that so far have been 
 proved useful to this end. 
 
 The college is the peculiarly American educational 
 institution, not precisely the equivalent of any foreign 
 one, varying greatly in detail, but preserving, now for 
 several generations, a marked character of its own. 
 
 8s
 
 86 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 The object, during the generation just passing, of at- 
 tacks and encroachments from many sides, it is still 
 recognizable under its changes of form as essentially a 
 "liberal" school, not afraid of the word, but aiming to 
 give to it always a larger and a more vital meaning. 
 
 By the word "university" we mean here a school or 
 group of schools of advanced learning, whose object is 
 such fundamental training in the principles of profes- 
 sional activity as shall fit young men to begin practice 
 with the greatest advantage. This definition would ex- 
 clude on the one hand the great mass of so-called uni- 
 versities which vary in their standards from those of a 
 good high school to those of an average college and on 
 the other those examining or certifying boards without 
 teaching functions which are intended to regulate the 
 educational machinery of a state. It is a misfortune 
 that the looseness of our terminology has so often con- 
 founded the two words "college" and "university," 
 and this confusion has not been one of words alone. 
 Colleges have striven to become universities, and uni- 
 versities have been compelled to perform collegiate 
 functions, until the public mind is really in a pretty 
 hopeless muddle about the whole matter. Its conclu- 
 sion is likely to be, that the distinctions we are trying 
 to make here are, to use one of the public's favorite 
 terms of opprobrium, "purely academic." I hope to 
 show that they are real distinctions and that they are 
 fundamental to our purpose. 
 
 Their value becomes clearer when we put them to- 
 gether in the form chosen in the title to this essay. The 
 phrase "university college," while it brings the two
 
 COLLEGE DISCIPLINE 87 
 
 words into a closer and more integral relation, compels 
 us to know even more precisely what we mean by them. 
 We mean a school of liberal culture standing in an or- 
 ganic connection with a university. As to the wisdom 
 or unwisdom of such a connection we are not now con- 
 cerned. That is a point upon which opinions differ 
 widely and fortunately. It would be a pity if Ameri- 
 cans were not to be at liberty to experiment or should 
 ever be brought to sacrifice the advantages of diversity 
 to the cheap attraction of uniformity. Our concern for 
 the moment is with the fact that there are colleges thus 
 intimately bound up with the larger life of the uni- 
 versity and that such colleges are thus brought into 
 certain peculiar relations to the problems of collegiate 
 administration. 
 
 Even where this close relation between the univer- 
 sity and the college exists it is the college which has 
 possessed and still possesses the strongest hold upon 
 the affections of the graduates, and it is these grad- 
 uates of the college who still form the main portion of 
 the public which supports and, because it supports, 
 claims a large share in directing the policy of the in- 
 stitution as a whole. The college, in spite of all the 
 advances in technical professional training, remains 
 the most important and the most interesting stage in 
 our educational scale. It is the most important because 
 to the great majority of our academic youth it is the 
 final stage. It is the most interesting because its prob- 
 lems are so wide-reaching, so varied and so promptly 
 reflective of every advance in human thought. Profes- 
 sional training has always been fairly well taken care
 
 88 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 of by the professions themselves, and in the nature of 
 things it must be so cared for. The college needs the 
 continual guardianship of all those in every walk of 
 life to whom liberal culture means a something effec- 
 tively different from professional training of any sort. 
 During the past generation the American college has 
 been the subject of continuous attacks, chiefly in the 
 house of its friends. We have had dangled before our 
 eyes the bugaboo of its inevitable annihilation be- 
 tween the advancing standards of the secondary 
 schools and the steadily increasing claims of profes- 
 sional preparation. To this pressure the colleges have 
 been forced to make certain concessions, by no means 
 to their injury, a slight addition here, a little amputa- 
 tion there, a reduction in what one of my colleagues 
 used to call " frills " and a strengthening in the essential 
 parts. Yet, in spite of all these changes, it remains the 
 greatest proof of the value of the college as an element 
 in American life that it has held its own and that when- 
 ever, as happened a few years ago in the case of one of 
 our most typical New England colleges, the body of 
 graduates has expressed itself, its voice has been in 
 favor of the traditional studies and the well-tried 
 forms, allowing always for such modifications as ad- 
 vancing knowledge and wider experience shall suggest. 
 Both the upper and the nether educational millstones 
 have been grinding away during this most exacting 
 generation, but they have not yet reduced the college 
 to any such straits as seriously to alarm its defenders. 
 Rather, they have stimulated them to renewed energy 
 in proving anew the right of the college to its own exist-
 
 COLLEGE DISCIPLINE 89 
 
 ence. As these words are written come reports from 
 every hand of an unparalleled crowding of our most 
 typical colleges. In those farthest removed from cities 
 the housing problem has become almost fatally serious. 
 Some are considering plans for a systematic limitation 
 of numbers on the basis of a more careful selection of 
 candidates. The supply of competent teachers has al- 
 ready become a question of the highest importance. 
 
 And now, by "discipline" is meant whatever in the 
 life of the college, apart from the actual study, tends to 
 form the youth into that being whom, for lack of a 
 better term, we call an "educated man." Discipline is 
 indeed the final object of the whole college organiza- 
 tion. It ought to be kept in sight at every moment by 
 those who shape the details of administration. No 
 measure of any sort should be passed until its bearing 
 upon this supreme object has been duly weighed. The 
 discipline of an army we in these days have learned 
 only too well to understand. It means, not merely the 
 outward form, the salute, the drill, the punctuality, 
 the instant and unquestioning obedience, but also the 
 change in the recruit's whole attitude from the more 
 diverse and scattered interests of the civilian to the 
 intense and concentrated loyalty of the soldier to his 
 single task. 
 
 Some such attitude toward his work is what is here 
 meant by the discipline of the student, but the com- 
 parison, just now being made with increasing fre- 
 quency, is likely to be misleading. Already voices are 
 beginning to be heard .calling attention to the swift re- 
 sults and the amazing efficiency of military discipline
 
 9 o LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 and more than suggesting that the happily brief expe- 
 rience of our academic youth under military supervision 
 ought to be indefinitely extended. That, however, is 
 not at all what we are here aiming at. Nothing could 
 be much worse than to bring the methods of the mili- 
 tary academy into our colleges. These methods pre- 
 suppose one uniform aim for all students and one well 
 established body of instruction to be conveyed by 
 teacher to pupil. The method of instruction is nat- 
 urally that of the standardized text-book learned and 
 repeated with daily and hourly insistence upon the 
 regular performance of allotted tasks. That is indeed 
 discipline, but in the lowest sense of that inspiring 
 word. It may well have its effect on the youth by 
 starting him in useful habits. It will doubtless convey 
 to him a mass of useful information. It will give him a 
 certain facility in exercising over others the kind of 
 authority he has himself been forced to respect or 
 appear to respect. 
 
 All these are results of the greatest value to the soldier 
 in the special service he will be called upon to perform; 
 but in the higher sense they do not mean discipline at 
 all. Essentially this is all external in its method and its 
 spirit. It is not primarily directed toward rousing into 
 activity that inner impulse which, working outward 
 expresses itself in action under the domination of the 
 disciplined will. The very essence of military discipline 
 is the absence of will: "theirs not to reason why." Yet 
 the highest achievement in human life comes only 
 from the constant will toward the best, and our aca- 
 demic aim should be directed wholly toward the high-
 
 COLLEGE DISCIPLINE 91 
 
 est. Not the quickest process, not the most "direct" 
 application of effort, but the slow ripening of the intel- 
 lectual and the moral character is the academic, but 
 not the military, ideal. 
 
 The university college differs from the separated col- 
 lege mainly in its closer contact with what we have 
 called the larger ideals of the university. Our first 
 question, therefore, concerns the inevitable reaction 
 upon the college of the university life in the midst of 
 which it stands and with which it is organically con- 
 nected. The essential principle of university discipline 
 is the principle of freedom. The university man is a 
 free agent. He lives and comes and goes as he pleases. 
 The opportunities offered him he takes or leaves at his 
 discretion. When he is ready to submit himself to the 
 tests of scholarship required for his degrees he does so; 
 but no one in authority reproaches him if he does not 
 or if he fails to stand the tests. His general conduct of 
 life is subject only to the rules of a civil society. 
 
 It is inevitable that this freedom of the university 
 should react powerfully upon the associated college. 
 Many restrictions which might well be set in a college 
 apart cannot be maintained here without injurious 
 friction. In the university college even the lowest un- 
 dergraduate cannot entirely escape the influence of the 
 continuous contact of the collegiate with the university 
 ideals. Even the conscious effort of the authorities 
 cannot quite bring this to pass. They may shut up the 
 Freshman in buildings swarming only with his kind; 
 they may feed him at the same table, move him 
 through the same class-rooms, subject him to the same
 
 92 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 degrading system of academic bookkeeping which 
 masquerades under the name of "discipline," but they 
 cannot quite hide from him the most important educa- 
 tional fact in his whole situation, namely, that he is a 
 member, however humble, in a "society of scholars." 
 No matter how remote from him the higher regions of 
 scholarship may be, some faint glow of their radiance 
 must penetrate into the mists of his inexperience and 
 his indifference. 
 
 It is this contact of two educational ideals which 
 underlies the whole problem of the university college. 
 To some persons this contact seems so dangerous that 
 it may rather be described as a conflict. To others it 
 offers the most valuable aid possible in the attainment 
 of the highest academic results. The efficient head of 
 one New England college used to say that he would not 
 tolerate a graduate student on the campus. He thought 
 that advanced study belonged only at the university 
 and that its mere presence in the college tended to 
 create an atmosphere unfavorable to the steady pur- 
 suit of purely collegiate aims. In other equally typical 
 colleges there has been a persistent effort to create 
 something of what we call the "university spirit" be- 
 cause it was believed that this would further the more 
 specific purpose of the college. In the university col- 
 lege this contact is, for better or worse, already present, 
 and the problem of administration is to utilize it. 
 
 It is a very pretty illustration at once of the impor- 
 tance and the difficulty of this problem, that while some 
 of the separated colleges have been trying to lift them- 
 selves up by introducing studies and methods supposed
 
 COLLEGE DISCIPLINE 93 
 
 to belong to "graduate" instruction, there has been a 
 constant pressure upon the university colleges to with- 
 draw themselves more and more from the baleful in- 
 fluence of such advanced ideas, or, in other words, to 
 draw the line more sharply between undergraduate and 
 graduate methods. Graduates, we are told, are men; 
 undergraduates are boys and must be treated as such. 
 The kind of discipline suited for men is not fit for boys. 
 In fact, say these counsellors of imperfection, it is 
 doubtful whether men profit much by any other kind 
 of discipline than that which boys need to hold them to 
 their tasks. 
 
 This is a fundamental antithesis and needs a little 
 more clearing up. Let the word " boy " be our starting- 
 point. We use it carelessly in a half affectionate, half 
 depreciatory way to express our feeling toward these 
 youths of eighteen to twenty-two. To us they seem 
 but just out of their cradles. We think of their follies, 
 their waste of time, their confused notions of right and 
 wrong, their contempt of authority and precedent, 
 their generous enthusiasms and their blase affectations. 
 We turn away our heads to hide our tolerant smiles and 
 say to each other: "Boys! dear boys! When will they 
 begin to be men!" And so, putting our feelings into 
 terms of education, we hail with a new sensation of 
 relief each new effort of the college to safeguard these 
 precious pledglings of our affection and our sacrifice. 
 Fond parents and alarmed schoolmasters and easily 
 excited social reformers rush to meet half way the 
 amiable deans and canny presidents who offer them all 
 kinds of plausible panaceas against laziness and vi-
 
 94 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 ciousness and social neglect. "Revive class-feeling, 
 and all will be well!" shouts one. "Publish abroad the 
 grades of scholarship " says another, "so that even he 
 who can run a mile in x minutes may read the lesson 
 that it pays to learn what is set before him, and you 
 will be offering to these * boys ' the only kind of motive 
 they are able to understand." "Look after them more 
 sharply" insists a third, "provide them with hordes of 
 ' advisers,' deans and assistant deans, tutors, student 
 counsellors and what not, and this irresponsibility 
 which is of the very nature of the ' boy ' will be so 
 hedged about that it will no longer be harmful to him." 
 "Herd your boys together as much as possible, and all 
 those wicked invidious distinctions that work against 
 a true democracy will disappear." 
 
 Now all this multitude of conflicting counsels rests 
 upon our persistent misuse of the word and the idea, 
 " boy." To call our youths of eighteen to twenty-two 
 merely boys is as false as it would be to call them 
 merely men. They are young men not old boys. What 
 is manly about them is the essential and the formative. 
 The boyish things are the transient, the outgrown, the 
 disappearing things. As in all human affairs it is the 
 growing, forward-looking, upbuilding aspects that are 
 important, so is it in the highest degree with the mak- 
 ing of a man. A popular weekly presented recently on 
 its cover a pathetic picture of a sturdy urchin in the 
 barber's chair, his face radiant with the broadest of 
 grins as his golden curls fall thick around him while be- 
 hind stands the poor, proud little mother pressing her 
 handkerchief to her lips to check the sobs that protest
 
 COLLEGE DISCIPLINE 95 
 
 against the sacrifice of her baby to the insistent claim 
 of the boy. The passage from the boy to the man calls 
 for no less pathetic sacrifices on the part alike of par- 
 ents and of the community. Cost what it may the 
 "boy" must be sloughed off, and the man must have 
 his chance. The picturesque elements of boyhood 
 must be as relentlessly abandoned as the baby curls are 
 surrendered to the cruel shears. 
 
 If we are to do justice to our growing youth we must 
 first conquer our own blinding affections. We must 
 first of all get it into our working consciousness that 
 this being whom we have been taking as a joke is a 
 joke no longer, but a stubborn, persistent, individual 
 fact. The clouds of glory he has been trailing about 
 with him are darkening into threatening masses of 
 shadow, whose silver linings are pretty steadily turned 
 the other way. It is a severe trial of our faith, and it is 
 not strange that our faith often fails us and we grasp 
 at anything that seems likely to give us a hold upon 
 realities we can understand. Our fixed point must be 
 the fact of the freedom involved in the university con- 
 tact. The theory of the university college must include 
 a considerable measure of freedom; the practical ques- 
 tions are: how much freedom? in what directions? and 
 at what stages of advancement? 
 
 To begin with the last of these questions: at what 
 point in the life of the college youth should he begin to 
 be subjected to the trials and introduced to the joys of 
 academic freedom? I reply: at the moment of his en- 
 trance into the academic community. About this there 
 has been much discussion, and many experiments have
 
 96 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 been tried. It sounds reasonable that a " boy " just re- 
 leased from the necessary restraints of school should be 
 led over gradually into the responsibilities of university 
 freedom. But what is this process of leading over? In 
 practice it means nothing more than prolonging the 
 period of external control or, in other words, postpon- 
 ing the beginning of the only process by which the 
 lesson of responsibility was ever learned, namely the 
 taking of responsibility. It is not a question of age. 
 The offenders against college morals are seldom the 
 youngest of their year. The youth of sixteen plus who 
 has passed all requirements for admission to college 
 has usually shown, simply by this fact, that he is al- 
 ready sufficiently master of his will to be safely trusted 
 to use it aright. If the moral backbone is not fairly 
 well set at eighteen it is not a matter of a year or two 
 longer of irresponsibility that will do it. 
 
 In saying this I am making for the college youth no 
 special claim to superior virtue beyond what belongs 
 to his quality as a picked man. He will undoubtedly do 
 a great many foolish things and will try a great many 
 experiments on himself to see how far he may safely or 
 comfortably go without disaster. The college can make 
 no superhuman demands upon him, but it may fairly 
 expect that when he enters upon its privileges and its 
 joys he shall also face its special responsibilities. Col- 
 lege discipline should be so adjusted as to catch hold 
 upon every one of his forward and upward looking im- 
 pulses and to discourage actively and passively every 
 one of his lapses into flabbiness. It is a difficult and a 
 delicate problem demanding a clear comprehension of
 
 COLLEGE DISCIPLINE 97 
 
 young human nature and a persistent faith in its ulti- 
 mate Tightness. The especial difficulty in practice is to 
 remember that we are not to expect immediate results. 
 The temptation is to make regulations so that ap- 
 parent results shall be produced at once. It can be 
 done; but this is the discipline of a reformatory, not of 
 an educating community. The college which applies 
 the principle of liberty must expect apparent failures. 
 They will come at whatever stage the liberty begins to 
 work, and the sooner the better. College life does not 
 in this respect differ from any other form of associated 
 life. It must have its periods of initiation, of exper- 
 iment and therefore of waste, of error, and of folly. As 
 compared with entrance into any other kind of life, as 
 for instance, into the business community of a great 
 city, entrance into the college is infinitely less dan- 
 gerous. It is surrounded by natural safeguards in the 
 very character of its occupations and of the men who 
 direct them. 
 
 We sometimes hear the defenders of a system of 
 graduated liberties speak with alarm of the " shock" of 
 an abrupt transition from school control to college free- 
 dom. Well, it is a shock, but of a kind that is highly 
 educative. There is nothing better for a youth than to 
 run up hard at times against the consequences of his 
 own acts. It is a lonesome but a fortunate moment for 
 him when it comes over him with full force, that he is 
 the person most concerned in his own success or failure. 
 At home and at school he has had some one else to do 
 his suffering for him. Now he has come into a world 
 that seems to care about him not at all. He is a number
 
 98 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 on an examination slip, a seat in a lecture room, a page 
 in the treasurer's books. It is a shock; but it sets him 
 thinking. A classmate of mine, father of boys and a 
 successful private tutor, said: "The chief difference be- 
 tween our time and now is, that nowadays a student 
 begins his college life with an act of thought." Very 
 likely this unwonted exercise will paralyze him for the 
 moment. Thinking for one's self is a trying occupa- 
 tion. He casts about him for the props that have 
 hitherto supported his wavering will the family 
 habit of early rising, the helpful but hateful sound of 
 the school bell, the daily report of his study to parent 
 or teacher, the regular, orderly movement of a mass of 
 boys of his own age, the quiet evening and the early 
 sleep all are gone. Of course the college could supply 
 all this machinery. It used to do so. The college bell 
 to compulsory prayers took the place of the family 
 summons to an early breakfast; the regular succes- 
 sion of classes was so planned as to keep up a sys- 
 tematic division of the day; hourly recitations with 
 accurate bookkeeping kept the authorities informed 
 at every moment of the precise "standing" of every 
 student. 
 
 That system still commends itself to those who be- 
 lieve that education is primarily a thing of so much 
 work, done under a regular and personal supervision. 
 They think that the conditions of such a regulated life 
 are more favorable to the formation of working habits 
 likely to be of permanent value. The question is still 
 an open one; but so far as the university college is con- 
 cerned the tendency is clear. The principle of liberty
 
 COLLEGE DISCIPLINE 99 
 
 has been accepted, and its application begins more or 
 less sharply with the beginning of college life. 
 
 If now we turn to the question of the forms which 
 university freedom may properly take in the college 
 stage, the first and most obvious application is in the 
 choice of studies. Whatever may be thought as to the 
 meaning of a liberal education, no one at this day 
 would undertake to administer a university college 
 upon any other theory than that of a wide election. 
 So general has this conviction become that to most 
 persons not professionally concerned with the subject 
 the two phrases "elective system" and "university 
 freedom" are practically synonymous. Just how wide 
 such election should be at any given moment is again 
 a matter for discussion; but such is the logic of freedom 
 that, if the principle is once admitted, it tends inev- 
 itably to cover the whole range of studies as we have 
 seen it covering the whole period of college life. The 
 only logical solution is to open the whole list of " lib- 
 eral" studies to the choice of all candidates for the 
 "liberal," that is the non-professional degrees. That 
 this conclusion is logical, however, does not prove that 
 it is either practicable or wise. 
 
 The theory must justify itself by its results or else it 
 must be modified until it can do so. In fact, such a 
 thing as absolute freedom of election in studies is an 
 impossibility. In many subjects there is a natural 
 sequence of topics which would prevent the more ad- 
 vanced from being studied until after the more elemen- 
 tary. Some subjects demand a certain maturity of 
 mind which would ordinarily exclude the younger stu-
 
 ioo LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 dents. Any conceivable elective system implies elec- 
 tion among such studies as are suited to the student's 
 capacity and previous acquirements. 
 
 We are concerned with the disciplinary effect of the 
 free election of studies. That initial act of independent 
 thought may be very crude, based upon very insuffi- 
 cient grounds and subactuated by very trifling mo- 
 tives, but it sets for the young man the note of personal 
 responsibility which henceforth he cannot escape. It 
 has been my fortune as boy and man to live through 
 the whole process of change from a system of absolute 
 uniformity and compulsion to one of almost as com- 
 plete liberty and then long afterward to another sys- 
 tem of regulation intended to retain the benefits and 
 avoid the dangers of both its predecessors. In the light 
 of these changes and of the illuminating discussions 
 that accompanied them, I do not hesitate to say that 
 American education owes more to the expansion of 
 student freedom than to any other cause, perhaps than 
 to all other causes. On the whole the choice of their 
 studies has been taken as seriously by our college youth 
 as could reasonably have been expected. The reaction 
 upon their ways of working and thinking about their 
 work has been most encouraging. 
 
 This conclusion is not weakened by the undeniable 
 fact that a great proportion of the graduates of the 
 freest period would have made different choices if the 
 thing were to do over again. The same might be said of 
 most later human decisions. The real question is 
 whether the increase of freedom has strengthened the 
 will, has given larger and truer views of study and in-
 
 COLLEGE DISCIPLINE 101 
 
 creased respect for the intellectual life. That such has 
 been the case is best proven by the practical unanimity 
 with which our higher institutions of learning have ac- 
 cepted the principle and invented devices for securing 
 the best results from it. Within recent years there has 
 been noticeable a certain tendency toward limitation 
 of freedom in this matter of the choice of studies, but so 
 far this has been no more than a healthful reaction 
 against rather obvious exaggerations of the logic of the 
 situation. The principle has been preserved; the de- 
 tails have been modified rather with the object of 
 saving the principle than of working against it. 
 
 But the mere fact of a free election of studies is far 
 from being the same thing as university freedom. It is 
 only one aspect of it. It may be so administered as 
 almost entirely to obscure or even to nullify its dis- 
 ciplinary character. There are certain kinds of regula- 
 tion which tend to enforce the idea of liberty and 
 others which tend to destroy it. This is a distinction 
 which the university college is bound to recognize. It 
 ought to insist that only such forms of control shall be 
 used as will reinforce in the student's mind at every 
 turn that sense of responsibility which is the end and 
 aim of all academic discipline. For example, how to 
 treat the not altogether simple question of attendance 
 at college exercises. It is quite possible for the college 
 to say: "We permit the largest practicable freedom 
 in the election of studies; but, the election once made, 
 the student must be present at every regular exercise of 
 every course. In case of unexcused absence he may be 
 punished by some form of academic censure." But
 
 102 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 what is the result of this prescription ? The discipline 
 of liberty is lost. The attitude of the student toward 
 his instruction remains a false one. He is no longer the 
 recipient of a privilege; he is the victim of a conspiracy 
 to force upon him something from which he is trying to 
 escape. Or, supposing that a certain limit of absence 
 before censure is allowed, he keeps within his limit and 
 fancies he has done all that can be asked of him. He 
 has not caught the spirit of university freedom. In 
 spite of the elective system of studies, the student is 
 still no more of a university man than was the college 
 "boy" under the straitest of compulsory methods. 
 
 But now, supposing that no faculty regulation 
 whatever exists as to attendance. There arises at once 
 between teacher and taught a relation appalling in its 
 simplicity to the men of little faith, but inspiring and 
 profoundly educative in its effect. It is the relation 
 which has existed between all good teachers and all 
 willing learners since Socrates and Alcibiades, since 
 Abelard and Arnold of Brescia, since Mark Hopkins 
 and James Garfield. Alcibiades, Arnold, and Garfield 
 are perfect types of the picked youth seeking instruc- 
 tion where best they could find it and bound to their 
 teachers by no other tie than the confidence that their 
 instruction was worth while. In this free relation the 
 teacher is compelled to give such instruction that the 
 student cannot afford to miss it. In most systematic 
 teaching there is a natural continuity which of itself 
 is enough to secure as regular attendance as any uni- 
 versity college is likely to require by rule. 
 
 The student comes then to his classes, not from any
 
 COLLEGE DISCIPLINE 103 
 
 angelic sense of duty but because it pays. He gets 
 there something which he can get nowhere else and 
 which he must have in order to meet the final purpose 
 of his college life toward which he is continually look- 
 ing forward. If he is not present with fair regularity he 
 cannot do the work of his class. If he is foolish enough 
 to indulge in long lapses from attendance he meets with 
 perfect naturalness the rational consequence. He is 
 forbidden to enjoy the privilege he has abused. He 
 turns himself out of the company he has not chosen to 
 keep up with. If his negligence covers a great part of 
 his work he simply turns himself out of college. He 
 cannot feel himself the victim of any too rigid regula- 
 tion; there has been no regulation at all. He has dis- 
 ciplined himself by the process through which youth 
 and age alike are always being disciplined, by the con- 
 sequences of his own acts. It is the sternest of all 
 discipline, and yet, so curiously are we blinded to the 
 realities of things that to many persons it appears like 
 positive neglect and shiftlessness on the part of those 
 whom such critics like to describe as the "guardians 
 of youth." 
 
 Unquestionably there is a temptation on the part of 
 college authorities to administer carelessly a system of 
 liberty. It makes far higher demands upon the in- 
 sight, the faith, the courage and the persistence of 
 executive officers and teachers than any system of 
 precise regulation. It is far easier to impress the public 
 by showing a fine scheme of rules, no matter how badly 
 they work, than by keeping up a continuous demand 
 upon the reason and conscience of youth, with the inev-
 
 io 4 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 itable cases of apparent failure. And on the side of the 
 student, youth is not alone in a too willing dependence 
 upon crutches. Nothing is more depressing than the 
 readiness with which students will slump back into 
 irresponsibility as fast as they are permitted to do 
 so. A clever college president has recently spoken of 
 "student activities" by way of contrast with " the pas- 
 sivities of the class-room." The whole problem of dis- 
 cipline is to convert passivity into activity through 
 convincing the youth that intellectual things are really 
 worth his while. The initiative toward this conversion 
 cannot come from the student. His sense of something 
 wrong in the method of treating him can express itself 
 only in vague resistance, not in constructive sugges- 
 tion. The motive must be supplied by the governing 
 powers, educational and executive together, or it will 
 not come at all. 
 
 With all due caution in making comparisons with 
 foreign countries, it is instructive to remember that 
 nowhere in the civilized world are youths of our col- 
 legiate age subjected to the kind of super-regulation we 
 accept as a matter of course. Even in England, whose 
 traditions we have more nearly followed than any 
 others, the step from school to college is more sharply 
 accented. Except for certain rather superficial phys- 
 ical restrictions, the English college youth is freer in 
 his movements in all that relates to his studies, a free- 
 dom based largely upon his sense of accountability in 
 the remote future. And as to the Continent, the an- 
 swer of the German student to a stranger asking the 
 way to the university is characteristic: "Excuse me,
 
 COLLEGE DISCIPLINE 105 
 
 Sir; this is only my third semester." Such laxity as 
 that we in America are certainly not prepared for. We 
 are bound to preserve something of the ancient col- 
 legiate tradition which made the college accountable 
 to families for the conduct of their sons. 
 
 It is the special privilege of the university college to 
 interpret this obligation as liberally as possible, not 
 that it may escape from thought or responsibility, but 
 that it may help the student to the highest form of dis- 
 cipline. How far, then, may it wisely go in the matter 
 of attendance? Its guides in solving this question 
 should be on the one hand, that it is bound to have 
 some knowledge of the student's general fidelity to his 
 regular duty and on the other, that mere bodily pres- 
 ence at college exercises without active participation in 
 them is of no value whatever. A record of attendance 
 may be kept, because such a record is in itself no en- 
 croachment upon personal liberty. It is a mere device 
 for procuring statistics. In so far as it is made use of for 
 enforcing unwilling attendance it is a positive evil. If 
 the record of a student shows persistent absence in any 
 one course of study, he should be required to explain it, 
 and every allowance should be made for the un- 
 doubted fact that well-considered absence may often 
 be of much more use than unthinking presence. If his 
 acount is satisfactory, as it well may be, he should be 
 let alone. If not, the privilege of attendance at this 
 particular course, which he has not found worth his 
 while, should be withdrawn. 
 
 If, however, his neglect in attendance all round 
 shows a settled purpose, it should be accepted as evi-
 
 io6 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 dence that he is not a useful member of the academic 
 community and he should be required to separate him- 
 self from it. Not, be it well understood, as punishment. 
 The university college has no place for punitive dis- 
 cipline. Separation is simply an answer to his own real 
 desire as expressed by his actions. Whenever he can 
 show by other actions a reasonable promise of readiness 
 to use well the academic privilege, it should be opened 
 to him again. There is a phrase hallowed by long usage 
 in a certain academic connection which ought to be 
 published as expressing the sum and substance of uni- 
 versity college discipline: "Any student may be de- 
 prived of his privileges at any time, if he abuse or fail 
 to use them." It should never be forgotten that the 
 obligation of the student to attend is no greater than 
 that of the teacher to give him something that is worth 
 his while. If he is tolerably certain that at a given 
 point the teacher is not going to fulfil his obligation, 
 then his own is released, and he is perfectly right in 
 finding a better use for his time. Free attendance thus 
 becomes a positive agent in toning up the whole mech- 
 anism of instruction. It may be abused, but in the 
 main the control is in the teacher's hands. The motto 
 of the good teacher is: "I want no hearers who do not 
 want to hear!" 
 
 The system of freedom, applied with due watchful- 
 ness and rational guidance is not an easy one to admin- 
 ister. If this is true in regard to personal attendance, 
 it is even more so in the very complicated matter of 
 academic bookkeeping. Just as there are persons to 
 whom the notion of a regular and orderly mechanical
 
 COLLEGE DISCIPLINE 107 
 
 attendance appeals as evidence of interest and prog- 
 ress, so there is an order of mind for which the idea of 
 a systematic and "accurate" account between every 
 student and the college authorities has a deadly fas- 
 cination. To such a mind the spectacle of a graded list 
 upon which every member of a college class is duly 
 credited with so much scholarly accomplishment is an 
 object of positive beauty. It is not so very long since 
 all our education from bottom to top was controlled by 
 this demon of statistics. Even in our colleges every 
 academic exercise was checked and ticketed off to the 
 account of every student like the sales in a retail shop. 
 The function of the teacher was largely one of judging 
 and valuing the daily and hourly performances of his 
 students, and his skill and fairness in this kind of aca- 
 demic shop-keeping were of far more immediate im- 
 portance in their eyes than his learning or his aptness 
 to teach. 
 
 At a great dinner in celebration of a professor's jubi- 
 lee, it was curious to notice that what drew these gen- 
 erations of former pupils together was not in the least 
 their recollection of anything he had ever taught them, 
 but a kind of filial regard for his upright and down- 
 right character. It was summed up in such remarks as 
 these: "He never added anything to science. Of 
 course we never learned anything from him; but he 
 was always fairl" A contemporary of this "teacher" 
 but of the opposite type, a man to whom learning was 
 everything and machinery nothing, was driven by the 
 same foolish conditions upon the other horn of the 
 dilemma. It was told of him that when a certain stu-
 
 io8 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 dent of excellent ability in his subject sought correction 
 of a very low grade on the ground of possible confusion 
 with a very bad student of the same name, he only re- 
 plied: "You must take your chance, Sir! You must 
 take your chance!" The fault in both cases was not in 
 the man, nor yet in the pupil. It was in the absurd 
 system and in the false pedagogy that lay behind it. 
 A classmate of mine applied to a mathematical pro- 
 fessor not destitute of humor for revision of grade and 
 was answered next day: "Yes, Mr. X, I was in error. 
 I have reexamined your book and take pleasure in 
 raising your grade from 67 to 68." One of my col- 
 leagues always told his students: "I shall be glad to 
 reread any examination books, provided you will take 
 the chance of a reduction in grade." Such anecdotes 
 could be indefinitely multiplied. They illustrate the 
 pitiful, pettifogging business in which men of learning 
 and students of promise were involved so long as they 
 remained subject to the fundamental error that intel- 
 lectual accomplishment can be graded and registered 
 like the output of a factory. One has only to go back a 
 little further to find a time when moral conduct and 
 scholarship were tied up together in the college book- 
 keeping. If a student threw a snowball in the college 
 grounds, or was late to prayers or got tipsy, his record 
 of scholarship was docked according to a scale of 
 prices. 
 
 Such blatant absurdity as this was recognized a good 
 while ago, but we are not yet delivered from the false 
 principle that lay behind it. In the long warfare be- 
 tween the Faculty and the "Office," it is only eternal
 
 COLLEGE DISCIPLINE 109 
 
 vigilance that can prevent the poisonous gas of the 
 competitive marking system from clogging the arteries 
 and dulling the will alike of teachers and taught. The 
 principle is false not only because it proposes to do the 
 impossible, that is to grade intellectual work ac- 
 curately, but because it sets a false standard for es- 
 timating the final result of the student's academic 
 course. It tends to glorify the man who "has never 
 missed a lecture," or who has never "got" less than 
 ninety per cent in a "course." It helps the man to 
 "get by," who has "half his work above C" or who 
 has only "three D's" to his discredit. Very recently a 
 student graduating with the highest reputation for 
 true scholarship from an important university college 
 was refused "highest honors" because at some time in 
 the remote past of his Freshman year he had "got a C " 
 in an elementary course! Not a word as to his steady 
 growth in intellectual character. Not an inquiry as to 
 his actual command of a subject or his quality as a 
 man of power in the things of the intellect. Only a 
 deadly rule of thumb such as might be useful in making 
 weather statistics or in tabulating the reports of the 
 stock market, but has no place in the process of making 
 an educated man. 
 
 Such a case as this brings out into glaring contrast 
 two conflicting ideas of what education is and what it is 
 for. The one presents education as the regular per- 
 formance of so many allotted tasks with even excel- 
 lence, with little regard to their relation with each other 
 or to any specific end. The other regards education as 
 first the acquisition of a modicum of knowledge and
 
 i io LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 then the gaining of power to use this or any other 
 knowledge for productive ends. If the former is the 
 right ideal then by all means let us have the marking 
 system in all its perfection, with its percentages, its 
 averages, its small rivalries and its empty triumphs. 
 If the latter is right, then all the weight of discipline 
 should be applied to fix the attention upon the distant 
 goal of some real accomplishment of knowledge and of 
 capacity. Between these two ideals there is no per- 
 manent compromise. The lower nullifies the higher; 
 the higher drives out the lower, as a gold standard 
 drives out the silver which tends to degrade it. The 
 university college must make up its mind which of 
 these gods it will serve, and in this choice the influence 
 of the university ought to be decisive. As the univer- 
 sity trains for professional ends, so the college should 
 have its equally well-defined though not professional 
 aim, and toward this aim all its effort should be 
 directed. But one objector will say: "That is all 
 very well, but the college "boy" is incapable of work- 
 ing toward distant ends." Is he? Watch him at his 
 games, and find the answer. Where is the motive that 
 leads him to subject himself to the self-denials, the 
 physical hardships, the dreary monotony of months of 
 training? It is the far off goal of the final struggle on 
 field or river. Here no one asks how he rowed six 
 months ago; the question is: how does he row now? Is 
 his form good, his heart sound, can he stay now? And 
 lately, when the call to arms went singing through the 
 land, where were these "boys" then? They saw the 
 end from the beginning. The vision of themselves
 
 COLLEGE DISCIPLINE in 
 
 leading their mates into battle for the right made them 
 forget the long months of weary preparation, the dan- 
 gers of camp and field, and they went. 
 
 No, if the college follows a lower instead of a higher 
 ideal, it is not the student who is at fault. I rejoice to 
 give my testimony that I have never known a case in 
 which students did not respond to the highest de- 
 mands made upon them when they were made to un- 
 derstand what such demands meant. On the other 
 hand, I have never known students or any other 
 class of persons to fail to slump when low ideals 
 were set before them. It is not the students; it is those 
 who administer the affairs of the college who do not see 
 clearly or seeing have not the spirit to carry through 
 the best they know. 
 
 I dwell upon this matter of the marking system be- 
 cause it touches so closely upon the daily thought of 
 the student. It is idle to preach high ideals when we 
 are offering low ones. The high ideals are remote and 
 doubtful; the low ones are close at hand, continuous 
 and certain. If we are content to have the youth "get 
 by," he is not going to trouble himself greatly about 
 the more solid things. A detailed grading system can- 
 not exist together with real academic freedom. It is 
 undoubtedly a convenience in several ways. It gives 
 to the college at every moment the means of answering 
 superficially inquiries as to what we call the student's 
 "standing." It enables parents to receive prompt in- 
 formation of a formal sort about their sons. It answers, 
 in short, all the bookkeeping requirements necessarily 
 involved in a parental system of education. Further-
 
 ii2 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 more it is not unwelcome to the student body as a 
 whole. In our times of weakness we all welcome the 
 formal, mechanical props that aim to replace the more 
 painful support of our own disciplined wills. The dif- 
 ference is that we elders know when we are dodging, 
 and the youth does not. If he does what we "require" 
 he thinks he has a right to feel that he has done 
 enough and may go play with a clear conscience. The 
 whole problem of a sound discipline is to make him feel 
 that it is not we who are "requiring" anything of him, 
 but that it is he and he alone who profits by diligence 
 and loses by neglect. Whatever in our administration 
 of this great trust interferes with that understanding 
 of discipline either on his side or on ours is contrary to 
 the spirit of the university college. 
 
 I venture to believe that any rigid system of grading 
 based upon fragmentary bits of work, kept always be- 
 fore the mind of the student and published to the 
 world is such an interference with sound discipline and 
 therefore has no place in university conditions. The 
 pretense of discipline it offers is bad, because it holds 
 up to the student standards which he knows to be 
 fictitious, inexact, and incomplete. He laughs at the 
 fiction, he grumbles at the inaccuracy, and he invents 
 devices for getting round the insufficiency. It is a prop 
 to the idle, because it sets for him a low visible line 
 which he can reach with a minimum of effort and then 
 imagine that he has fulfilled all requirements. It is an 
 abuse of the diligent, because it tempts him contin- 
 ually to apply his diligence to fictitious ends. 
 
 There are two practical defenses of a marking sys-
 
 COLLEGE DISCIPLINE 113 
 
 tern : one, that it is a necessary spur to effort, the other, 
 that it is the only means by which college honors and 
 pecuniary assistance can be wisely assigned. The first 
 argument appeals especially to those who think of dis- 
 cipline as primarily intended to "get work out of stu- 
 dents," without special anxiety as to the kind of work 
 or the spirit in which it is done. Now, doubtless men 
 can always be kept at work by a penal system, and 
 they may be fairly happy under it; but in college life 
 there will be certain weak points in its appeal. It is no 
 use to preach the fear of hell to the modern sinner; he 
 calmly replies: "There is no such thing" and sins away 
 as merrily as ever. So the indifferent student, by no 
 means always the least clever, quietly calculates his 
 chances, skims along the edge of the fictitious aca- 
 demic limbo and defies the authorities to "get any 
 more out of him." Really, so far as discipline is con- 
 cerned, he comes off rather better than the better stu- 
 dent. He makes himself no illusions. It is a fair fight 
 between himself and the office, and with a not exces- 
 sive amount of strategy he is sure of a victory. For 
 here as always, when there is a straight issue between 
 the government and the student, the government 
 will get beaten. Nothing is more idle than to invent 
 devices for getting the better of the student. He is al- 
 ways the cleverer party. Our only safety lies in pre- 
 senting the aims of academic life to him in their highest 
 and clearest light as privilege and opportunity and 
 then leaving it to him whether he will accept or reject 
 them. That is the sharpest spur there is, and it is the 
 only one he needs.
 
 ii 4 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 The subject of "college honors" is too large to be 
 treated here in detail. Such distinctions are warmly 
 defended and violently opposed. In so far as their de- 
 fense rests, as it usually does, on their value as incite- 
 ments to scholarship, they come fairly under the head 
 of discipline. The arguments for and against them turn 
 generally upon the usefulness of competition in educa- 
 tion. They are usually defended by those who approve 
 of competition, rejected by those who do not. But this 
 does not go to the root of the matter. Competition in 
 education is useful or not according to the spirit of 
 work it may develop. If it is a competition going on 
 from day to day and hour to hour, involving contin- 
 uous comparison and stimulating to effort merely to get 
 ahead, like the tacking of racing yachts, it is a thor- 
 oughly vicious thing. It is vicious because the mind of 
 the student is thereby kept more on the competition 
 than on his actual progress, and he fancies himself to 
 be going straight on when he is only tacking round his 
 rival. This is the kind of competition maintained and 
 encouraged by the marking of daily exercises, by fre- 
 quent examinations and the publication of continuous 
 rank-lists during a college course. "Honors" based 
 upon this kind of competition deserve all the contempt 
 they have so abundantly received. 
 
 But there is a competition quite different from this. 
 It is designed to bring out evidence of special capacity 
 at certain points in the student's progress. All the 
 petty accidents of daily class work are here left out of 
 the account. At stated periods the student is called 
 upon to show what use he has been making of his privi-
 
 COLLEGE DISCIPLINE 115 
 
 leges. This may be by means of examination questions 
 written or oral, or by other written work of various 
 kinds involving special, independent and original in- 
 quiry or experiment. This is a true competition, but it 
 is one in which each competitor runs his race alone. It 
 can be so conducted that the work is more in evidence 
 than the rivalry, and this is the more true the longer 
 the intervals of study and the more really significant 
 the tests. "Theses" of considerable length, requiring 
 long periods of research, give an admirable discipline in 
 themselves and furnish one excellent test of individual 
 ability. Liable as they certainly are to great abuses, if 
 rightly managed and fairly judged they come as near to 
 real tests of acquirement as are attainable under aca- 
 demic conditions. 
 
 The same may be said on the much disputed ques- 
 tion of special prizes for specific pieces of work. Rightly 
 administered such prizes are thoroughly useful as a 
 means of discipline. There is a reality about them that 
 is lacking in so many other forms of college honors. 
 The work thus rewarded may be of many kinds, but it 
 can always be so planned as to offer a chance for real 
 scholarly accomplishment. A long experience in the 
 administration of a group of such prizes given for excel- 
 lence in "useful and polite learning" has convinced me 
 that foundations for this purpose, holding up as they 
 do from one generation of college youth to another 
 standards of scholarly quality only too likely to be 
 lowered in the mechanisms of daily teaching, are among 
 the most valuable additions to the resources of the uni- 
 versity. Our conclusion is, then, that college honors are
 
 ii6 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 good or bad according as they help or hinder in en- 
 forcing our idea of discipline. They help when they rest 
 upon real, honest, independent work done for its own 
 sake. They hinder when they involve a fictitious com- 
 petition that tends to obscure the value of the work 
 itself. 
 
 The assignment of pecuniary aids to students is a 
 matter of peculiar delicacy. Provision for such aid has 
 been made in America with generous, sometimes with 
 lavish hand. One hears at times wholesale condemna- 
 tion of the principle itself; but it is safe to say that we 
 are not likely to see in any visible future any sensible 
 diminution in so appealing a form of altruistic effort. 
 The problems are those of method, not of principle, and 
 the most perplexing of them is: to what extent, if at 
 all, should the applicants for aid be distinguished from 
 their more "fortunate" mates? On this point the 
 American instinct is against any formal, officially 
 recognized discrimination. It is true that most of our 
 foundations are specifically or by implication intended 
 for the benefit of "needy and deserving" youths; but 
 in the application of them we shrink from creating a 
 class of students "branded," as some would say, with 
 the mark of poverty. By whatever tests the aid in 
 question is to be granted, we have felt that they ought 
 to be applied to rich and poor alike. To put it in other 
 words, we have not generally been willing to set up 
 special examinations or other tests for applicants for 
 scholarships. 
 
 The feeling that underlies this reluctance is fine and 
 generous, but it has had certain consequences affecting
 
 COLLEGE DISCIPLINE 117 
 
 seriously our whole subject of academic discipline. It 
 has added one more argument for the maintenance of a 
 general competitive grading system in which the appli- 
 cants for scholarships should find themselves entered 
 on precisely the same terms as all others. In fact, so 
 far as my experience goes, this argument has weighed 
 more in the minds or shall we say in the feelings ? 
 of the official defenders of such a system, than all the 
 rest put together. "Show us how to assign scholar- 
 ships without individual grading on the basis of fre- 
 quent tests and we will cheerfully abandon the whole 
 scheme," has been the frequent reply to criticism. 
 That brings the issue quite clearly before us. Is it of 
 more importance to maintain a sentiment of doubtful 
 value or to insist upon a principle of discipline that 
 should sustain and ennoble and make vital every in- 
 cident of the academic life? I say "of doubtful value," 
 because after all poverty in itself is no disgrace. In 
 the generous competitions of youth it is not even a 
 handicap. If we are convinced that special tests for 
 scholarship applicants would relieve the college of a 
 burden it ought not to carry, then it would seem to be 
 a manifest duty to establish them. Properly admin- 
 istered they could be made a thing of honor without a 
 shade of unworthy reflection being cast upon them. If 
 a youth asks for a special privilege, it can hardly seem 
 unjust that he should expect to meet some special 
 conditions. If something like the scheme of examina- 
 tions described below be assumed, it would go far to- 
 ward giving the information necessary for scholarship 
 purposes. Special tests at more frequent intervals
 
 ii8 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 could be administered without great difficulty for the 
 college and with little interference with the student's 
 proper liberty of action. 
 
 So we come to the still more vexing subject of ex- 
 aminations. The holding of more or less frequent tests 
 is defended on two grounds, first, as a means of fur- 
 nishing certificates of various sorts for practical ends, 
 such for example as promotion to academic grades, 
 transfer from one institution to another, granting of 
 scholarships, paid employment both in college and 
 afterward, and so on; second, as a means of discipline. 
 The "practical" handiness of examinations for these 
 purposes is beyond question. It concerns us here only 
 in this way: is it a compensation for obvious defects on 
 the side of discipline? We insist here only upon one 
 principle: that, where the practical purpose in any way 
 conflicts with the disciplinary, that is, with the forma- 
 tion of the highest type of academic character, it must 
 somehow be made to conform, or it must be aban- 
 doned. Nothing can justify any academic machinery 
 which works against the very highest purpose of the 
 university. 
 
 We frequently hear examinations spoken of as if 
 they were an unmitigated, if a necessary, evil. If this 
 means that they are a great nuisance to the examiner, 
 a sad consumer of valuable time, an intolerable inter- 
 ruption to the work of study and teaching, and, after 
 all, untrustworthy as evidence of scholarly accomplish- 
 ment, all this may be admitted at once. This does not, 
 however, prove that examinations ought to be given up; 
 for these are evils of the kind that belong to all human
 
 COLLEGE DISCIPLINE 119 
 
 routine. If, on the other hand, we mean that they in- 
 terfere with the full and free working of our academic 
 discipline, then they should be abandoned or so modi- 
 fied as to escape this charge. The principal problems 
 under this head are: how frequently may examina- 
 tions wisely be held? by whom should they be set? 
 what form should they take ? what shall depend upon 
 them? 
 
 So far as discipline is concerned, the most important 
 question is as to the relation between the teaching and 
 the examining functions. To what extent should they 
 be kept in the same hands, and how far may they 
 wisely be separated. On the one side we have the ex- 
 ample of most European countries, where examinations 
 are, as a rule, infrequent, occurring only at a few criti- 
 cal points in the student's career and held by some 
 authority quite independent of his own special teach- 
 ers. On the other hand we have our own American 
 tradition of tolerably frequent examinations, covering 
 small and detached pieces of work and conducted en- 
 tirely by the men who have done the preparatory 
 teaching. The advantage of the European system is 
 that the student stands in no commercial relation to 
 the teacher. He has nothing to get from him except a 
 knowledge of his subject; the teacher as such has no 
 legitimate influence upon the examination. The evil of 
 the system, an evil so great that it has led many intel- 
 ligent critics to condemn it from top to bottom is just 
 in the opposite sense: the examination influences the 
 teacher. Almost inevitably teaching under this sys- 
 tem tends to become a cram, and the teacher to de-
 
 lio 
 
 generate into the slave of an examining board in which 
 he has no part. The disciplinary effect is to give the 
 student a false conception of learning as of a mechan- 
 ical process, a thing of so much "reading" and so much 
 facility at putting results into tangible shape. 
 
 The apparent advantage of our American method is 
 that the teacher is nominally far more free to teach as 
 he will, but his relation to the student is subjected to a 
 severe handicap. He may do his best as teacher, but 
 he cannot conceal the fact that he is also the examiner, 
 upon whose personal equation depends in great part 
 the academic fate of his pupils. They may have every 
 respect for his learning and his character, but, if he is a 
 "hard marker" they will beware of him. In any case 
 they will be far too much concerned to find out "what 
 he wants them to do" than with the subject itself. 
 
 In regard to frequency a similar comparison may be 
 made. In Europe the examination generally covers a 
 considerable period of study and determines by one, 
 two, or three great tests the future of the candidate. 
 With us official and recorded examinations are gen- 
 erally held at the close of each brief stage of progress, 
 and the candidate's final standing is determined by 
 some crude process of averaging. The theory of the 
 European examination is that it is a test of the can- 
 didate's learning and power after completing a con- 
 siderable course of study. The American theory is that 
 examinations are a kind of taking account of stock as 
 one goes along, a theory which easily degenerates into 
 the notion that a subject once "passed" is so much 
 "worked off" to be set aside forever. The European
 
 COLLEGE DISCIPLINE 121 
 
 plan tends to diminish the importance of the teaching 
 process, especially in the earlier stages. The American 
 plan tends to over-emphasize it. The former lays 
 stress on the element of power; the latter on the ele- 
 ment of regular acquirement. In Europe the examina- 
 tion is a spur to effort only in that meaning of a far off 
 goal we have already tried to make clear. In America 
 the use as a daily spur is what chiefly recommends it, 
 and we have sometimes been led to the logical con- 
 clusion that the more we have of such a good thing the 
 better. 
 
 To put this distinction in another way, we may dis- 
 tinguish between examinations as a means of instruc- 
 tion and as a basis of record. These two purposes have 
 obviously nothing in common, and yet in practice they 
 have been rather hopelessly confused. It seems to be 
 generally assumed that the results of all examinations 
 must be tabulated, kept in the official records and used 
 at the discretion of "the office" for its manifold de- 
 vices. A moment's thought will convince anyone that 
 no such necessity exists. Examinations as a means of 
 instruction have their own proper and useful place. 
 Every teacher should be at liberty to employ this 
 mechanism as he would any other to accomplish some 
 pedagogic end, but he should be at liberty also to keep 
 the results to himself or impart them to his students or 
 destroy them, as may seem best to him. They need not 
 be made a matter of official record. To enforce this 
 distinction it might be well to designate such exercises 
 by some specific name, as, for example, "repetitions," 
 reserving the word "examinations" for the larger and
 
 122 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 more formal recorded tests by which some honor is to 
 be conferred, promotion granted, or scholarships as- 
 signed. The educational value of such repetitions, oral 
 or written, has been in danger of eclipse through the 
 great increase of instruction by lectures. The experi- 
 ence of the late William James, who said that he found 
 himself lecturing more and more because that was the 
 line of least resistance is doubtless typical of all teach- 
 ers who have passed through the transition from the 
 required curriculum to the system of free choice of 
 studies. We have all felt on the one hand the immense 
 gain in the possibilities of real instruction, but on the 
 other we have all seen with increasing regret the grow- 
 ing incapacity of students to express in words the re- 
 sults of their studies. The kind of repetitions I have 
 here in mind would go far to diminish this evil. They 
 could be made valuable supplements to the word of the 
 teacher provided only that they do not come to be re- 
 garded as so many clubs to diligence or threats of 
 punishment. The old-fashioned "recitation" with all 
 its pedagogic horrors had at least this merit that it 
 gave to a real teacher the opportunity to bring out of 
 the better student some kind of intellectual reaction. 
 Its fatal defect was that it tended to sacrifice every- 
 thing to the mechanical reproduction of a given task. 
 It is gone for good, and no teacher who is also a scholar 
 can regret it. The highest discipline will not suffer if 
 we can keep the idea of repetition on the level of our 
 best instruction freed from all penitential suggestion. 
 
 As to those examinations upon which academic 
 standing, in any sense of the word, is to be based: ac-
 
 COLLEGE DISCIPLINE 123 
 
 cording to what truly disciplinary principle can they be 
 regulated? The answer has already been suggested. 
 They must be so planned as to direct the student's at- 
 tention steadily toward real and remote ends, not to- 
 ward fictitious and immediate ones. To accomplish 
 this purpose they should be few in number; they should 
 represent the completion of considerable pieces of work 
 and they should involve the element of power as well as 
 that of learned acquisition. Further, they should be 
 conducted partly by those teachers who have been 
 preparing the candidates and partly by other ex- 
 aminers. This mixed body should prepare questions, 
 examine and estimate the answers and conduct oral 
 examinations when these are to be used. 
 
 There is, of course, room for wide differences both of 
 opinion and of practice. What constitutes a suitable 
 basis for examination ? What is a considerable piece of 
 work? How shall the shares of the immediate teachers 
 and the other experts be distributed? I venture to 
 make these definite suggestions: First, that for all 
 purposes of academic record the examining body in 
 any subject should be the department which has that 
 subject in charge. The teacher in any branch of the 
 subject is, of course, a member of the department and 
 would have weight in its councils in proportion to his 
 special knowledge in his branch. His idiosyncrasies 
 would be balanced by the larger view of his colleagues, 
 and thus the relation of his branch to the whole subject 
 would be made more effective. Second, the unit of ex- 
 amination should be a subject or a branch of a subject. 
 It should not be the "course" of any teacher or the
 
 124 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 text-book of any author, or the work of any fixed period 
 of residence. The purpose of this suggestion is, that the 
 mind of the student may be kept continually on the 
 realities of his work. He should be made to feel from 
 the beginning that he is a fellow-worker, though a 
 humble one, in a great field, where he has many com- 
 panions. He should be reminded in every useful way, 
 that the particular "course" he may be following at 
 the moment is not a natural unit, but only one man's 
 contribution to a larger whole. 
 
 Third, the examinations in each subject should be 
 treated as one system with stages graded according to 
 extent and difficulty. Requirement for a degree as- 
 suming that degrees are still to be retained could be 
 expressed in terms of so many stages of examinations 
 passed in so many subjects. A suitable balance be- 
 tween specialization and "general culture" could be 
 secured by regulating the proportion of higher exam- 
 inations to lower and the amounts of time given to 
 special and to general instruction. A higher degree of 
 specialization would be gained by demanding a greater 
 amount of examination in the upper grades; a wider 
 range of general excellence would be attained by re- 
 quiring more examination in the lower grades. For 
 example: supposing a scheme of four examination 
 stages, a conceivable requirement for the bachelor's 
 degree might be, that the candidate should pass the 
 fourth stage in one subject, the second in this and three 
 others and the first in these and four others. That 
 would mean in all fourteen examinations in eight sub- 
 jects and covering, say, four years. The candidate
 
 COLLEGE DISCIPLINE 125 
 
 would in this case have passed eight first examinations, 
 four seconds, one third, and one fourth; that is, he 
 would have studied while in college eight different sub- 
 jects, would have carried three of these into a second 
 stage of advancement and one into a fourth. A slight 
 variation could be made by dropping one first and 
 adding one third. A higher degree of specialization 
 would be gained by reducing the number of firsts and 
 carrying, say two subjects through the fourth stage. 
 Under this plan a great variety of combinations would 
 be possible while still preserving the desired balance 
 between specialization and wide election. It would 
 avoid many of the crudities which result from unre- 
 stricted choice among individual courses given by men 
 who are not only teaching any fragment of learning in 
 any way they please, but, through their sole control of 
 examinations, limit in many subtle ways the very 
 freedom of choice they seem to represent. 
 
 Such a plan is not an imitation of any European 
 model. It avoids the danger of a system of cramming 
 towards a set of examinations in which the teacher has 
 no share. It would stimulate the teacher to do his best 
 because it brings his instruction to the test of publicity 
 of a kind for which he has the greatest respect, pub- 
 licity before his equals and his superiors. Without 
 some such departmental cooperation the teacher goes 
 on year in and year out examining, as it were, his own 
 work and never brought under the wholesome criticism 
 of those best qualified to judge it. At the same time the 
 plan avoids the danger of petty and fragmentary in- 
 struction, since all teaching would be coordinated and
 
 126 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 directed toward some reasonably remote end. Experi- 
 ments already made in substituting a system of grant- 
 ing degrees upon examination rather than upon any 
 "accumulation of credits " give encouraging promise of 
 still greater success when our academic communities 
 shall once have worked themselves free of their ob- 
 solete paternalistic traditions. 
 
 The separation between the educational and the 
 bookkeeping functions of the college affects our gen- 
 eral subject of academic discipline chiefly at two points, 
 first, in its effect upon the relation of the student to his 
 teachers and second, as it influences his choice of 
 studies. As to the former, there is no more striking re- 
 sult of the system of freedom, so far as it has been hon- 
 orably applied, than the change which has come over 
 the whole attitude of the student toward his teachers. 
 In proportion as they have ceased to be taskmasters 
 and have become more really interpreters between him 
 and the various subjects of learning he has come to 
 think of them as older fellow-workers with himself. In 
 many ways his attitude has become more intelligently 
 critical, and this greatly to the profit of his instruction. 
 He has learned something of the great art of discrim- 
 inating between what is valuable and what is not. He 
 shows a certain impatience with the merely conven- 
 tional and becomes somewhat too clever in dodging 
 when he expects a period of "padding" or common- 
 place. His personal curiosity is aroused. He develops 
 an instinct at asking inconvenient questions. He lets 
 the teacher know by many unmistakable signs when he 
 finds him dull or obscure. He ventures to set up opin-
 
 COLLEGE DISCIPLINE 127 
 
 ions of his own, sound or otherwise, and to defend 
 them in personal encounter. 
 
 All this has reacted most powerfully and most profit- 
 ably upon the teacher. Even men who on principle 
 opposed every stage of advance in the method of free- 
 dom have found their academic careers infinitely 
 brightened and sweetened by this changed attitude of 
 their pupils. Instead of dealing with an unsifted mass 
 of half unwilling youth they have gained the right to 
 assume that every man before them is there because he 
 has deliberately chosen to be there. They may, there- 
 fore, appeal to the best in him and confidently expect a 
 response. This is the great gain of the past generation 
 in education, that we have won this right to treat our 
 students as fellow-workers by giving them in return the 
 right to come to their work as a privilege. We have 
 made an immense advance in the spirit of instruction 
 by putting the realities of science in place of formal de- 
 mands for the performance of specific tasks. 
 
 But, if we are to realize due results from our system 
 of freedom we must keep this open and frank relation 
 of the student and his teacher free from every admix- 
 ture of baser stuff. It is idle to offer confidence and 
 sympathy with one hand while with the other we are 
 scoring up an account on which the academic destiny 
 of our younger colleague may depend. We may affect 
 as much indifference as we please about the book- 
 keeping; he will not forget it. If he finds himself really 
 getting into friendly relations with us he will be afraid 
 of seeming to be "swiping" us for some material gain. 
 If he shows too much interest in our subject, he is
 
 128 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 afraid of boring us and so of injuring himself. He is 
 constantly tempted to study our idiosyncrasies to find 
 out "what we want," to calculate his chances of suc- 
 cess by what he imagines are our peculiar standards. 
 In short, the personality of the teacher, the most im- 
 portant incident in all formal education, is set in a 
 totally false light, is perverted from its true influence 
 and, instead of aiding our system of freedom as it 
 ought, is in danger of becoming a positive check upon 
 it. 
 
 There can be no more damning comment upon a 
 system of so-called academic freedom than the phrases 
 one hears so often: "My degree depends upon my 
 mark in Professor X's course," or, "If Professor Y 
 gives me an "A" I shall get this or that honor." Pro- 
 fessorial human nature is not equal to such a strain and 
 ought not to be subjected to it. There is no remedy but 
 to sever as completely as possible all connection be- 
 tween the teaching and the bookkeeping functions of 
 the university college. If we must have degrees, hon- 
 ors, promotions and all the rest of it and there are 
 many who would be glad to get rid of them altogether 
 they must be assigned by some process which will 
 leave our teachers free to enter into any effective rela- 
 tion with their pupils without fear on the one side or 
 favor on the other. 
 
 To sum up our suggestions as to the best way to 
 maintain that idea of discipline for which the univer- 
 sity college offers a specially inviting opportunity: 
 Give the student a free choice of studies modified only 
 by what we may fairly call natural limitations. Put no
 
 COLLEGE DISCIPLINE 129 
 
 artificial barriers in his way. Keep before him real, 
 scholarly aims. Hold him to fair, rigid and not too 
 frequent tests of his acquirement and his working 
 power. Let him learn the lesson of failure by finding 
 that it hurts promptly, and he may safely be trusted to 
 respond heartily to our reasonable expectations. It is 
 upon this faith in the essential right-mindedness of our 
 selected youth that every attempt to use freedom as a 
 means of discipline must ultimately rest.
 
 GENTLEMAN AND SCHOLAR 1 
 
 THERE died not long ago in an academic com- 
 munity a man of whom men said, with singular 
 unanimity, "He was a gentleman and a scholar, and he 
 was the last of his kind." We are prone to call certain 
 figures the last of their kind. Cato was " the last of the 
 Romans," Maximilian I, Bayard, Sidney, and I know 
 not how many others, were each "the last of the 
 knights," and so on. What we mean by the phrase is 
 that when a certain type of man has become well fixed 
 and has done its special service in the world, there 
 comes a time when it inevitably gives way to some new 
 type. In the period of transition, while the two are in 
 conflict, it is as if the older type became intensified in 
 the persons of those who have to maintain it against 
 the assaults of new and strange ideals. Instinctively 
 they gather themselves together for the shock. They 
 seem to feel the foundations of all true things slipping 
 away, and they brace themselves to resist with all the 
 tenacity of a faith founded upon generations of ex- 
 perience. They become therefore to the men of a new 
 day even more strongly marked specimens of their 
 type than those earlier men who really founded it, but 
 who were not forced by opposition into quite so clear a 
 consciousness of their own quality. 
 
 The man whom we carried to his grave was em- 
 inently formed by such a process of transition. He 
 stood for a conception of scholarship which had dom- 
 
 1 Reprinted from The Atlantic Monthly, June, 1900. 
 
 131
 
 i 3 2 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 inated the world for many generations. In naming 
 him thus instinctively "gentleman and scholar" and 
 saying that he was the " last of his kind " we did not 
 mean that scholars had ceased or were likely to cease 
 to be gentlemen; nor did we mean that gentlemen 
 would no longer turn to the profession of the scholar. 
 The phrase was meant to convey rather the idea of a 
 certain necessary and inevitable connection of the two 
 things scholarship and gentle living. This man had 
 not begun life as a "gentleman," and then sought schol- 
 arship as an adornment, a kind of decoration suited to 
 his class. Nor had he, because he was a scholar, come 
 to put on the outward seeming of a gentleman as being 
 the appropriate livery of his profession. Both these 
 devices are familiar to the observer of academic types. 
 We know the man of refined tastes and easy fortune 
 who comes into the scholar's life from above choos- 
 ing it rather than chosen by it, and expecting to gather 
 its rewards without going through its sacrifices of 
 drudgery and obscurity. We know also the man of 
 parts, capable of hard work and gifted with all the 
 technical qualities of the scholar, who is driven into 
 the formal relations of cultivated intercourse without 
 ever really grasping its spirit or sharing its refining 
 influence. 
 
 The man whose memory we are recalling would 
 never have suggested even the inquiry whether he was 
 gentleman first and scholar afterward or the reverse. 
 One felt that the very distinctive quality in his type 
 was the inseparable interfusion of the two. His out- 
 ward man gave instant assurance not merely of the
 
 GENTLEMAN AND SCHOLAR 133 
 
 gentleman, but of the refining touch which a true spirit 
 of scholarship ought to add. His dress, his gait, his 
 bearing all combined to give the impression of careful 
 dignity which yet had no suggestion of effort. He wore 
 no uniform of a class, but was equally far from follow- 
 ing the caprices of fashion. His linen was scrupulously 
 neat, but it would have been hard to name its precise 
 brand. His clothes were always of sober black, neither 
 of antique nor of the latest fashion. His high hat, of no 
 particular mould, was always carefully brushed, and 
 his ivory-headed cane suited his measured but busi- 
 nesslike step. His manner was cordial, but not effu- 
 sive; his greeting always expressing a hint of surprise, 
 as if he had been suddenly called out of his own world 
 of thought, but was glad to meet the human being who 
 had called him. 
 
 Modest as some women, he was firm in his opinions, 
 and knew how to express them in language that was 
 always forcible and often seemed to him on reflection 
 to have been violent. Then, with what eager haste he 
 would try to repair the wrong of which no one could 
 ever have suspected him to take away the sting no 
 one but himself ever felt. "Old-fashioned" he un- 
 doubtedly was, in the fair sense that most good fash- 
 ions maintain themselves to a ripe old age, but one 
 never quite thought of him as a piece of the antique 
 world, so fresh and vital was his interest in all that was 
 best and finest in the new world around him. As to his 
 whole outward bearing among men there could be but 
 one natural expression for it the grand simple name 
 of gentleman.
 
 I 34 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 So was it also with his scholarship. It sat upon him 
 lightly, as something into which he had grown by a 
 natural evolution. How he had got it no one ever 
 thought of inquiring. In what schools he had been 
 taught, what academic degrees he had gained, to what 
 faction of scholars he belonged these were all indif- 
 ferent things. Even the question, now so often asked, 
 and not always quite relevant: "What has he done?" 
 was never asked of him. What he had "done" was 
 of no importance compared with what he was. He had 
 never written a book. He could only with difficulty be 
 persuaded to do now and then some little editorial 
 work. His ideal of what books ought to be was so high 
 that his modesty shrank from the risk of adding to the 
 stock of the world's mediocrity. There was so much 
 always to be learned, and, as he came to know more 
 and more, his own attainment seemed ever so much 
 the more inadequate, that he simply and naturally 
 went on always making himself a fuller man, and pour- 
 ing out his surplus upon the unresponsive youth in the 
 intimate circle of the class-room and the study. 
 
 It would have been impossible for him to describe his 
 method in learning or in teaching. It probably never 
 occurred to him that he had any method. What he did 
 was to keep himself always busy reading, and ordering 
 what he read in such fashion as would best serve him in 
 giving it out again to untrained minds. That was all 
 there was of it, and if he had been asked how he did it, 
 he would have flashed upon his inquirer with some bit 
 of epigram that would have been worth a volume of 
 pedagogic lore. Only now and again, in the fierce aca-
 
 GENTLEMAN AND SCHOLAR 135 
 
 demic battles of his later years, as the new ideals of 
 scholarship began to shape themselves in discussion, he 
 would speak with no uncertain voice in defense of 
 principles which were only clearly revealed to him 
 when others began to crowd them from their place. 
 He died with his harness on, vigorous and beautiful 
 to the last, reverenced by those who fancied themselves 
 the prophets of better ideals, as embodying, after all, a 
 something they could hardly ever hope to reach. 
 
 One thing there could be no doubt of: the ideal he so 
 clearly set forth has pretty well passed from our sight. 
 Again let me say that this does not mean an inevitable 
 and general divorce between scholarship and gentle 
 living. It does not rest upon any single or narrow def- 
 inition either of the gentleman or the scholar. It means 
 that the two are no longer thought of as necessarily 
 combined or as forming two essential parts of a single 
 complete and beautiful whole. The standards of 
 scholarship are in many ways more exacting than in the 
 generation now closed. The standard of the gentleman 
 is a thing so elusive, so dependent upon the unreason- 
 ing sentiment of a day or of a nation, that one would 
 hardly venture to formulate it; but it would be rash to 
 say that it is lowered in any essential degree. The 
 change has come, not in a lowering of these two ideals, 
 but in a separation of them. The gentleman may or 
 may not be a scholar; the scholar may or may not be 
 a gentleman. 
 
 With the phrase "gentleman and scholar" have been 
 disappearing at about equal pace certain others of 
 similar suggestion "the education of a gentleman,"
 
 136 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 " a liberal education," " an educated man." One hardly 
 dares use these phrases to-day, so sure is one to be 
 called upon with a certain accent of contempt to define 
 them in terms that will be acceptable to all hearers. 
 Until our generation we thought we knew what an 
 educated man, in the ordinary use of language, was. 
 He was a man who knew, or had known, certain things, 
 and it was assumed that in the process of acquiring 
 these things his mind had gained a certain kind of 
 power and an openness to certain orders of ideas which 
 made this man, in distinction from others not so dis- 
 ciplined, a man of education. By virtue of this aca- 
 demic discipline assuming, of course, that he had 
 done his part in the process he entered into a fellow- 
 ship of unspeakable value to himself. He became one 
 in an order of men who had enjoyed a great and pre- 
 cious privilege, and were therefore bound to justify 
 themselves by doing so much the better whatever work 
 they might have to do in the world. Nothing was more 
 common than to hear it said of a man, "He is an ad- 
 mirable lawyer, or doctor, or engineer, or architect, 
 but he is not an educated man." He might have been 
 trained in the school of life infinitely more effectively 
 than he could have been in any college, but it was felt, 
 and by no one probably more keenly than himself, that 
 a certain kind of capacity and certain orders of ideas 
 were lost to him forever by reason of that lack. This 
 thing lacking, such as it was, he and others agreed to 
 call "an education." 
 
 If we try to analyze this somewhat vague conception, 
 we find that the essential quality of this earlier educa-
 
 GENTLEMAN AND SCHOLAR 137 
 
 tion was that it was in no sense professional. That is 
 what men tried to express by the word "liberal," a 
 word one hesitates now to use, because one fears to be 
 understood as thereby describing all other education 
 as "illiberal." No such opposition was ever intended, 
 nor was it felt by the generations which came and went 
 under those conditions. They rejoiced in the privilege 
 of spending a certain period of youth in studies and in 
 a mental attitude which had in view no direct practical 
 use of what they were acquiring; in other words, no 
 professional or technical aim. At the conclusion of that 
 period they were not, and knew they were not, fitted to 
 carry on any given work of life. They did believe, how- 
 ever, that they had made the best preparation for 
 living, no matter what specific line of work they might 
 follow. If, at that moment, they were to enter the 
 world of scholarship, they were without technical 
 training in any field. That was all to come, and they 
 were as ready to begin the necessary professional dis- 
 cipline in their way as were the lawyer, the physician, 
 and the engineer in thers. 
 
 What they had had was a chance to fix solidly in 
 their mental character the largeness and the beauty of 
 the intellectual life. They had had time to think and 
 to ripen without concern as to just whither their think- 
 ing and their unconscious development were leading 
 them. No matter into what direction they might now 
 turn their activity, they were bound to carry with 
 them that essential thing which, for lack of a better 
 name, we agreed to call the liberal spirit. If they had 
 made a proper use of their chance they could never be
 
 138 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 mere specialists in their field. Their special and tech- 
 nical skill must always be infused with that higher and 
 larger spirit of culture to which the professional spirit 
 is always and necessarily, more or less antagonistic. 
 Expressed in terms of the inner life, such a scholar was, 
 and was felt to be, a gentleman. No one cared what his 
 origin might be. There was no fixed type to which he 
 was forced to correspond. There might be endless 
 diversity in his outward expression of himself; only, 
 through all diversity and with every allowance made 
 for original advantage or disadvantage, there was the 
 inevitable stamp of the gentleman and the scholar. 
 
 Unquestionably the origin of this typical man is to be 
 found in the traditions of English scholarship. It is 
 only a few months since an English scholar said to the 
 writer in all seriousness: "Education in England is in- 
 tended for the sons of gentlemen, and if by chance any 
 one else gets possession of it, he is sure to find himself 
 bitterly reminded that he has gone out of his class." 
 He was using the word "gentleman" in its narrowest 
 sense, and his statement, if it were true, as I do not be- 
 lieve it is, would be an indictment against English edu- 
 cation more fatal than any that could be pronounced. 
 It serves, however, to show that there still survives, 
 though here expressed in a degrading and perverted 
 form, the idea of an essential connection between the 
 notions of gentle breeding and intellectual culture. 
 Its expression by my English friend was perverted, 
 because it assumed the man of gentle birth who let 
 himself be educated as a necessary decoration of 
 his class.
 
 GENTLEMAN AND SCHOLAR 139 
 
 But behind this perversion there lies the long history 
 of an association of the two ideas from which we in 
 American have derived our now rapidly fading tradi- 
 tion. English scholarship has, as a matter of fact, not 
 only been largely in the hands of gentlemen, tech- 
 nically so called, but when men outside that mysterious 
 circle have become scholars, they in their turn have 
 cultivated the ideal of a necessary and vital union be- 
 tween life and learning. In other words, English 
 scholarship has never been in any strict sense profes- 
 sional. Naturally, as we in America were forming our 
 educational ideals, we followed largely in the same 
 direction. To be sure we rejected, long since, the nar- 
 row use of the word "gentleman" which still widely 
 prevails in England; but we clung fondly to the notion 
 of the gentle life as a life not primarily devoted to a 
 practical calling, and we still thought of it as asso- 
 ciated almost necessarily with intellectual culture. 
 
 Within a generation, however, this tradition has 
 been interrupted, and again, without drawing na- 
 tional lines too sharply, we may fairly say that the new 
 conception of scholarship is German in its origin. Ger- 
 man life has long been marked above all else by the 
 quality of professionalism. The typical German is not 
 a man of culture; he is a man of training. Above all 
 things else the German loves a system, and will have it 
 at any cost. So far as German scholarship has affected 
 the world, it has done so less by the intrinsic value of 
 its contribution than by the help it has given to other 
 peoples in the systematic ordering of their study and 
 thought.
 
 i 4 o LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 A generation ago German scholarship was prac- 
 tically without direct influence upon American meth- 
 ods. Here and there an isolated scholar or writer, 
 himself perhaps an importation, was calling attention 
 to a new something which Germany had to offer to the 
 world of scholarship. The discovery of German sys- 
 tem coincided with the vast widening of the intellectual 
 field produced by our new interest in natural science 
 an interest, by the way, which did not in any sense 
 originate in Germany. "Science," "the scientific 
 method," "truth by induction," have been the cry of 
 the generation now coming to its close. To meet this 
 new demand, education has had to modify its ideals. 
 It has had to emphasize "training" instead of "cul- 
 ture" as its main purpose. It has come to aim at mak- 
 ing a man fit for something in particular, rather than 
 for anything he might afterward decide upon. 
 
 Education has felt powerfully the reaction of the im- 
 mense material advance of this past generation. Not 
 only have the subjects of education been greatly in- 
 creased in number, and that chiefly in the direction of 
 material and technical branches, but the mechanism of 
 all education has been developed to an almost alarm- 
 ing extent. We have been learning from the Germans 
 something of their own Systcmsucht y and we have 
 shown signs of our usual determination to better our 
 instruction. There is not an educational nostrum from 
 the elaborate fooleries of the kindergarten up to the 
 highly sublimated pedagogical psychology of the "grad- 
 uate schools" that we have not been willing to try. 
 
 It has been a period of great activity, and, mis-
 
 GENTLEMAN AND SCHOLAR 141 
 
 directed as much of this activity has been, there can 
 be no absolute waste of serious and conscientious 
 effort. Great good things have come to pass and 
 greater are to come. Only let us ask ourselves, just 
 now, at the close of one generation of energy, what 
 shape our ideals have come to take, and whether we 
 may well modify them in any particular. The merest 
 glance at the program of our schools and colleges 
 shows the enormous advance in all the mechanism of 
 education, and in the term mechanism I would include 
 not merely the material equipment, but all that great 
 chapter of our subject which in the books comes under 
 the head of "organization" grouping of topics in 
 departments, gradation of instruction, quality of text- 
 books opportunities of every sort for getting the 
 most out of the great educational "plant." 
 
 The only serious question before us at this moment 
 is whether our machinery is not too dangerously com- 
 plete. When we had less machinery we were com- 
 pelled to rely more upon personal quality. A perfect 
 machine does its work almost without human aid; set it 
 going, supply it with raw material, and it turns out the 
 finished product with inevitable success. More than 
 this, the highly developed machine is able by its very 
 perfection to give to comparatively poor material an 
 apparent finish, which may deceive the unwary. The 
 very uniformity of the machine product conceals many 
 a defect and irregularity. On the other hand, a com- 
 paratively poor tool working on good material may, in 
 the right hands, give the best results. One theory of 
 manual training has been that pupils ought to be re-
 
 i 4 2 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 quired to work first with dull and ill-contrived tools, 
 lest they learn to depend too much on the tool, and 
 too little on their own skill and talent. 
 
 There is precisely the question as to our new educa- 
 tional methods. Not really, of course, whether we 
 have made our machinery too good. No one could ad- 
 vise going back one step along the road we have already 
 traversed in that direction. Let us go on even, gaining 
 always better apparatus, better organization, better 
 comprehension of detail; but while we do this let us not 
 forget that our ultimate salvation is never to be found 
 in these things. While we present to ambitious youth 
 the pathways of scholarship, and hang out all the 
 lights we can to guide him, we must guard him care- 
 fully from the delusion that he has only to march 
 through these pathways in order to attain the desired 
 goal. We may prescribe conditions and defend them 
 by every practicable test; but all conditions must be 
 graded to a certain level of capacity, and all tests must 
 be held within certain limits of human fairness. The 
 more precisely conditions are defined, and the more 
 formally accurate the tests applied, the more we appeal 
 to an average grade of capacity. 
 
 Our machinery will enable us to turn out men 
 trained to certain definable forms of activity, men who 
 can be ticketed off in groups and applied in various 
 kinds of work in the world. It will never give us any 
 guaranty that these are men of real intellectual power, 
 whose personal quality can of itself command respect. 
 Underneath all the machine work there must lie the 
 same quality upon which the scholar of the earlier
 
 GENTLEMAN AND SCHOLAR 143 
 
 generation exclusively relied. He had no training by 
 any organization whatever. If he were trained at all, 
 he trained himself. He came to be what he was by 
 virtue of the inner impulse which alone, maintained 
 through years of action and intensified by time, can 
 guarantee the quality of a man. 
 
 Obviously this quality is difficult to describe. It 
 cannot be measured in terms of academic honors. 
 Erasmus of Rotterdam, explaining why he felt obliged 
 to take a doctor's degree in Italy, says: "Formerly a 
 man was called ' doctor ' because he was a learned 
 man; but nowadays no one will believe a man is learned 
 unless he is called ' doctor.' " A college president seek- 
 ing a professor not long since made it a sine qua non 
 that the candidate should be a doctor of philosophy. 
 Another man might know more, be more highly quali- 
 fied as a man, and a more effective teacher, but he must 
 give way to the man, very possibly of less value, who 
 had the trade-mark of his profession. I have known 
 many a man, whose great fundamental need was in- 
 tellectual refinement and culture, sacrificed to this 
 semi-civilized demand for a certifiable kind of expert 
 training. 
 
 So we come round again to the point from which we 
 started, and the ideal of the past is seen to be also the 
 truest ideal of the present. "Gentleman and scholar" 
 remains the best expression of the product by which 
 the new education must justify itself before the world. 
 The mechanical appliances are pretty well completed. 
 It remains for us to use them and not to let them use 
 us. The American scholar of the future is undoubtedly
 
 144 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 to be a trained man in a sense quite different from that 
 in which the older scholar could be said to be trained. 
 Is he to be nothing else? The question is not an idle 
 one. It is coming to us from many sides, not by any 
 means solely from the laudatores temporis acti, who 
 might be expected to cling fondly to traditions. It 
 comes already from institutions which have made trial 
 of men "trained" upon no foundation of scholarly 
 character, and found them wanting. It comes from 
 young men who have found their own best develop- 
 ment checked and hampered by the mechanical proc- 
 esses of the academic mill. And it is coming also in 
 vague and indistinct forms from that great helpless 
 thing, the public, which misses, to its pain, the sacred 
 something it was wont to associate with the name of 
 the scholar. 
 
 The answer is to be found in a return to the concep- 
 tion of a necessary and essential union between learn- 
 ing and the higher life of the spirit. This conception 
 must be made to enter vitally into every grade of our 
 education from lowest to highest. It must not be set in 
 opposition to the other conception of learning as es- 
 sentially applicable to some human purpose. It must 
 be united with it, so that our youth may grow up 
 steadily to the conviction that a gentleman is a better 
 tool than a scrub that he will work better, play bet- 
 ter, and fight better; and conversely that he who will 
 not work well, play well, and fight well, is no gentle- 
 man. In that sense I should be glad to have it said of 
 our education, as my English friend said of his, that 
 American education is primarily intended for gentle- 
 men.
 
 THE CHOICE OF STUDIES IN 
 COLLEGE 
 
 "T EARN to do the thing you don't want to do, at 
 -I / the time you don't want to do it, and to do it 
 well." This was the sole advice given by a successful 
 New York lawyer to his son who was just setting out on 
 his course as a student a Harvard College. "Only that 
 work can be well and profitably done which is done of 
 the doer's own volition and in which he finds pleas- 
 ure." This in substance was the teaching of those edu- 
 cators who led in what we may safely call the greatest 
 educational reform through which our country has 
 ever passed. 
 
 Here we have two apparently irreconcilable prin- 
 ciples either of which might govern a student's choice 
 of studies in a college where a large freedom of election 
 is possible. Are they irreconcilable? Must the young 
 man at the outset of his academic life accept one or the 
 other of these alternatives, and if so which is the more 
 likely to give him the kind of result he has a right to 
 expect? Or, is it possible that a rational combination 
 of the two may best of all serve his turn? On the one 
 hand we see the ideal of conformity to some established 
 order, the recognition of some authority which the 
 youth is bound to respect. On the other is the idea 
 that he and he alone has the right to set the standard 
 that shall guide him through the whole conduct of his 
 collegiate years. In support of the former ideal he will 
 
 145
 
 146 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 have the whole force of tradition, the weight of expe- 
 rience, the security of conservatism. For the latter he 
 has only himself to depend upon. To be sure, he may 
 fortify his choice by every kind of advice he can get, 
 but in the last resort he must make his own decisions 
 and abide by the consequences. 
 
 I feel myself in some respects especially qualified to 
 sympathize with both these conceptions of academic 
 duty, because I have had the opportunity to try them 
 both under very varied and highly instructive condi- 
 tions. The first two years of my college life were passed 
 under the old traditional compulsory system, with a 
 fixed curriculum of studies, a strictly regulated scheme 
 of hours, a paternalistic theory of college morals, and 
 a rigid method of official bookkeeping. The range of 
 studies had hardly gone beyond the conventional 
 classics and mathematics, with a prudent sprinkling of 
 modern languages and "science." What passed for 
 teaching was mainly the hearing of recitations from 
 text-books and the checking off of the student's class- 
 room performances on a numerical rank list. During 
 my last two years, under the presidency of Mr. Eliot, 
 changes were gradually made in the direction of larger 
 liberty, and I recall with the greatest vividness the 
 sense of stimulation which they produced in young 
 minds not at all capable of understanding their real 
 import, but swift to respond to their generous appeal. 
 
 When, five years later, I returned to take my place 
 on the other side of the teacher's desk, these changes 
 had so far progressed that practically the whole of the 
 college offering was in the "elective" column. Mean-
 
 CHOICE OF STUDIES IN COLLEGE 147 
 
 while the colleges of the country had all begun to feel 
 the breath of this new academic spirit and by the year 
 1880 it was clear that the principle of a large, if not a 
 complete election of studies was so firmly established 
 that it was never again seriously to be called in ques- 
 tion. It was an inspiring experience to bear one's 
 modest part in this great development. The " eighties " 
 may fairly be described as the golden age of academic 
 freedom in this country. Alike with teachers and 
 pupils it was like a new wine, rousing them out of the 
 torpor of the generation just past, driving them to new 
 exertion and showing them ever new possibilities of 
 sound accomplishment. Criticism there always was in 
 plenty. The faint-hearted were always incredulous as 
 to the ultimate effect of what appeared to them a lax, 
 ill-regulated, haphazard way of doing things. Youth, 
 they insisted, would never be anything but youth. It 
 could never rise to the height of making wise decisions 
 in a matter involving so many considerations about 
 which youth could have no experience and only the 
 vaguest kind of intuitions. 
 
 The inevitable result was that scruples as to the 
 wisdom of a free election of studies began to gather 
 force and to take form in protests, investigations and 
 finally in administrative action of various sorts. Re- 
 straints of one kind and another were devised, whereby 
 the principle of freedom might be guided in " safe " 
 directions without being altogether sacrificed. Group- 
 ings of studies were attempted, within which consider- 
 able latitude of choice might be allowed. Certain 
 studies especially liable to neglect were shifted over
 
 148 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 into the list of the "required" and thereby subjected 
 to a notable stigma as compared with the "elective" 
 subjects. One felt as one looked over the whole field of 
 this experimentation how firm the hold of the elective 
 idea had become. A young teacher given his choice 
 between a position where he would be called upon to do 
 required work and another where his work would be 
 largely elective would unhesitatingly choose the latter, 
 because he knew that it would give him a more stimu- 
 lating response to his own scholarly and personal 
 effort. 
 
 Still the protest and the limiting went on. One of 
 the most disquieting effects of the free election was the 
 enormous inflation of college programs. In the ab- 
 sence of any clear directing principle there was no 
 better guide than the wish, or even the whim, of the in- 
 dividual teacher. Nowhere was there an authoritative 
 voice with the right or the power to speak a decisive 
 word as to the relative importance of this or that "new 
 course" offered out of the fresh enthusiasm of the 
 teacher. Such enthusiasm was the very most impor- 
 tant asset which the scholar could bring to the service 
 of the college. Who should dare quench the generous 
 spirit that prompted the new proposal? It was the 
 surest proof that the college had here a man who would 
 grow and be a more and more valuable servant as long 
 as he lived. Certainly faculty committees could never 
 undertake any effectual control over this expansion, 
 for the privilege they might deny to an over enthusias- 
 tic colleague they might well be seeking for themselves 
 at the next turn of affairs.
 
 CHOICE OF STUDIES IN COLLEGE 149 
 
 Effective criticism of this inflation of programs could 
 hardly come from any source outside the college, be- 
 cause outsiders could not have the technical knowledge 
 which might make their criticism valuable. The result 
 has been that the offerings in all departments have 
 grown beyond all reasonable bounds. The right to an- 
 nounce almost any "course" has become so entrenched 
 in college traditions that any invasion of it seems like 
 a violation of the first principles of academic freedom. 
 This is not the place for any discussion of the limits 
 which might wisely be set to the widening of programs. 
 I refer to it here only to suggest the great embarrass- 
 ment of riches which confronts the young student at 
 the very outset of his academic life and also to remind 
 the reader how firmly fixed the elective principle has 
 become in our American higher education. 
 
 The question of a return to the ancient system of 
 required studies is no longer open. The only problems 
 of interest are: what studies should be optional, upon 
 what principles such options may be based, how they 
 may most wisely be grouped, at what stage election 
 should begin, and how the choice of individual students 
 may be guided if indeed guidance be admitted at all. 
 These questions of detail are answered very differently 
 and must continue to receive different answers accord- 
 ing to the personal convictions and the corporate 
 limitations of college guardians. Such diversity of 
 opinion and of practice is one of the happy conditions 
 of American education. It will be a sorry day when our 
 federal supervision, so far wisely restricted to statistical 
 functions, shall attempt to control local educational
 
 150 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 effort in the interest of a standardized and therefore a 
 degraded ideal of our national education. Those who 
 can afford to try experiments are likely to keep on 
 doing so, and those who either cannot afford or are un- 
 willing to experiment may safely wait for the results. 
 
 For the moment we are concerned with no one of the 
 specific questions just referred to, but rather with the 
 somewhat more general problem: given a tolerably 
 free elective system, are there any principles that can 
 safely be laid down by which all elections shall be 
 governed? Obviously, if we could have such principles 
 clearly demonstrated and formulated to general ac- 
 ceptance there would be little room for election. We 
 should only have to turn to the special category in 
 which the individual student belonged and by a simple 
 rule of thumb pick out for him the line of study he was 
 predestined to follow. Perhaps in some academic mil- 
 lenium our friends, the psychological pedagogues, will 
 have discovered the desired categories and furnished 
 us with the machinery for fitting them upon the right 
 boy at the right moment. For the present we are, 
 however, met by two primary difficulties. First, we 
 cannot say precisely what studies or groups of studies 
 will produce any given educational result, and second, 
 we cannot say as to any considerable proportion of 
 boys at any period much under the age of graduation 
 from college just what aptitudes and qualities of char- 
 acter ought to determine their choice of studies. 
 
 These obstacles to any prescription of election are 
 fundamental, but this has not prevented us from a vast 
 deal of theorizing and not a little practical experiment-
 
 CHOICE OF STUDIES IN COLLEGE 151 
 
 ing on the tacit assumption that such obstacles do not 
 exist. We have built up elective systems on the sup- 
 position that principles which elude the trained spec- 
 ulation and observation of experts would somehow 
 reveal themselves unto our babes. On the whole far less 
 harm has been done by these experiments than might 
 have been expected, and so much good has come from 
 them, that one wonders whether, after all, we may not 
 have been following principles without knowing it. At 
 any rate it may be worth while to try to formulate 
 some of the possibilities that confront students and 
 their advisers both lay and professional. 
 
 Probably all would agree that choice of studies 
 ought to have some relation to the ultimate occupation 
 of the youth; but, to determine this relation in ad- 
 vance two things are necessary: we must know what 
 the occupation is to be and we must be clear as to the 
 bearing of studies upon it. As regards the first point, 
 there are those who believe that by the age of thirteen 
 or fourteen a boy's tastes, capacities and character are 
 clearly enough discernible to warrant his advisers in 
 planning for him a course of study which shall lead to 
 some specific expertness. There are others who think 
 that such indications are altogether misleading, vague, 
 transitory impulses having only the value of prelimi- 
 nary notes of quality, to be borne in mind indeed, but 
 not to be trusted or built upon. Those who hold this 
 latter view maintain that such differences of endow- 
 ment as can safely be depended upon to give direction 
 to one's life are matters of later development; that, at 
 least up to the age of entrance to college, differences
 
 152 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 are to be described in terms of general rather than of 
 specific quality; boys are bright or stupid, diligent or 
 lazy, quick or slow, receptive or resistant; the bright 
 boy is bright all round, the dull boy is apt to be as dull 
 at one thing as another. They will frankly admit that 
 most boys find some things "easier" than others, but 
 this, they say, is not generally indicative of anything 
 upon which we can safely act in advising for the future. 
 A few months or even weeks may wholly change the 
 boy's view of a subject. What repelled him under one 
 teacher may under another become a real joy to him. 
 What seemed at the beginning unintelligible and was 
 therefore hateful may become full of attraction as the 
 boy gets deeper and deeper into its meaning. What 
 was a mere grind so long as it stood alone begins to 
 light up in all directions as soon as it appears in its rela- 
 tions to other subjects. Geniuses and dolts are barred 
 from the discussion; the mysterious Providence that 
 created them will take care of them. We are dealing 
 with the normal selected boy of the high school or the 
 academy, whose circumstances permit him to look 
 forward to the college. 
 
 Among such boys, say the opponents of an early and 
 decisive choice of studies supposedly leading to specific 
 occupation, any such early decision would be a grievous 
 wrong, not so much because it would involve him in 
 unprofitable study, as because it would cut him off 
 from many lines of work in which he might find success 
 and which he will probably come to miss when it is too 
 late. On the other hand, the friends of an early deter- 
 mination of choice remind us that life is shorter than it
 
 CHOICE OF STUDIES IN COLLEGE 153 
 
 used to be; that we are preparing a generation of ex- 
 perts; that the "all round man" is a creature of the 
 past; that the future belongs to the man of training 
 rather than to the man of "education." They tell us 
 that there is no successful work except that in which 
 we delight, and that we cannot delight in work for 
 which we have no taste. They call our attention to the 
 wonderful change that comes over the spirit of a man's 
 work when, for the first time, he finds himself really 
 master of a given task and point us to the rapture of 
 the man or the boy riding a hobby as the supreme, if 
 sometimes fantastic, demonstration of their view. 
 
 From this comparison of opinions we come back to 
 the two opposing moral views of education with which 
 we started. If, on the one hand, it is true that the best 
 work comes easiest and that, therefore, we ought in 
 any extended scheme of liberal education to include a 
 large element of study selected on the ground of natural 
 aptitude, it is equally true on the other hand, that 
 work done without any regard to whether we like it or 
 not, done simply because it is given us to do and done 
 "as by God's law" has also its great educational value. 
 It gives to the doer something of that moral force with- 
 out which no workman is thoroughly well equipped. 
 It teaches him to do his work without thought of self. 
 It may reveal aptitudes he has never felt or shown 
 before and it will certainly give him a confidence in all 
 future work which will be of infinite service to him. If 
 we allow a too early election of studies on the ground of 
 aptitude there is danger that it will become rather a 
 neglect of studies on the ground of supposed inapti- 
 tude.
 
 154 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 But let us now consider the large class of cases of 
 fairly clear demarcation along lines of real difference in 
 taste and capacity. Such cases may in general be 
 brought under the one broad distinction of the "lit- 
 erary" from the "scientific" mind. In any school 
 there will be boys who seem to take naturally to books 
 and others, equally capable and intelligent, who 
 gather their knowledge instinctively from their obser- 
 vation of things around them. To the former class 
 books have an attraction in themselves; to the latter 
 they are rather a resort for the explanation of puzzles in 
 the world of observation. The former have an instinc- 
 tive taste for literary form; the latter are interested 
 only in what the book has to say about the thing for 
 which they consult it. Or again, to carry this distinc- 
 tion out a little further: there will always be one class of 
 boys to whom the interesting thing is always the hu- 
 man thing and another class who find their chief pleas- 
 ure in things "natural," as we say. The former class is 
 naturally driven to books because it is only in books 
 that the record of human experience is to be found, and 
 as yet they have had no chance to study human life by 
 the way of observation. The latter have not the same 
 need of books, because their world is all about them, 
 and the impulse to observe and to conquer it is strong 
 within them. 
 
 So it comes about quite naturally, that the subjects 
 which interest the former class are history as the story 
 of organized human life, imaginative writing as the 
 poetry of human feeling, language because it is the ex- 
 pression of human thought, and philosophy because it
 
 CHOICE OF STUDIES IN COLLEGE 155 
 
 shows them the play of the human mind upon prob- 
 lems which it, and it alone can solve. The latter class 
 take more readily to mathematics as dealing with abso- 
 lute relations independent of all human thought or 
 will, to chemical or physical experiment as helping to 
 explain the great processes of outward nature, and to 
 geology and biology as showing the history and present 
 conditions of the world of matter. 
 
 The boy who is always to be found curled up in a 
 corner with a book, and the boy who is forever roaming 
 the fields hunting for "specimens" are the types of 
 these two great classes of mental endowment. I am not 
 forgetting that, within these two classes are infinite 
 varieties of capacity and that some attention must be 
 paid to these varieties, but for the moment we may re- 
 gard these two groups as sufficiently representing the 
 most pressing alternatives in the young man's choice of 
 studies. Let us suppose that by the age of fifteen it is 
 tolerably clear in which of these groups a given youth 
 belongs; how shall we advise him in his choice? Think- 
 ing first of the occupation he is likely to follow, we shall 
 probably expect that the bookish, humanly inclined 
 boy will become a lawyer, a clergyman, a university 
 man, an author, a journalist or a politician in the 
 nobler sense of that dubious word while the experi- 
 menting, observing, collecting kind of boy will be a 
 physician, a professor of natural science, a practical 
 chemist, an engineer, mining, civil, electrical, sanitary 
 or what not, an architect or a manager of manufactur- 
 ing interests. Either of them may turn out an ordinary 
 business man in such line of work as accident may
 
 156 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 determine. We will assume that each is free to follow 
 his natural bent as far as he will. 
 
 Now there are two diametrically opposed theories as 
 to the proper choice of studies for youths of these 
 marked tastes and capacities. One theory is that, since 
 the final occupation is to be determined by natural 
 bent, the aim of education should be to strengthen this 
 bent as much as possible and to begin this strengthen- 
 ing process as early as possible. It should be taken as a 
 providential hint and followed out at every turn. The 
 youth to whom knowledge comes most easily and 
 naturally through books should be given books. The 
 tasks his soul abhors, such as measuring lines and pro- 
 ducing chemical reactions and classifying flowers and 
 comparing rocks, to say nothing of all mathematics 
 beyond the multiplication table, all these he should be 
 spared. They find no response within him, and educa- 
 tion without the inner response is a mere mockery. 
 
 So with the youth of "scientific" tastes; why tor- 
 ment him with human history? He is willing to take 
 all that for granted; or with ancient literature? it has 
 no message for him; or with poetry which deals only 
 with fictions, while facts, clear, palpable facts, are 
 what he cares for; or with the idle speculations of phi- 
 losophy, when things as they are so completely absorb 
 and satisfy him. Let each follow the line of least resist- 
 ance; this will carry him farther with less loss of power. 
 His work will all be of the happy kind which alone can 
 bring success, and success again will give strength and 
 confidence for more work to come. At the conclusion 
 of his studies he will be an "expert," and there will be
 
 CHOICE OF STUDIES IN COLLEGE 157 
 
 a place waiting for him where he can apply himself 
 with most effect in the work of the expert world. 
 
 Opposed to this theory is another equally well de- 
 fined and equally dear to those who hold it. They 
 oppose the principle of specific training because they 
 believe that a man so trained from a very early period 
 will be a less effective man in his own line than if he 
 had made himself acquainted with a wider range of sub- 
 jects and had given his mind a chance to work in a 
 greater variety of ways. Not only, they say, would his 
 interests in the world be thus greatly increased and 
 widened, but the reaction of these larger interests 
 upon his own profession would give him a kind of mas- 
 tery in it which a man whose point of view during his 
 years of preparation had been almost exclusively fixed 
 upon one single professional end could hardly hope to 
 attain. How complete the opposition between these 
 two opinions is may be illustrated by an experience of 
 the writer. Happening, in the course of conversation 
 with a very eminent authority in education, to express 
 the opinion that a certain youth looking forward to the 
 medical profession would do well to follow in college 
 chiefly studies not related to medicine, I received the 
 reply: "Well, in my judgment a man who should 
 give that advice would be little less than crazy." It 
 was not a tactful answer, but it had at least the great 
 merit of frankness. It expressed with perfect accuracy 
 the argument for expert training. The conception of 
 an education beyond the early secondary stage which 
 should make every thoughtful expert a better man in 
 his profession simply did not exist in the mind of this
 
 158 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 leader of educational thought. It represented to him 
 an antiquated theory destined to give way rapidly be- 
 fore the advancing demands of the expert world. 
 
 In telling this experience I have already indicated to 
 which side of this fundamental question my own sym- 
 pathies incline. Of course, every one must admit the 
 immense increase of specialization in every field of 
 activity, and no thoughtful person can doubt that in 
 truth the future of professional success belongs largely 
 to the specialized expert. That is not the question. 
 The question is: what is the function of education in 
 college and secondary school, dealing with selected 
 youths from, say, fifteen to twenty-two, in view of the 
 fact that the best of them are destined to become ulti- 
 mately more or less narrow specialists? Does this fact 
 make it more, or does it make it less incumbent on the 
 sub-professional education to supply a basis of liberal 
 culture of mind and soul upon which a true specializa- 
 tion may be built? 
 
 At the risk of seeming a candidate for a mad-house I 
 venture to submit that this inevitable fact of specializa- 
 tion lays upon our colleges more than ever the duty of 
 holding a much needed balance between the demands 
 of the professions and those of society, of American 
 democratic society, upon the educated man. In our 
 world no man can be so much a specialist that he can 
 afford to neglect the all important fact of his American 
 citizenship. The physician, for example, is not merely 
 a physician. True, during the first years of stress, in 
 which he is making his place in professional life, noth- 
 ing is so important to him as success in that line and in
 
 CHOICE OF STUDIES IN COLLEGE 159 
 
 that alone. But, as soon as his place is secure, other 
 demands press in upon him. He becomes, as a citizen, 
 professionally responsible for the health of his com- 
 munity. Public works requiring a knowledge of men 
 and of politics claim him as professional adviser and 
 advocate. School administration, happily not yet en- 
 tirely in expert hands, needs his help. Charity or- 
 ganization with its infinitely complicated moral and 
 social aspects calls upon him. The moment he turns to 
 any one of these subjects he finds that his exclusively 
 professional training does not take him very far. If in 
 his formative years his interest in subjects lying ap- 
 parently far beyond the reach of his future profession 
 has not been aroused, his sympathies with human life 
 in all its varied aspects quickened, his mind stirred to 
 some active reflection upon the great problems of the 
 speculative world, problems which, after all, underlie 
 the practical working of life as it is if on all these 
 sides he has received no impulses during the irre- 
 sponsible years of his youth he will be a less valuable 
 physician than he ought to be. He may be doing incal- 
 culable good in his specialty, but he will find many sides 
 of himself atrophied for lack of use, and there will be 
 countless times when as a man among men, as a citizen 
 of the Republic, he will miss what it is now too late for 
 him to gain. If, however, in those earlier years he has 
 kept himself open to all those other influences, has 
 learned something of what history and literature and 
 philosophy have to teach, no matter how closely his 
 special work may have held him, when he is again 
 brought into contact with these things he has points of
 
 160 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 sympathy which will enable him at once to take up new 
 lines of activity and not fall out of the special service 
 he has trained himself to give. The whole vast move- 
 ment of human life takes on new meanings for him the 
 moment he feels that his specialty is only one little 
 part of it all, a part that needs all the rest to make its 
 own meaning complete. 
 
 If this is true of the physician, whose work by its 
 very nature touches so closely upon all human rela- 
 tions, the same may be said with even greater force of 
 many other forms of expert training that seem to re- 
 move a man further from human contact. Take, for 
 example, the great and almost new profession of 
 engineering in all its multitudinous forms the build- 
 ing of railways and bridges, the working of mines and 
 all the machinery that belongs to it, the application of 
 constantly new forces to the service of man. Is he 
 going to be the leader in all this wonderful activity 
 whose mind has never been allowed to take its period 
 of non-professional, that is "liberal," wandering in 
 fields where he knew he was not going to spend his pro- 
 ductive years? Is it not rather to be expected that the 
 more broadly a man is equipped in the years of forma- 
 tion, the more effective will be his leadership in the 
 years of production? It is true, that the great mass of 
 journey-work in every profession will have to be done 
 by the men of severe and narrow training; but that is 
 not the question for the advisers of college students. 
 Their problem is rather this: shall these selected 
 youths, who, if any, ought to look forward to being the 
 leaders of their generation, be advised to get into the
 
 CHOICE OF STUDIES IN COLLEGE 161 
 
 line of specialization as soon as possible or to prolong, 
 as far as they dare, the precious period of wider study? 
 
 There is one widespread delusion on which a word of 
 warning may be in place at just this point. Admitting 
 heartily the value of wider interests men often say: Oh, 
 there will be plenty of time for these things by-and- 
 by. First professional success, and then, in the pleas- 
 ant shadow of later life we will come round to these 
 more genial pursuits. There can be no greater self- 
 deception than this. The strain of professional life 
 never grows less. Success only brings new responsibil- 
 ity and opens new avenues to ambition. The promised 
 time of relaxation never comes, and our youthful en- 
 thusiasms remain a happy vision of the past. If we are 
 ever to give our young men that wider view of study 
 and thought which shall make specialization intelligent 
 and effective, we must give it to them early, and we 
 must not cut it off too soon. Once stopped, it can never 
 be taken up again. Carried on long enough to show its 
 real value, such " liberal " study remains as a deposit of 
 suggestion and inspiration upon which, as occasion 
 offers, the man may draw with ever renewed confidence. 
 
 Coming back once more to our crude division of boys 
 into the bookish-humane-literary class and the observ- 
 ing-collecting-experimenting class I venture to give 
 this general advice as to the choice of studies in school 
 and college. For boys of both classes up to the college 
 age, a fairly even division between the two types of 
 subject. Momentary distaste should have but little 
 weight in the decision at this stage. If lack of taste pre- 
 vent high success in certain lines of work, no matter;
 
 162 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 let the boy feel that this is only a natural part of his 
 experience. He ought to expect to do better in some 
 things than in others. Only be sure that his supposed 
 distaste does not arise from bad teaching or from some 
 other accidental circumstance. Save him, if possible, 
 from the notion that he is in any way "peculiar" in his 
 likes and dislikes. Persuade him for the present to take 
 things as they come and to believe that if he will only 
 work hard he can conquer even the most repellant of 
 tasks. It is pretty safe to say that nothing he may ac- 
 quire in this preliminary study will be wasted in the 
 long account. 
 
 This leads me to say a word on one of the most 
 subtle temptations offered to the youth and his ad- 
 visers. "Development of the individual," "special 
 attention to individual peculiarities," "special courses 
 for individual pupils " these are some of the catch- 
 words of "educators" who like to talk about the 
 "New Education," as if there were any educational 
 nostrum that has not been tried over and over again 
 and become "old" in its turn. The emphasis on the 
 individual is doubtless due to a reaction against an 
 over emphasis upon uniformity, regularity and system 
 which was the natural accompaniment of the prodi- 
 gious advance in all the mechanisms of education in the 
 generation just passed. The public school and its 
 natural sequence the state university could hardly 
 have been brought to their present dimensions without 
 some such exaggeration of the elements of uniformity. 
 All standardization must necessarily press rather 
 downward than upward, and it is a not unwholesome
 
 CHOICE OF STUDIES IN COLLEGE 163 
 
 sign that thoughtful persons are reacting against it in 
 favor of a greater regard for the individual. 
 
 What specially concerns us here is the danger of 
 keeping the pupil's individuality in the foreground of 
 his own thought and that of his advisers. That danger 
 is especially to be guarded against in this whole matter 
 of the choice of studies in college. Most youths are not 
 exceptional in any sense that is worth very much con- 
 sideration in determining the course of their academic 
 life. They have their peculiarities, of course, and these 
 are bound to work themselves out in the detail of their 
 study. That is wholesome, and to the wise teacher it 
 is the most welcome of all signs that the youth has 
 something in him worth working for. I am only insist- 
 ing that it should not be made the starting-point of 
 educational effort. 
 
 The advocates of "individual attention" are fond 
 of pointing back to an iron age of deadly routine, of 
 compulsory curricula, of dreary memorizing, of un- 
 necessary repetition, and all the rest of it. They show 
 us by comparison the flowery paths of joy in learning, 
 of short cuts to what is essential, of play as a form of 
 work. They forget that learning in itself brings joy, 
 that the essential thing reached first by the long road 
 opens up the short cut, and that work well done be- 
 comes the most satisfying sort of play. First the learn- 
 ing, the patient long road, the unreluctant work, and 
 then will come the joy, the dexterity and the sense of 
 ease we call play. Let the youth planning his college 
 work think of himself first as probably a very ordinary 
 person and, on the whole, follow the well-trodden
 
 164 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 paths. As he advances along these he will certainly 
 perceive in himself aptitudes for one or another kind of 
 work, and may gradually trust himself more and more 
 to their leading. 
 
 There can be no doubt that the system of rigid uni- 
 form requirement offered a premium for the display of 
 some of the worst qualities in the teacher. It tended 
 to elevate the brutal drillmaster to the highest place in 
 the pedagogic hierarchy. The "successful" teacher 
 was the one who could show the highest record of can- 
 didates for promotion, no matter by what shady meth- 
 ods such records were produced. And yet, as the 
 victims of these methods look back over their school 
 years, they see the value of much that was hateful to 
 them at the time. They see that the really good 
 teacher, even under a vicious system, was perfectly 
 aware of individual capacities and incapacities and 
 strove in his way to utilize them both for the profit of 
 his pupils. 
 
 Thus prepared the boy will enter college with the 
 beginnings of many subjects and with a pretty fair 
 idea of the general kinds of work in which he may excel. 
 With the change from school to college comes also an- 
 other change, so subtle and yet so fundamental that 
 until it takes place one is never safe in predicting very 
 confidently as to a boy's future. The sudden increase 
 of responsibility, the novel methods of teaching with 
 their appeal to his own initiative and their hints of a 
 great world of learning beyond, the stimulus of con- 
 tact with superior boys from other schools and dif- 
 ferent homes, all these are likely to rouse in any
 
 CHOICE OF STUDIES IN COLLEGE 165 
 
 youth not wholly indifferent a multitude of new ideas. 
 Gradually his own tastes and capacities become clearer 
 to himself and to others. His own judgment as to what 
 he had better do becomes more decided and more 
 trustworthy. Now he and his advisers are better able 
 to form some plan of studies which shall enable him to 
 get out of his college life all there is in it for him. As- 
 suming still that our boy has shown a fairly distinct 
 leaning towards one or the other of our two great 
 classes of subjects, how shall this inclination now 
 influence his choice? 
 
 Up to now he has carried on both types of work with 
 a fair degree of evenness. He has made many begin- 
 nings, but, if he is a boy of any perception he must 
 often have felt the unsatisfactoriness of this way of 
 working. Often he must have thought: "Dear me! 
 If only I might go on with this thing and not be com- 
 pelled, just as I am getting into it, to switch off to 
 something else!" Such a feeling of impatience is just 
 the best possible hint for him that now at last the time 
 has come when he may wisely do what he has vaguely 
 desired to do. Now the moment has come for him to 
 taste some of the joys of specialization. But with this 
 come also the further questions: how far shall he 
 specialize and along what lines? As to the extent of 
 specialization, no precise answer can be given, but, 
 speaking in terms of proportion, it would generally be 
 a pity if more than one half of an undergraduate's 
 time should be given to any one line of study. Nor 
 should that half be the last two years of his college 
 time. It should be so distributed throughout his four
 
 166 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 years that he can plan some definite progression from 
 the elementary to the advanced and at the same time 
 may continue his studies in what he will now be think- 
 ing of as his outside or "minor" interests. In general 
 we may say that the proportion of specialization 
 should increase but should never come to exclude more 
 general studies. Acting upon this plan he should be 
 able to secure a group of courses of instruction which 
 may fairly be considered a topical unit. 
 
 If I have seemed so far to emphasize chiefly the im- 
 portance of a wide and liberal choice of studies I may 
 perhaps with the more reason dwell for a moment 
 upon the value of specialization. In moderation its 
 value to the undergraduate is very great. It gives him, 
 probably for the first time in his life, a sense of power. 
 Until now his acquirements have seemed fatally unre- 
 lated to each other and to any perceptible end. Now 
 he sees relations shaping themselves at every turn. 
 Whatever he does takes on meaning by its dependence 
 upon something else. On many a little point he may 
 even become a kind of authority among his mates, and 
 his own proper self-respect grows accordingly. New 
 possibilities develop themselves before him, new ca- 
 pacities shape themselves within him. The skill he 
 acquires in his special work comes into play elsewhere. 
 He feels now, as never before, the value of his teachers, 
 and gains some notion of the ways they have gone 
 before him. 
 
 These are not on my part a priori speculations but 
 the result of long experience and observation. I recall 
 a long procession of youths to whom this kind of
 
 CHOICE OF STUDIES IN COLLEGE 167 
 
 specialized work was an epoch in their lives. One of the 
 most harum-scarum victims of a foolish early training 
 I have ever known was saved to usefulness and self- 
 respect by the sudden discovery in himself of capacity 
 in a certain line of effort and the sense of mastery which 
 even such fitful application to it as he could give had 
 brought him. I asked a youth who had apparently 
 wasted three years of college life what had converted 
 him into the eager and successful student of medicine 
 he had then become. He answered: "Nine hours a 
 day for six weeks in a chemical laboratory." 
 
 If then specialization at a rather early stage of edu- 
 cation is desirable, how far shall the college go in insist- 
 ing upon it ? I incline to the opinion of those who would 
 make it in some form a condition of the bachelor's de- 
 gree. It used to be said that this degree represented 
 only an accumulation of variegated incapacities. What 
 this reproach meant was that the newly fledged Eac- 
 calaureus had been allowed to browse over so wide a 
 field that he had gathered nowhere a substantial meal. 
 It is on the whole an encouraging sign that college pro- 
 grams are more and more trying to overcome this evil. 
 Under various forms of grouping, expressed sometimes 
 in rather fantastic language, they are inviting students 
 to decide, not too late, in what kind of study they 
 would like to spend a considerable part of their college 
 time. The plan I have elsewhere l suggested of making 
 the degree depend upon the passing of a series of 
 graded examinations is based upon this idea. By this 
 method the holder of a bachelor's degree would make 
 
 1 Pages 122 sqq.
 
 i68 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 some approach to the attractive if impossible standard 
 of the man who "knows something about everything 
 and everything about something." At all events he 
 would know something about a good many things and 
 a good deal about one of them. He will have learned 
 to concentrate upon something, and he will have had 
 at the same time the advantage of distribution over a 
 rather wide range of interests. 
 
 Up to this point we have been dealing with boys 
 whose future was so far, but only so far, indicated that 
 we could classify them roughly into two main groups, 
 the "literary" and the "scientific." But aside from 
 these there are two other classes to be considered. One 
 includes the small number of those youths whose taste 
 and capacity point with absolute certainty, as by the 
 finger of Destiny, to a definite profession. For these 
 predestined specialists the choice of studies would 
 seem to be the simplest possible. Here plainly is a 
 " leading " not to be distrusted. To check such a divine 
 impulse seems to be a sort of sacrilege. And, indeed, if 
 we could be sure that with the clearly pronounced 
 taste there went and always would go an equally pro- 
 nounced capacity for work and an equally intelligent 
 grasp of the things made attractive by taste, then 
 surely one would be inclined to say: here at last is a 
 case where everything ought to be done to strengthen 
 the natural bent. Let this youth have his full swing, 
 and take the chances. 
 
 Unfortunately, what seemed to be a rare combina- 
 tion of taste and capacity only too often proves to be 
 rather taste and incapacity. Let any one familiar, for
 
 CHOICE OF STUDIES IN COLLEGE 169 
 
 example, with the profession of the ministry try to re- 
 call how many cases he has known of youths who 
 fancied themselves "called" to that honorable service 
 but who proved to be absolutely unfitted for its exact- 
 ing demands. Their tastes pointed correctly, but their 
 capacities failed to respond. And, on the other side of 
 the house, how many a youth "of scientific tastes" has 
 found himself unequal to the strain of prolonged and 
 patient investigation or to the intelligent application of 
 details to conclusions. Especially misleading are the 
 indications of taste in the field of aesthetics. The 
 "artistic temperament" manifesting itself in a pre- 
 cocious knack at expression in whatever form, appeals 
 with especial force to indulgent advisers not similarly 
 endowed. Because they cannot understand him they 
 feel that this youth must be of some unusual clay, and 
 they hesitate to distort the model. Let him follow his 
 bent, they say, and trust to his genius to see him 
 through. They are likely to forget that of all tempera- 
 ments the artistic is the least to be counted upon. 
 "Taste" may well prove to be only a form of laziness. 
 The great artists have seldom leaned very heavily on 
 their temperaments. They have learned their trade, 
 whatever it may have been, in the sweat of hard and 
 often uncongenial work. The greatest of them have 
 been artists all round, men who saw and felt the world 
 about them with sympathetic insight. He who hopes 
 to join their illustrious company should begin by lay- 
 ing broad and deep the foundations of a liberal educa- 
 tion with so much of specialization as will serve to keep 
 his goal always before him.
 
 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 Taste is an indication, not to be neglected; it is not a 
 guide to be too closely followed. Even if we could be 
 sure that the youth is to pursue the course of life to- 
 ward which his tastes seem to point, we cannot be sure 
 that this very life will not demand of him at every turn 
 the kind of training he has seen fit to avoid. Life is too 
 complicated; it will not be checked off into separate 
 little fields. The borders cross and cross again. Even 
 the predestined specialist needs the balance that comes 
 from a sympathetic understanding of other men's 
 work. If he has not that his own work will suffer. Only 
 the genius, a part of whose endowment is precisely this 
 intuitive sense of relation and proportion, can afford to 
 trust entirely and from the beginning the leading of his 
 own impulses. A safe principle in dealing with a boy of 
 marked and irrepressible tastes would be to give him 
 every reasonable opportunity to demonstrate their 
 force and permanence. At the same time he should not 
 be allowed to neglect studies seemingly unrelated to his 
 tastes. Then, in proportion as his tastes develop into 
 aptitudes and these again into accomplishment, he may 
 more and more freely follow them. If he grows in wis- 
 dom as he grows in learning he will himself be the first 
 to recognize the value of the things he had been 
 tempted to neglect. He will come out a clearly de- 
 fined specialist, but not a narrow one. As he leaves col- 
 lege already marked as a man of promise in his line he 
 will be prepared to take up the advanced work of his 
 profession with an intelligence born of respect for all 
 learning as ultimately related to his own.
 
 CHOICE OF STUDIES IN COLLEGE 171 
 
 These form our first class of exceptional youths 
 exceptional in the distinctness of their tastes and their 
 apparent aptitudes. The second class of exceptions 
 includes the extreme opposites of these, the boys who 
 have, or seem to have, no definite leanings of any sort. 
 So devoid of such indications are they that we cannot 
 even place them in our two chief divisions of the lit- 
 erary and the scientific types. Eventually they may 
 become professional men or business men, or they may 
 join the slowly increasing ranks of the unclassified. 
 On the whole, perhaps this is the happiest group of all. 
 It may well be doubted if it contains a larger pro- 
 portion of the really idle and indifferent than the 
 others; for moral distinctions run criss-cross through 
 all varieties of taste and capacity. 
 
 These are the men of all others for whom an elective 
 system may have the greatest value, as it may also 
 prove the greatest snare. If we could follow the work- 
 ing of the minds of this more or less submerged section 
 of our youth we should probably find that, consciously 
 or unconsciously, they were spending more energy 
 than they would care to confess in the effort to find out 
 what they do like and what they are fit for. That is a 
 perfectly rational use of energy in a young man, and it 
 should be respected, but it cannot count for very much 
 in the general scheme of his college life. The fleeting 
 glimpses he may catch from time to time are pretty 
 likely to prove mere will-o'-the-wisps, quite unsafe 
 guides for him to follow. If he trusts them his regrets 
 as to his choice will probably outweigh his satisfac- 
 tions.
 
 172 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 At all events let him not begin too early to trouble 
 himself on this point. Let him make some kind of plan 
 without special reference to his supposed likes or dis- 
 likes and then pursue this plan pretty strictly until he 
 gets some certain evidence of its unsuitableness for 
 him. Such a plan would have to be based upon some 
 principle, and perhaps this would serve as well as an- 
 other: At first let him follow a number of different 
 subjects, partly in continuation of those he began at 
 school, partly breaking new ground. Then, after a 
 year or more, let him pursue somewhat more specially 
 those lines in which he has had most success. It would 
 be well if out of these he could select some group as a 
 topical unit in which he may possibly hope for some- 
 thing like distinction. It will be a happiness for such a 
 youth if he can prepare such a plan at the very outset 
 of his college life reserving, however, the possibility of 
 change as his knowledge of himself and of his circum- 
 stances shall increase. 
 
 Almost any plan will be better than the haphazard 
 suggestions upon which a large part of our college elec- 
 tions are based. It would be idle to offer here more 
 than the most general hints, for the choice of every 
 youth will properly vary somewhat from that of every 
 other; but it would not be out of place if colleges were 
 to issue model groups of studies based upon certain 
 different sets of conditions. That this has not been 
 done more than it has is the proof of its exceeding 
 difficulty. It is also one of the best justifications of a 
 wide elective system, for if such guides were easily 
 accessible an elective system would be a superfluous 
 luxury.
 
 CHOICE OF STUDIES IN COLLEGE 173 
 
 On the other hand a free elective system is a per- 
 manent challenge to individuals teachers, students 
 of pedagogy, men of letters or of science, any one who 
 can speak with a show of authority, to publish and de- 
 fend such theories of election as seem to them likely to 
 be useful. These theories can carry no greater weight 
 than belongs to the personality of their authors. Com- 
 parison between them may be a most useful and in- 
 structive aid to those who have to advise students in 
 specific cases. The trouble with such attempts gen- 
 erally has been, that they have tried to cover too wide 
 a range of needs under one theory, or have been built 
 up too exclusively with reference to some one deter- 
 mining idea. If, for example, we are given a workable 
 scheme based upon future occupation, it would hope- 
 lessly fail to help those who have no clear idea as to 
 what their future occupation is to be. If we could 
 satisfy the demands of the undetermined, we should 
 miss the needs of the specially endowed. A college 
 course might well be sketched on the basis of carrying 
 out to completion the work already begun in the 
 school. We can imagine an attractive and apparently 
 intelligent set of plans based upon psychological prin- 
 ciples as seen in the order of development of the hu- 
 man faculties. Some day, perhaps, the doctrine of 
 "educational values" will be so clearly worked out 
 that we can prescribe effective doses of this or that 
 subject at different stages of the long disease of youth. 
 The more of these attempts the better, provided only 
 that we be on our guard against the inherent weak- 
 nesses of them all. No one of them will take us very
 
 174 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 far, but taken together they will help to show how very 
 serious a matter is this of election and how many con- 
 siderations go to the making of a reasonable plan for 
 any individual student. 
 
 Now, having thus warned the reader that all schemes 
 of election of college studies must be taken with great 
 caution, I venture to offer a few rather more specific 
 suggestions. And first, I must frankly confess that as 
 at present enlightened or darkened, as the case may 
 be, I believe in the traditional classical and mathe- 
 matical preparation for a liberal education. I believe 
 in it, not because it is traditional, nor on any theoret- 
 ical grounds whatever, but because, having waited a 
 life time with open mind for the coming of something 
 better, I cannot yet perceive what that something bet- 
 ter is. I have vivid memories of long faculty discus- 
 sions as one by one the defenses of the old system were 
 broken down and its citadel invaded by a horde of in- 
 truders varying in intellectual "values" from Elemen- 
 tary Greek to Iron Filing. We have waited patiently 
 for the fruits of all this sincere and eager effort, but 
 they have not appeared, and there are many signs that 
 thoughtful men in every walk of life who have the in- 
 terests of a true human culture at heart are turning 
 back once more to those perennial sources of mental 
 and spiritual quickening, the ancient literatures of 
 Greece and Rome. 
 
 The reasons for this reaction can be stated very 
 briefly in terms of practical value. These literatures 
 and the civilizations they represent are the bases of the 
 civilization in which we find ourselves. The languages
 
 CHOICE OF STUDIES IN COLLEGE 175 
 
 in which they are written contain the roots of the lan- 
 guage we speak and from which we derive all our 
 knowledge of the written word. The literature we 
 read, the most precious inheritance of our race, is per- 
 meated throughout with reference to that classical 
 world which has been its chief inspiration. If we desire 
 to keep ourselves in touch with the past for the benefit 
 of the present and the future we cannot be indifferent 
 to these things. Our occupation with them is not a 
 matter of mere idealism; it is a practical consideration 
 of high importance. This is one group of reasons why 
 the intensive study of the classic languages holds a 
 quite peculiar position among possible subjects of 
 liberal education. 
 
 There is another group which has a more directly 
 pedagogical bearing upon our choice. We as speakers 
 of English are almost without experience in the use of 
 inflection as a means of expressing thought through 
 language. There is no way in which a comprehension 
 of the meanings and the possibilities of inflection can 
 so well be attained as through the study of the Latin 
 and Greek and the translation of their idiom into our 
 own. Further, our English syntax, flexible and cap- 
 able of expressing any desired meaning as it is, can 
 never give us the same training in the fundamental 
 principles of all syntax as can be gained from the study 
 of the classic writers. There are, of course, two an- 
 swers to this argument. One is a general denial; inflec- 
 tion, we are told, can be just as well learned from the 
 study of German or French, and syntax can be taught 
 by a careful analysis of our own idiom. The other an-
 
 176 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 swer is an "avoidance"; both these matters of inflec- 
 tion and syntax are nothing but a sort of logomachy, a 
 linguistic game, interesting and amusing to the pro- 
 fessional player but of no educational importance for 
 the ordinary candidate for a liberal degree. Taken to- 
 gether these objections form the basis of the main 
 charges against an intensive pursuit of classical studies 
 in school and college, the charges of falseness and 
 futility. 
 
 In reply it may be said first, that the objections are 
 not in themselves sound. It is only partially true that 
 the principles of inflection can be as well learned from 
 French or German as from Latin or Greek. The mod- 
 ern tongues have suffered many changes, mostly in the 
 way of simplification, which have broken up the forms 
 of classic inflection. I am not one of those who lament 
 such changes. On the contrary I incline to think that 
 the loss of inflected forms is more than compensated 
 for by the increased flexibility arising from the more 
 liberal use of connecting particles. It is not a question 
 of better or worse, for every language is capable of ex- 
 pressing any idea which its habitual users are capable 
 of holding. It is a question of educational values, and 
 the defenders of the classic tradition maintain that an 
 easy familiarity with at least one highly inflected lan- 
 guage is the very best means of acquiring that com- 
 mand of verbal expression which is one of the marks of 
 our educated man. 
 
 As to the use of English for the study of syntax: I 
 believe in it most thoroughly. I look back to the 
 "analysis of sentences" in an old-fashioned public
 
 CHOICE OF STUDIES IN COLLEGE 177 
 
 school as one of the most valuable contributions to my 
 own "education." Such study ought to form a part of 
 the training of every pupil; but we are here concerned 
 with the selected minority who are going to the higher 
 grades of liberal learning and who, therefore, may 
 justly claim the privilege of going more deeply into the 
 principles which underlie all practical detail, and these 
 principles, so far as they relate to the structure of lan- 
 guage, are most effectively to be studied in the classic 
 literatures of Greece and Rome. 
 
 The process of translation from an idiom foreign to 
 our own is an unrivalled means of training in the selec- 
 tion of the right word and phrase to express the precise 
 shade of meaning we desire to convey by speech or by 
 writing. The argument that translation from a mod- 
 ern language answers the same purpose fails precisely 
 because the modern language more nearly resembles 
 our own both in its word and phrase formation and in 
 that subtle thing we can describe only as the spirit of 
 the language as a whole. Such translation is "easier" 
 and, by the same token, is less educative. Then, as to 
 the subject matter: it ought not to be necessary to 
 point out the extraordinary opportunity offered by the 
 study of the classic literatures to introduce the young 
 student from a very early stage to ideas of history, 
 geography, religion, philosophy, and social science 
 that will become permanent possessions. It is not 
 wholly without reason that some enthusiastic souls 
 have described philology as the universal science. 
 
 Here again there are two answers. One is, that all 
 these subjects are equally suggested by the study of
 
 178 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 modern languages or, even without this, by intensive 
 occupation with our own unrivalled literature. We 
 reply that after all, these modern literatures are only 
 the echoes of the great originals and that the specific 
 mark of the truly educated man is that he has gone 
 back to the originals in whatever field of study he may 
 have worked. The "general reader" must perforce be 
 satisfied with the echoes; the liberally educated man 
 must demand something more. The second answer is, 
 that not one in a hundred of the youths who have 
 spent precious years in the study of Greek and Latin 
 have gained thereby any appreciable knowledge in any 
 of the subjects we have named. I wish there were a 
 better reply to this answer. It is far too lamentably 
 true; but it misses the whole point of the present con- 
 tention. The reason why classical teaching has so 
 largely failed to leave on our youth the kind of impres- 
 sion that would cause them to rally to its defense 
 against all attack has been that it was such incredibly 
 bad teaching. For the contempt into which it has fal- 
 len classical teachers have mainly themselves to thank. 
 The question of its permanent value in a scheme of 
 liberal education is not thereby affected at all. 
 
 In a recent conversation with a college graduate, 
 now the father of college graduates, he grew positively 
 enthusiastic over one of his classical teachers. This 
 teacher was a proverbially dull and uninspiring person, 
 and I was naturally curious to find out the cause of my 
 friend's enthusiasm. It appeared, on inquiry, that this 
 teacher had actually required his pupils to write a 
 considerable quantity of Latin, and the grip on the
 
 CHOICE OF STUDIES IN COLLEGE 179 
 
 language thus acquired proved a source of lasting grati- 
 tude to this appreciative pupil. It caused him to single 
 out this man from the rest of his teachers as uncom- 
 monly gifted with teaching power. Now here was one 
 of the most elementary of pedagogic principles. To 
 learn a language the only way is to use it, and there is 
 no way of using it so effective as to write it. And yet, 
 so utterly bad had all this pupil's other teaching been, 
 that this perfectly simple act of common sense seemed 
 to him a positive stroke of genius. 
 
 My friend's experience is characteristic of American 
 classical teaching during more than two generations. 
 It has hardly been teaching at all. It has been a stupid 
 patching together of words and phrases to illustrate 
 rules of grammar; a shocking waste of time, ruinous to 
 real scholarly ambition, depressing where it ought to 
 have been stimulating. To make a bad matter worse 
 floods of annotated editions with skilfully limited 
 "glossaries" have been poured upon the market. 
 Designed to sugar the pill, they have deprived it of all 
 its beneficial qualities. Honestly intended to rescue 
 classical study from total neglect, they have done more 
 than everything else to bring it into disrepute. They 
 have contributed more than their share to the worst 
 trait of the modern pupil, the inability to sit down 
 alone to a hard job and put it through to the end. It is 
 no wonder that under such conditions classical study 
 should have seemed to the "practical" mind little 
 more than a game, amusing to the "coaches," but 
 hopelessly dull and uninteresting to the players. 
 
 A young German studying in a professional school of
 
 i8o LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 one of our most important universities was asked to 
 give his impressions of his fellow-students. He replied: 
 "They are the hardest working fellows I have ever 
 seen, but they don't know anything. What in the 
 world were they doing with themselves between the 
 ages of six and twenty?" What he meant was that the 
 tools of their trade which should have been sharpened 
 and tempered in those years were still dull and soft. 
 They had studied the classics, but they could not read 
 them. They had "taken courses" in modern lan- 
 guages, but they could not handle them. In one word, 
 they had never been trained to do anything so well 
 that it had become a part of their intellectual equip- 
 ment, ready to serve them whenever called upon. It is 
 only in the faith that these defects in our American 
 teaching are going to be measurably corrected that any 
 one could have the courage to give advice to the youths 
 who are coming on in our schools and beginning to 
 cast about them for help in the puzzling work of college 
 elections. 
 
 The old phrase was "classics and mathematics," 
 and it used always to be said that the man who was 
 good at the one was likely to be good at the other also. 
 The disciplinary value of mathematics has been as 
 stoutly defended and as bitterly attacked as that of the 
 classic languages. To defend mathematics beyond 
 arithmetic, algebra and the elements of geometry, on 
 the score of practical utility would be an idle waste of 
 words. Every one knows that the immense majority 
 of educated men get on very comfortably without 
 them. It is only as discipline in the highest sense of
 
 CHOICE OF STUDIES IN COLLEGE 181 
 
 that much abused word, that a further occupation 
 with mathematical studies can be urged. 
 
 In our plan of studies for the normal college youth 
 mathematics would take a considerable place, and that 
 for two apparently directly opposed reasons. The first 
 of these is the obvious one that no other subject so 
 directly conduces to absolute correctness of process, 
 accuracy of statement, and certainty of result. No 
 other holds the mind so rigidly to rules and so com- 
 pletely excludes any deviation from them. No other 
 process offers so useful a corrective to the habit of 
 desultory thinking. The second reason, strange as this 
 may sound, is that mathematics tend to stimulate the 
 imaginative faculties. Mathematical science is the 
 most completely removed from the material realities of 
 things. Two and two would make four even were there 
 no objects to be added, and so it goes on. The study of 
 mathematics is as purely idealistic a pursuit as the 
 human mind is capable of, and surely, if there is any 
 one thing which a liberal education should cultivate 
 more than any other it is the capacity for a sound and 
 rational idealism. 
 
 By imagination we do not mean idle fancy, the loose 
 imagining of vain things. We mean the power of rep- 
 resenting to ourselves unseen realities, of projecting 
 ourselves into the world of possible, if unrealized expe- 
 riences. This is eminently a constructive process. It is 
 the method of the creative artist, in whatever field he 
 may exercise his imaginative powers. It is the method 
 also of the highest science working through the patient 
 stages of minute experiment toward a goal set by the
 
 182 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 disciplined imagination. So I would say to the college 
 youth: plan to go as far in pure mathematics as you can 
 without doing violence to other subjects. Here, of 
 course, as everywhere else it is a matter of proportion, 
 and no rule could wisely be applied in all cases. I 
 would only urge that no one let himself be cheated out 
 of this valuable discipline by its apparent difficulty or 
 its general unpopularity. 
 
 Passing to a group of subjects in which the factor of 
 information rather than the factor of discipline is of 
 primary importance, I should recommend to every stu- 
 dent to acquire the elements of economic theory as the 
 only sound basis of approach to those great economic 
 questions which must play so large a part in the 
 thought of all intelligent men about public affairs. The 
 intensive study of some decisive period of the world's 
 history ought to be of service as a supplement to the 
 rapid surveys which the pupil brings from his school or 
 perhaps gains in one of the early college years. It 
 would be a pity if any youth should lose the oppor- 
 tunity of his college days to acquire some familiarity 
 with the principles of formal logic and at least a nod- 
 ding acquaintance with the history of the attempts of 
 mankind to explain the phenomena of the universe by 
 philosophic systems. An intensive pursuit, however 
 brief, of some branch of experimental science may leave 
 with the man a precious deposit of ideas that will be 
 fruitful in unsuspected ways as long as he lives. 
 
 There remain the subjects forming the group of mod- 
 ern languages and literatures, including English, and 
 there is no group more puzzling to the adviser. It
 
 CHOICE OF STUDIES IN COLLEGE 183 
 
 seems almost axiomatic that the American youth 
 should be especially attracted to these pursuits and 
 should go as far in them as he can. Especially does it 
 seem as if the study of English, both as language and 
 literature, ought to occupy a large share of his atten- 
 tion. Following this natural indication our American 
 colleges have worked out plans of instruction that have 
 grown to almost threatening dimensions. The puzzle 
 in this part of the adviser's task comes from a conflict 
 of ideas that often proves insoluble. On the one side is 
 the great educative value of a knowledge of foreign 
 languages, which no one denies, while on the other side 
 is the equally undeniable fact that the conditions of 
 study in college are extremely unfavorable to acquiring 
 this knowledge. In the learning of a language there are 
 four processes, reading, writing, speaking, and under- 
 standing. Of these the last two are the most important 
 in gaining a complete mastery, but it is precisely these 
 two that cannot be taught in large classes and within 
 the limitations of time inevitable in a college program. 
 The most that can be done for the ordinary student is 
 to help him to acquire a fair start at reading and a fair 
 amount of skill in the composition of very simple nar- 
 rative forms. 
 
 Is it worth while for the student to sacrifice much of 
 the time that could be spent on subjects which can be 
 well taught in college to the slight results that can be 
 expected in the modern languages ? One of these lan- 
 guages he will, as the saying is, "bring with him" to 
 college. That means that he has made a beginning, 
 probably a bad beginning, but at least he has some-
 
 184 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 thing to start with, and I venture to suggest that for 
 the moment he be satisfied with this. One other lan- 
 guage he must then, if he is to acquire it at all, begin in 
 college, and this he ought to do, unfavorable as the 
 conditions are. Beyond this, however, I do not advise 
 him to go in " taking courses," but there are three other 
 ways in which he can go far towards accomplishing the 
 very desirable end of a real command of a language 
 other than his own. 
 
 The first is by running over to Europe for a long 
 summer, going alone to some place where he will never 
 see an English speaking person and there, with the 
 help of a local school teacher to correct his exercises 
 and talk with him and introduce him to other persons, 
 spend his time in endless reading of pleasant books, 
 translating systematically English into French or 
 whatever the language may be, making all the ac- 
 quaintances he can and compelling every one he meets 
 to give him a lesson in understanding not forgetting 
 to go to the theatre every evening and to church every 
 Sunday. In default of the opportunity to do this very 
 pleasant thing, the next device is to devote one or two 
 long vacations at home to such parts of the above pro- 
 gram as may be accomplished here. That means read- 
 ing foreign books, the lighter and more amusing the 
 better, without much attention to the meanings of new 
 words or to strange constructions. In addition to this, 
 however, the reading of some one book with the great- 
 est care, looking up all words and working out all 
 puzzles of syntax. The youth who has not tried it 
 will be amazed to find how rapidly the difficulties will
 
 CHOICE OF STUDIES IN COLLEGE 185 
 
 smooth themselves out and how soon he will begin to 
 feel the sense of mastery which is the greatest joy of all 
 learning. 
 
 I suggest these summer occupations because in fact 
 almost every self-respecting student nowadays plans 
 to devote his summers to some kind of work which 
 shall forward the purpose he has in mind in his scheme 
 of life. The "summer loafer" is out of date. To gain a 
 language by the process I have indicated is to add a 
 tool to one's equipment for all future study and to 
 open a delightful entrance into the charms of a litera- 
 ture that will be a permanent possession. 
 
 The third method is to make use of whatever ele- 
 ments of a foreign language the student possesses in 
 the study of other subjects in college. There are few if 
 any departments in which books in the foreign lan- 
 guage cannot readily be recommended, and in many 
 departments such books are distinctly better than 
 those available in English. The obvious objection to 
 this practice is the apparently great increase of time it 
 demands, but this objection is rather apparent than 
 real. The actual time spent over the book is un- 
 doubtedly greater than an English book would require, 
 but taking into account the long result, remembering 
 that one is acquiring two subjects at once, and acquir- 
 ing the language in the very best possible way, it may 
 well appear that instead of a waste there is a positive 
 saving of time in this method. By applying it succes- 
 sively or at the same time to several subjects the vo- 
 cabulary becomes widened, while the forms common to 
 all writing in the given language are impressed upon
 
 1 86 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 the mind as is possible in no other way. The strain 
 upon the student's persistence at the beginning is 
 great, but it is sure to be well rewarded by notable 
 gains, not merely in subjects, but in that supreme 
 virtue of the student, academic character. 
 
 So we come finally to "English." The most persist- 
 ent and influential advocate of a free elective system in 
 this country always said that there was but one sub- 
 ject which every student should be required to pursue, 
 and that was the study of English. As to the supreme 
 importance of a right use of one's native tongue and a 
 vital acquaintance with its best literature there is no 
 disagreement among persons qualified to have an 
 opinion. The only difference is as to the method by 
 which these desirable ends are to be reached, and this 
 difference is very wide. It may, perhaps, best be ex- 
 pressed by using for the view of one side the phrase so 
 popular to-day in other connections, "direct action." 
 The logic of this party is that if a thing is desirable in 
 education the way to get it is to put it on school and 
 college programs, give it plenty of "time" and the 
 thing is done. In pursuance of this notion our depart- 
 ments of English have grown in a way that I have al- 
 ready characterized as threatening. Our educators 
 "point with pride" to the proportion of the time allot- 
 ment in English, and we are left to assume that the re- 
 sults are justifying the expenditure of energy. 
 
 Now, of course, we are not speaking here at all of the 
 vast problem of dealing with the hordes of foreigners 
 whom we are trying with, all things considered, amaz- 
 ing success to assimilate to our public institutions and
 
 CHOICE OF STUDIES IN COLLEGE 187 
 
 to our habits of thought. In that endeavor all meth- 
 ods, direct and indirect, may find their justification, 
 but all that lies outside the question of wise educa- 
 tional theory. The real question to-day is: have these 
 enormous outlays of effort so far produced anything 
 like a corresponding increase in refinement in the 
 American speech, of correctness if there be such a 
 thing in American writing and of elevation in the 
 American taste for literature? I am not proposing to 
 answer this question. I prefer to leave it to the con- 
 science of those who are responsible for the immediate 
 future of our academic programs. Upon its answer 
 must depend their view of what is desirable in framing 
 new and, it is to be hoped, more efficient policies. 
 
 The view of the opposite party may be illustrated by 
 the comments of learned Englishmen. Again and again 
 such visitors to America, studying our educational 
 methods have expressed themselves as completely 
 puzzled by our practice in this matter of instruction in 
 English. "Why all this fuss about so simple a mat- 
 ter?" they have said. "At home we assume that an 
 educated youth learns to speak and write his native 
 tongue by hearing the speech of cultivated people and 
 reading the books of the masters of English style. It is 
 this reading that gives him the acquaintance with 
 literature which, we agree with you, is essential to his 
 education. He must, of course, have some systematic 
 instruction in his early years, but after that it would 
 seem to us an absurdity to require him to sacrifice any 
 considerable part of his academic time to an exercise in 
 which, after all, teaching can do so little for him. Why
 
 1 88 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 all this machinery of 'courses' in composition? Why 
 these prolonged and elaborate lectures on literature? 
 There are the masterpieces; why not let the youth read 
 them in the only way in which they can ever do him the 
 least good, as the best form of diversion from his more 
 serious interests? If he enjoys them he will certainly 
 read them, and if he does not enjoy them they will be 
 of no mortal use to him. And as to composition, we 
 give our youths ample opportunity for the improve- 
 ment of their style in the abundant use we make of 
 written work in the regular processes of instruction in 
 all our subjects. We think of all our college teachers as 
 competent to supply such correction as will suffice, 
 without providing a special corps of tutors in English." 
 Here is at once a criticism and a program. I cite it 
 only to justify my own feeling that the principle it 
 embodies is a sound one. The few rules of English 
 composition ought to have been made a part of the stu- 
 dent's intellectual equipment long before he reaches the 
 college age. He will be far from perfect in their applica- 
 tion, as we all are and remain, so long as we live; but 
 the correction of his most glaring defects can be most 
 effectually made in connection with the written work 
 which he ought, on sound pedagogical principles, to do 
 as a part of his regular educative process. As to litera- 
 ture: the important thing, it seems to me, is not that he 
 shall have read so many plays of Shakespeare, but that 
 at some stage of his school life, he shall have been so 
 caught up and taken out of himself by the incommuni- 
 cable charm of Shakespeare that he will steal time from 
 every duty to wander in the forest of Arden, or pace the
 
 CHOICE OF STUDIES IN COLLEGE 189 
 
 Rialto, or sail to Aleppo with a crew of tailless rats, or 
 watch the waves breaking on the coast of Bohemia. 
 If literature does not mean that to a man, it means 
 nothing. The youth who is once brought to the pass of 
 saying: "I've got to read three cantos of Paradise Lost 
 before ten o'clock to-morrow," is well embarked on the 
 road toward a hatred of all literature for the rest of his 
 life. 
 
 Of course, in all that is here said there is no reference 
 whatever to the professional, linguistic pursuit of lan- 
 guage studies. For the student in these there must be 
 as careful, analytical work as for the student in the 
 classics or in any other branch of science. We are deal- 
 ing here with the ordinary student in the liberal arts. 
 
 So far we have been concerned with those principles 
 of choice in academic study which refer to the nature 
 of the subjects to be pursued. There is reason for this 
 in the fact that most of the discussions about election 
 turn upon this point. It is seldom that the attention of 
 the student is called to other considerations. If one 
 could "listen in" on the conversations of advisers with 
 their victims, one would be sure to hear chiefly a com- 
 bat of words about whether this or that subject should 
 be "taken" at this or that stage of the game, in what 
 doses and with what probable effect upon the symp- 
 toms in the given case. Such questions are important, 
 but I venture to believe that back of them all lie cer- 
 tain other principles which ought, with due regard to 
 proportion, to enter into the final decision. 
 
 At the risk of seeming pedantic, or even scientifically 
 pedagogical, I should like to suggest certain distinc-
 
 1 9 o LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 tions of intellectual process which go rather deeply 
 beneath the surface of all education and which ought, 
 I think, to influence the student in his election of work. 
 It is practically true that intellectual work may be 
 classified under three heads: acquisition, interpreta- 
 tion, and production. Many other terms might be 
 used but let these suffice for the moment. In general 
 these three processes should go on in the order named. 
 First there must be a solid body of acquired knowledge, 
 call it even, if one please, by the opprobrious term 
 "information." Only after such a foundation of knowl- 
 edge has been acquired can the mind healthfully go on 
 to the process of trying to understand what one has 
 learned. And then again, only when this process of 
 understanding has made some notable progress can 
 the third step of original production profitably be 
 taken. 
 
 Further, there is a rational correspondence between 
 these stages of intellectual effort and the normal de- 
 velopment of the human being. Childhood, youth, 
 and manhood are but so many names for the develop- 
 ment of the human faculties from the stage of acquisi- 
 tion, through the stage of understanding to the last 
 stage of creative production. We all know this. The 
 child acquires knowledge with amazing rapidity and 
 retains it with a tenacity incredible to his own later 
 years. The youth becomes impatient with the acquisi- 
 tive process and demands explanation of the puzzles of 
 the universe. The growing man feels within him the 
 impulse to apply his learning and his understanding to 
 the creation of something new. Perfectly simple so
 
 CHOICE OF STUDIES IN COLLEGE 191 
 
 simple that in fact it has been the basis of sound edu- 
 cational theory from the beginning. 
 
 Unhappily there has been in recent years, and no- 
 tably in our country, an increasing impatience with so 
 self-evident a formula. Largely under the influence of 
 imperfectly educated, one-idead, self-heralded educa- 
 tional prophets and prophetesses the lines between 
 these obvious stages, both of individual development 
 and educative effort have been almost hopelessly ob- 
 scured. The child, we have been told, must not be 
 compelled to learn things he cannot understand. The 
 youth must not be held back by the super-imposed 
 interpretations of other persons, but must be left free 
 to form his own conclusions and encouraged to proceed 
 to creative activity. We must not lean too heavily 
 upon memory, but must let thought do its work. Crea- 
 tive instinct is observable in the infant and ought not 
 to be checked in its free exercise. "Systems" based 
 upon these "new" revelations have been launched 
 upon a credulous world and have run their pernicious 
 course leaving the wrecks of sound education behind 
 them. 
 
 The worst thing about these educational nostrums 
 is that they contain many elements of truth. It is true 
 that the lines of demarcation we have tried to draw do 
 vary greatly with individual character and endow- 
 ment. There are men who never pass out of the stage 
 of intellectual infancy. There are infants who display 
 the highest qualities of mature manhood. And all the 
 way between there are gradations of aptitude that 
 seem to justify almost any theories of progression.
 
 192 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 But, after all allowances for such exceptional cases 
 have been made, there remains the solid fact that in 
 general the best order of procedure in methods of 
 study runs parallel with the progress of the individual 
 in growth. This does not mean that up to a certain 
 point the pupil should be required to do nothing but 
 acquire knowledge, then should do nothing but inter- 
 pret, and finally should confine himself entirely to 
 "original work." It means that up to the age, say of 
 fourteen, he should take advantage of the special apti- 
 tudes that belong to that age by piling in solidly those 
 stores of elementary knowledge which will become the 
 most precious possession of his maturer years. At the 
 same time his worth-while demands and no others 
 for explanation of what he learns should be rationally 
 met, and if he happens to "create" something his 
 sport in this direction should not be too contemp- 
 tuously checked. After this stage the proportion of 
 acquisition may be somewhat diminished and that of 
 understanding and of production somewhat increased. 
 In the third stage, this shifting of proportions may be 
 carried still further. In other words, in each period all 
 three methods may be employed, but with greatly 
 varying emphasis. 
 
 The bearing of all this on the student's choice of 
 studies in college is that he ought to govern himself 
 pretty rigidly by the principle here set forth. In col- 
 lege also he will encounter the elements of many sub- 
 jects and in such elementary study he will find himself 
 in the infant class again. It will be his duty to sit down 
 hard to the process of acquisition and to call upon his
 
 CHOICE OF STUDIES IN COLLEGE 193 
 
 memory to work for him as it did in his childhood. 
 Elsewhere he will be in the stage of interpretation and 
 may properly try his wings in wider flights of independ- 
 ent thought. And then there will come a time when the 
 best thing he can do with the greater part of his time 
 is greatly to reduce the amount spent on acquisition, to 
 suspend temporarily his conscious effort to interpret, 
 and devote himself primarily to practice in the use of 
 original materials and the production of what we like 
 to call it is to be hoped with becoming modesty 
 "contributions to learning." 
 
 Ordinarily this progression will best coincide with 
 the progress of his academic years and his own growth 
 in maturity, but on this point there is room for a great 
 deal of leeway, and wise advisers will take advantage 
 of this. The only caution I care to emphasize is that 
 the program be not a top-heavy one. Too early pro- 
 duction, too much weight on understanding, and too 
 little care for the foundations, these are the dangers to 
 which the youth of the present day is especially liable. 
 The melancholy effects of this misplaced emphasis are 
 visible throughout our academic world and are having 
 their inevitable reactions upon the larger world of 
 business and the professions. 
 
 That is one of the general principles which may prop- 
 erly influence the student's choice. Another is that he 
 should select his work with due regard to the question 
 of how far the teacher is likely to be a help to him, 
 and how far he must rely upon himself alone. For ex- 
 ample, what can a teacher do for the student of a mod- 
 ern language under the necessary conditions of college
 
 i 9 4 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 teaching? Next to nothing. If he has a theory as to 
 how a language must be taught, he will certainly prove 
 more of a hindrance than a help. If, as most teachers 
 do, he leads the pupil to think that he is going to "do 
 something" for him, to that extent he dulls the edge of 
 the personal enthusiasm which is essential to success. 
 I quite realize that it is difficult for the youth to apply 
 this principle, but his advisers may at least remind him 
 of it. They may help to save him from the waste of 
 time involved in listening to class-room futilities when 
 he might be spending it upon subjects in which the 
 help of the teacher is indispensable. 
 
 This is the high privilege of the college years, the 
 presence of men devoted to learning and anxious to do 
 what they can to bring its contents and its methods to 
 the youths before them. And this leads us naturally to 
 a final consideration: that the student should govern his 
 choice of studies largely by the quality of the men with 
 whom it will bring him into contact. We Americans 
 are singularly indifferent to this whole element of per- 
 sonality in education. So far as we think about it at all 
 we are apt to stop with those executive officials whose 
 names recur with fatal frequency in the newspapers or 
 with those picturesque figures among the teaching staff 
 who attract attention by other gifts than those be- 
 longing to the scholarly character. We send our sons 
 to the college of their choice and expect the college to 
 do the rest. It is the institution that impresses us, not 
 the persons who give the institution all the quality 
 it has.
 
 CHOICE OF STUDIES IN COLLEGE 195 
 
 And yet, no man has ever gone through the expe- 
 riences of college life with open eyes and open mind 
 who does not know that the most powerful influence 
 brought to bear upon him in those plastic years is the 
 silent force of character in the men who have been his 
 guides. Perhaps he learns this too late. While the 
 process is going on the institution with its hundred 
 appeals obscures the individual. The teacher is apt to 
 appear to him but a cog in the great machine that is 
 expected to turn him out as a part of its finished prod- 
 uct. It may be half a lifetime later before he discovers 
 the hidden threads that bind up his present life of ac- 
 tion with those distant years of preparation. Happy 
 the teacher who hears from such a pupil the acknowl- 
 edgment of his personal obligation to lighten the 
 shadows and sweeten the memories of advancing age!
 
 TRAVEL AS EDUCATION 
 
 IT was my great good fortune, while still a very 
 young man, to listen to the inaugural address of 
 Mr. Charles William Eliot as President of Harvard 
 College. He said a great many wise and useful things, 
 most of them far beyond the capacity of an average 
 undergraduate to understand, still less to appreciate at 
 their true value. There was, however, one phrase, 
 which he used quite casually, that impressed itself on 
 my mind so that I never forgot it. It was this : " Travel, 
 that foolish beginning and excellent sequel to educa- 
 tion." The reason why I was thus impressed was, I 
 suppose, because my thoughts were already beginning 
 to turn to the possibilities of European travel. My 
 studies, pursued no more seriously than those of other 
 undergraduates, were pointing to Europe as a won- 
 derland, where the record of human life, as we were 
 reading it in books, was to be seen in visible form in 
 buildings, in paintings, in sculpture and monument, 
 and where the background of all this life was to be 
 studied in landscape, in mountain, in river and in 
 storied field. The allurement of this early dream con- 
 tinued, and in due time was realized. Travel, begun 
 as education, became a professional duty, and much 
 experience and observation convinced me of the abso- 
 lute truth of Mr. Eliot's chance remark. One can 
 hardly do a worse thing for a boy than to drag him 
 about Europe before he has gained all there is to be 
 gained by study and normal living at home, and there 
 
 197
 
 198 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 can hardly be a better thing for a youth thus prepared 
 and with his mind awake to historical and aesthetic 
 perceptions, than to give him the opportunity of 
 intelligent travel. 
 
 Three hundred years earlier, another wise and genial 
 counsellor, Francis Bacon, had written: "Travel in the 
 younger sort is a part of education, in the elder a part 
 of experience." Starting, then, with the judgment of 
 such excellent advisors, it may well seem worth while 
 to consider frankly some of the advantages and some 
 of the disadvantages of travel as an educational instru- 
 ment. Let us ask ourselves first of all just what we 
 mean by travel. We speak lightly of our time as a 
 travelling age. Questions of transportation engage the 
 attention and affect the lives of a very large proportion 
 of our populations. It is probably true that more in- 
 dividuals change their place to-day than at any time 
 before the application of steam to the movement of 
 persons and goods. But, in the sense in which we are 
 now using the word, is it true that there is more travel ? 
 We go with amazing rapidity and with a self-com- 
 placency still more amazing, from one end of the earth 
 to the other. We are, as it were, shot through thou- 
 sands of miles of space, and in that transition we are as 
 indifferent to all intervening obstacles as if we were 
 encased in walls of steel instead of the barbaric splen- 
 dors of the Pullman car. Vast corporations have been 
 organized, whose whole function it is to operate this 
 system of projectiles, in which the artillery is the rail- 
 road, the steamship, or the airplane, and the missiles 
 are human beings.
 
 TRAVEL AS EDUCATION 199 
 
 And now the automobile, that demon of modern 
 society, is added to the list, the most penetrating and 
 the most demoralizing of all, because it reaches down 
 deepest into social strata which can least bear the 
 strain of the spirit it represents. The "automobile 
 spirit," the spirit of reckless haste, of carelessness about 
 detail, of mere desire to "get there," of indifference to 
 the rights of others, of blindness to that which is near- 
 est. "What was that we passed just now?" says the 
 owner to his chauffeur, "Switzerland, Sir." A marvel 
 of mechanism, useful in its place as a servant of indus- 
 try, the automobile, as an agent of travel, has so far not 
 contributed essentially to the result we are here con- 
 cerned with, its educational value. On the contrary it 
 has gone far to breed a state of mind thoroughly hostile 
 to every sound educational principle. The social value 
 of the automobile will not be found in its contribution 
 to educative travel, but in its enlargement of oppor- 
 tunity within a comparatively narrow range~~ef dis- 
 tance. It enables the farmer's wife to break the trying 
 monotony of her isolated existence. It ties the suburbs 
 to the city and to each other. It brings the open 
 country within the range of the dust- and smoke-filled 
 citizen. Beyond these relatively narrow limits it dupli- 
 cates the service of the railway and the horse, but it 
 does not increase the opportunity for observation and 
 reflection which is of 'the very essence of travel. 
 
 Travel, for our present purpose, is change of place 
 with the definite aim of seeing and studying new 
 things. It includes, not merely the stopping places, but 
 all that lies between. The most complete ideal of travel
 
 200 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 is by the "footpath way," where every step brings 
 the wanderer a something that belongs to that partic- 
 ular bit of earth and is therefore new to him. But few 
 of us have strength or leisure to indulge in this supreme 
 joy for more than a brief period and over fragments of 
 our journey. For most mortals travel must consist of 
 fairly rapid transits from one center of interest to an- 
 other and of residence in these centers for a longer or 
 shorter time. Then from these central points we may 
 radiate as widely as local means of communication will 
 allow and thus capture after all something of the 
 charm of the open road. To live at Rome does not 
 mean merely to visit the Forum, the Coliseum, the 
 Vatican, and the Piazza Vittorio Emmanuele; it means 
 also to wander among the Alban hills, to circle the 
 Lake of Nemi, to climb the streets of Rocca di Papa 
 and to trace, if we can, the limits of Horace's Sabine 
 farm. 
 
 Leisureliness, then, is an element of true travel. To 
 see intelligently and enjoyably these chief points of the 
 Roman Campagna means days of wandering and rest- 
 ing. Then comes along your friend with the automo- 
 bile, picks you up and whirls you around through the 
 whole region in an afternoon. He "hasn't time" for 
 anything more, and, in truth, this is better than noth- 
 ing, but it is not travel. He would be far more of a 
 travelled man if he had taken the trolley to Genzano, 
 wandered over to Nemi and spent his time watching 
 the sunset from the terrace below the ancient temple. 
 That would have given him something to remember 
 which would have been a positive and a permanent 
 possession.
 
 TRAVEL AS EDUCATION 201 
 
 Even Bacon, however, felt that there were wise 
 limitations to the slowness of travel. He says of his 
 young traveller: "Let him not stay long in one city 
 or town, more or less as the place deserves, but not 
 long. Nay, when he stays in one city or town let him 
 change his lodging from one end and part of the town 
 to another; which is a great adamant (magnet) of ac- 
 quaintance." For Bacon thought that the prime ob- 
 ject of travel was to make as complete and wide an 
 acquaintance as possible with the countries and their 
 inhabitants. The shrewd philosopher dreaded, I sus- 
 pect, the effect of too long delay in dulling the sharp- 
 ness of the first fresh impression made upon his young 
 gentleman by new sights and sounds. 
 
 If this is a fair definition of travel, we are led on to 
 another question: who may profitably engage in it? 
 One's instinct would perhaps be to reply: everyone 
 who has the means and the opportunity. But it does 
 not require great penetration or a very wide expe- 
 rience to convince one that means and opportunity are 
 often ludicrously out of proportion to the capacity to 
 profit by them. Sometimes, as we look about us on our 
 travels there seem to be among our travelling com- 
 panions none but those in whom this disproportion is 
 the most evident thing about them. Here again Ba- 
 con has a suggestion: "He that travelleth into a coun- 
 try before he hath some entrance into the language, 
 goeth to school and not to travel." He draws an obvi- 
 ous distinction here between travel as in itself a means 
 of culture and travel as, if I may say so, a mere peda- 
 gogical instrument.
 
 202 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 He names the most important objects for the travel- 
 ler's attention, and most of these are of a nature to be 
 useful, not to the school boy, but to the youth of a 
 somewhat matured judgment. First of all he mentions 
 the courts of princes; then "the courts of justice, while 
 they sit and hear causes; the churches and monas- 
 teries, with the monuments which are there extant; 
 antiquities and ruins; libraries, colleges, discussions 
 and lectures; houses, gardens of state and pleasure; 
 exercises of horsemanship; fencing, training of soldiers 
 and the like; comedies such whereunto the better sort 
 of persons would resort." He adds that after all these 
 things the tutors or servants of the young traveller 
 should make diligent inquiry. It is clear that Bacon 
 had in mind a kind of travel quite different from mere 
 residence in a foreign country for the purpose of ac- 
 quiring the language, and that distinction is important 
 for us as well. He says further: "Let him sequester 
 himself from the company of his countrymen and diet 
 in such places where there is good company of the 
 nation where he travelleth." 
 
 All this points in the direction in which my own 
 thoughts about travel for Americans have long been 
 tending. To gain any real advantage from travel one 
 must be in position to understand something of the life 
 of the people and to appreciate something of the memo- 
 rials of their past. It is an idle waste of time for men or 
 women to change merely their skies without some ra- 
 tional points of connection with the life, the history, 
 and the achievements of the people whom they visit. 
 Such a visitor moves about, as Bacon says, "hooded"
 
 TRAVEL AS EDUCATION 203 
 
 and he "looks abroad little." I recall a case of an 
 American family making the grand tour of Europe 
 timing all their movements with reference to meeting 
 another American family and playing with them a 
 continuous series of games of whist. There is another 
 tale; I do not vouch for its truth, but it is too good not 
 to be true. An American family devoted to home and 
 to each other, had long been planning a European trip, 
 and at length the time came when they could all go. 
 Their voyage across the unnecessarily wet ocean was 
 accomplished with success. They landed at Liverpool 
 in the midst of a dreary fog such as only the English 
 shore can offer as its welcome to the traveller. They 
 suffered much annoyance in the transfer of their lug- 
 gage; they found no ice water in their rooms and no 
 open fires in the hotel parlors and no soda fountain at 
 the next corner. Things began to look very serious; 
 they held a council of war, and wisely decided to return 
 by the same steamer to the land of comforts. That 
 family knew what it wanted, and I have always felt 
 that they were a model for all who are tempted to 
 travel without due appreciation of what travel has to 
 offer them. 
 
 The tendency of our day is toward satisfaction in 
 mere movement without due reflection on the value of 
 the thing we imagine ourselves to be seeking. Landing 
 from the Harwich steamer at the Hook of Holland just 
 as the first streaks of dawn were lighting the meadows, 
 we found ourselves in the same railway compartment 
 with two solid, substantial American couples evidently 
 beginning their first continental outing after many
 
 204 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 years of successful prudence. They had neither guide- 
 book nor map; they did not know just where they 
 were; the only fixed point in their outlook was the 
 next coupon of their circular ticket, which assured 
 them that they were to stop off at The Hague and find 
 refuge in a first-class hotel, as nominated in the bond. 
 Nothing else really mattered. They were sure to be 
 handed on from one purveyor of travelling service to 
 another until they should be safely landed once more 
 in "God's country." 
 
 Nor is this blankness of mind confined to persons of 
 limited opportunity. I knew a learned professional 
 gentleman who made the European tour with his 
 family for the first time, not, as he frankly confessed, 
 because he wished to do so or because he foresaw any 
 real satisfaction in the performance. He went, he said, 
 because it was "one of the things you have to do." 
 When all was over he expressed his sense of relief that 
 that job was done and that it had been accomplished 
 at a much lower price than he had anticipated. On a 
 Mediterranean steamer we encountered two pairs of 
 young men just graduated from a great American uni- 
 versity, precisely at the age when travel ought to have 
 meant most to them. They were embarked on a 
 journey round the world, which was to occupy them 
 for a year. One of these pairs, dear pleasant fellows 
 they were, had no more understanding of what they 
 were about than the quaint old couples of the Dutch 
 railway. They were frankly bored by the whole thing 
 and sought relief in any form of harmless foolery that 
 offered itself. They had no books with them and had
 
 TRAVEL AS EDUCATION 205 
 
 done no reading in preparation for their journey. The 
 other pair were more thoughtful youths, evidently bet- 
 ter students, who had given serious thought to the task 
 they had in hand, but were already appalled at the 
 vastness of the world and of their own ignorance. They 
 had come to feel that the whole idea of the world tour 
 was a mistake, that they would have done much better 
 to give their holiday year to a more limited area and to 
 have explored that more thoroughly. Still there they 
 were with their round-trip tickets in their pockets and 
 they were determined to put it through. They, I 
 think, would learn some of the lessons of real travel 
 and would probably profit by them in future expe- 
 riences. 
 
 Travel is not mere change of place; but the fact of 
 change is in itself an element, sometimes a very im- 
 portant one, in the benefit of travel. We are all, I sup- 
 pose, at times aware that we are subject to a kind of 
 strain upon mind and nerves from the mere daily and 
 hourly sight of the same things. We become adjusted 
 too fatally well to the routine which makes up the 
 greater part of all human living. The very outline of 
 familiar streets, houses, fields becomes unconsciously 
 to ourselves a burden; it seems to wear upon certain 
 tender fibres of our nature, and we say, without know- 
 ing precisely what we mean, that we are " tired." It is 
 a symptom of this weariness that we feel ourselves 
 driven more and more cruelly by the demon of routine. 
 We cling more tightly than ever to the wonted task, 
 until by-and-by we lose the power of relaxation. But 
 if, happily, before that crisis comes, some fortunate
 
 206 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 circumstance brings us a change of surroundings, then 
 the very difference of outline offered to our outward 
 eyes gives us almost at once a surprising sense of relief. 
 If we are wise we follow the example of the tired citizen 
 who said " California is of no use to me. No sooner am 
 I there than I begin to want to reform the politics of 
 Santa Barbara. In Europe I am perfectly willing to let 
 the people run their own politics." It is well for us if we 
 too can shift the gear from high to low and for a time 
 let things take care of themselves. 
 
 The ocean voyage, for example, with its change from 
 the sharp angles that meet us in our daily walks to the 
 vast levels of the sea, brings a sense of rest and peace 
 that works its silent miracle upon our weary souls. 
 When we come to land again we are conscious in quite 
 a new way of the meanings of form and color. We of 
 New England realize perhaps for the first time the 
 singular beauty of our own landscape. We miss the 
 stone wall, the rough pasture, the luxuriant foliage of 
 the elm; but in place of these the eye dwells upon other 
 types of vegetation and other forms of human con- 
 struction. This change of form and color, with its sug- 
 gestions of a life different from our own is the most 
 obvious surface charm of travel, but it is very strange 
 how soon the eye adjusts itself to these new combina- 
 tions. As one enters, for example, a town like Ant- 
 werp, with its irregular streets, its great open places, 
 its quaint gabled houses, its strange display in the 
 windows, its monuments of an architecture now dis- 
 appearing, the entrance ways of its stately mansions 
 with their suggestions of garden and cloister beyond,
 
 TRAVEL AS EDUCATION 207 
 
 one feels a sense of "refreshment and inspiration that 
 hardly anything else can give. As one wanders through 
 the narrow lanes of Seville, glancing in through lace- 
 work grills into the fascinating patios that at once in- 
 vite and repel intrusion, and brushing past the close 
 screened windows set for the scene of true Andalusian 
 romance, one is lifted out of his own little world of 
 cares and transplanted into a dreamland of elusive 
 fancies. 
 
 But then, after a few days, we realize almost with a 
 shock how familiar these things have become to us. If 
 we go from Antwerp to Bruges or from Seville to Cor- 
 dova, quaint and altogether delightful as these must be 
 to the open-eyed traveller, we are surprised to be so 
 little surprised. We seem already to take these forms of 
 life for granted, and when that happens, one of the 
 first charms of travel begins to be dimmed, or rather, to 
 put it more precisely, the charm of novelty yields for 
 the moment to the more permanent charm of familiar- 
 ity. For the experienced traveller learns that there are 
 two abiding sources of pleasure in travel, the joy of 
 seeing new things and the joy of revisiting familiar 
 things, and between the two he is at a loss to say which 
 is the greater. Certainly if at any moment he feels his 
 sense of enjoyment a little dulled, he has only to shift 
 the scene to some marked contrast in the mingling of 
 nature with man's devices. To pass from Belgium into 
 Holland, there to welcome the great flat spaces of the 
 open country, the skies bending down, as one sees them 
 in the wonderful Dutch landscape paintings, to touch 
 the edges of the ocean, is to renew the thrill of novelty
 
 208 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 in full measure. It must be a jaded traveller indeed 
 who could gaze without emotion westward from the 
 train between Alexandria and Cairo, over the lux- 
 uriant meadows of the Delta to the causeway beyond, 
 where Abraham, Isaac, and Rebecca, with their man- 
 servants and maid-servants, their oxen and asses, 
 sheep and camels are passing in solemn procession, sil- 
 houetted against the golden sunset sky. These are some 
 of the uses and suggestions of the joy and profit of intel- 
 ligent travelling. They enter into our general subject 
 of travel as education in so far as they may be utilized 
 to advance the purpose we have finally in view. If we 
 take them in the spirit of Kipling's soldier-man : 
 
 For to admire an' for to see, 
 For to be'old this world so wide, 
 It never done no good to me, 
 But I can't drop it if I tried! 
 
 then indeed they are devoid of educational value; but 
 if we use them by way of introduction or as continuing 
 illustrations to our other sources of knowledge and 
 inspiration they may prove of the highest value. 
 
 This brings us to the question of preparation for 
 travel. So far I have rather implied that the unpre- 
 pared person would better wait; but what do we mean 
 by preparation ? Coming out of the Picture Gallery at 
 Dresden I was accosted by the father of an American 
 family, the members of which were standing about in 
 various stages of physical and mental dilapidation, 
 with the inquiry: "Say, you've just come out of here; 
 do you think there's anything in there worth paying 
 a quarter apiece to look at?" I was staggered for a
 
 TRAVEL AS EDUCATION 209 
 
 moment, but then, recalling the sound principle that 
 every one ought to be allowed to be happy in his own 
 way, and with inward apologies to Raphael, Holbein 
 and the rest, I brazenly answered: "No, I don't be- 
 lieve there is," and the sighs of relief that went up from 
 that stricken family were abundant assurance that my 
 sin would be forgiven. One morning early at Luxor, I 
 went down through the hotel garden to the river bank 
 and there found a compatriot who had arrived the night 
 before from one of Cook's excursion steamers gazing 
 out in some perplexity over the lazy flow of the water. 
 To some vacant remark of mine about the beauty of 
 the scene he replied: "Well, say, which way does this 
 river run, any way?" I answered that it ran north- 
 ward, to our right. "Oh, it runs north, does it? Well, 
 most rivers run south, don't they?" I named over to 
 him several examples of familiar northward flowing 
 streams, and after a moment's reflection he conceded: 
 "Well, when you come to analyze it, I dunno but they 
 do!" I think we should all agree that these by no 
 means unusual cases reveal a distinct lack of prepara- 
 tion for the best advantages of travel. 
 
 On the other hand, I recall an acquaintance made 
 many years ago in Rome with an American college 
 professor who said that he had found everything in the 
 Eternal City exactly as he had worked it out from 
 books, except that the Mamertine prison lay a few feet 
 farther to the south than he had calculated. I confess I 
 felt that this person had been somewhat over-prepared 
 for his Roman visit. His joy in viewing the remains of 
 the ancient world was rather that of one who success-
 
 210 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 fully guesses a riddle than that of a true discoverer. 
 Travel taken in that spirit becomes only another form 
 of studious research. One might reach practically all 
 its results without leaving one's own library. The 
 most accomplished oriental scholar I have known had 
 never set foot in the Orient. It seemed a pity that he 
 could not have added this stimulating experience to his 
 learned achievement, but it is a fair question whether 
 the value of his contribution to science would thereby 
 have been increased. 
 
 A young friend of mine with an extraordinary gift of 
 imaginative expression became a successful writer of 
 historical novels without ever having been outside his 
 native state. His glowing descriptions of nature and 
 his telling characterizations of human life were purely 
 works of the imagination, founded upon books, yet, 
 through the power of this constructive imagination, 
 more true to life than many a labored product of 
 deeper study and wider observation. He carried about 
 with him for years the plan of a great work centering 
 around a famous historic character, postponing the 
 actual writing until he should be able to follow in per- 
 son the footsteps of his hero through all the scenes of 
 his dramatic career. Meanwhile he was preparing 
 himself by copious reading, so that his travel should 
 be as intelligent as possible. At last the opportunity 
 came; he made his journey and he wrote his book, but 
 not with the hoped-for success. The scenic back- 
 ground was a description of realities, not a picture such 
 as the artist evolves by the alchemy of his genius. The 
 dramatic narrative was abundantly documented, but
 
 TRAVEL AS EDUCATION 211 
 
 it lacked the glow of the earlier romance. In a word, 
 the over-preparation for travel reacted upon the artis- 
 tic product, which was its too specific purpose. 
 
 Much of the joy and consequently, I think, much of 
 the profit of travel comes in the first-hand study of 
 what we can find without this specific preparation. 
 One of the happiest as well as one of the most delicate 
 duties of the college teacher is the advising of young, 
 eager students as to the use they can make of travel- 
 ling fellowships. For myself, I find an increasing tend- 
 ency to counsel such ardent spirits not to spend the 
 precious months of their foreign visit in libraries or in 
 their studies, but to go out beyond these already famil- 
 iar limits into the larger fields of personal observation 
 and comparison. Such a man does well to take as his 
 motto: to do in Europe what he cannot do at home. 
 For the student, no matter in what branch of science, 
 there is a world of experiences, of traditions, of the 
 gathered up achievements of the past, into which as an 
 American in America it is difficult for him to pene- 
 trate. In Europe this accumulated treasure creates 
 for him an atmosphere into which it must repay him to 
 enter. The very best thing that a young American 
 who has already gained all that a formal education at 
 home can give him may acquire in a year abroad is 
 this chance of becoming a conscious sharer in the great 
 inheritance of European culture. 
 
 To illustrate great things by small: I was much 
 touched by a story told by a professor in a woman's 
 college, whose special function was to rouse the in- 
 terest of her pupils in the imaginative side of literature.
 
 212 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 She told how she had watched from day to day the ex- 
 pressive blankness on the face of a young girl to whom 
 all she was saying seemed to convey only the effect of 
 an uncomprehended mystery; till finally after many 
 days the poor girl came to her with tears in her eyes 
 and begged her to tell her what this strange thing was 
 which she felt all about her, which the others seemed 
 to comprehend but which for her still remained the 
 unattainable. "Tell me" she said "is this the ' cul- 
 ture ' I have always heard about ? " That is what I 
 mean by the European atmosphere into which the 
 American, prepared, not necessarily by a mass of 
 statistical information, but by some anticipation of the 
 thing as yet unattained, may enter if he will and can. 
 How far he can penetrate depends upon many 
 things. Bacon says: "He must have some entrance 
 into the language before he goeth." Now I do not 
 mean to imply that it is impossible for a person with- 
 out the command of foreign languages to gain much 
 that is valuable of this European influence, but I can 
 hardly urge too strongly upon those who expect to 
 spend, let us say, a year abroad to give time before- 
 hand, or better still during the first few months of their 
 visit in gaining such a speaking acquaintance with 
 at least one European language, that they can give 
 themselves the immense instruction of independence. 
 The traveller who is restricted to his own tongue is the 
 slave of those who offer themselves as his servants; 
 and the first true delights of the traveller often come 
 when for the first time, he finds himself afloat in re- 
 gions not frequented by his fellow-countrymen and
 
 TRAVEL AS EDUCATION 213 
 
 compelled by very necessity to make use of his store, 
 scanty though it be, of foreign words. 
 
 This subject of language brings me to one of the 
 worst sentimental delusions in regard to travel as a 
 means of education. When I returned from several 
 years' residence abroad as a young man, I said to my- 
 self if I could ever save anyone from the error of send- 
 ing children abroad for study I would go far out of my 
 way to do so. The argument in favor of such a practice 
 is very catching. It begins with the apparently ob- 
 vious fact that the knowledge of foreign languages is 
 a highly important thing, it continues with the fur- 
 ther obvious supposition that a foreign language is 
 more easily acquired in youth than at any other period 
 of life, and it draws the conclusion that the wise thing 
 to do for the child is to place him where he will learn 
 the foreign language with the least expenditure of 
 energy. I think, however, that every stage of this 
 argumentation requires a good deal of examination. 
 First, it is doubtful whether the acquisition of a foreign 
 language so that it can be spoken, is for the young 
 American a matter of the highest importance. If it 
 could come to him in his home with the counteracting 
 influences of American life about him it might be ac- 
 cepted as one of the fortunate incidents of his educa- 
 tion; but if the price to be paid is the displacing of the 
 child at an age of the highest sensibility into circum- 
 stances highly unfavorable to his general development 
 as a citizen of the Republic, the advantage may very 
 well be questioned. Personally I believe, as President 
 Eliot said, that a foreign education is one of the worst
 
 2i 4 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 possible introductions of the American youth into life. 
 As to the second proposition, that childhood is the best 
 time to learn languages that depends very largely 
 upon conditions. If the language comes naturally to 
 the child before the self-conscious period, say under the 
 age of ten, there can be no doubt that he accomplishes 
 a certain small result with less effort than he will ever 
 have to make again; but, for one thing, that result is in 
 itself but slight; he acquires a child's vocabulary and a 
 child's command of linguistic forms. Furthermore, if 
 he applies himself to the study of the language at a 
 somewhat later period, say before he is twenty-five, 
 his power to make effort is proportionately immensely 
 greater, and his sense of the importance of what he is 
 doing gives him the motive which is worth more than 
 any other condition of success. If one examines with 
 some care the conditions of life abroad for a young 
 child, boy or girl, he can readily convince himself that 
 they are as far as possible from being desirable. It is 
 true, provision has been made on a considerable scale 
 to meet the demand for this kind of so-called educa- 
 tion on the part of American families; and a crop of 
 hybrid schools, neither foreign nor American, has 
 sprung up all over the continent in which an American 
 child may be taken under conditions of at least half- 
 respectability, but the life at which tends to separate it 
 at the most important crisis of its life from all those in- 
 fluences under which it would normally come, and 
 under which those who are to be its comrades in work 
 through life are necessarily brought. I would not 
 advocate in the education even of a child a narrow
 
 TRAVEL AS EDUCATION 215 
 
 nationalism that may make it blind to the largeness 
 and variety of human experience. But I would have 
 those larger impressions grow upon a foundation of 
 attachment to the soil and to the people that are the 
 child's own. It will be said perhaps that the sentiment 
 of Americanism can be kept alive in the mind of a 
 child educated abroad, and doubtless this, in a sense, is 
 true; but I do not think that, with a good many op- 
 portunities for observation, I have ever seen an in- 
 dividual case in which I felt that the life of a youth had 
 been made larger, or richer, or more effective by this 
 means. 
 
 As to specific results: the child who has been 
 "educated abroad" will in all probability gradually 
 drop all occupation with the language it has partially 
 acquired. It will only furtively and shamefacedly 
 speak the few words it has learned, and will have no 
 incentive to add to its vocabulary. The famous "ac- 
 cent" it is supposed to have achieved will pretty 
 promptly disappear by the subtle process of disuse. 
 There will remain a certain substructure of ability to 
 read, but whether upon this will be built up a real 
 edifice of literary enjoyment depends upon conditions 
 having little or nothing to do with the early study 
 abroad. The less or more fortunate mate who 
 has pegged out his reading knowledge of French or 
 German by the inevitable grind is likely to outdistance 
 the travelled youth who imagines there is some mys- 
 terious charm that will guarantee him results without 
 effort. The most appreciative reader of German litera- 
 ture I have known was a woman who had never set
 
 216 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 foot in Europe, but who knew the price that must be 
 paid for any solid intellectual acquirement. It is no- 
 torious among the college teachers of European lan- 
 guages, that their worst pupils are the youths who have 
 been "educated abroad." Because they can click the 
 "r" in their throat or master the French "u," they are 
 too likely to despise the unromantic struggle with the 
 grammar on which alone a true command, even of the 
 printed page, must be based. 
 
 So far as the acquisition of language at an early age 
 is concerned, then, we may dismiss that as one of the 
 excuses for the restlessness which likes to call itself by 
 the name of foreign travel. But there is another fond 
 illusion which it is the painful duty of a truth-telling 
 monitor to shatter, and that is the notion that we can 
 effectively combine travel with the study of history or 
 literature or indeed of any other serious matter. Prob- 
 ably most of us who have travelled have fallen victims 
 at one time or another to this pleasing fancy, but I 
 should be surprised if experience has not generally 
 shown us that the scheme will not practically work. 
 Perhaps we have rilled our trunks with useful books 
 carefully chosen with reference to the places we were 
 to visit, only to find that when we were in the presence 
 of the objects we most wished to see and understand 
 we could not profitably use them. The immediate 
 question we were asking would not come to the surface 
 of our literature at the time we needed the answer. 
 We felt the vastness of our ignorance more keenly than 
 ever, but our reading seemed to supply only the infor- 
 mation we did not need just then. If we were wise we
 
 TRAVEL AS EDUCATION 217 
 
 fell back on our Baedeker with the comforting assur- 
 ance that he had often been in just our predicament 
 and would know about how much it was good for us to 
 know at this precise point. 
 
 The fact is, I take it, that the two processes, of ob- 
 servation and of serious study, are so different that 
 they will not easily go on together. Observation con- 
 cerns itself with a multitude of details which we have 
 then afterward to arrange and coordinate by the more 
 deliberate process of study. The detail must be sifted 
 and weighed and measured before it can be of much 
 use to us, and for this there is no time while we are still 
 busied with the detail itself. I recall a typical case of 
 an eager Yankee school teacher, nervously anxious to 
 waste no moment of her precious Roman holiday, who 
 came home to her pension every day tired out with 
 sight seeing, only to hurry into the salon, where, under 
 her favorite chair, she kept a little library of useful 
 books. Then with feverish haste she would chase 
 through the volumes for answers to the conundrums 
 which the day's adventures had set for her. She seldom 
 found them, and the sum total of her acquisition would 
 be far less than if she had joined some merry party at a 
 tea room and spent the evening at the theatre. So I 
 say, while we are travelling let us travel in the fullest 
 sense of the word, content with a sort of guidance that 
 we may feel to be superficial, but which is all that we 
 can profit by for the moment. 
 
 And, speaking of guidance, I hope I shall not seem 
 too full of the milk of human kindness if I say a good 
 word for the "personal conductor." Of the race in
 
 2i 8 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 general I am ready to believe almost any evil thing, but 
 I have happened to know some highly educated per- 
 sons, both men and women, with whom I should regard 
 it as a privilege to visit places through which they felt 
 competent to guide me. They correspond in our mod- 
 ern world to Bacon's "tutor or grave servant" who 
 "knoweth the country" and their assistance given at 
 the right time and in the right way may be of great 
 value to the intelligent traveller. One may do a vast 
 amount of reading beforehand without touching, cer- 
 tainly without remembering, the precise things needed 
 on the spot. The experienced guide, like every expe- 
 rienced teacher, learns to know the difficult places and 
 how to help one over them. He is as little likely to set 
 himself up as a substitute for real study as the true 
 teacher is likely to propose himself as a substitute for 
 the pupil's own activity. Especially for the first trip 
 abroad one might do much worse than entrust oneself 
 to such a leader. Only let him be exceedingly careful 
 in his choice. The advantage of a book is that it can be 
 laid aside; the personal conductor cannot, and there is 
 always the danger that he may become an Old Man of 
 the Sea, a terror to one's days and nights. 
 
 To the mature traveller having full possession of his 
 faculties, with some knowledge of languages and a rea- 
 sonable background of early reading, the joy of find- 
 ing out for himself what he really wants to see is a great 
 part of his experience, the part to which he looks back 
 with the greatest interest and satisfaction. Then there 
 is always the peculiar comfort of thinking that, if we 
 know but little now, there is a good time coming when
 
 TRAVEL AS EDUCATION 219 
 
 we can fill up all the gaps. Of course our more expe- 
 rienced judgment tells us that this time seldom comes, 
 but the illusion is one of the dearest of all ages, and it 
 will be a sorry day when we can keep it no longer. No, 
 let us accept the fact: the process of observation is a 
 thing by itself. It should rest upon study, and it should 
 lead to further and more intelligent study; but while 
 we are about it, let us not worry over our own super- 
 ficiality, but enjoy it while it lasts, frankly using our 
 eyes and our feet and rejoicing that we have them to 
 use. 
 
 I have hinted at the weariness that is sure to befall 
 the observant and conscientious traveller. So widely 
 recognized is this phenomenon that names have been 
 invented for its various phases: " travelitis," "gal- 
 leryitis," "museumitis" and so on. What the novice 
 forgets is that in travelling, as well as in other occupa- 
 tions, there are twenty-four hours in every day to be 
 disposed of. He begins with U sincere desire to "make 
 the most" of them all, and thinks he is making the 
 most of them when he spends the greatest number of 
 them in the direct pursuit of his main object. The 
 Vatican galleries in the morning, two or three neighbor- 
 ing churches on the way home, a hurried lunch, an 
 hour or two of reading, a walk to some point of van- 
 tage for a study of topography, a too abundant dinner, 
 some more reading, and to bed with a strange exhilara- 
 tion that starts him up on the following morning with 
 renewed energy to repeat the program a week or 
 two of this, longer or shorter according to the reserve 
 of strength, and then reaction, a dullness of the senses,
 
 220 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 a failure of the nerves to respond to the daily call and 
 alas ! in too many cases, collapse. There is no real edu- 
 cation in such travel as this. He is the happy man who, 
 warned in time, learns to apportion his day as he would 
 naturally do at home between the various resources at 
 his command, to shorten the hours of tension and 
 lengthen those of relaxation, to vary sightseeing by 
 rational social intercourse, to give himself definite 
 periods of complete rest, and from time to time take 
 the luxury of complete exemption from every sense of 
 duty. 
 
 Bacon says: "It is a strange thing that in sea voy- 
 ages, where there is nothing to be seen but sky and 
 sea, men should make diaries, but in land travel, 
 wherein so much is to be observed, for the most part 
 they omit it; as if chance were fitter to be registered 
 than observation. Let diaries, therefore, be brought 
 into use." The ordinary traveller's diary is, I sadly 
 fear, not so much a means of education as a record of 
 passing and usually incorrect impressions. That even 
 these have a value in recalling many pleasant moments 
 and, perhaps, marking many stages in our advance- 
 ment towards a right understanding of things is not to 
 be questioned; but they might be made to serve a posi- 
 tive educational purpose if we could record in them 
 just those notes of inquiry which in the pressure of 
 travel we have no time to answer. We visit, for ex- 
 ample, a monument to some famous person who to us 
 has hitherto been little more than a name. It engages 
 our attention by some artistic quality, so that we would 
 like to keep it always before the eye of our mind, but
 
 TRAVEL AS EDUCATION 221 
 
 that is not quite enough; we would like to know more 
 about the man it commemorates; we have not time 
 then to read about him, but a note in our diary will fix 
 him as one of the starting-points in that wonderful 
 reading we are so sure we are going to do when the 
 time comes. Reading with such notes will help to bind 
 together many scattered incidents of our journey and 
 so weave it into the pattern of our "education." 
 
 In a word travel may most profitably be thought of 
 as intercalated between one period of study and an- 
 other, and it is a matter well worth our attention what 
 kind and degree of study is appropriate to these two 
 periods. One is, of course, tempted to think that the 
 more one knows the more one enjoys, and if we are 
 speaking of mere statistical information, like that of 
 my schoolmaster friend in the Roman Forum, this is 
 true, but I cannot help thinking that, so far as educa- 
 tion is concerned, it depends a good deal upon how and 
 when our knowledge is acquired. In the world of 
 aesthetic impressions especially I have serious doubts 
 whether much that passes for useful knowledge is not 
 rather a hindrance than a help to the fullest profit in 
 travel. 
 
 For example, to what extent is it desirable that the 
 intending traveller should, as the phrase is, study art 
 at home? Is it true that the more he knows about art 
 the keener his enjoyment and the greater his profit? 
 Supposing, for instance, that as a very young student 
 he has heard lectures on the great painters and studied 
 their work in reproduction under good teachers, will 
 his travel be, in this respect, so much the more useful
 
 222 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 to him? Can he really build upon this foundation a 
 superstructure of knowledge and understanding that 
 will be sound and permanent? I confess to having my 
 doubts. His teacher will, no doubt, have taught him to 
 believe that he likes and understands Memling better 
 than Carlo Dolce, but is this a real attainment of his 
 own? Is his taste truly formed in any lasting sense? I 
 think that at the outset of his acquaintance with the 
 painters he ought to like Carlo Dolce and be repelled 
 by Memling, and this stage of his development ought 
 to last until he grows out of it by his own experience. 
 Prettiness should precede power, and it is idle to pre- 
 tend that we see things until they really force them- 
 selves on our inner gaze with compelling conviction. 
 It will be a better preparation by far if the youth can 
 have spent his time in learning some of the foundation 
 things of human progress history, languages and 
 literature, gaining in this way the subtle sense of 
 beauty and order which shall afterward guide him in 
 his aesthetic perception, rather than have taken pre- 
 cious time from these things which he can do and do 
 well to dabble with things he can do so much better 
 afterward. If he has the many points of attachment 
 that a liberal education ought to give there can be few 
 things in his travels that do not have an interest of 
 some sort for him. 
 
 On one point I feel inclined to make an exception. 
 The understanding of architecture depends upon so 
 many purely technical definitions and details of con- 
 struction that not even a superficial enjoyment of it 
 is possible without some knowledge of these. More-
 
 TRAVEL AS EDUCATION 223 
 
 over these are matters that can easily be learned at 
 home, since our own architecture is not yet beyond 
 the imitation of the great styles. Even a slight ac- 
 quaintance with these technicalities immensely in- 
 creases the enjoyment of architecture, and there is no 
 form of art so pregnant with suggestions of the highest 
 educational value. In the presence of a Gothic cathe- 
 dral one is brought into relation not only with the 
 miracle of its beauty and its constructive skill, but 
 with the vast historical development for which it 
 stands, with the social order that made it possible, with 
 the religious feeling it embodies and expresses, and with 
 the currents of active present life in which it has a part. 
 I am almost tempted to say that if we could really un- 
 derstand the Gothic cathedral we should hardly need 
 any other text-book of the Middle Ages. 
 
 Bacon's advice not to stay long in any one place puz- 
 zles me a little. I fancy that with the means of travel 
 in his day there was a certain temptation to linger, to 
 which we are by no means liable. Our temptation is 
 rather to rush from one set of impressions to another 
 before we have time to let any of them really sink in. 
 Our caution, I think, is needed rather in the opposite 
 direction; and yet there is a certain danger of becom- 
 ing, so to speak, stale as a traveller if we allow our- 
 selves to get too far out of the traveller's attitude and 
 too far into that of the resident. It is fatally easy, even 
 in a place so full of suggestion as Rome, to let oneself 
 fall back into the little familiarities of the life of the 
 place, and to forget that after all we are there precisely 
 for the purpose of keeping ourselves fresh in the en-
 
 224 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 thusiasms of the stranger. Most of us, I suppose, can 
 recall the feeling of a certain superiority with which 
 after a residence of a few days we begin to look down on 
 the new arrival. Especially if we have emancipated 
 ourselves from the servitude of the hotel and taken 
 lodgings in the manner of the place, we feel ourselves 
 entitled to be a little blase in the matter of sightseeing 
 and to affect that indifference we all feel in regard to 
 the things best worth seeing in our own homes. Per- 
 haps it was something of this sort that Bacon had in 
 mind when he advised his traveller to move on pretty 
 soon or, if he stay longer, to change his lodgings from 
 one end of the town to the other. He puts this last bit 
 of advice on the ground of attracting a wider acquaint- 
 ance, but it is obvious that it would tend also to break 
 up those more immediate relations that might draw the 
 visitor from his main purpose. 
 
 On the other hand, it is clear that Bacon distin- 
 guishes very sharply between travel and sightseeing. 
 His youth is to see the sights, but obviously the knowl- 
 edge of men and manners is to be a higher object. How 
 far can we hope to emulate the superior young man for 
 whom the philosopher is writing? He recommends 
 him "upon his removes from one place to another (to) 
 procure recommendation to some person of quality 
 residing in the place whither he removeth; that he 
 may use his favor in those things he desireth to see or 
 know." "As for the acquaintance which is to be sought 
 in travel " he adds " that which is most of all profitable 
 is acquaintance with the secretaries and employed men 
 of ambassadors; for so in travelling in one country he
 
 TRAVEL AS EDUCATION 225 
 
 shall suck the experience of many. Let him also see 
 and visit eminent persons in all kinds, which are of 
 great name abroad; that he may be able to tell how the 
 life agreeth with the fame." Another sage and virtuous 
 counsellor of youth, the admirable Major Pendennis, 
 "would as soon have thought of not calling upon the 
 English ambassador in a continental town, as of not 
 showing himself at the national place of worship." 
 
 I fear but few of us are in position to profit by Ba- 
 con's advice. In the present conditions of travel it is 
 appalling to think of the fate of eminent persons, if 
 they were to become the victims of travellers' curiosity 
 to see how their lives agreed with their fame. Most of 
 us have to be content with such chance acquaintance 
 as the accidents of travel may offer. If, however, we 
 are by profession or through any other serious interest 
 connected with any individuals or classes of persons, 
 we are doing wrong if we do not put ourselves in com- 
 munication with them, and if my own experience is 
 worth anything, we may be sure of uniform courtesy 
 and consideration. Let me tell one little incident of 
 travel which I believe to be typical. Many years ago 
 in Rome I attended one of the public lectures given by 
 the late Gian Battista de Rossi, for so many years in 
 charge of the excavations in the Catacombs. At the 
 close of the lecture, in place of all introduction, I pre- 
 sented my card and told him what my occupation was. 
 He was most polite, excused himself on the ground of 
 pressing engagements, but said he would call upon me 
 soon. I assumed that this was only a bit of Italian 
 politeness and thought no more of the matter until
 
 226 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 one evening I was surprised to hear that De Rossi was 
 at my door. He had hunted up my obscure lodging, 
 climbed the three flights of stairs, and gave me a de- 
 lightful half hour. But that was not all. He invited me 
 to come the next day to his house and to join him in a 
 drive on the Campagna and a visit to the Catacomb in 
 which he was then at work. This courtesy cost him a 
 full half day but gave me an insight into his subject 
 which no other living man could have given. Almost 
 without exception this was my experience whenever I 
 sought the acquaintance of any one on the basis of a 
 professional interest, and with due regard to his per- 
 sonal convenience. Libraries were freely opened for 
 my use, university men showed me their equipments 
 and methods, and in many cases life-long acquaint- 
 ances were begun. 
 
 The moment, however, that the traveller passes out 
 of this region of professional connection, he is pretty 
 apt to find himself alone in the crowd. If he adopts the 
 principle of Major Pendennis and seeks his own am- 
 bassador, he is likely to find his circle of acquaintance 
 among his own countrymen inconveniently enlarged, 
 but not in such ways as really add much to his knowl- 
 edge of the country he is in. The American whose 
 profession it is to live abroad may be a most charming 
 fellow, but his angle of observation of foreign life is not 
 the most favorable. He is neither American nor for- 
 eign, but shares the disadvantages of both characters, 
 and is none too ready and with reason to admit 
 his fellow-countrymen on the wing to his intimacy. 
 The difficulty of really making connections with the
 
 TRAVEL AS EDUCATION 227 
 
 kind of persons we would like best to know has led to 
 various devices on the part of Americans to bring 
 about fictitious forms of association among themselves. 
 American churches and American clubs are to be found 
 in the larger cities and sometimes have their use, but I 
 cannot help thinking that such attempts to provide 
 what is, I believe, called a "home atmosphere" for the 
 American abroad are usually misplaced. The great 
 majority of those for whom they are intended would be 
 far better off in their real home on this side the water. 
 In default of a true "society" the modern traveller 
 may find a very considerable resource in the European 
 cafe system. There is hardly a town in Europe so small 
 that one cannot find there a comfortable resort pro- 
 vided with a choice of periodicals from the principal 
 countries and furnishing the kind of light refreshment 
 that is particularly welcome in the long interval be- 
 tween lunch and dinner. In the larger cities there is a 
 wide choice of such meeting places, where acquaint- 
 ances begun perhaps accidentally may be expanded 
 into agreeable and instructive relations. One's recol- 
 lections especially of the German " Kneipe" with its 
 informal good fellowship, its free discussions, often 
 unrestrained to the point of brutality, and its entire 
 lack of social obligation form one of the most valuable, 
 if not always one of the most refining chapters in one's 
 record of travel. The typical American is essentially a 
 home keeper. He likes to have his friends about him in 
 his own home and to visit them in theirs. It is only 
 after some experience with the freer out of doors life of 
 continental Europe that he learns how great a limita-
 
 228 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 tion this unconscious cxclusiveness places upon his 
 best intellectual development. In Europe he learns to 
 enjoy this aspect of social life, but once at home again 
 the old traditions, chiefly of English origin, reassert 
 themselves, and he cannot get far beyond the stage of 
 grumbling at conditions he is powerless to alter. Even 
 the melancholy spectacle of a theatre audience sitting 
 bolt upright for three hours, wasting the entre actes in 
 listening to cheap music or munching caramels, moves 
 neither public nor managers to reform. And now that 
 the gasoline car has come, apparently to stay, the 
 American's highest ideal is not to convey himself and 
 his family to some delightful open air meeting place 
 where in congenial company they could enjoy the best 
 of music and such refreshment as each person wished 
 to pay for, but to shut his party within the car doors 
 and go tearing about the world in a vague pursuit of 
 change. 
 
 The educative value of foreign travel depends upon 
 the attitude we take toward the things other countries 
 have to offer us. One is tempted to divide travellers 
 into two classes, those who think of everything not 
 their own as superior to whatever is familiar to them, 
 and those who look down with a certain suspicion and 
 ill-concealed contempt upon what lies outside their 
 own narrow range of vision. The former are filled with 
 indiscriminate admiration for everything; the latter 
 see nothing good except as it proves the superiority of 
 what they have left behind. The wise traveller keeps 
 himself free from both these extremes. He is concerned 
 chiefly to see how things really are. He would under-
 
 TRAVEL AS EDUCATION 229 
 
 stand them if he can, in the light of their history and 
 their relation to other things. Just as the most in- 
 tolerable of companions is one who sees the world only 
 in the light of his own experiences, so the most unbear- 
 able of travellers is he who brings everything foreign 
 to the standards of his own country, whether it be to 
 praise or to condemn. 
 
 I had the pleasure, during one of my visits to Italy, 
 to be the guest of two American friends in their villas 
 outside the walls of an ancient city. One of these 
 friends gave us for luncheon cod-fish ballsjohnny-cake, 
 and maple syrup. His bed-rooms were furnished with 
 the choicest products of Grand Rapids, Michigan. His 
 purpose was, as he explained, to show his Italian 
 friends how much better things we had in America 
 than poor old Europe could produce. Our other host 
 would tolerate nothing that was not precisely con- 
 temporary with the building he was restoring for oc- 
 cupation. Even to the hinges on the doors everything 
 must be picked up in antique shops or gathered by long 
 and careful research among the crumbling treasures of 
 the land he had learned to love. Perhaps these are ex- 
 treme cases; but they serve to illustrate the two tend- 
 encies of the traveller I am trying to describe. Neither 
 of these highly cultivated gentlemen seemed to me to 
 have hit upon the happiest solution of the traveller's 
 problem, for that must be found in a due valuation of 
 both the present and the past, of both that which is 
 one's own and that which is foreign. 
 
 One of the commonest impressions of the American 
 abroad is that all Europeans are a kind of overgrown,
 
 230 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 over-civilized, over-developed children. They seem to 
 be moved far more than we are by primitive impulses of 
 fear, of hatred, of violent passion, especially of that 
 intangible thing they like to call "personal honor," 
 but which appears to us only an exaggerated form of 
 egotistical "touchiness." We wonder good naturedly 
 at their devotion to the silly fictions of royalty and 
 nobility. We smile at their simple joy in titles and dec- 
 orations. We chafe at their easy assumptions of su- 
 periority. All these things, we flatter ourselves we, 
 the only grown-ups in the world, have permanently 
 outgrown. We forget, that if it had not been for the 
 sentiments underlying all these puzzling phenomena 
 there would be little in Europe worth our while to 
 visit. A colleague of mine reared in the Far West could 
 at first hardly contain his impatience at the slowness 
 and conservativeness of New England. "Why don't 
 these Bostonians rip out their confounded crooked 
 streets " he said to me once " and run some nice straight 
 modern ones through their business sections?" Two 
 years afterward I visited with him a house in Lexing- 
 ton, Massachusetts, where for two hundred years the 
 same family had made its home, and where a group of 
 maiden sisters and bachelor brothers, themselves the 
 most exquisite specimens in the collection, had gath- 
 ered about them roomfuls of precious memorials of the 
 past upon which they lived. As we came away my 
 friend was silent for a long time, then broke out: "Now 
 I know why New Englanders are conservative; they've 
 got something to conserve!" That is the attitude we, 
 as travellers, ought to try to keep if we desire to gain
 
 TRAVEL AS EDUCATION 231 
 
 from our travel the kind of education it may hold for 
 us. It will do us good to remember that the American 
 Spirit, splendid as it is in its readiness to "match with 
 Destiny for beers " is, after all, not the perfect flower of 
 the ages, but only the noble promise of the greatest 
 things to come.
 
 THE ACADEMIC STUDY OF HISTORY 
 
 AN ADDRESS TO STUDENTS 
 
 1 PROPOSE to speak to you about the study of His- 
 tory in college, in the hope that what I have to say 
 may be of some help to you in settling the perplexing 
 question of your choice of work in this department. I 
 shall speak of the value, the purpose and the method of 
 historical study, and shall assume that you are all in- 
 terested in getting at some principles, if such there be, 
 which shall guide you in your future work. 
 
 It may, at first thought, seem a waste of time to talk 
 about the value of History in a community of students 
 who already spend every year so large a part of their 
 energies in that field. There are many commonplaces 
 on the subject with which I might now entertain you 
 such as the ennobling effect of contemplating the strug- 
 gles and the victories of the great of all time, the lofty 
 lessons we may learn from their example, and the train- 
 ing of the mind which may result from the study itself. 
 The topic has always been a favorite one on academic 
 occasions, and you will find many fine orations upon it. 
 Even if one considers only the numbers of men enrolled 
 in our courses of historical instruction, one must be- 
 lieve that our students do not need to be reminded of 
 these things, that they are already sufficiently alive to 
 the value of History for them and may safely be left to 
 themselves to get out of the instruction offered them all 
 there is in it. 
 
 333
 
 234 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 And yet, I think there are still one or two points of 
 which we all need to be reminded, lest we apply our 
 force in the wrong ways and the wrong place. We may 
 easily forget, in the pursuit of this or that branch of 
 History that there is, after all, such a thing as History 
 itself, that there is now a recognized science of his- 
 torical study, with its organs, its associations, its meth- 
 ods, fairly well understood and producing really great 
 results. So the first point that I would bring to your 
 earnest attention is that History is all one thing, the 
 continuous, uninterrupted story of man's life on this 
 earth, as far as this life is revealed to us in trustworthy 
 records. The program of instruction in this college has 
 often been criticized because it contains no course 
 specifically planned to impress upon the student this 
 fact of the unity of History, and to furnish, either as an 
 introduction to or the completion of your work that 
 broad, comprehensive view of our whole science which 
 might serve to interpret to you the meaning of its 
 several parts. Excepting, therefore, as your individ- 
 ual instructors feel this need and endeavor to supply it, 
 you are left to yourselves to fit into their proper places 
 in the whole long story, the brief chapters you have 
 time for in your academic life. 
 
 And this I urge you to do, because herein lies for me 
 the chief value of this academic study of History. As 
 you approach your topic it is spread before you in the 
 books as a more or less ordered mass of separate events 
 with a tedious accompaniment of dates and a weari- 
 some amount of reference to places you never heard of. 
 Your work presents itself to you as the act of getting,
 
 ACADEMIC STUDY OF HISTORY 235 
 
 somehow or other, this mass of material into your 
 memory, and the prospect is not an agreeable one. Nor 
 does the thought of your work become more inspiring 
 so long as you continue in that spirit toward it. You 
 simply find yourself involved more and more deeply in 
 a maze of undigested ideas, and you may even quit 
 your study in disgust, as thousands before you have 
 done, and vote the study of History a bore and a waste 
 of time. For my part, I should be the last to blame 
 you. Rather I should be inclined to put the blame of 
 your defeat, not upon you, but only upon the fact that 
 you had not been led to see how the detail you had been 
 reading bore upon the final result. There is no more 
 cruel criticism of a play or a novel than to say that its 
 acts or its chapters do not all tell upon the solution of 
 the plot. They must be planned so that when you 
 close the book or rise from your seat in the theatre 
 you feel that book or play must have moved on in just 
 this way and no other in order to produce the result 
 aimed at. 
 
 There is no more dreary occupation than to read 
 chapter after chapter of an historical work in which the 
 narrative seems to have no relation to the great current 
 of contemporary human life and thought. There is no 
 more fatal delusion about our study than the notion 
 that anybody can study History for himself if only he 
 will get the right books and read enough pages in them. 
 This idea has been the bane of historical instruction, 
 because it has brought so much emphasis upon this 
 element of reading, as if, out of the multitude of words, 
 somehow the training was to be evolved. Of course,
 
 236 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 the great mass of facts must be acquired by a process of 
 reading and learning, and this you must in any case do 
 for yourself. We are speaking now of the study of 
 History in college, where you have at your service the 
 labors of a group of men trained to help you in gaining 
 what you cannot so readily gain by your own effort. 
 
 This is always the great problem of students under 
 an elective system: how best to utilize the teaching 
 force at their command. If there is any value in aca- 
 demic study at all and on this point opinions differ 
 it is just this: that it can give something which can- 
 not be got by the isolated scholar, and it should be the 
 chief anxiety of every serious student to discover who 
 will give him the most help. Now that does not mean, 
 who will do for him the largest share of work which he 
 might better do alone, but who will teach him to work 
 by himself with the greatest profit. 
 
 One hears often of the value of historical study as a 
 discipline for the mind, but I am not inclined to lay 
 any very great weight on that part of our subject. 
 Here, as in every other part of education, discipline 
 comes whenever the work is done with all one's might, 
 and one can do with the might only that in which one is 
 honestly interested, while, conversely, one's interest 
 increases the deeper one goes into any study. I doubt 
 very much whether one can point very definitely to 
 special discipline of the mind acquired by classical or 
 mathematical, or historical study and check that off as 
 so much clear result of his academic years. On the 
 whole, it may well be that the mind gets the best dis- 
 cipline when it thinks least about it and simply goes
 
 ACADEMIC STUDY OF HISTORY 237 
 
 right on acquiring and practising in the line of its work, 
 whatever that may be. If one gains any special mental 
 training from historical study, it is that the mind falls 
 into the habit of weighing human motives and balanc- 
 ing them one against the other, so that one is less likely 
 to be led away by false motives, less likely to think of 
 human events as determined by single causes, and more 
 likely to believe that all events are the resultant of 
 very complicated causes, some of which he may see 
 clearly, but of which many are sure to escape him. 
 
 The outcome of historical study ought to be that one 
 should reach a middle ground between that first simple 
 and childish impression, that History is the record of 
 the passions and feelings of a few great men carried out 
 into action and that other, seemingly more philosoph- 
 ical but hardly less narrow view which would make the 
 men of history only the blind products and agents of 
 forces they are powerless to direct or to control. If the 
 mind can once get permanently into that condition of 
 fairness, so that it can approach all questions of human 
 life in this impartial spirit, this is certainly one gain to 
 be set down to the credit of historical study. 
 
 And another gain there ought to be, a gain which the 
 study of History shares with the study of the Law, and 
 that is the power of sifting human evidence. The pop- 
 ular impression is that all of History is in the standard 
 books and that it is all true, as we there find it. You all 
 know with what reverence the English-speaking world 
 has been accustomed to say: "Macaulay says" or 
 "Gibbon relates," as if that settled the matter forever. 
 There is still a sort of blind reverence for historians,
 
 238 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 chiefly among those who have least acquaintance with 
 them, as if the mere fact of having put on paper some 
 part of this wonderful human story entitled a man at 
 once to our fullest confidence. On the other hand, 
 there has been growing among intelligent persons a 
 critical, often an over-critical attitude toward the 
 traditions of History. Scholars have busied themselves 
 for many years with the original records of the past in 
 the sole purpose of discovering upon what they are 
 based, and things have gone so far in this direction 
 that it was possible for a famous orator, on one of the 
 most important occasions at this university, to say that 
 History was one-half error and the other half lies. I 
 wonder if it ever occurred to him and to those who ape 
 his words, that in order to be sure of errors and false- 
 hoods we must first be sure of accuracy and truth, and 
 that it is only by the process of sound historical inquiry 
 that these can be ascertained. It is in that process that 
 the discipline we are here considering may be attained. 
 
 The point firmly fixed by all this criticism is that 
 every alleged historical fact must rest upon evidence 
 and that the study of history must consist largely in the 
 discovery and sifting of this evidence. It has been one 
 of the chief satisfactions of my professional life to 
 watch in my students the gradual disappearance of the 
 attitude of childish faith in the printed word and the 
 growth of a fair critical temper. The lesson they have 
 thus learned will not be confined to History, but will 
 go on to all the other subjects of their thought and put 
 new life into their whole mental action. 
 
 But it will be said, and with a certain truth, that the
 
 ACADEMIC STUDY OF HISTORY 239 
 
 mental discipline which may come from the study of 
 History may come also and equally well from many 
 other kinds of study. Let us see if there are any special 
 gains from this science which are not shared equally by 
 others. I say little of the essential and permanent 
 charm of History arising from the mere fact that it deals 
 with men and what they have achieved. This charm 
 too it shares with poetry and romance and with the 
 most attractive forms of art. History should, for this 
 reason if for no other, claim the attention of every man 
 who wishes to know his kind, and there is little doubt 
 that it will always hold that attention. Even on this 
 ground it might demand a large place in an academic 
 program, where there should be room for all that can 
 tend to elevate the taste and cultivate the sense of 
 what is lofty as well as merely to store the mind with 
 useful knowledge. There is a practical side to the 
 study of History which should commend it especially 
 to the young American. It is the only study by which 
 we can come to a true knowledge of those principles of 
 government on which our state is built and on the 
 preservation of which our political liberties depend. 
 
 There was in America until rather recent years a 
 singular indifference to the value of History as a guide 
 for the life of to-day. Our conditions here have seemed 
 to be so new; the vast resources of our country have 
 seemed to make us so independent of all outside in- 
 fluence; the demands upon our activities have been so 
 great and so pressing, that we have imagined ourselves 
 quite sufficient to ourselves in every respect. The ex- 
 periments of the Old World had failed to bring about
 
 240 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 those conditions in government and in society that 
 seemed of most value to us, and therefore we could 
 not see why we should spend the precious time of these 
 busy days in learning the story of that failure. Rather, 
 we said, let us think only of the future and go on work- 
 ing out our own salvation in the abounding hope and 
 courage of a young and a healthy people. A nation 
 must make its own history. That is true; but it can 
 never for any great length of time afford to forget 
 that the problems of human society are ever recurring 
 phases of the one great problem of good and free gov- 
 ernment, and that the experience of the past, however 
 full of failures, is full also of lessons and of warnings for 
 all who may come after. 
 
 There can be but one thing worse than a blind fol- 
 lowing of foreign traditions, and that is a blind devo- 
 tion to our own. The great war has been driving this 
 principle into the American consciousness, but long 
 before that we had begun to wake up to its truth and 
 the study of History had begun to take the place it 
 deserves among the sciences taught at our higher 
 schools, and is even making its way down into our 
 lower instruction. From there it should enter into the 
 living thought of our people and so become one of the 
 great permanent forces that are molding our nation's 
 life. There is much truth in the idea that the highest 
 statesmanship lies in the right decision of questions as 
 they occur rather than in the forming and carrying out 
 of far reaching schemes of policy; but it is also true 
 that there must be behind all successful opportunism 
 high ideals and wise forethought or, when the moment
 
 ACADEMIC STUDY OF HISTORY 241 
 
 comes, the training which shall teach men to make the 
 right use of it will be wanting. One of the results of this 
 awakened sense of the value of a knowledge of the past 
 for the life of the present is seen in the rich program of 
 historical instruction spread before you in this place. 
 
 A short generation ago the teaching of History in our 
 colleges was done mainly by men who had some other 
 department as their specialty but were put at this work 
 because it was believed that any scholarly minded 
 gentleman who had read enough books was capable of 
 teaching History. It is not so very long since the pro- 
 fessorship of History at Oxford was given as the reward 
 of a successful literary career without regard to the 
 training of the candidate in the methods of historical 
 investigation or teaching. Now all this has pretty well 
 disappeared. Special chairs of History have been 
 established in all colleges of repute, and men are called 
 to them who have served an apprenticeship in the art 
 of historical inquiry or who have made a successful 
 record as teachers. So you see that in entering upon 
 this discipline you are not in the position of the isolated 
 reader sitting down in his study to entertain himself 
 with the story of what his fellow-men have done, but 
 you are workmen in a wide field of inquiry, with a 
 multitude of fellow-workers about you, with the ma- 
 chinery of a great science ready at your service and 
 with well-recognized methods for getting at the kind of 
 truth the historian seeks. 
 
 So far we have been considering the value of his- 
 torical study as a reason why it may well occupy a 
 large share of a college student's attention. How, with
 
 242 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 all these favoring circumstances shall we define its pur- 
 pose? Training of the mind, a knowledge of that hu- 
 man life which is always the supreme interest of man, 
 the basis of all literature and all art these values 
 indicate the more immediate and direct purposes you 
 may properly have in mind as you prepare your pro- 
 grams of study. But beyond these there lies the more 
 remote and more compelling purpose of becoming, by 
 so much, better citizens of the Republic. It is not 
 merely that the great statesman of the future must be 
 something more than a mere opportunist. The citizen 
 who holds no public place nor wishes to do so if 
 such there be in America must learn to have such a 
 clear grasp of political questions that he will not be the 
 sport of every demagogue who tells him a pleasing 
 story, but can see for himself what he would like to 
 have done and can apply his best effort to getting it 
 done. 
 
 If he is told that our conditions are so different from 
 those of other peoples that we can afford to neglect 
 their experience, he must be able to look back for him- 
 self to the history of free institutions in Greece, in 
 Italy, in Switzerland and France, and above all in Eng- 
 land, to estimate how these have differed among 
 themselves and in what points we are like the peoples 
 of these older states. If he is called upon, as any of 
 you may be, to help in the administration of our great 
 and growing cities, he must know something of the 
 constitutions of Athens, of Corinth, of Venice and 
 Florence. As he reads the history of any one of these 
 earlier republics he will be amazed to find in how many
 
 ACADEMIC STUDY OF HISTORY 243 
 
 particulars their problems were the same as ours. For 
 example, we are brought up to believe that universal 
 suffrage is the cure-all for every political disease-. That 
 is a very simple proposition, but its value can be tested 
 only by one who knows something of the multitude of 
 experiments out of which that theory has grown. The 
 principle of universal suffrage seems to have reached 
 its triumphant vindication in these latest days, but 
 that very triumph is revealing, almost before it begins 
 its activity, the weaknesses and dangers it involves. 
 Extravagant democracy is beginning already to beget 
 that sense of perplexity and confusion out of which men 
 have always sought relief in the leadership of trusted 
 individuals. 
 
 The argument against universal suffrage can be met 
 only by men who have the power to grasp all the ele- 
 ments of the problem, and that power can come only 
 through a study of the experience of the world with 
 this very issue. Or, take the principle of the right of 
 the majority to determine the policy of the whole com- 
 munity. To us Americans that seems to be almost an 
 innate idea, so early do we begin in our childish sports 
 to put it into practice. A study of the history of elec- 
 toral methods would show us that this idea has been 
 very slowly evolved from a long series of experiments, 
 that it is at best only a device to carry on a political 
 system when all other methods had failed to work. 
 
 So it would be with every great social problem. For 
 example, the whole vexed question of the political, in- 
 dustrial, and intellectual status of women. It is a very 
 simple proposition to say that a woman has a right to
 
 244 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 be anything she can be, and that all the accumulations 
 of capital and energy which until now have been de- 
 voted mainly to the preparation of men for the work of 
 life ought now to be equally shared by women. If one 
 accepts that proposition without reflection one is hur- 
 ried on irresistibly to the extreme conclusions of the 
 party of the Left. At the present moment it seems as 
 if this extreme emphasis on the question of right as 
 against every other consideration were about to be 
 accepted by the world calling itself civilized. If so, 
 then we may be sure that those considerations of wis- 
 dom and expediency that are for the moment being 
 disregarded will assert themselves again and demand a 
 readjustment of the balance. The citizen who desires 
 to sift out the true from the false must go back and in- 
 form himself as to the conditions of those peoples 
 among whom the nearest approach to the desired end 
 has been reached. He must ask himself why it is that 
 this question comes up to us now and why it takes the 
 forms it does. He must read the history of those com- 
 munities where the equality of men and women has 
 been realized and ask himself if the results are such as 
 to make him wish to use his influence to extend that 
 condition. He must inquire whether there really is any 
 fundamental reason why difference of sex should draw 
 any hard and fast line between rights or occupations 
 and how far that difference has influenced the course 
 of human history. 
 
 The same may be said of the crusade against al- 
 cohol. Under the pressure of a cruel necessity, the na- 
 tions were roused to a quickened sense of a great social
 
 ACADEMIC STUDY OF HISTORY 245 
 
 evil and took drastic measures to lessen it. We in 
 America with our bolder idealism and our pathetic 
 faith in the virtue of legislation have rushed to the ex- 
 treme and abolished the evil thing without much 
 thought of consequences. Rightly to estimate the 
 value of arguments on both sides, we should have to 
 inquire into the history of sumptuary laws in all coun- 
 tries and at all times. We should ask whether the 
 evils aimed at were really removed, and if they were, 
 whether the society in question was thereby on the 
 whole advanced along the road of civic virtue. On the 
 answer to such historical inquiries would depend our 
 attitude toward the whole question of repressive legis- 
 lation. I do not say, and I do not believe, that History 
 would furnish complete answers to all these and similar 
 problems, and I should be the last person to counsel 
 the use of History as a check upon social experiment. 
 I am only reminding you that it may contribute valu- 
 able factors to the solution of social problems, and 
 that without this contribution no solution can ever be 
 complete. 
 
 We come to the question of method in historical 
 study. This may seem to you to be a subject rather for 
 teachers than for students, but happily there is no such 
 gulf between us that what concerns the one is not a 
 matter of vital concern to the others. The student may 
 receive recommendation from his teacher, but unless he 
 is convinced that the method recommended to him is 
 the best for him just here and now, the recommenda- 
 tion will not have much effect. It would be well for 
 every student if in selecting the courses of study he
 
 246 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 proposes to follow he should allow this question of 
 method to enter quite as largely as any other into his 
 choice, and to do this he must, of course, inform him- 
 self as to the different possible methods. First and 
 most obvious is the method of reading. In the English 
 academic tradition the word "reading" is synonymous 
 with studying. One "reads" for a degree; one joins a 
 "reading party "for the holidays. I once heard a man 
 of singular brilliancy in certain kinds of intellectual 
 effort say, that his method of studying a period of his- 
 tory was to take a book almost any one would do 
 on that period and read it through as fast as he could, 
 then another and another in the same way, until he 
 had exhausted his available material. Then he would 
 read novels, plays, and poems on the same subjects, 
 and the residuum of all this readingwould be his knowl- 
 edge of the period. I will not say that that method 
 might not do wonders for just that man, gifted as he 
 was with a phenomenal memory for petty details and 
 with an imagination vivid enough to hold all this mass 
 of scattered material together by its dramatic power. 
 If I were to recommend it to any average student, or 
 indeed to any man without these precise gifts, I 
 should expect the result to be disastrous. He would 
 probably come out of the experiment with a most 
 curious hodge-podge of ideas without order or con- 
 tinuity. 
 
 This may well be called the extravagance of the 
 reading method. A more reasonable form of it would 
 be to choose books with greater care, to read only those 
 written by the best equipped authors and to read them
 
 ACADEMIC STUDY OF HISTORY 247 
 
 with greater deliberation. That would probably give 
 better results; the reader would be sure that he had be- 
 hind him the authority of persons of recognized merit, 
 and, using authors of reputation known to be on op- 
 posite sides of great controverted questions, he might 
 fairly feel that he had gone far toward gaining a real 
 insight into the times he is studying. To be sure, he 
 would probably have moments when he would wonder 
 what use there is in learning what two equally learned 
 doctors think of a given case if after all their con- 
 clusions are exactly opposite. He will perhaps hastily 
 end his study by concluding that there is no such thing 
 as truth in History, and that his time so far has been 
 wasted. 
 
 There are two weak points in this reading method. 
 One is that until it has been carried on for years one 
 does not arrive at that historical perspective of which 
 I have been speaking. As one reads on, book after 
 book, his perspective instead of becoming clearer is 
 likely to grow more indistinct. Much reading does not 
 of necessity give the ability to make the given bit of 
 knowledge fit into its place in the general view, and 
 without that sort of fitting in the whole subject be- 
 comes dreary and therefore unprofitable. The method 
 of reading, then, demands that it be supplemented by 
 careful study and reflection upon the relations of the 
 piece of history one is studying to the rest of the hu- 
 man story. And this is precisely what the college 
 teacher can supply. Without the aid of an experienced 
 guide it is next to impossible for the young reader of 
 History to tell what his book really means. In the
 
 248 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 mass of detail he finds the larger movement of the 
 time slipping away from him. He cannot see the or- 
 ganic connection between phenomena which seem to 
 come from entirely different causes and to be tending 
 toward entirely different results. 
 
 Certainly in the earlier stages of his work he must 
 depend upon wider experience for aid in tracing out 
 these often complicated movements. His attention 
 once drawn to these things he is able to see how they 
 affect all his study, but it would not have been possible 
 for him to grasp them for himself. For example: if one 
 wished to study the history of the Protestant Reforma- 
 tion, he would naturally go to books which bear that 
 title. He would find them dealing with a certain his- 
 toric period, and he would fancy that when he had got 
 through with them he would know what the Reforma- 
 tion meant. It is not his fault that writers have 
 generally neglected or passed over with scant attention 
 many of the most important elements of that great 
 movement and have confined themselves to the recital 
 of events which may better be described as the out- 
 break of the Reformation than as the Reformation it- 
 self. Or, if he should read the whole story of the battles 
 and the politics of our civil war, how little he would 
 know of the real history of those years until he had 
 been shown, as a skilful teacher could briefly show him, 
 how all that was compressed into that crucial time was 
 only the outburst of forces that had been gathering for 
 a generation before. The college student is in the 
 fortunate position of having the services of men of ex- 
 perience ready to his hand, and he should try to get all 
 out of them that he can.
 
 ACADEMIC STUDY OF HISTORY 249 
 
 But when the student comes to ask himself just what 
 he means by getting something from a teacher, he 
 should look out that he gives himself a sound answer. 
 He should be careful that he does not ask of a teacher 
 to do for him just the same thing that reading might 
 do, that is simply to pour information into him and 
 leave him to digest it or not, as he may or can. He 
 should make higher demands than this. He should 
 look for the kind of teaching that lifts him up and 
 makes him more capable of getting at things for him- 
 self. He must call for a kind of instruction different 
 from that which the books may give. Of course this 
 involves the question of men, and as such we are not 
 here concerned with it; but it is also a question of sub- 
 jects, and there I may point out one or two matters 
 that might influence your choice. There are portions 
 of History which can be dealt with by yourselves more 
 successfully than others, and these you may well post- 
 pone or pursue less intensively while you are in col- 
 lege. In the others you will almost certainly fail to 
 get at the true interest and value of study unless you 
 can work in them under wise direction. For instance, 
 you need help most when you are dealing with men 
 and periods most remote from our own. I mean most 
 remote in the nature of the institutions and modes of 
 thought under which men lived, not necessarily most 
 remote in time. But you may ask: why trouble our- 
 selves about men and times so different from our own 
 that we can draw no lessons from them? If the pur- 
 pose of historical study be to make us know our own 
 times better, why not keep as near to them as possible?
 
 250 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 There is a certain attractiveness in that inquiry, and 
 in fact the record of the elections in History in this col- 
 lege for any year shows that a great majority of our 
 students have answered it in the way that might have 
 been expected. They have decided that the most im- 
 portant periods for them to study are not the remotest 
 but the nearest, both in time and character. Is that a 
 wise decision? Perhaps we may profit here by the 
 analogy of the physical sciences. If, for instance, you 
 are studying the anatomy of the horse, whose foot has, 
 I believe, gone through a long and perfectly traceable 
 development from a five-toed to a one- toed condition, 
 would you be contented to stop at the point where you 
 find him with two or three toes and try to see how the 
 one toe grew out of these? No, you would want to go 
 back just as far as possible, and the farther back you 
 went the more interesting and important your study 
 would become. The scientist is in pursuit of the secret 
 of the physical life. He traces the embryo back in his 
 eager search until he reaches the point which seems 
 only one step removed from the mystery that enwraps 
 the transmission of life from one organism to another. 
 We admire his infinite patience and his conviction that, 
 though he fail in the ultimate quest, he will at least 
 make substantial gains for the cause of truth. 
 
 We, as historical students, are dealing with life in 
 another aspect; not with the life of the body, but with 
 the life of the mind. Our quest is not for the origins of 
 physical functions, nor for the relations of one form of 
 material life to others, but for the origins and the rela- 
 tions of the great institutions which have shaped the
 
 ACADEMIC STUDY OF HISTORY 251 
 
 lives of countless generations of men upon this earth. 
 We are pursuing the shifting and fleeting forms which 
 these institutions have assumed from age to age, and 
 though we too must often stand baffled before the great 
 mysteries of human experience, still we feel that our 
 quest is a noble one and that, if the ultimate secret 
 eludes us, we are making all along the way valuable 
 contributions to the sum of human wisdom. If we al- 
 low ourselves to pause in our inquiries at a stage only a 
 step or two removed from present conditions, we are 
 like the naturalist who should never get beyond the 
 outside of the egg shell, who should content himself 
 with the mere enumeration of present forms of ma- 
 terial life upon the earth. 
 
 The naturalist is in fact of value to the world mainly 
 in that he is an historian, that he borrows the tools of 
 our craft and works with them toward ends like our 
 own. If the historical student does not learn some- 
 thing of ancient and mediaeval life, he has, properly 
 speaking, not got into the subject of History at all. He 
 is only dealing with present conditions or with those so 
 near to the present that their educational value is 
 hardly greater. We have all, of course, to recognize the 
 fact of specialization in all scientific work; we know 
 what great results have come from this and the still 
 greater results that are to be expected from it. But we 
 have to consider that by far the larger part of our col- 
 lege study is elementary and introductory to later 
 special work and that too early specialization is sure to 
 produce a top-heavy and one-sided development. This 
 is especially true of History, a subject upon which the
 
 252 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 student brings very little knowledge with him when he 
 comes to college. The problem here is to lay broad and 
 deep the foundations of future knowledge, not to de- 
 velop expertness in any one line of study. 
 
 It may well be said in reply to this, that the great 
 majority of our students will not pursue the study of 
 History beyond their college years, and therefore, that 
 they ought rather to master some definite period than 
 to spread themselves over too wide a field. If by study 
 is meant the systematic dealing with books in aca- 
 demic fashion, the proposition is sound, but if we are 
 asked to believe that our graduate is never again to 
 busy himself with historical inquiry it may well be 
 questioned. He can hardly fill any important place in 
 active life in which he will not be called upon, not only 
 to know something of the past, but to add to his 
 knowledge. If his acquaintance extends only to the 
 two or three generations of men just preceding his own 
 he will be but ill-prepared to meet such demands. The 
 problems of modern European politics, for instance, 
 cannot be remotely comprehended by one who has not 
 learned to understand something of the spirit of feudal 
 Europe. I do not mean by this that one should merely 
 have learned the events of the history of mediaeval 
 France, Germany, and Italy, but that one should have 
 reached the kind of comprehension of what mediaeval 
 life meant which an experienced teacher could help 
 him to attain. 
 
 In these days of eager discussion as to the possibili- 
 ties of international cooperation in the lessening of 
 national enmities and the bringing about of something
 
 ACADEMIC STUDY OF HISTORY 253 
 
 like the poet's "Parliament of Man" there is especial 
 need of an historical perspective based upon the most 
 complete command of all that History has to teach. 
 What shall we think of the guileless indifference to 
 facts of men who tell us that because the states of this 
 Union do not maintain armies and lines of fortresses 
 and diplomatic mechanisms, therefore the nations of 
 Europe can equally well afford to do without these 
 burdens? As if these new communities, carved out of 
 the wilderness were in any sense comparable to those 
 ancient political units knit together by ties of blood and 
 by institutions welded through centuries of common 
 experience, strengthened by struggle, glorified by heroic 
 example, celebrated in poetry and song. Such a per- 
 version of ideas is possible only to men who have never 
 read History beneath the surface, or who have for- 
 gotten in partisan zeal the lessons they had once 
 learned. 
 
 If now we are convinced that there are definite and 
 practical reasons why the study of the remote past 
 should interest live young men of the present, we have 
 still to inquire as to the best division of time in college 
 according to historic periods. Upon which* parts of the 
 human story should you here in college spend the 
 greater part of your time and energy? That is a ques- 
 tion that cannot be given the same answer for all men. 
 There will be individual tastes and preferences, and 
 these may wisely be considered. The real question is: 
 upon what parts of this study do you need most the 
 interpretation of the teachers and the use of the great 
 literary machinery that is provided for you here?
 
 254 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 Your choice of periods ought, I think, largely to de- 
 pend upon that. Consider whether in your own read- 
 ing, both now and hereafter, you will be most likely to 
 understand without instruction the men and the ideas 
 of the eighteenth and nineteenth, not to say the 
 twentieth century or the men of the fourth or the 
 tenth or the fifteenth. Consider also whether, after 
 you leave college, in the ordinary active life of the 
 world, in the necessary contact with modern political 
 problems you are not far more likely to be drawn into 
 the study of the recent than of the remoter past, and 
 whether there is not in that fact an indication of your 
 duty here. Here you have the means to acquire the 
 foundation upon which all such later reading can 
 profitably be based, and without which that later ac- 
 quirement will never be so thoroughly understood. 
 
 So far we have been concerned with the principle of 
 acquisition, the first in the natural order of progression 
 suggested by the normal development of the mind. 
 The second principle is that of understanding. We 
 have already touched upon this, for at no stage of 
 progress can the attempt to understand be wholly dis- 
 regarded. The late Professor J. G. Droysen in his 
 work on historical method defines the whole object of 
 historical study to be: "to understand by investiga- 
 tion" (forschend zu versteheri), that is, not merely to 
 learn, but to understand what one learns. Professor 
 Henry Adams used to say in his half serious, half 
 whimsical fashion : " If there is anything I despise more 
 than another, it is information." He no more meant 
 this to be taken literally than he meant people to be-
 
 ACADEMIC STUDY OF HISTORY 255 
 
 lieve that he was a failure as a teacher of History. 
 What he did mean was that mere information, un- 
 digested accumulation of material would surely cause 
 intellectual ill health. It is obvious that to understand 
 facts we must first have them; the caution needed is 
 that the process of accumulation should not be fol- 
 lowed too exclusively or be continued too long. The 
 fault with the elder pedagogy was that it relied almost 
 entirely upon acquisition and was comparatively in- 
 different to understanding. I well remember, when I 
 was a student in college being called upon to finish out 
 a paragraph of the text-book in Greek history of which 
 the so-called instructor had given me the first line, and 
 being set down hard because I refused to make the at- 
 tempt. Such an outrage as that would, I am happy to 
 believe, be impossible to-day; yet the temptation to 
 think we are truly learning when we are merely cram- 
 ming is always near, and we have to brace ourselves to 
 resist it. 
 
 To understand is the absolutely first essential of all 
 study that can be called in any sense of the word "ad- 
 vanced." I asked an honest colleague of mine whether 
 he considered the instruction he was giving in one of 
 his courses advanced instruction. "I do most cer- 
 tainly" he replied. And how many of your pupils do 
 you think get advanced instruction?" "About one- 
 third." Not every teacher makes so nice and so frank a 
 discrimination between those pupils who merely ac- 
 quire a modicum of information and those who really 
 advance to the grade of understanding. I can never 
 forget the stimulating shock of listening for the first
 
 256 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 time, as I did in Germany, to teachers of History who 
 actually knew what they were talking about, who had 
 mastered the detail of information, who assumed that 
 their pupils had also made notable progress in detail 
 and who tried, upon this basis, to build up a real edifice 
 of understanding. It is all a question of order and 
 proportion. 
 
 My own academic experience is long enough to have 
 shown me more than one change in the swing of the 
 pedagogic pendulum. It is now nearly two generations 
 ago that I was taken with other candidates for en- 
 trance to college to visit the famous Boston Latin 
 School and see for ourselves how it ought to be done. 
 At the request of our teacher, a former master in that 
 ancient school, a luckless "first boy" was haled from 
 his seat to the head master's desk and once wound up 
 went on reciting the rules and exceptions of Andrews 
 and Stoddard's Latin grammar until he was red in the 
 face, while we poor suburbanites were dumb with 
 amazement and despair. That was the ideal held be- 
 fore us, but I have always been thankful that I never 
 even remotely attained to it. I am bound to add that 
 the prize scholar did not, as might have been expected, 
 turn out an incapable, but became in his turn a head 
 master under a more rational system. Extravagance 
 produced a reaction, and the generation following 
 swung over into the current of a pedagogic method in 
 which the accurate learning of the fundamentals came 
 to be treated with thinly disguised contempt. Every- 
 thing, we were told, had been sacrificed to memory. 
 Henceforth only such things were to be memorized as
 
 ACADEMIC STUDY OF HISTORY 257 
 
 were absolutely essential to the rapid attainment of 
 "efficiency." 
 
 Under this impulse of reform the element of under- 
 standing came to be emphasized to a grotesque degree. 
 Infants in school were to have everything explained to 
 them. No one was to be required to learn anything 
 that he could not understand. Mental development 
 was to take the place of mental equipment. Only the 
 happy worker could do good work, and the way to 
 make people happy was not to require them to do any- 
 thing that was for the moment disagreeable to them. 
 It was a halcyon period, full of noble ideals and val- 
 uable for the clearing out of many ancient rubbish 
 heaps. But when the time came for taking account 
 of stock, it appeared that all this interest in the un- 
 derstanding had come near to destroying the whole 
 foundation of certain knowledge and quick ability to 
 handle tools upon which any sound comprehension 
 must rest. So again we are coming to feel in these new 
 days a new necessity of shifting the emphasis once 
 more. Or, to follow our train of thought, we are trying 
 to bring about a more just proportion and a more 
 rational order between the elements of acquisition and 
 the elements of understanding. We want now to train 
 the memory, to teach the gospel of hard work whether 
 we understand it at the time or not, and then to gather 
 up what we have learned and so order it that it will 
 have a meaning and a lesson for us. 
 
 So we come to our third methodic principle, that of 
 research and production. Up to this point we have 
 been thinking of the student in his relation to an in-
 
 258 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 structor or to a book. We now have to think of him in 
 relation to definite problems of inquiry. In the earlier 
 stages of acquisition and understanding he was in the 
 attitude of receptivity. Here he is in the attitude of 
 personal search after a desired fact or explanation of 
 facts. In those former capacities the impulse to work 
 came largely from without, from the teacher or from a 
 sense of honorable class fellowship. Now the impulse 
 is from within, a personal demand for the satisfaction 
 of some question already in his mind. If you were to 
 ask almost any thoughtful teacher in this college what 
 his chief difficulty in teaching is, he would not answer 
 that students were reluctant to learn, or that they 
 were stupid or did not appreciate what was done for 
 them. He would say that his chief obstacle to success 
 was the docility and receptivity of his students. As 
 one of my colleagues used to put it: "It's not their 
 wrong attitude toward their studies; it's their lack of 
 attitude." Another said in answer to the question how 
 the boys from a certain school were fitted for college: 
 "They are pretty well fitted to unlearn all they have 
 learned." And that was saying a good deal. 
 
 The method of personal research is valuable in so far 
 as it tends to correct the results of too much acquisi- 
 tion and too much explanation. Let me illustrate by 
 a familiar example. What would you think of a youth 
 who should set before himself in school the noble am- 
 bition to be the best ball player in college, and should 
 then spend his time in reading books about the science 
 of pitching and catching and in going about to the pro- 
 fessors of that art and persuading them to give him
 
 ACADEMIC STUDY OF HISTORY 259 
 
 lectures on the finer details of their honorable pro- 
 fession? You all know better than that. You know 
 that the way to learn to catch a ball every time is to 
 catch it. At first you will fail in a majority of cases; 
 but your object is to reduce the percentage of errors to 
 a minimum, and you know better than any one can tell 
 you that the place to do that is the ball-field. Of course 
 there are many practical hints which the expert can 
 give to the novice, but you know that all such theo- 
 retical teaching would be thrown away if there were 
 not going on with it the training of the eye and the 
 hand in constant practice. Now the process of learn- 
 ing to do one thing is about like that of learning to do 
 another. You learn by practice. The newspapers are 
 filled with alluring advertisements of patent ways of 
 learning foreign languages, but the fundamental fact 
 remains that the only way to learn a language is to use 
 it; and the same is true of every other subject. 
 
 The method of learning by research calls upon the 
 student to set before himself definite subjects of in- 
 quiry and to pursue them until he reaches an answer. 
 It is comparatively new here, and it still has to contend 
 with the mental apathy induced by the other methods 
 we have been considering. I urge it upon your atten- 
 tion in regard to History because in planning your 
 courses of study you are likely to leave little space for 
 instruction of this sort. You are much more inclined to 
 follow the lines of least resistance and to go on acquir- 
 ing information and trying to understand it without 
 the kind of effort required by this third process. The 
 objection most often found in presenting its claims to
 
 260 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 students is that it is suited only for those who intend 
 to be professional scholars or teachers. I do not, how- 
 ever, think this objection well founded. The profes- 
 sional student of History is sure to have this method 
 forced upon his attention at a fairly early stage of his 
 study. The moment he begins to inquire into what is 
 going on in his field he finds that his fellow- workers the 
 world over are engaged in one or another kind of re- 
 search, and whether he will or no he must join in the 
 same endeavor. 
 
 The general student, on the other hand, must get the 
 benefit of such method in college if he is to get it any- 
 where, and he needs it especially to aid him in forming 
 intelligent judgments upon the historical statements, 
 be they only the reports in the daily newspapers, which 
 he is to meet in all his future life. It is to this method 
 that we look for that result of historical study I have 
 already referred to as the power of weighing and sifting 
 human evidence. There is no process so admirably 
 adapted to save one from that slavery to the written 
 word which is the bane of all constructive thought. I 
 have seldom known a student in my own practice 
 work who did not come to me at the end of the year 
 and tell me that he thought he had learned for life the 
 lesson never to believe anything that is written until he 
 had convinced himself that the writer had got his in- 
 formation from trustworthy sources, that he was a man 
 not likely to pervert the truth, that he was not likely 
 to be led by blind partisanship, and so on through the 
 catalogue of critical tests. In other words he had grown 
 out of the attitude of receptivity into the attitude of
 
 ACADEMIC STUDY OF HISTORY 261 
 
 criticism, and criticism, meaning thereby careful ex- 
 amination, is the absolutely essential process in the 
 perception of truth. 
 
 Allow me to put this system or division of methodic 
 principles in another form. I hope I shall not be ac- 
 cused of any desire to invent a new philosophic scheme, 
 still less of dabbling in the "Philosophy of History" if 
 I suggest that there is here a useful correspondence 
 between the different stages of a man's intellectual 
 progress and the different methods we have just been 
 considering. There are three stages through which the 
 normal man in his mental growth must sooner or later 
 pass. These are, of course, the stages of childhood, 
 youth, and manhood. They cannot be marked off by 
 any given age. Some persons remain all their lives in 
 the stage of childhood; others move on through the 
 stage of youth without ever reaching manhood, and 
 others still, rarely gifted natures, seem never to have 
 known the earlier steps, but spring full armed into the 
 work of life as grown-up men. But the average man, 
 such as most of us are, passes pretty clearly through 
 these three periods during his intellectual growth. In 
 his early life he has most clearly marked the powers 
 of acquisition. He learns with amazing rapidity. His 
 mind is simply one great receiving vault, and he is a 
 happy man who does not find that most of the ideas 
 which are there stored up remain dead and buried, 
 unfruitful for the future. The whole visible world is 
 for the child but so much material from which he may 
 add to the stock of his information. 
 
 In the second stage he begins to arrange this mass of
 
 262 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 matter into orderly shape. He wants to know how 
 this and that fact hang together. He insists upon learn- 
 ing the reasons of things. He will not only learn; he 
 will also understand. In the third stage a new instinct 
 arouses within him. He is no longer satisfied with re- 
 ceiving impressions from without and trying to under- 
 stand them; he must produce something of his own. 
 What we like to call the creative spirit makes itself 
 felt. The man of business must no longer work for 
 wages; he must begin to make his own ventures and to 
 hope for his larger profits. The man of other people's 
 books must begin to make books of his own. The stu- 
 dent, as he reaches this stage, begins to inquire for 
 himself and to seek the solution of this or that problem 
 of nature and life. This is the period of research. 
 
 You now see my purpose in this rather common- 
 place analogy. The methods of teaching should cor- 
 respond as nearly as may be to the stage at which a 
 man finds himself in his intellectual development. But 
 here again I must remind you that the lines between 
 these methods are as indistinct as are those between 
 the stages of growth. One man remains a memorizer 
 all his life, and no one cares what he may think on 
 the reasons of things. Another reaches the stage of 
 great intellectual clearness but is never moved to go on 
 to the point of individual research and productiveness. 
 A third seems by some singular prenatal process to 
 have gone through the earlier stages in his ancestors 
 and begins at once to originate. Anthony Trollope 
 begins his creative literary life at the age of forty; 
 Tennyson has passed his climax at thirty. It is, there-
 
 ACADEMIC STUDY OF HISTORY 263 
 
 fore, clearly impossible to check men off into one or the 
 other class and insist upon methods of study rigidly 
 adjusted to a given stage of advancement. Some of the 
 saddest results of modern experiment have come from 
 attempts of this kind to force students into methods, 
 either too elementary or too advanced, which were 
 theoretically suited to their period of academic study. 
 My suggestion is that all of the methods here de- 
 scribed should be used at every stage of progress, only 
 in widely differing proportions. In the earliest mental 
 condition, that of the child, the process of memory 
 should preponderate, but the understanding should be 
 quickened also within such limits as the welfare of 
 the individual may dictate, and he should be further 
 taught to reproduce in proper form something of that 
 which has been given him. Nothing is more painful 
 than to see the effort sometimes made in our lower 
 schools to force the understanding at an age when the 
 pupil is capable of little else than memorizing. Our 
 reading public has recently been deluged ad nauseam 
 with the lucubrations of precocious infants exploited 
 by enterprising publishers to the grief of judicious 
 friends of youth. In the second stage the understand- 
 ing should be stimulated by every rational means, 
 while the memory should still be cultivated by con- 
 stant exercise. Here too the impulse to reproduction 
 should be given freer scope. The pupil should be en- 
 couraged to create something, be it ever so feeble, out 
 of his own intellectual stock. And so in the third stage 
 he should still continue to acquire, but in lessening 
 degree and always for definite purpose. The devouring
 
 264 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 curiosity of the child, for which the whole world is none 
 too large, must give place to the teaching of experience 
 that, after all, only one little fragment of the world's 
 wisdom can be conquered by any one man. Gen- 
 eralizing must diminish, and specializing must begin. 
 The man passes out of the period of authority into the 
 period of independence. His method of work is now 
 the pursuit of definite problems. He will not cease to 
 learn; he can never cease to desire to understand; but 
 the bulk of his effort must now go in the direction of pro- 
 duction. He may make books or he may, as a teacher, 
 try to make men, or as a journalist try to move the 
 world, or as a politician to help along his day and gen- 
 eration. In any case the proportion of creative effort 
 to acquisition and to understanding must grow con- 
 stantly greater. 
 
 You see how all this applies to the problem im- 
 mediately before you: how to plan your study of His- 
 tory in this college to the best advantage. As to age, 
 you are all in the period of youth. You ought to have 
 left your childhood behind you. Whether you have 
 done so or not, each of you must answer for himself, 
 and upon this answer will depend the sort of study you 
 will want to do in college and the order in which you 
 will pursue it. If you honestly feel that you are in- 
 capable of anything beyond the mere work of acquir- 
 ing facts, then you should so choose your studies that 
 the power of acquisition will be called into play. Con- 
 fine yourself in that case to courses, if any such there 
 be, in which no demand will be made upon you beyond 
 the learning of certain definite things without much
 
 ACADEMIC STUDY OF HISTORY 265 
 
 inquiry into their meaning in the long story of human 
 life. But, if you are in search of some wider satisfac- 
 tion, add to the work of acquisition by taking such 
 courses, and such I know there are, in which you will 
 be led to see the bearing of events upon each other and 
 upon the whole course of history. Choose those periods 
 which lie far removed as well as those which lie nearer 
 to the present. Try to plan a longer or a shorter course 
 of study in such a way that it will show you the con- 
 nection between the remotest and the nearest phases in 
 human development. 
 
 As to order of selection, I can only make a few gen- 
 eral suggestions based upon what has already been 
 said. As between subjects, I should say: choose first 
 those which are most easily comprehended. It would 
 be impossible to lay down any principle here that 
 would hold for all men, but it is safe to assume that the 
 nearer one comes to the life of to-day, the easier one 
 finds it to understand the life of other times. But this 
 nearness will not always be nearness in time. The life 
 of ancient Greece and Rome is on the whole much 
 more like the life of to-day than that of the Middle 
 Ages is to either. Mediaeval life is marked by certain 
 institutions altogether peculiar to itself and can be 
 understood only by one who has some familiarity with 
 both that which went before and that which followed 
 it. Some advisers will tell you that the only proper 
 order of historical study is the strictly chronological 
 one, beginning with the most ancient; others will tell 
 you the reverse of this. Neither of these chronological 
 orders, it seems to me, has any real principle behind it.
 
 266 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 I can do no better than to say that what is easier to 
 understand ought to come before what is more difficult 
 and leave the matter there with the suggestion I have 
 just made. 
 
 So much for the order of choice in regard to subjects. 
 But I think the question of method should enter here 
 also. It should be clear from what has already been 
 said what its application here will be. In the earlier 
 stages of your work, even here in college, let the process 
 of acquisition preponderate. That is the purpose of 
 our introductory courses. In connection with those 
 courses, let your reading not be limited to what is pre- 
 scribed, but let it be as broad and as solid as possible, 
 so that when you go on to more advanced work you 
 may be sure of a reasonably sound foundation. Learn 
 without the costly method of experience that the aver- 
 age requirements of any course in college are far below 
 what would be profitable for the earnest student who 
 really wants to make each course a stepping stone to 
 something higher. Among your advanced courses, in- 
 quire carefully as to the methods pursued and let your 
 choice be governed partly by that. For your earlier 
 advanced work let the effort to understand preponder- 
 ate, but do in every course some bit of original work. 
 Do not allow yourself to enter your last undergraduate 
 year without having produced a piece of written work 
 in history. Take advantage of the very favorable 
 arrangements of the English Department to select 
 historical topics for your work there and get your in- 
 structor in History to help you in the first stages of 
 collecting material and putting it into orderly shape.
 
 ACADEMIC STUDY OF HISTORY 267 
 
 You will thus gain a bit of practice that will be of serv- 
 ice in all your future work. 
 
 And then, as you come to the later years of study, 
 let the element of research take a larger place. A word 
 here at once of caution and encouragement. I have 
 said that the method you should use should depend 
 upon the stage of your mental progress, but let me 
 warn you also that your progress depends a good deal 
 upon the method you have been using. If you have 
 gone on too long in the attitude of receptivity, you will 
 find it all the harder to change to the method of ac- 
 tivity. You may be led to put off the time of change by 
 a feeling that you are not quite ready for it. If you 
 wait till you are absolutely certain, you will never be 
 ready. One of the most marked characteristics, I sup- 
 pose of all students, certainly of Harvard students I 
 say it with all deliberation after many years' acquaint- 
 ance with them is modesty or self-distrust. It is 
 partly this that keeps them from venturing early 
 enough into the creative form of study. They fear 
 they may produce something unripe and uncalled for; 
 and so they will. But the base-ball candidate is not 
 deterred by his failures from keeping at it. Even if he 
 never rise above the humblest position in the game, he 
 knows that he is getting something valuable by the 
 way, and there is always the chance that he may be- 
 come the great man of his year. 
 
 I urge this kind of practical study whether you mean 
 to be a specialist in History or not. It has been an in- 
 teresting experience to me that several of my most de- 
 voted pupils in research went into the work knowing at
 
 268 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 the time that they were to be physicians. They be- 
 lieved that that kind of training was going to help in 
 making their lives larger and better, and I trust they 
 have not been disappointed. 
 
 In using the word History in its academic sense I 
 have meant to include all historical instruction, 
 whether offered in the program of the historical de- 
 partment or elsewhere, and I cannot too strongly rec- 
 ommend every student of History to make as wide 
 excursions into the fields of literature and art as his 
 time will allow. Much instruction in those depart- 
 ments is strictly historical in its character, but even 
 that which is more purely technical is rich in suggestion 
 and stimulation for the historical student.
 
 THE RATIONAL EDUCATION OF THE 
 MODERN MINISTER 
 
 AN ADDRESS TO MINISTERS 
 
 DOES the modern minister need any education at 
 all? In view of the almost fanatical emphasis on 
 education in our day and country such a question may 
 well appear absurd. And yet, as one looks over the 
 sources of supply for the ministerial profession, one is 
 tempted to answer it in the negative. The fact is that a 
 large proportion of Protestant pulpits are filled by 
 young men whose professional preparation has been 
 of the most meager description. They have passed 
 through some secondary school or some "college" 
 which ought to be called a secondary school and then 
 have spent a short time at one of the so-called " Bible 
 Colleges " and then have gone at once into the practical 
 duties of their arduous and exacting profession. It is 
 comparatively seldom that they have given themselves 
 the benefit of an apprenticeship under the direction of a 
 more experienced chief. Without the preliminary 
 training of the young lawyer or the young physician 
 they are thrust directly into responsibilities as serious 
 as any they will ever be called upon to assume. Unlike 
 these other professional beginners the young clergyman 
 is not permitted to gain experience by practice in un- 
 important cases, but is called upon at once to meet the 
 severest demands upon his ministerial character. His 
 success or failure for life may be determined by the 
 
 260
 
 270 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 manner in which he responds to these first searching 
 tests. 
 
 The contrast with other professions, however, must 
 not be drawn too sharply. The standards of excellence 
 in medicine and the law also can be maintained only at 
 the cost of eternal vigilance. Our greater schools of 
 law especially are subject to a continual rivalry from 
 institutions having no other object than to push on as 
 many youths as possible into legal practice with a 
 minimum of knowledge and a plentiful lack of training 
 in legal method. Our medical schools have to defend 
 themselves and the profession from the incursion of 
 quackery in all its seductive forms. The most impor- 
 tant difference is that the great public has, or thinks it 
 has, its own quick tests of value in law and medicine, 
 whereas in those things of the spirit which are the con- 
 cern of the young minister such tests are almost wholly 
 lacking. The client knows whether his lawyer wins his 
 case and the patient thinks he knows whether the 
 doctor cures him, but the man in the pew does not, 
 except by rather long experience, find out whether 
 his clergyman is really competent for the service he 
 professes to render. 
 
 There is another line of contrasts that cannot be 
 overlooked. In medicine and in the law there is a con- 
 siderable body of material which any one not hope- 
 lessly prejudiced will readily admit to be essential to 
 the preparation of the practitioner. Anatomy and 
 physiology, the generally accepted maxims of the com- 
 mon law and the statutes of the state this minimum 
 of theoretical knowledge will be assumed by every one,
 
 THE MINISTER'S EDUCATION 271 
 
 and few will question the value of having these and 
 some other subjects well taught through systematic 
 instruction. For the minister, it is said, there is no 
 such body of necessary knowledge. The one essential 
 thing for him is the Bible, and a familiarity with the 
 text of the Bible is best acquired in the family and will 
 be brought with the young man into his practice. All 
 else, such is the argument for unpreparedness, must 
 come with the practical demands of the parish. The 
 difficulty of replying comes from the undoubted fact 
 that many of the most efficient ministers in our Prot- 
 estant bodies have won success by precisely this proc- 
 ess. They are remembered; the greater number who 
 fell by the wayside are forgotten. 
 
 Aside from familiarity with the Bible the popular 
 judgment places the greatest weight upon what it likes 
 to call the inspirational quality of the minister. "An 
 inspired boy!" was the comment of an intelligent 
 woman upon a youth just entering upon his ministerial 
 career. It was a most unfortunate estimate of the 
 young man's quality, as the sequel inevitably proved. 
 Inspiration without training and without the saving 
 balance of sound common sense may carry a man along 
 over the first obstacles, until the tests of character be- 
 gin to be felt, but then it will pretty certainly fail him. 
 If the profession of the minister is to go on there must 
 be some systematic preparation for it, and that prep- 
 aration must, for the present at least, be given in 
 organized schools specially endowed for the purpose. 
 
 That the institution of the Christian ministry is to 
 go on and will try to do substantially the work it has
 
 272 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 always tried to do is here assumed, in spite of all prog- 
 nostications to the contrary. My own conviction on 
 this point may be illustrated by an early experience. 
 A generation ago, when I was a young teacher of His- 
 tory in the university I was suddenly offered the newly 
 founded professorship of Church History in the Har- 
 vard Divinity School. I was a layman, with only a 
 very loose connection with a religious organization and 
 I had made, up to that time, no detailed study of either 
 the institutions or the doctrines of the historic Church. 
 In my preliminary conversation with President Eliot 
 he asked me among other things what was my feeling 
 in regard to the permanence of the ministerial profes- 
 sion. In view of the obvious rivalries of the press, of 
 charitable organization, of scientific study, of popular 
 education, did I feel that the profession of the minister 
 was worth maintaining in dignity and honor as a part 
 of the function of a great university? My reply was, 
 that I did not believe the time had come or was likely 
 to come soon when the spoken word would lose its 
 power over the minds of men. If the Christian ministry 
 under its present form should disappear to-morrow, 
 under some other form it would reappear the day after 
 to-morrow and would go on doing the same work it had 
 always done. 
 
 That conviction, hastily formulated and crudely ex- 
 pressed, has not changed with the passing of a genera- 
 tion in which the rivalries I have mentioned have 
 certainly not diminished in number nor lessened in 
 their manifold and welcome activities. Not forgetting 
 some moments of depression I draw from the expe-
 
 THE MINISTER'S EDUCATION 273 
 
 rience of this generation spent in helping to prepare 
 young men for the practice of this profession only new 
 encouragement and hopefulness. The world is still 
 looking for leadership, never, I believe, more eagerly 
 than now. It complains, to be sure, that the qualities 
 it seeks are not often found; but when it does find them 
 it knows them, it welcomes them and it rewards them. 
 It bears patiently with mediocrity hoping always for 
 better things. At the close of a generation I do not 
 hesitate to say that the standing of your profession in 
 the community at large is as good as it was at the be- 
 ginning. In some respects it is better because of the 
 wholesome criticism to which the profession has been 
 subjected. 
 
 Now, what is it that the community values in the 
 office of the minister? What kind of leadership does it 
 ask him to supply, and what does it miss when it finds 
 fault with his service? Through this generation there 
 has been a persistent cry that the old idea of the min- 
 ister as a teacher of religion and as a persuader to right 
 living was gone forever. Henceforth he was to be an 
 economic counsellor, a sanitary director, a charity or- 
 ganizer, a pilot through the bewilderments of "social 
 service," an apostle of "social justice," a mouthpiece 
 for all the divine discontents that seem to foretell the 
 overturn of our social order anything, in short, but 
 the interpreter to a puzzled world of the divine idea as 
 presented in the Good News of Jesus Christ. No won- 
 der that many an earnest youth of rich endowment, 
 facing the prospect of such a multifarious requirement 
 as this should have drawn back in alarm and left the
 
 274 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 field of the ministry to duller minds and less awakened 
 consciences, while he has applied his better powers to 
 some profession where the demand seemed to be 
 simpler and more tangible. 
 
 Such losses to the profession are deplorable, and the 
 more so, to my mind, because I think they result from 
 a wrong conception of the real demand. Of course, all 
 these functions can be better performed by men spe- 
 cially trained in the several fields of knowledge and 
 experience here suggested. If the community needs 
 instruction in economic science, it is not going to its 
 minister to get it. If its conscience begins to prick it 
 with a sense of duty to its badly housed and badly fed 
 and imperfectly washed members, there are experts at 
 hand to suggest practical remedies. It is not skill in 
 these things that makes the minister a useful man in 
 his community. He must have his ideas about such 
 problems, but so must every other good and thought- 
 ful citizen. An expert indeed he must be; but it must 
 be in something different from any or all of these sub- 
 jects. His expertness must lie in the application to all 
 these details of those principles in belief and those 
 sanctions for action to which we give the name of re- 
 ligion. His service to mankind will be in showing what 
 these principles are and how they may be made to work 
 in the daily experience of every man. His leadership, 
 if he is really to lead, must consist in the constant 
 stimulation of his hearers to live and work as religious 
 men, as servants of something greater than themselves. 
 
 The history of the ministerial office in the Christian 
 church shows it under three forms best described by
 
 THE MINISTER'S EDUCATION 275 
 
 the words priest, prophet, and ruler. The priest is 
 above all else the personal representative of an in- 
 stitution. What he says and does has force and value 
 only as it conveys to the individual the treasure of 
 faith and practice entrusted to the institution of the 
 Church. The prophet is he who utters forth the truths 
 of Christianity without reference to their institutional 
 sanctions. His quality as a Christian man suffices to 
 give validity to his teaching, and this teaching must 
 find its way to the hearts of his disciples in virtue of its 
 inherent truth, not because it accords with any pre- 
 scriptions of authority. The ruler is the minister in his 
 quality of temporal administrator, either recognized 
 and supported by political authority or, if independent 
 of that, maintained and sanctioned by the religious 
 body he represents. 
 
 Historically these several characters have been 
 united in the one person of the priest, but at different 
 times and under differing circumstances the emphasis 
 has been very differently placed. At the high points of 
 clerical domination of society the prophetic character 
 has been almost entirely subordinated to the other 
 two. Priestly ordination and political control have 
 combined to repress every too ardent expression of the 
 individual spirit. Then have come great moments of 
 revival, when men have turned against these agencies 
 of repression and have welcomed the individual whose 
 prophetic quality gave them promise of betterment. 
 Then ordinations and political institutions have had to 
 adjust themselves to the newly awakened religious 
 consciousness, and new historic epochs have begun.
 
 276 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 Of all such periods of revival the Protestant Reforma- 
 tion was the most important, and we are the sharers 
 in its heritage. The line of cleavage between " those 
 who go to the Mass " and " those who go to the preach- 
 ing" originating in the religious divisions of the six- 
 teenth century, has lost none of its significance to-day. 
 In our Protestant ministry the decisive element is still 
 the individual appeal, freed as far as may be from the 
 dictation of any organization or the domination of any 
 external authority. 
 
 The Protestant minister belongs in the line of 
 "prophets," but as it was with the prophets who were 
 before him, his prophetic quality has no formal certifi- 
 cation. Like the "prophet" of the "Teaching" he must 
 prove the genuineness of his gift before he can expect 
 men to accept his leadership. Ecclesiasticism allied 
 with Establishmentism may and will do its best to 
 harness the prophetic force with its own bit and bridle, 
 but it is only the feeble and the timid among the proph- 
 ets who will submit to this kind of schoolmastering. 
 The true prophet will lead; he will not ask to be led by 
 any light, however kindly, that dims the radiance of 
 his own honest conviction. 
 
 How eager this search for spiritual leadership is in 
 the modern world was abundantly shown a few years 
 ago when a new prophet of quite the ancient type ap- 
 peared with a ready-made revelation, an elaborate 
 Scripture and a commercial establishment singularly 
 suited to capture the imagination of a business world. 
 A few commonplaces as fcp conduct, a philosophy of 
 life absurdly distorted by a cheap travesty of science,
 
 THE MINISTER'S EDUCATION 277 
 
 and a working organization happily freed from the 
 accumulated rubbish of clericalism swept thousands of 
 plain, well-meaning people into a delusive ecstasy of 
 deliverance from all the weaknesses of their human ex- 
 perience. How the balance of good and evil in this 
 singular phenomenon is to be adjusted is not yet per- 
 ceived. It serves us here only to show how ready men 
 of good will are to grasp at shadows when the sub- 
 stance is no longer brought home to them with con- 
 vincing force. 
 
 If the modern minister is to do his part in holding 
 men true to the best traditions of the religion he pro- 
 fesses to serve he must prepare himself by all the train- 
 ing he can command to meet the complex requirements 
 of his unique position. A prophet in the sense of an 
 individual with a message, he is to be, but he cannot 
 afford to forget that for this kind of prophecy there is a 
 technique that must be learned. Sometimes it seems as 
 if men thought the training of the minister could be all 
 technique. "Why," said the head of a certain the- 
 ological school, speaking of the class about to graduate, 
 " they don't even know how to say ' Here endeth the 
 First Lesson.' ' No doubt there is a right way and a 
 wrong way to do everything, but that seemed rather a 
 false emphasis. On the other hand there is likely to be 
 a feeling, especially among "liberally" inclined stu- 
 dents that every technical requirement is some kind of 
 encroachment upon that freedom of the spirit which 
 they claim as their special right. I have known the- 
 ological students who refused to write sermons as a 
 part of their school training on the ground that this was
 
 278 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 a fictitious and necessarily insincere performance. 
 Others have refused to take part in public prayer, be- 
 cause they felt it to be, as it were, a kind of dress 
 rehearsal and therefore irreverent and unbecoming. 
 Such objections, flippant as they seem, were based 
 upon a truly honorable conception of the sacredness of 
 the preacher's office. They deserved respectful con- 
 sideration, but it ought not to be difficult to convince 
 an intelligent student that unless he is willing to submit 
 himself to systematic training he will surely become 
 his own worst hindrance in the work he wants to do. 
 The minister, we have said, is not called upon to be a 
 specialist in any branch of science, and yet, if he is to 
 succeed in his purpose he must so far meet the temper 
 of the modern world as to specialize in something, and 
 at the risk of seeming vague or unpractical we have to 
 describe his field of specialization as the kingdom of 
 the spirit. It is a vague word, but only in the sense in 
 which the highest things always elude precise defini- 
 tion. When we are told that the letter killeth, but the 
 spirit maketh alive, we know what is meant. The 
 Christian doctrine of a Holy Spirit, the least definable 
 of all doctrines, is also the most easily understood. So 
 that when we say that the minister has to prepare him- 
 self to be a leader in the things of the spirit we have, 
 after all, set before him a fairly definite field of effort, 
 It is true that if the young man should come to his 
 teachers and say: " Go to, now; tell me all about the 
 life of the spirit and how I shall make it clear to other 
 people," he would meet and he would deserve to meet 
 with a smiling refusal. The wise teacher would remind
 
 THE MINISTER'S EDUCATION 279 
 
 him that the kingdom of God cometh not with obser- 
 vation. " Direct action," the favorite weapon of social 
 reform in our day, will not work here. The spirit can- 
 not be isolated and experimented with like a chemical 
 element or the bacillus of some special disease. It can 
 be known only as it expresses itself through human 
 action and human thought. The whole activity of a 
 man or a society must be permeated with a spiritual 
 content if he or it is to take a share in bringing about 
 the supreme consummation of a world set free from 
 servitude to material things. 
 
 While, therefore, it would seem folly to suggest a 
 department of spiritual leadership in the curriculum of 
 a theological school, it cannot be too strongly em- 
 phasized that all departments should be penetrated by 
 this one ultimate purpose. Scholarship, eloquence, 
 humanitarianism, administrative skill all these must 
 somehow be conceived as vehicles through which to 
 convey the one animating and consecrating spirit. 
 There can be no separation between positive acquire- 
 ment and that steady refining and clarifying of the 
 mind which is the mark of the truly educated man. 
 That this refining process goes on unconsciously does 
 not lessen its reality. It may be only at critical mo- 
 ments that it becomes perceptible to the pupil or to his 
 teachers, but these are precisely the test moments that 
 prove the reality of its progress. The education of the 
 modern minister, just as truly as that of the ancient 
 one, must begin, continue and I was about to say, 
 end, but caught myself in time and will say, go on as 
 long as he lives preserving this constant balance be-
 
 280 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 tween the things that can be learned outright and the 
 things that can only be felt as the inspiration and 
 justification of all the rest. 
 
 We come to the more concrete part of our subject, 
 the definite preparation of the Protestant minister. 
 And here, to begin somewhat before the beginning, and 
 at the risk of bringing down upon myself the reproach 
 of undemocracy, the most damning rebuke of the 
 hour, I venture to express at least the wish that the 
 minister's education might begin a few generations 
 before he is born. In other, but perhaps not less blame- 
 worthy language, it is a pity that our " best families," 
 define that as one may, should not contribute at least 
 their share of candidates for this profession. In saying 
 this I am not subscribing to the rather fatuous defense 
 of the English clerical system, that " it is a good thing 
 to have a gentleman in every parish," but I will go so 
 far as to say that gentle birth, in the best meaning of 
 that almost forgotten word, gives to a man a kind 
 of start in life that nothing else can supply. The 
 defiant democracy which begins with the assumption 
 that one man is as good as another, if not better, is 
 a poor foundation for effective leadership in the high- 
 est things. The word " background" has been played 
 with a good deal of late, but it serves a purpose. As 
 we at the university watch the constant stream of 
 young life flowing into the current of our academic 
 activities, we see now and then a youth, clean, intelli- 
 gent, modest, self-contained, efficient, on whom our 
 first comment is: "That boy has background." We 
 know nothing of his antecedents, but we feel instinc-
 
 THE MINISTER'S EDUCATION 281 
 
 lively a kind of quality that, bred in the bone, will 
 come out in the flesh, and we count upon him to fulfil 
 this promise of his birth. 
 
 Of such a youth we say: "Here is good stuff to work 
 upon. He can give and take. If we hit him there is a 
 good sound ring to him. Cut him and he bleeds." You 
 cannot polish punk; even the varnish with which you 
 try to coat it with a fictitious brilliance will not stand 
 the wear. The Christian ministry needs men of that 
 finer type whether they come out of palaces or tene- 
 ments, from the city or the prairie. Then, upon such a 
 foundation of quality there should be built up a struc- 
 ture of sound elementary training, as free as possible 
 from the quackeries of modern educational theorists. 
 Nothing that can be done later can ever quite make up 
 for the lack of such an early training. To it the man 
 owes the best he ever gets of those instinctive mental 
 habits that are the basis of success: quick perception, 
 ready appropriation, prompt turning from one mental 
 occupation to another, especially the all-important 
 capacity for voluntary concentration. These habits, 
 the most valuable part of all education, go back to per- 
 sistent practice in earliest youth. 
 
 Then, secondly, before the professional study, should 
 come a thorough course in the liberal arts. Perhaps 
 this may seem a quite superfluous remark, but prob- 
 ably few are aware how often in the recent past this 
 seemingly natural order of progression has been re- 
 versed. Theological seminaries have opened their 
 doors to youths of slender means more or less seriously 
 inclined to the ministry and finding there a kind of
 
 282 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 substitute for the education they could not otherwise 
 obtain. Afterward, if they persisted in their expressed 
 intention and could afford the time they would go to 
 a college and try to make up for the lack of previous 
 liberal training. In one of the New England states 
 there was and for aught I know there still is, an ar- 
 rangement between a college of good standing and a 
 theological school by which the college undertook to 
 receive such half prepared candidates and do what it 
 could for them. Out of so curiously inverted, not to 
 say perverted, an educational scheme exceptionally 
 gifted youths prevented by some untoward circum- 
 stance from following the natural order, may well have 
 drawn the essentials of a preparation for effective serv- 
 ice in the ministry, but certainly they would be the 
 last persons to counsel it as a normal method. 
 
 Within a comparatively recent time the require- 
 ment of an academic degree as a condition of entrance 
 into the better theological schools has set a standard 
 to which the country as a whole is more or less re- 
 luctantly assenting. In interpreting this standard, 
 however, there is still the widest opportunity for 
 evasion. What kind of a degree, from what kind of a 
 college, acquired by what kind of a course of study ? - 
 these are all questions answered very differently by in- 
 stitutions nominally standing on the same level. And 
 under the specious heading of "special students" the 
 temptation to whip the devil around this particular 
 stump has often proved irresistible. I recall a case of a 
 graduate of a theological school, himself a scholar of 
 extraordinary ability, recommending to his alma mater
 
 THE MINISTER'S EDUCATION 283 
 
 a raw youth with no qualifications except a wild desire 
 to reform everything, and never forgiving her the of- 
 fense of refusing to suspend all rules and admit him to 
 her membership. Perhaps the refusal was stimulated 
 by the recollection that that same school had been 
 nearly wrecked a generation earlier by listening to 
 similar appeals and receiving into its fellowship a 
 swarm of candidates from a bankrupt institution 
 whose only requirement for admission had been ex- 
 pressed good intentions and apparently good character. 
 This requirement of a previous liberal education 
 ought to be made absolute and be strictly interpreted. 
 The loss to the profession that may come from the re- 
 jection of an occasional exceptional candidate will be 
 more than made up by the general toning up of the 
 whole professional standard. I am using the word 
 "liberal "here in its proper sense of non-professional, or 
 to adopt the somewhat extravagant language of its 
 defenders, of "anything that is not useful." A liberal 
 education ought to prepare for everything as truly as 
 it seems to prepare for nothing in particular. It ought 
 to provide a basis for further study in any direction or 
 for what we are always speaking of as the opposite of 
 all further study, for "life." On the solid foundations 
 of a firm elementary training it ought to start the 
 young man on the beginnings of many subjects and 
 carry him pretty far along in a few. The problem for 
 every expectant professional student is to decide what 
 subjects will best advance his later professional pur- 
 pose. I have tried elsewhere l to suggest certain prin- 
 
 1 Pages 145 sqq.
 
 284 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 ciples by which the choice of subjects in college may 
 be determined and have expressed my opinion that in 
 general these subjects should not be too closely re- 
 lated to the future profession. 
 
 That principle, which I should be inclined to inter- 
 pret rather strictly for the lawyer, the physician or the 
 engineer, may be much more liberally construed for 
 the theologian. His professional studies will be so far 
 from strictly technical, that they may much more 
 wisely be commenced in the preparatory stage. In- 
 deed the most truly liberalizing studies are precisely 
 those which the theological candidate may most prof- 
 itably pursue in the years just before he enters upon 
 his professional work. It would be a fortunate cir- 
 cumstance if the youth entering college could be quite 
 assured of his purpose to enter the ministry of re- 
 ligion. It would give definiteness to his choice of 
 studies, and even if he should afterward change his 
 intention, the choice thus made would be as likely to 
 prove satisfactory as any other. 
 
 In what now should such a choice of college studies 
 for the future minister consist? I can answer this ques- 
 tion only for myself, realizing fully that it will be very 
 differently answered by others equally competent. 
 First of all I should lay weight upon the languages, 
 with especial reference to facility in reading them, with 
 careful attention to the essentials of grammar, but not 
 worrying oneself too much about refinements and ex- 
 ceptions. Latin, with its fatally unfamiliar idiom, 
 ought to be conquered to the point of easy reading. 
 Nothing can compare with such facility for value in
 
 THE MINISTER'S EDUCATION 285 
 
 every kind of study which the minister will be called 
 upon to make. Greek, infinitely more interesting and 
 not essentially more difficult as a language, is going to 
 have a more immediate value in first-hand study of 
 Scripture, but is far less important in all other re- 
 spects. If one could study only one of these two lan- 
 guages I should say, for linguistic training, for supreme 
 literary enjoyment, for illumination as to possibilities 
 of expression in words, choose Greek. But for practical 
 use as an instrument of further study in almost every 
 subject, Latin is to be advised. Fortunately the stu- 
 dent is not reduced to this alternative. There is time 
 enough in the eight years of his liberal preparation for 
 a good start in both, and further progress can easily be 
 assured by a very slight amount of regular practice in 
 reading matter bearing directly upon his professional 
 interest. 
 
 As to modern languages, they ought to be learned, so 
 to speak, "in his stride." It is idle to waste much time 
 on them in college, where the method of instruction is 
 necessarily of a kind least adapted to success. They 
 must be acquired if the student is not to be crippled 
 throughout his active life, but when once the linguistic 
 sense has been quickened by study of the classic 
 models, the modern idiom and the modern vocabulary 
 seem by comparison almost absurdly easy. 
 
 As to mathematics and the physical sciences: it 
 would be rather a pity if the future clergyman should 
 not add something in college to the beginnings already 
 made in the secondary school, but the proportion of 
 these studies must necessarily be small. The weight of
 
 286 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 his attention must be placed upon those subjects which 
 I venture to call, "without prejudice," the humane dis- 
 ciplines. By this we mean those studies which deal 
 primarily with man and his works. History in all its 
 aspects will give to the theological candidate the back- 
 ground for his study of the Church without which it 
 must always lack its most essential support. Eco- 
 nomics, theoretical and practical, will introduce him to 
 the principles of production and exchange which under- 
 lie all social problems. Philosophy on its historical and 
 its speculative sides will furnish his mind with the 
 training in pure reasoning which he will sorely need 
 when he comes to the problems of theological discus- 
 sion. 
 
 Then, first, last, and always there must run through 
 all other disciplines, the study which a great educa- 
 tional authority has declared to be the only one to be 
 required of every student, the English language. I 
 mean by this, not the "taking of courses" in literature 
 or, beyond a rather slight minimum, in composition. 
 I mean the constant watchfulness over the application 
 of the few formal rules of composition in one's own 
 speech and writing and in those of others. Especially 
 I would emphasize the importance for the theological 
 candidate of cultivating a civilized method of speaking, 
 equally removed from pedantry on the one hand and 
 from slouchiness on the other. Bearing in mind the 
 absence of any one precise standard of English speech, 
 it will be well worth his while to try to free his own 
 tongue from dialectic peculiarities and to purify his 
 vocabulary from such divagations from good usage as
 
 THE MINISTER'S EDUCATION 287 
 
 tend to obscure his thought or to weaken his power of 
 expression. Slang, delightful as it is in its aptness to 
 express an idea familiar to the moment, is sure to dull 
 the sense of values, that finer shading of meanings 
 which gives at once variety and definiteness to English 
 style. Dialects, it is true, are the life of language, and 
 it would be the height of stupidity to try to check their 
 resistless flow, but the educated man belongs to a cos- 
 mopolitan fraternity, whose password is a speech free 
 from marked provincialisms. The cultivated man in 
 Germany steers carefully between his datives and ac- 
 cusatives; in England he watches the placing of his 
 aspirates; in New England he ought not to need an "r" 
 between a final and an initial vowel and in the South 
 he ought to have overcome an over-fondness for 
 diphthongs. 
 
 The time to give attention to these apparently trif- 
 ling matters is during the years of preparation. It is 
 then that the subtle influences which have formed the 
 habits of expression can be counteracted by conscious 
 effort. And what is true here of speech is equally true 
 of writing. The first simple principles of English prose 
 writing can be and should be fixed in the course of a 
 sound elementary education. Practice in carrying out 
 these principles should be continuous throughout one's 
 whole period of study. I am not recommending the 
 taking of courses in composition except as they offer 
 opportunities for sympathetic and searching criticism. 
 The value of such criticism is almost entirely a matter 
 of personality, and it is rarely that the college instruc- 
 tor can rise very much above the level of rules of
 
 288 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 thumb or some pet formulas aiming at literary "cor- 
 rectness." The most insidious snare of the ministerial 
 candidate is literariness in any of its alluring forms. 
 The moment he finds himself achieving "fine writing" 
 is the moment for calling a halt and toning himself 
 down to the plain standards of clearness and accuracy. 
 It will be time enough to indulge in eloquence when 
 the passion of his apostleship really grips him, and 
 then there will be no question of literary workman- 
 ship. The training he has all along been acquiring will 
 then come to his help, saving him from extravagance 
 and showing him instinctively how to drive his mes- 
 sage home. The weightiness of the message will be the 
 sufficient ballast against exuberance or affectation. 
 
 I would not disparage too greatly direct academic 
 instruction in these matters of expression, but I am 
 convinced that its influence is feeble in comparison 
 with that which may come from the persistent reading 
 of the best models. It may sound superfluous to urge 
 upon young men bound for this or any other literary 
 profession to cultivate during their academic years the 
 habit of reading. Two generations ago this caution 
 would have been less needed. At that time the require- 
 ments of college were deliberately set so that abundant 
 leisure might be left for that kind of reading which was 
 then thought of as something lying rather beyond the 
 scope of academic work. Meanwhile the programs of 
 college instruction have been expanded to include 
 every conceivable variety of intellectual occupation. 
 Every corner of every known subject has been made the 
 subject of special instruction. Leisure, that delightful
 
 THE MINISTER'S EDUCATION 289 
 
 otium which is neither idleness nor "grind," has pretty 
 much disappeared from the horizon of the serious stu- 
 dent, so that now attempts are being made to re- 
 introduce it as a part of his regular discipline. The 
 latest addition to the resources of a great university 
 library is a room, luxuriously furnished and equipped 
 with a noble selection of the best literature open freely 
 to the use of all students. The attendant informs me 
 that one of her chief duties is to prevent the abuse of 
 this room for purposes of systematic study. 
 
 The effect of reading in determining one's own forms 
 of expression must depend largely upon temperament. 
 A reader who, so to speak, reads aloud to himself, 
 catching the rhythm of the writer, might well find him- 
 self so absorbed by the subtlety of the style that his 
 own writing would be a mere imitation of a model. 
 Another, reading without ever forming to himself the 
 writer's sentences, but catching the meaning by a kind 
 of intuition, would receive no impression whatever 
 from the style. Such a reader would probably do well 
 to subject himself to instruction, hoping to acquire 
 something of that sensitiveness to form which will 
 help him to analyze his own efforts and gradually to 
 improve in effectiveness. An ancient friend of mine, a 
 man of taste, singularly detached from all human obli- 
 gations, used to say that of all men he preferred the 
 society of Unitarian clergymen, because they were the 
 only people left who read books. Other clergymen 
 read only what they needed for their doctrinal pur- 
 poses, and the rest of the world did not read at all. It 
 was a judgment about as true as epigrammatic judg-
 
 290 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 ments are likely to be, but the fragment of truth it 
 contained is worth remarking. It was passed a genera- 
 tion ago, and we may well ask ourselves whether the 
 rush of human life in the interval is likely to have made 
 a change for the better. Certainly the clergyman can 
 form no more valuable habit in his habit-forming 
 years than this of serious and continuous reading. 
 
 If we have been right in assuming that the modern 
 minister is above all else a man among men, claiming 
 no superiority but that which comes from training and 
 personality, it follows that beginning with his academic 
 years, he ought to cultivate every opportunity of 
 gaining that knowledge of other men which is the 
 secret of social influence. He should combat with 
 especial determination every tendency to aloofness 
 from the interests of his mates. If these seem trifling 
 or aimless to him, he may be sure that it is not wholly 
 because they are really so, but partly at least because 
 of some deficiency in himself which will work against 
 his largest usefulness. He ought to try to identify him- 
 self with their sports, their social organizations, their 
 petty politics, using his clearer vision, if he has it, to 
 guide them into better and wiser ways. In such effort 
 he will find guidance for himself and may be laying the 
 foundations for those qualities of leadership on which 
 his future success is to depend. Here in the little world 
 of the college he can learn something of the great lesson 
 of keeping oneself in the world, but always just enough 
 above it to lift it up a little to higher levels of thought 
 and action. 
 
 So we come to the question which is our main topic,
 
 THE MINISTER'S EDUCATION 291 
 
 the strictly professional training of the modern min- 
 ister. Supposing our preliminary demands to have 
 been met, what more is there to be required? Some 
 great authorities would reply: nothing more than a 
 continuation for as long as seems practicable of the 
 same kind of training in much the same subjects as 
 those already pursued. Such counsellors would, in 
 other words, be inclined to doubt the usefulness of all 
 schools of theology, strictly so-called. They might 
 favor the establishment in our universities of chairs of 
 dogmatic exposition, to be as free as possible from 
 sectarian control, but otherwise they would be con- 
 tented to let the candidate for the ministry acquire his 
 knowledge of languages, of Church History, and of so- 
 cial obligations from teachers provided in the several 
 academic departments most closely related to his 
 future profession. Of course, as enlightened men of 
 their time, they would urge that in the appointment of 
 university professors, the needs of expectant clergy- 
 men should be consulted as well as those of other pro- 
 fessional candidates. It is now about one generation 
 since a plan of this sort was laid before the Faculty of 
 Theology of an important university by a president to 
 whom the interests of theological study were a matter 
 of very deep concern. He believed that those interests 
 would be better served by abandoning frankly all at- 
 tempts at framing a theological curriculum and turn- 
 ing the candidate loose in the alluring fields of history, 
 economics, languages, social science and what not, 
 requiring only that his studies should be pursued 
 seriously and with "high credit." It was very instruc-
 
 292 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 tive to note the unanimity with which the Faculty, 
 irrespective of departments, of age and of previous 
 training, rejected the proposition. 
 
 That Faculty believed that back of all proficiency in 
 his several studies there must be for the successful 
 minister a professional character, and that this char- 
 acter could best be acquired by the pursuit of a certain 
 group of studies under the guidance of a group of men 
 professionally interested in their task. Within this 
 limitation they were willing to allow the largest liberty 
 of choice and to recognize, subject to their approval, 
 the instruction of men not members of their group as 
 equally entitled to credit for the theological degree. 
 It is with this group of subjects that we are here spe- 
 cially concerned. It should be noted that almost all of 
 them are in varying degrees continuing studies, begun 
 at one or another stage of the preliminary training. 
 The new thing about them all is their relation to the 
 professional purpose. 
 
 First of all is the study of the Bible. No sophistry of 
 a too ready liberalism can obscure the fact that Chris- 
 tianity, however we may define it, rests upon a body of 
 written material, and it would seem to follow, beyond 
 all cavil, that the minister of Christianity ought to be 
 fortified, above all else, with a commanding knowledge 
 of this literature. It ought to be fair to assume that he 
 brings with him to his professional school a familiarity 
 with the English version of both the ancient and the 
 newer Scriptures, but even this is to-day a rather bold 
 assumption. Anyone who has tested the knowledge of 
 the Bible possessed by the Senior class in a respectable
 
 THE MINISTER'S EDUCATION 293 
 
 college will need no further evidence of the neglect into 
 which the foundation documents of the religion all 
 these youths profess have fallen. Even granting that 
 the theological candidate will probably be rather 
 better off in this respect, it remains true that he will 
 need a great deal of practice before he can be sure of 
 the kind of familiarity with the English versions that 
 will stand by him in the emergencies of his profession. 
 But this familiarity is far from sufficient for his best 
 success. 
 
 In opening up again the much discussed question of 
 study in the original languages of the Scriptures, I am 
 aware that there is not much left to be said on either 
 side of the argument. Against the requirement of a 
 study of Hebrew and Greek it is alleged, with much 
 show of reason, that the individual clergyman is not 
 likely to reach such proficiency as will entitle his opin- 
 ion to have any weight whatever in comparison with 
 the matured judgment of the scholars who have given 
 their best powers to provide the English versions. For 
 all practical purposes, it is said, these versions supply 
 him with all the knowledge of Scripture he will ever 
 need. Why then spend the precious time of his all too 
 short preparation in painfully acquiring the rudiments 
 of this unnecessary learning? The argument is as spe- 
 cious as the dictum of the sage let us call him Emerson 
 - that he would never read an original if he could get 
 a good translation. Our English versions, noble and 
 beautiful as they are, faithful in the main to the general 
 import of the texts, are burdened with archaisms, are 
 influenced by the theological assumptions of the trans-
 
 294 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 lators, and are often obscure in their manifold impli- 
 cations. Phrases hallowed by usage in ways never 
 dreamed of by their writers, demand continued inter- 
 pretation by every possible scholarly aid. To give such 
 interpretation is the business of teachers; but even to 
 understand it is impossible without some fairly ade- 
 quate knowledge of the original languages. 
 Martin Luther was right when he said: 
 
 This we cannot deny, that, although the Gospel came 
 apd daily comes through the Holy Spirit alone, still it came 
 through the medium of the languages, has grown by them 
 and must be preserved by them. According as we love the 
 Gospel, let us eagerly study the languages, and let us not 
 forget that we cannot well hold the Gospel firm without 
 them. The languages are the sheath in which the dagger of 
 the Spirit rests; they are the casket wherein this jewel is 
 enshrined; the chalice wherein this drink is borne. Because 
 the languages have now come to the fore they are bringing 
 such a light and doing such mighty things that all the 
 world marvels. Therefore, although the Doctrine and the 
 Gospel may be preached by simple preachers without the 
 languages, yet this is a dull and weak affair and men at last 
 tire of it and after all fall to the ground. But where the 
 languages are, there all is fresh and vigorous, the text is 
 made clear, and Faith is ever renewed through new and 
 ever new words and works. 1 
 
 I am not advocating an absolute requirement of 
 either Greek or Hebrew for the first degree in Theology, 
 but I do think it a pity that any really serious student 
 
 1 M. Luther, An die Ratherren aller Staedte deutsches Lands, dass sie 
 christliche Schulen aufrichten und halten sollen. 1524. Weimar ed. XV, 
 37-4*.
 
 THE MINISTER'S EDUCATION 295 
 
 who desires to be something more than a "simple 
 preacher" should neglect the opportunity of help 
 offered by his teachers to acquire a working command 
 of both. For a higher theological degree I would make 
 them an ordinary requirement. I urge this careful 
 study of the original documents fully appreciating the 
 mass of material that has accumulated upon them to 
 such a depth that they are almost buried out of sight, 
 but realizing also, perhaps a little better than the en- 
 thusiastic youth, how in every time of crisis men are 
 ready to throw off this whole superincumbent mass 
 and go back to the first simple problem of the meaning 
 of the Christian message. It is for such critical mo- 
 ments that the student should consciously prepare 
 himself. If he is to lead then, he must get ready now. 
 Next to biblical studies we may fairly place that 
 group for which there is no better name than " his- 
 torical." Christianity is an historical phenomenon, 
 originating in a profoundly interesting human situa- 
 tion, developed through progressive human activities, 
 of which the making of a literature is one, and em- 
 bodied in institutions that have played their often 
 decisive part in the larger movements of humanity. 
 It would seem, therefore, to need no argument to prove 
 that historical studies are of the greatest importance 
 for the student of Christianity. In fact the historical 
 point of view as contrasted with the supernatural or 
 inspirational theory of Christian origins and develop- 
 ments is a thing of quite recent times. It is rejected by 
 vast sections of the Christian world as destructive of 
 all those traditions they hold most precious. If the
 
 296 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 Protestant ministry is to defend itself against such 
 assumptions, it must be rooted and grounded in wide 
 and, in the best sense, scientific study of the Christian 
 past. Only by this study can it prepare itself for the 
 insidious attacks of an agressive institutionalism on the 
 one hand and a self-sufficient individualism on the other. 
 There are three branches of historical study espe- 
 cially important for the minister. The first is that of 
 institutions, the events by which they have been de- 
 termined, and their manifold interrelations with the 
 parallel movement of society as a whole. A good deal 
 of this kind of Church History can profitably be stud- 
 ied in college, the more the better, since it furnishes a 
 very good thread on which to hang the study of "secu- 
 lar" history. It would be an excellent thing if the pro- 
 fessional school could afford to assume such historical 
 knowledge and go on from it to the other two branches 
 of more purely technical inquiry. The first of these 
 two is the history of doctrines, or, to give it a more in- 
 telligent name, the history of Christian Thought. 
 That name is better because it expresses a more com- 
 prehensive idea of Christian progress on its intellectual 
 side. It opens the way for an equal emphasis upon 
 those movements of thought dignified by the reproach 
 of "heresy" and by that very fact commends itself to 
 those who would be repelled by any suggestion of 
 dogmatism. I venture to refer to my own experience 
 as witness to the illuminating effect of bringing this 
 truly historical way of looking at the thought of Chris- 
 tian teachers to the attention of young minds hitherto 
 accustomed only to the way of dogmatic teaching and
 
 THE MINISTER'S EDUCATION 297 
 
 docile acceptance. Instead of a series of formal creeds, 
 elaborated by human ingenuity at critical epochs, 
 the doctrine of Christianity, studied in this way, be- 
 comes a record of continuous honest attempts to un- 
 derstand and to express the ideas it had to contribute 
 to the world's religious thought. 
 
 Stimulating to the historical sense as such study of 
 purely Christian thought must be, the third topic 
 under this heading will be even more so. Still more 
 recent in time, the subject of the History of Religion has 
 taken its place in the academic world with astonishing 
 rapidity and gratifying success. Its mission has been 
 to show Christianity as one among the great religions 
 of the world, not the earliest nor the latest, not even in 
 any abstract sense the best or the worst, certainly not 
 the last form under which the religious instinct of man- 
 kind is to express itself. It has helped to abolish for- 
 ever that hopeless distinction between "natural" and 
 "revealed" religion, as if the ways of God to man were 
 different at different times. It has demonstrated, as 
 nothing else has done or could do, the essential unity of 
 the religious principle and therefore the essential 
 dignity of every attempt to give to this principle a 
 form suited to the needs of a given time. The preacher 
 of Christianity ought to find his apostleship not 
 weakened by familiarity with other types of faith, but 
 clarified and strengthened. On the practical side, he 
 cannot afford to forget that the rivalry of religions is as 
 active to-day as it ever was, and that at any moment it 
 may flame out into a conflict beside which the clash of 
 political structures would be the sport of children.
 
 298 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 We come thus to the study which forms the central 
 point of the minister's preparation, the study of what, 
 in spite of much opposition, still figures on the pro- 
 grams as Systematic Theology. If the first qualifica- 
 tion of the historian is freedom from all personal and 
 partisan bias, no such demand can be made upon the 
 theologian when he leaves the field of historical inquiry 
 and passes over into that of speculative thought. If 
 we say that the historian must be "objective," as free 
 as possible from "subjectivity," we have to admit that 
 the theologian must be permitted just the opposite 
 standard. If his conclusions are to have any value 
 whatever, they must be his conclusions, and not those 
 of any one else. His foundations may be drawn from 
 every possible source, but the structure of faith he 
 builds upon them is his own if it is anything. The prob- 
 lem of the theological teacher is, therefore, a peculiarly 
 delicate one. He cannot make his instruction imper- 
 sonal, unless he is willing to look upon himself as 
 merely the mouthpiece of an authority which has 
 dictated to him what he may or must think, a vehicle 
 by which the material thus received is to be handed on 
 undiminished and uncorrupted to his hearers. That 
 was the ancient conception of the teacher of systematic 
 theology, the retailer of a system so complete and so 
 well authenticated that it could be handed on from 
 generation to generation with a minimum of intel- 
 lectual effort. 
 
 The modern clergyman cannot be content with that 
 kind of formalism. He demands an appeal to his own 
 powers of reflection and his own sense of religious
 
 THE MINISTER'S EDUCATION 299 
 
 truth. He asks of his instructors, not the formal state- 
 ment of the confession with which he is to be connected 
 in his ministerial work, but some principle of thought 
 by which he can interpret for himself the content of 
 what is presented to him as Christian truth. It was 
 very instructive to observe that at a summer school of 
 theology held by a "liberal" faculty of theology, the 
 largest attendance through a series of years came from 
 a denomination which above all others claims for itself 
 a special authority in matters of faith. It would be 
 well for the theological candidate if he could bring 
 himself to regard all his other work, languages, history, 
 philosophy as so many contributions to this one central 
 object of his preparation for life. If as the result he 
 finds his inherited beliefs strengthened and illuminated 
 it will be well with him. If he finds them weakened or 
 even destroyed, that will be only the proof that he is on 
 the way to a clearer and more satisfying view. The 
 prevailing contempt for theological study is chiefly 
 owing to the dead-and-alive method with which it was 
 formerly conducted. Rightly interpreted it will re- 
 assert its claim to be in the true sense a "science," per- 
 haps even in due lime to take its place as the " regina 
 scientiarum " of the Erasmian age. 
 
 Whether there is as yet such a thing as a science of 
 Sociology is an open question into which we do not 
 need to enter. It is not very difficult to show that 
 Sociology can be understood to embrace all sciences 
 that have to do with human life, in other words to in- 
 clude the whole volume of the knowable; but that is 
 only a pretty game that can be played with almost any
 
 300 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 branch of human knowledge. What concerns the theo- 
 logical candidate is that there is certainly a group of 
 subjects about which much practical knowledge is 
 attainable and which, in their application to human 
 living, touch very nearly the daily work of the Chris- 
 tian minister. So insistent indeed have the claims of 
 these subjects become in recent years, that they have 
 seemed dangerously near to crowding out all the other 
 branches of ministerial education. They have been an 
 accompaniment, perhaps also a result of the rapid 
 spread of social ideas that have seemed to place the 
 body, its safety, its comfort, its convenience, its pres- 
 ervation in the forefront of our interests. From 
 "drainage to divorce," we have had to run the gamut 
 of social unrest and social reform. It has been a 
 splendid display of energy, and its work seems only 
 begun. 
 
 The question for the theological student is, how far 
 it is worth his while to go in these apparently necessary 
 and certainly very attractive subjects. In answering 
 this question he ought, I think, to put away from him 
 all thought of expertness. If he once allows that stand- 
 ard to rise before him, he is sure to be undone. Others 
 will certainly get ahead of him, and his time and atten- 
 tion, withdrawn from other things, will be wasted. 
 The best he can do is to inform himself as to the nature 
 of the social problems suggested by the several topics 
 of inquiry, make some acquaintance with their litera- 
 ture and with the agencies at work in the various fields, 
 and then try to see if he can how they are all bound to- 
 gether by some common principle of religious obliga-
 
 THE MINISTER'S EDUCATION 301 
 
 tion. If he cannot or will not do this, he had better 
 quit the profession of the ministry altogether before it 
 is too late and join the procession of the disillusioned 
 who have turned to the many forms of "social service" 
 and found there the kind of usefulness they would 
 never have attained as messengers of a religious gospel. 
 But, it will be asked, can this kind of spiritual inter- 
 pretation of the social call be set forth in any formal 
 instruction ? Is not that something that each man must 
 work out for himself in the long travail of his parish 
 experience? Well, that depends almost entirely on the 
 quality of the teacher. It is a rare man who can so lift 
 both himself and his pupils above the raw details of the 
 social struggle as to clear them from their manifold 
 perplexities and show them in the perspective of their 
 simple relation to the ministry of Christian hope. If 
 the pupil is fortunate enough to come within the in- 
 fluence of such a teacher, he is not likely to go far 
 wrong in yielding to its persuasions. If not, he will do 
 well to keep pretty safely within the limits of the detail 
 I have suggested and try to work out for himself the 
 needful applications to his professional work. 
 
 We come finally to that group of studies which have 
 to do with the outward expression of whatever the 
 student may gain from all his other occupations. 
 Much that might be said here has been anticipated in 
 our references to preliminary training. The work in 
 English writing, begun in the elementary school, con- 
 tinued and amplified in the high school and in college, 
 must be carried forward with especial application to 
 the minister's needs. If it is true that the central in-
 
 302 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 terest of the Protestant minister is in the moral and 
 religious appeal to the individual, it would seem to 
 follow without question that the center of the student's 
 interest, so far as this matter of expression is concerned 
 should be the preparation of the sermon. And yet I 
 venture to think that there is no department of theo- 
 logical education that is likely to receive a more step- 
 motherly treatment than this. With the increasing 
 emphasis upon "scholarship" that has marked the 
 great advance in equipment in all other fields, the arts 
 of expression have been crowded into corners. They 
 have been degraded by association with "elocution- 
 ary" performance and, in so far as they have yielded 
 to these depressing influences they have earned a well- 
 merited contempt. The fact remains, however, that 
 the minister as well as the actor must "get it across," 
 not indeed by the same methods God forbid! but 
 with equal attention to the process. "Do you think it 
 is possible," asked the committee of a metropolitan 
 church in the midst of a business district, "to hold a 
 congregation any longer in this place?" "Certainly," 
 replied the pastor who favored a removal "I could 
 pack this church every Sunday if I would stand on my 
 head in the pulpit." It is not the arts of the mounte- 
 bank that we have to consider, but on the other hand 
 it is idle to forget that speaking and writing are arts 
 that can be taught and must be learned if the highest 
 efficiency is to be attained. The clergyman who 
 mounts his pulpit with a hang-dog expression, who 
 never looks his congregation in the face, who mumbles 
 his words, who misplaces his emphasis, who stumbles
 
 THE MINISTER'S EDUCATION 303 
 
 over his reading, who bellows about nothing and whis- 
 pers the essential point, may be filled with the breath 
 of the Holy Spirit, but what use is it if he cannot get 
 it out? 
 
 Much hearing of sermons by many preachers should 
 convince any one that the drift in recent years toward 
 what is called ex tempore preaching needs careful 
 watching. The argument for it is very specious. It is 
 said that the free speaker comes more closely into 
 touch with the listener, that there is a spontaneity 
 about his utterance that holds the attention and wins 
 the sympathy of an audience. That is, of course, pre- 
 cisely what the young preacher wants to do, and he is 
 easily led to believe that the way to do it is to begin 
 with free speaking. The matter of what he has to say 
 is a secondary consideration; even the form of his 
 speech may be overlooked. The main thing is to 
 speak "without notes," not to hesitate, to keep going, 
 to look the people in the face, not " to let a manuscript 
 stand between himself and them." All that has a very 
 seductive sound, but many a useful preacher has been 
 wrecked upon this shoal. The analogy between the ex 
 tempore speaker and the writer of "free verse" is in- 
 structive. One cannot help suspecting that the free- 
 versifier is that because he lacks the power and the 
 discipline to express himself in more canonical form, 
 and the same suspicion rests upon the too ready 
 preacher. He too may well be trying to "get by" with- 
 out the effort of shaping his thought in more logical 
 and therefore more convincing form. The whole ques- 
 tion was never put more acutely than by the late
 
 304 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 Phillips Brooks in an answer I once heard him make to 
 an inquiring student who had asked him whether he 
 thought the ex tempore sermon was preferable to the 
 written one. "I don't think it makes any difference" 
 said the great preacher "provided only that the ser- 
 mon was once ex tempore." That touched the very root 
 of the matter. The freely spoken sermon may lack 
 every trace of the ex tempore quality, and the written 
 sermon may glow with all the fervor of inspired utter- 
 ance. It all depends upon whether at the moment of 
 its production, in the study or in the pulpit, the 
 preacher's own soul was on fire with the message he 
 had to give. 
 
 I have stood for hours in the midst of standing 
 throngs crowding the nave of a great cathedral and 
 listening to preachers trained with all the art of a noble 
 tradition driving home to the deepest consciousness of 
 their hearers what they believed to be the essential 
 truths of Christianity. Every word and sentence of 
 those sermons was placed in accordance with pre- 
 scribed rules, but they came forth in torrential floods, 
 as if they had but that moment taken shape in the 
 speaker's mind. Awe-stricken faces, many with 
 streaming tears, were the witness to the convincing 
 force of this well prepared, but seemingly spontaneous 
 eloquence. There is no doubt that skill in ex tempore 
 discourse can be cultivated and that it is worth culti- 
 vating. I am only cautioning the beginner against a 
 false order of proceeding. Let him be sure that his gun 
 is well loaded before he tries to fire it. 
 
 One more subject in this group of the expressive arts
 
 THE MINISTER'S EDUCATION 305 
 
 remains to be considered. Under the heading of " pas- 
 toral care "or "the minister's office" or by whatever 
 other phrase it may be described, the personal relation 
 of the pastor to his people is the most delicate and 
 the most elusive of all his responsibilities. What the 
 sermon is to the congregation as a whole that is the 
 pastoral visit or the passing word or the friendly mes- 
 sage to the individual parishioner. One is tempted to 
 dismiss this function of the minister without further 
 comment as too intimate for any effective academic 
 treatment. One fears that any formal instruction given 
 classwise would degenerate into laying down certain 
 "tricks of the trade" by which the novice might simu- 
 late the feeling he cannot really have and tide himself 
 over the first and worst emotional strain of professional 
 sympathy. It is even a debatable question whether 
 this side of the minister's traditional activities may 
 not well be eliminated altogether or deputed to as- 
 sistants specially gifted. One cannot be everything, it 
 is said, and the community may think itself fortunate 
 if it secures from its clergyman one or two kinds of 
 service, without reproaching him for failure in the 
 rest. 
 
 The answer to these doubts and objections is this: 
 that it is precisely in this personal contact with the 
 pressing realities in the daily life of the men and 
 women about him, that the minister finds the unfailing 
 source of inspiration for all his other activities. In the 
 experiences of his people he sees reflected the interests 
 that are engaging the masses of society as a whole. 
 From them he learns what subjects of study may best
 
 306 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 reward the time he has for study. In the joys and sor- 
 rows of their lives he touches the springs of motive 
 that give the clue for the moral appeal of his sermon. 
 From them he may draw lessons of hope and courage 
 that will help to sustain him in the perplexities of his 
 own exacting duties. Undoubtedly it is more true here 
 than elsewhere that the real preparation for the work 
 must come in the doing of it; but here too there is 
 abundant opportunity for anticipation. There are 
 teachers who, out of their own experience, can point 
 out the snares that beset the path of the untried youth 
 venturing for the first time into the intimacies of parish 
 duty. There are cautions to be given and positive 
 suggestions to be made on many points that would 
 otherwise escape the novice. Better still there are en- 
 couragements and compensations to be pointed out 
 that may remove many honest scruples and unneces- 
 sary anxieties. 
 
 And this leads me to revert for a moment to a sug- 
 gestion made in passing, that the education of the 
 minister may profitably be extended beyond the close 
 of his academic years by something like an apprentice- 
 ship in the workshop of a senior craftsman. An apology 
 for such a system exists indeed in the doubtful, if not 
 wholly pernicious practice of permitting students of 
 theology to undertake regular or substitute duties dur- 
 ing their academic residence. Much observation leads 
 me to think that this practice is as unwise as it would 
 be to permit students in law or medicine to practice 
 their professions. The time of preparation is too pre- 
 cious to be invaded by the all too engrossing demands
 
 THE MINISTER'S EDUCATION 307 
 
 of practice. Such objection does not in the least apply 
 to the apprenticeship plan. There, working under the 
 supervision of an experienced guide, the young man is 
 given his opportunity to try his strength in ways 
 suited to his stage of development. Above all he may 
 be steered among the rocks and shoals of pastoral duty 
 until the rudder is safe in his hands. There ought to be 
 between every school of theology and some group of 
 parishes a standing agreement for this prolongation of 
 the minister's education. It would strengthen the 
 school and it would be a guarantee to the parishes of a 
 continuous supply of useful assistance. 
 
 These are the four groups of studies, no one of which 
 the candidate for the modern ministry can afford to 
 neglect. In the linguistic he prepares his foundations. 
 In the historical he makes his background. In the 
 social he finds the program for his systematic activities, 
 and in the expressive he sharpens the tools he has to 
 work with. The proportion in which each group shall 
 enter into his preparation is a problem for every in- 
 dividual. The best that experience can do is to point 
 out the values and leave the decision where finally it 
 must always rest, in the hopeful enthusiasm of those 
 whose experience is yet to come.
 
 THE PLACE OF HISTORY IN 
 THEOLOGICAL STUDY 
 
 AN ADDRESS TO THEOLOGICAL STUDENTS 
 
 AT a recent conference of teachers and students of 
 History I was engaged in conversation by a per- 
 son whom I judged to belong to the race of so-called 
 "Educators," and who proceeded to enlighten me with 
 his views about History. "The trouble with our His- 
 tory nowadays," he declared, "is that it is too retro- 
 spective," and during the rather bad quarter of an hour 
 which he gave me this phrase kept recurring like a 
 refrain in his discourse: "Our History nowadays is 
 too retrospective!" Precisely what he meant I did not 
 discover. Whether he had some vague idea that His- 
 tory ought to concern itself more with the present or 
 with the future was not clear, nor did it, in his case, 
 make any very great difference. He had got his phrase, 
 and that, for an Educator, is the main thing. 
 
 More important, however, was the remark which 
 I once heard made by one of my colleagues in this 
 Faculty that he sometimes feared that our teaching of 
 Theology he was using the word in its larger mean- 
 ing was too historical. That remark I thought I 
 understood, and it was and is worthy of consideration. 
 It meant, I suppose, that we were inclined, in planning 
 our courses of study, to give especial weight to those 
 dealing with the historical aspects of our general sub- 
 ject, and our colleague thought that we ought to en- 
 
 309
 
 3 io LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 large the scope of our program, so as to change the 
 balance of interest rather to the side of what were 
 coming to be called the more practical aspects of the 
 profession for which we were supposed to be preparing 
 young men. 
 
 The suggestion was a certain challenge to those who 
 were more specially concerned with the obviously his- 
 torical side of our common work, to examine anew the 
 nature of their contribution to the total result and to 
 ask themselves whether they were in fact asking too 
 large a share of the attention of men who were, after 
 all, mainly concerned with preparing themselves to 
 help along in the struggle of the present and were nat- 
 urally looking forward to an uncertain but infinitely 
 appealing future. As soon as this examination began it 
 became evident that the term "historical" could not 
 be confined to those subjects which were offered as 
 parts of a course in what used to be called "Historical 
 Theology," in other words, to the department of 
 Church History. If we use the word historical as im- 
 plying simply a relation with the past it is clear that it 
 applies equally well to the study of the languages in 
 which the fundamental documents of Christianity are 
 written. The mind of the student of Hebrew or Greek 
 is turned toward the past even though he restrict him- 
 self for the moment to the most purely linguistic as- 
 pects of his study. The dullest pupil of the dullest 
 teacher cannot fail to have some intuition that these 
 grammatical puzzles were once the living forms of ex- 
 pression of human beings who had something to say 
 and who said it so well that their words have never
 
 HISTORY IN THEOLOGICAL STUDY 311 
 
 been allowed to fade out of the consciousness of the 
 generations who have followed them. No matter how 
 blind the professional linguist may have become to the 
 humane aspects of his study and Heaven knows he 
 has been blind enough he has never been able quite 
 to ignore them and in spite of him they have reasserted 
 themselves whenever humanely minded persons have 
 called attention to them. In other words the historical 
 nature of linguistic study becomes evident the moment 
 one gets away from the mere words to the living per- 
 sonality that lies behind them. The study of language, 
 if it is a live study, is a study of history. If it is not a 
 study of history it is a dead study. 
 
 A similar line of reflection is forced upon us when 
 we consider the more distinctively speculative side of 
 theological study or, if you please, theology proper. 
 Here, obviously, is a field in which the purely subjec- 
 tive element of personal opinion and personal judg- 
 ment plays a predominant part. There can be no such 
 thing as a theology which is not somebody's theology. 
 If it be the theology of a certain teacher, it must have 
 its sources somewhere outside of his own mind. These 
 sources cannot be wholly in the influences of the pres- 
 ent, however powerful these may be. They must, 
 therefore, be drawn from the past, and thus here again 
 we find ourselves in the region of the historical. The 
 speculative theologian, the moment he tries to give 
 account to himself of the faith that is in him, is inev- 
 itably drawn away from himself into the company of 
 those who through all the ages before him have busied 
 themselves with the same problems. In agreement
 
 3 i2 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 with them he finds the support of his own conclusions. 
 In his differences from them he is led to sharper defini- 
 tions of his own faith and to higher sanctions for his 
 own certainties. Individualist though he may be, he 
 cannot escape the past. If as a teacher he tries to make 
 clear to others the results of his own thought, he finds 
 the best method to be a comparison with the thoughts 
 of those who have gone before him. In other words he 
 is almost inevitably led into a more or less formal ex- 
 position of the history of the ideas he has formulated 
 for himself. 
 
 In these two important divisions of the theological 
 program then, the linguistic and the speculative, we 
 find a large historical element thrusting itself insist- 
 ently upon the attention of any one who busies himself 
 in these fields. So evident has this become to the 
 makers of academic programs that gradually spe- 
 cifically historical courses have been added to the 
 offerings within the narrower departmental limits. 
 Histories of the Hebrew people, early and late; his- 
 tories of the related Semites; histories of the peoples 
 first reached by the teaching of Jesus; histories of 
 Christian doctrines; histories of philosophic systems as 
 adjuncts to speculative theology. Indeed signs have 
 not been wanting that these more specifically historical 
 studies might in time crowd out the other more strictly 
 technical subjects, or at any rate crowd them into such 
 narrow limits that their vitality would be seriously en- 
 dangered. The indifference to purely linguistic studies 
 which has so strongly marked all academic discussion 
 in the last generation has been projected into the field
 
 HISTORY IN THEOLOGICAL STUDY 313 
 
 of theology. We have had to be satisfied with know- 
 ing something about things instead of knowing the 
 things themselves. A similar indifference as to the- 
 ological opinions has had similar results in turning men 
 from vigorous and independent thinking to the record 
 of what other men have thought. In both cases the 
 historical has been asserting itself with increasing 
 effect as against the technical. 
 
 There remains to be considered the third division of 
 theological studies, those commonly described as the 
 practical studies, the duties of the minister, the admin- 
 istration of all that activity now known as "social 
 service," the cultivation of the more purely religious 
 aspects of the pastoral life. Here at least, one might 
 suppose, would be found a region into which the his- 
 torical element has not penetrated. Yet, even here the 
 attention of students has been directed to the achieve- 
 ments of their predecessors in the work of the ministry, 
 the sermons, for example, of famous preachers from 
 Chrysostom to Brooks, the history of philanthropic 
 experiments, the great works of meditative piety that 
 have survived from the " ages of faith." So that, 
 whichever way we turn, we find our studies permeated 
 throughout by this legacy of the past. It may well be 
 that our colleague was right in raising the question 
 whether our program were not too historical. 
 
 Certainly since that question was raised there has 
 been a notable change of emphasis in most of the dis- 
 cussions upon this point. More and more we have been 
 reminded that the practical studies must be given a 
 larger share in our consideration. We have even been
 
 3 1 4 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 threatened that if we failed to hear this warning our 
 students, present and prospective, would take the mat- 
 ter into their own hands and simply leave on one side 
 all those studies which seemed to them too historical 
 to be of any use. Alluring pictures have been drawn of 
 a preparation for the ministry in which air the "dead" 
 things should be eliminated and only those things that 
 were alive in the living present should be retained. The 
 ministry, it has been said, must share with all other 
 professions the great advance in all practical ways that 
 has marked our century. The historical must be sub- 
 ordinated to the actual. 
 
 All this is inspiring and in its way admirable. This 
 new enthusiasm of humanity, with all its crudenesses 
 and vaguenesses, cannot fail to have its splendid re- 
 actions upon the thought and the activities of the 
 youth who are coming under its quickening influence. 
 None the less, but rather the more is it incumbent 
 upon those who are more directly concerned with the 
 study of the past from time to time to justify their ex- 
 istence by showing, if they can, the true practicality of 
 the disciplines they represent. We can no longer ask 
 young men to accept an educational system merely on 
 the strength of its antiquity. I should like, therefore, 
 to indicate very briefly what seem to me some of the 
 actual values of historical study to the student of 
 Theology. 
 
 I have been using the words "history" and "the 
 past" as if they were almost synonymous terms, but 
 this occupation with the past is only one of the aspects 
 under which History has to be considered. Another of
 
 HISTORY IN THEOLOGICAL STUDY 315 
 
 its qualities is that of causal sequence. The constant 
 lesson of historical study is the absolute certainty of 
 cause and effect. Nothing in history happens without 
 preparation, and nothing happens without conse- 
 quences. It is the business of the historical student to 
 trace these preparations and these consequences as far 
 and as accurately as he can. No date and no event 
 stands by itself. No matter how famous it may have 
 become, so that even by itself it seems to have value; 
 it is really without significance until it can be set in its 
 proper relations to all that went before and all that 
 follows it. These things are easily stated. They sound 
 like the commonest of commonplaces; but they are as 
 easily forgotten. Test any historical writing by this 
 standard and you will find that unconsciously to him- 
 self the writer has often allowed himself to slip into the 
 easy and pleasant attitude of wonderment and to forget 
 the stern canon of accuracy. History is not, as it has 
 often been presented, a recital of marvels; it is the un- 
 folding of a law. I am not saying that the historian 
 knows the law by which the course of human affairs is 
 guided. If he did he would be a god, and there would 
 be no function for him as an historian. If the law were 
 known there would be no need of History. The im- 
 portant thing is to accept the fact of law and then do 
 what we can to interpret its action. 
 
 The constant preoccupation of the historian with 
 this idea of an unfolding record, even though the ulti- 
 mate solution eludes his grasp, begets an attitude of 
 mind which cannot fail to be of service to the student 
 of theology. His temptation is, I conceive, to dwell
 
 316 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 upon the unusual, the startling, the "luminous sur- 
 prises" which have often been presented as the most 
 convincing proofs of a divine order. The miraculous, 
 with its almost universal appeal to the sense of wonder, 
 is the ever present illusion before the mind of the the- 
 ologian, drawing him away from the regular, the or- 
 dinary, the common, as from something inferior or 
 even degrading. He is in danger of thinking that it is 
 only the uncommon that is significant. He is tempted 
 to search for the strange and the exceptional. The 
 world of mysteries has an especial attraction for him. 
 The mere fact that a given phenomenon seems to have 
 no discoverable cause commends it to him as worthy of 
 especial attention. He is in constant danger of slipping 
 into the definition of faith as "belief in something you 
 know isn't true." 
 
 It is, therefore, of great importance that in the form- 
 ative period of his thought he should be on his guard 
 against these subtle and agreeable forms of temptation; 
 and I can suggest no better defense than a continuous 
 and thoughtful occupation with historical study. 
 Often in the course of my teaching I have found stu- 
 dents to whom the slow and careful methods of the 
 historian seemed altogether unworthy of their individ- 
 ual genius. They were impatient with the detail and 
 the insistence upon accuracy. Their minds were al- 
 ways soaring in a higher region in which the air seemed 
 purer and their sprouting wings seemed to find a bet- 
 ter support. Their own exuberant fancy seemed to 
 them much more interesting than the record of the mis- 
 takes of other people in the nearer or the remoter past.
 
 HISTORY IN THEOLOGICAL STUDY 317 
 
 Why take precious time to learn of other men's faults 
 or failures? It is clear that argument could be of little 
 avail in such cases, and I for one have never tried it 
 very thoroughly. I have only tried to persuade such a 
 youth to keep at it even against his will, and it has been 
 one of the best satisfactions of my teaching life to see 
 how, gradually, the habit of patient following out of 
 cause and effect has modified the other habit of the 
 student's mind. It has helped him to keep his feet 
 upon the ground and to make him see that one must, 
 after all, have some ground to stand on. It has helped 
 to draw him away from the vague and the nebulous in 
 his thinking and cause him to demand for himself a 
 clearness which he can then perhaps learn in some 
 measure to convey to others. 
 
 Again, History is of value to the theologian because 
 it helps him to judge of the nature and weight of ev- 
 idence. In historical study everything depends upon 
 evidence. This first canon of historical science is abso- 
 lute. It has been recognized by every historian from 
 Herodotus down. It has been put forth with varying 
 degrees of emphasis by the numerous writers on his- 
 torical method, who have done what they could to 
 place the study and writing of History on a scientific 
 basis. In fact it seems almost unnecessary even to 
 state so apparently obvious a fact. Nobody, it will be 
 said, ever imagined that history could be created out of 
 any one's head. Of course it rests on evidence. And 
 yet there is no canon of the historian that has been 
 more systematically violated than this. The violation 
 begins with Herodotus himself, and his violations are
 
 3 i8 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 of the type which especially interests us here. The 
 Father of History did indeed take infinite pains to in- 
 form himself about the peoples and the events he tries 
 to describe, but though he sought diligently for evi- 
 dence he had a childlike indifference to the nature of 
 the source from which his evidence was drawn. The 
 more marvellous the tale, the more it interested him. 
 He would invent nothing; he would accept nothing 
 that was not known to his informant, but he had the 
 largest charity as to the remoter sources from which 
 the informant might have derived his alleged knowl- 
 edge. Hearsay evidence was as good as any other, pro- 
 vided only it came from what was reported to be a 
 trustworthy source. And this example was followed. 
 In the ages of easy faith, to doubt any spoken or writ- 
 ten word was regarded as an indication of a perverse 
 mind. "It is written" was sanction enough for any 
 opinion. The dominance of the religious motive during 
 a thousand years of European history helped to stamp 
 upon the peoples from whom we derive our civilization 
 this character of naif acceptance of whatever seemed 
 to bear the imprint of authority. The sceptic was next 
 thing to a heretic. Instead of being a guide to the 
 truth he was thought of as a perverter of the truth. 
 
 It is only within the memory of some of us that the 
 absoluteness of the law of evidence has come to be ac- 
 cepted as a standard by which historians were pre- 
 pared to stand or fall, and the process is still far from 
 being completed. There still lingers in men's minds the 
 ancient dread of free inquiry, lest by the way some 
 precious illusions be dissipated, some useful restraints
 
 HISTORY IN THEOLOGICAL STUDY 319 
 
 be relaxed, some hallowed traditions be dispelled. 
 Still we find men who should be leaders in thought 
 using their minds freely up to a certain point and there 
 halting and hesitating for fear of offending some an- 
 cient prejudice or encouraging too much a dangerous 
 spirit of criticism. We find scholars using their learn- 
 ing and their skill in finding ways of going around the 
 simple conclusions of science and of common sense, 
 working out a new scholasticism to take the place of 
 the older ones they have renounced. Against this 
 tendency there is no better corrective than the prac- 
 tice of weighing the kind of evidence on which all his- 
 torical conclusions must, in the last resort, be based. 
 Historical evidence rests entirely upon human foun- 
 dations. The historical student is constantly in the 
 attitude of a judge in a court of law. No matter what 
 the subject or the nature of the trial, the decisions of 
 the judge depend wholly upon the testimony of human 
 witnesses. Every document produced in the court is 
 the work of human hands and represents human pur- 
 pose. The validity of a will, for example, depends upon 
 the genuineness of signatures, the capacity of the testa- 
 tor, his freedom from alien influence, his ownership of 
 the property he wishes to dispose of, and all these 
 things must be certified to by oral or written evidence 
 equally human in its character. If the will comes to 
 trial in a court all suppositions, all personal considera- 
 tions are rigidly excluded; only that which is a matter 
 of human certainty is admitted. If, as sometimes hap- 
 pens, a witness demands especial consideration be- 
 cause the truth has been revealed to him by a special
 
 320 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 divine inspiration, the court rejects his claim with a 
 cruel indifference. It calls him down from his superior 
 height to the common level of human experience, or 
 throws out his testimony as irrelevant to the case. 
 
 The same rule holds for the historical student, and 
 the moment he departs from it he ceases to be a stu- 
 dent of history and becomes something else. The 
 temptation to the theologian under these circum- 
 stances is to become a miracle-monger, to play with 
 the alluring devices which in that half world between 
 fact and fancy where children in all ages have de- 
 lighted to dwell, take the place of rule and law. It is 
 then the cruel function of the historian to recall him, 
 if he can, to the order of the court whose jurisdiction 
 they would both acknowledge, the court of sound 
 science and sound reason. But here I anticipate an ob- 
 jection. It will be said that this kind of a judgment 
 must necessarily partake of the frailty of all human 
 things, that this sanction lacks that certainty for 
 which the theologian is seeking and which he thinks he 
 can find in the higher testimonies of emotional ex- 
 perience. The reply to this is a full confession. The 
 evidence of history is as far from being absolutely cer- 
 tain as is the evidence in a court of law, just as far, but 
 no farther. Every lawyer knows, and every plain 
 thinking man knows too, that every decision of a 
 court, no matter how overwhelming the evidence on 
 which it rests, is subject to the possibility of error. We 
 acknowledge this and, in so far as we are a law-abiding 
 folk, we accept the result and govern ourselves ac- 
 cordingly. It is only in communities where the sense
 
 HISTORY IN THEOLOGICAL STUDY 321 
 
 of law is but feebly developed that an aggrieved party 
 expresses his criticism of society by shooting the 
 judge. Ordinarily we say "We have done our best; 
 the safety of society demands that we now go on as if 
 the decision uttered forth indeed the voice of God." 
 
 So it is with the decisions of the historical student. 
 He knows that they are fallible, as are all human 
 things; but he knows also that it is in the best interest 
 of true science that they shall be accepted until further 
 evidence shall be produced of such superior weight that 
 it will correct their error. What he insists upon is that 
 this new evidence shall be of the same kind as that 
 which has been proved insufficient. Because some 
 human evidence has been proved faulty he will not 
 permit a resort to any other kind. He will only demand 
 that his rule shall be more carefully or more thoroughly 
 enforced. That is the attitude of every rational his- 
 torian. Not miracles nor inspirations, nor revelations, 
 nor the dictations of any authority whatsoever, but 
 more documents and better authenticated ones are 
 what he must have. 
 
 And then Ah yes, what then? then he prays 
 for ever greater learning, ever wider knowledge and 
 ever clearer insight so to interpret the witness of these 
 documents that his conclusions shall represent not 
 merely the closest fidelity to the rules of law, but also 
 the largest and finest sense of the claims of equity. 
 For after all the historian cannot forget that he too is 
 living in the present and has a present task to do. 
 When all the work of collection and comparison has 
 been done if that ever could be done there still
 
 322 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 remains the more engaging, more difficult and more 
 rewarding task of interpretation. It is here that the 
 historian has most often proved recreant to the great 
 trust he has assumed when he has undertaken to pre- 
 sent the record of the past for the instruction of the 
 present. For it is in the work of interpretation above 
 all that he is in danger of forgetting the high stand- 
 ards of fidelity to his sources which he has in theory 
 adopted. Standards there must be. Without them 
 interpretation would be only guesswork, a haphazard 
 stringing together of unrelated episodes. 
 
 Think only for a moment of what is going to happen 
 with the records of the present struggle among the 
 states of Europe. Already the volume of writings as 
 to its nearer and remoter causes, its diplomacy, its 
 military and its economic aspects, the possibilities of 
 settlement, its influence upon world politics and world 
 trade, has become enormous beyond the possibility of 
 mastery by any one mind. An immense proportion of 
 this material will become valueless when the outcome 
 of the war is determined. Whatever has been written 
 to inflame passion, to excite sympathy or to .arouse 
 loyalty will soon pass over into the mass of the ephem- 
 eral. When I hear an orator say of some phase of this 
 conflict "Never again," I can only smile to think how 
 short that "never" may be. Rumor has it that al- 
 ready (1916) all sailings to Europe are booked for 
 months ahead after the termination of the war. Then 
 will begin the readjustment, not only of the material 
 relations of the contending parties, but of the judg- 
 ments formed under the stress of conflict. Then, and
 
 HISTORY IN THEOLOGICAL STUDY 323 
 
 then only, can the work of interpretation by the true 
 historian begin, and it will be a generation after that 
 before his perspective can be restored to something 
 like its normal range. 
 
 I have mentioned standards with some hesitation 
 and with great reserves. When one has spent one's life 
 trying to avoid hasty and insufficient interpretations 
 of history, one is pretty sure to become more than 
 cautious as to what standards one may safely follow. 
 And here, I think, is a field for the theologian. If he is 
 bound to deny himself the luxury of speculative or 
 emotional intrusions into the area of the historian, he 
 is within his rights when he makes use of the historian 
 as a furnisher of material for his own analysis. As 
 theologian he may properly have his own theory of 
 the universal order. When then he applies himself to 
 the interpretation of history he has a right to think 
 in terms of this theory. Indeed, as a theologian, he 
 cannot do otherwise. It is his function to justify the 
 ways of God to men, and, conversely it is his privilege 
 to harmonize the ways of men with God. 
 
 It has been one of the canons of the modern historical 
 school that History must not be treated as the hand- 
 maid of anything. By that was meant that the study 
 of history must not be perverted to the service of any 
 theories or causes whatever. Its record must be read 
 and studied for itself; its evidence must be weighed on 
 its merits, and its sequences of cause and effect must 
 be established in accordance with this evidence. Noth- 
 ing has contributed more effectively to the amazing 
 success of modern historical science than this inflexible
 
 3 2 4 LEARNING AND LIVING 
 
 rule. Without it History could never have held its own 
 in comparison with the other subjects of academic re- 
 search. The ancient jibe, that History was one half 
 guesses and the other half lies owed its origin to viola- 
 tions of this saving limitation. 
 
 And yet, on the other hand, no rational historian has 
 ever forgotten that no science stands by itself alone. 
 Every science has its own material and its own method, 
 and it is right in jealously guarding these against en- 
 croachment and against misappropriation, but the 
 larger interpretations of every science are not the affair 
 of its votaries alone. They belong to the whole world 
 of thinking men, and often they are best secured 
 through the activities of men to whom the detail of 
 the special science is unfamiliar. Often too these in- 
 terpretations undertaken by specialists have proved 
 specially disappointing and misleading. Who, for ex- 
 ample would regard the alleged phenomena of psychic 
 communication as having received any special illu- 
 mination through the interpretations of Oliver Lodge 
 the physicist or of William James the psychologist? 
 To this world-wide range of interpretation the his- 
 torian must submit, and among other interpreters he 
 must expect that the theologian will claim his turn. 
 He will take his chance in the serene consciousness 
 that the material which he offers has been presented in 
 accordance with a sound scientific method. The his- 
 torian stakes his reputation on this soundness of pro- 
 cedure. Is the theologian prepared to do the same? 
 The historian confesses, as we have seen, that his re- 
 sults do not conform to any absolute standard of cer-
 
 HISTORY IN THEOLOGICAL STUDY 325 
 
 tainty. The best he can say is that they represent a 
 high degree of probability. Is the theologian ready to 
 make a similar admission? If he is, then the way is 
 prepared for a harmonious cooperation of the two 
 sciences with their different materials and different 
 methods in an ever advancing comprehension of the 
 mystery of human life. History will serve Theology, 
 not as the slave serves the master, but as the hand 
 serves the eye and the eye the hand. And Theology 
 will serve History by holding before it an interpreta- 
 tion without which its own service to mankind must 
 always remain barren and incomplete.
 
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 THE HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS 
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