UC-NRLF 
 
GIFT OF 
 
V 
 
 
 KNOWLEDGE AND PRACTICE 
 
 BY 
 
 JAMES EDWIN CREIGHTON 
 
 AN ADDRESS 
 
 Delivered Before the Phi Beta Kappa Society 
 of Brown University 
 
 JUNE 1 5th, 1909 
 
 [Reprinted from the International Journal of Ethics, Vol. XX] 
 
KNOWLEDGE AND PEACTICE.* 
 
 J. E. CKEIGHTON. 
 
 T WISH to begin by congratulating the chapter of Phi 
 Beta Kappa that has its home at Brown University 
 on its long and honorable traditions, and especially on 
 the eminent services that its members, through successive 
 generations, have rendered to science, to education, and 
 to public life. When I recall even a few names from that 
 long roll of "illustrious living and noble dead" who owe 
 their nurture and inspiration to this University and to 
 this Society, I can appreciate the feelings with which you 
 are assembled for your annual celebration, and am deeply 
 sensible of the honor of being invited to address you on 
 this occasion. 
 
 The motto of the Phi Beta Kappa society, "Philoso- 
 phy the pilot of life," furnishes the text for the reflec- 
 tions that I have to lay before you to-day. This motto 
 suggests the famous saying of Socrates in the "Apology," 
 that a life without criticism or examination is not a life 
 worth living for a human being. For ^Tioao^ia in your 
 motto, as I understand it, signifies just the free exercise 
 of thought that finds its function in examining and test- 
 ing the opinions and beliefs that pass current in ordinary 
 life. It is this faculty of reflecting on experience, and 
 finding its value in terms of some general principles, that 
 differentiates the life of man from that of the lower ani- 
 mals. Philosophy in this sense, as reflection, or the effort 
 to estimate the meanings and values that are involved 
 in different experiences of life, may be said to be the es- 
 sential birthright of man, and is always present in some 
 degree in every human consciousness. The term * reflec- 
 tion' may suggest that this activity is something external 
 
 * Address delivered before the Society of Phi Beta Kappa, at Brown Uni- 
 versity, June, 1909. 
 
 1 
 
 2890 
 
to, or that supervenes upon, the ordinary experience of 
 men. But it is no foreign or borrowed gleam that reflec- 
 tion throws upon our ideas, but the internal light of rea- 
 son itself, the light that lighteth every man that cometh into 
 the world. Thinking is not therefore a mere incident, 
 secondary intention, as it were, of human life. Nor do 
 we adequately characterize its relation to life when we 
 emphasize its utility as the essential instrument and in- ^x 
 dispensable guide of practice. Keflection, as the free ^* 
 and unrestricted play of ideas, is ratEer to be regarded 
 as the essential business or primary intention of human 
 life. Philosophy is thus no foreign pilot that has been 
 taken on board, but the expression of what is most truly 
 and intimately the individual's own nature. It is not 
 merely regulative, but constitutive of life, being the heart 
 and center from which flow all its practical activities, and 
 to which they all again return for constant adjustment 
 and renewal. It is the ever-present fountain of youth, 
 the vivifying and transforming element of our experience 
 which has the power to make all things new. Without it, 
 our highest activities would be blind and mechanical, our 
 righteousness would be like the righteousness of the 
 scribes and Pharisees, having no connection with the in- 
 nermost center of our personality. For mere practical 
 activities tend to become mechanical and perpetuate them- 
 selves through habit; and when they lose all connection 
 with the reflective source of rational life, they are incapa- 
 ble of maintaining their spiritual vitality and become^ 
 empty forms without substance. 
 
 When we thus attempt to regard life in its true ideal 
 significance, to see life steadily and to see it whole, it seems 
 possible to rise above the opposition between knowledge 
 and practice. Nevertheless, it may be said, this is a mere 
 counsel of perfection, an ideal that cannot be realized 
 under the actual conditions that constitute our finite and 
 fragmentary mode of existence. We find that, as a mat- 
 ter of fact, there is a tendency to separate, and oftentimes 
 to sharply oppose, these two aspects of experience, giving 
 
either one the primacy, and regarding the other as of sec- 
 ondary or merely derivative importance. Knowledge, 
 for example, is sometimes regarded as the pilot of life in 
 the sense that it is the indispensable instrument for the 
 attainment of practical ends, the means through which 
 man gains mastery over the forces of material nature or 
 discovers a common basis for cooperation with his fel- 
 low-men. From this point of view, ideas are valued in 
 terms of their usefulness in practical application, and 
 there naturally arises a certain impatience with regard 
 to knowledge that is not directed toward some practical 
 end. On the other hand, those who live the reflective life 
 are apt to take up an equally one-sided position in defense 
 of knowledge against the claims of practice. They are 
 too often ready to maintain that ideas are debased and 
 contaminated by being applied to practical affairs, and 
 that knowledge is higher and purer when it remains 
 isolated in the realm of the pure idea. 
 
 It is perhaps true that this is not an altogether just 
 characterization of the position of those who are un- 
 willing to subordinate knowledge to practice or to evalu- 
 ate ideas in any offhand way in terms of their practical 
 consequences. Yet I think the champions of knowledge 
 for its own sake have not infrequently been led to define 
 knowledge in a purely negative and abstract way as 
 against practice, seeking to vindicate the claims of the in- 
 tellectual life by separating it too sharply from the func- 
 tions and offices through which it expresses itself. To 
 separate knowledge from life, as something that might 
 be contaminated by life's everyday demands and uses, is 
 to take up an indefensible position. In so far as this 
 attitude has existed, the prevailing demand that knowl- 
 edge shall justify itself is a reasonable protest against 
 an interpretation that not only robs knowledge of practical 
 significance, but, in so doing, also renders it empty and 
 impossible from an intellectual standpoint. For in the 
 midst of our disputes about the relative importance of 
 knowledge and action, it may at least be recognized that 
 
either one, when taken in complete isolation from the other, 
 becomes contradictory and self-destructive ; the most un- 
 practical of all men being he who is narrowly or exclu- 
 sively practical, and the stupidest and most unenlight- 
 ened man, he who deals only in abstract principles which 
 have no relation to what is real and concrete. 
 
 In maintaining the value and dignity of knowledge, as 
 is done by this society, there is involved no antagonism to 
 what is practical ; on the contrary, your motto emphasizes 
 the essential and necessary relation between knowledge 
 and life. What, however, is fundamentally antagonistic 
 to the spirit and traditions of the Phi Beta Kappa society 
 is that practical attitude which lays exclusive or primary 
 emphasis upon external goods, which can have, at best, 
 only a subordinate place as means or instruments in a 
 rational life. We-must^ distinguish sharply between what 
 is truly practical for a maiTSTd^what the word usually im- 
 plies. It is, however, impossible to reconcile the conflict- 
 ing positions by any mere definition of terms. There ex- 
 ists a genuine and radical antagonism between philoso- 
 phy, as the love of wisdom, the pursuit of that which is 
 in itself real, and the demand for practical efficiency, 
 that which will yield some tangible cash value in a given 
 situation. 
 
 It would be idle to conceal from ourselves that truth 
 is about the last thing the average mind esteems or de- 
 sires. The practical man is always impatient of the per- 
 son who insists on facts or principles, despising these as 
 not leading to immediate results. The spirit of the world, 
 as Morley aptly satirizes it, is that "thoroughness is a mis- 
 take, and nailing your flag to the mast a bit of delusive 
 heroics. Think wholly of to-day, and not at all of to-mor- 
 row. Beware of the high, and hold fast to the safe. 
 Dismiss convictions and study the general consensus. No 
 zeal, no faith, no intellectual trenchancy, but as much low- 
 minded geniality and trivial complaisance as you please." 
 Cynical as these counsels sound when thus baldly stated, 
 they can scarcely be said to exaggerate the prevailing 
 
5 
 
 worldly spirit of the man who prides himself on his prac- 
 tical good sense. It is not the mere absence of light that 
 is depressing, but the open contempt for truth as some- 
 thing that is without significance in the affairs of life. It 
 may appear to the young man going out into life that the 
 practical forces are so strong and all-pervasive at the 
 present time that the only pu4ent course is to capitulate 
 and learn the rules of the game. But, after all, if his col- 
 lege life and the fellowship of societies like this have given 
 him any glimpse of ideal values, his loss of courage can 
 only be momentary. It is encouraging to remember that 
 the history of the conflict between the ideal and the prac- 
 tical is the history of civilization, and that numbers have 
 never been able to overhelm the cause we represent. The 
 history of success is the history of minorities. 
 
 The forces that war against light and knowledge in the 
 name of practical expediency assume various forms, aad 
 s em^timos pjwrgsy-^tbem-seJrvee-^bftmpi^na of the highest 
 spi r i tuaLJjiteeete; They may perhaps be classified un- 
 der two heads: materialism, which demands that the 
 fruits of knowledge be forthcoming in terms of external 
 goods of some kind, and practical or sentimental ideal- 
 ism, which is likewise eager for quick return of profits 
 
 d impadont .ilh fllurrTd to t that deea 
 y tb the ameliuialiun 'of '"tfarlifer-trf- 
 
 an mpa 
 dirootl tb 
 
 The influence of materialism is not due to 
 the strength of its arguments; in fact, nothing is easier 
 than to show theoretically that the evaluation of life in 
 terms of material goods is thoroughly short-sighted and 
 unpractical. But the appeal of materialism is rather to 
 the desires than to the reason. It works through the long- 
 ing that individuals feel for honor or wealth or personal 
 enjoyment, or even presents itself in the name of the in- 
 tellectual or aesthetic life, as a demand for the means of 
 cultivation and self-realization. These influences are so 
 subtle and insidious, as well as so constant and pervasive, 
 that the individual is often led captive unawares, the 
 good seed of idealism being gradually choked by the 
 
cares of the world, and the effort required to maintain 
 one's position as a man of affairs and to rank well with 
 one's fellows. However, the practice of materialism 
 soon leads to its expression in theory. When the indif- 
 ference to ideas is holdly expressed in the form of a cyn- 
 ical theory, or, worse still if possible, in the Polonius-like 
 advice to young men to throw aside ideas and aim at prac- 
 tical things, the paralysis of mind and soul have become 
 complete, truth and the love of wisdom being expressly 
 repudiated. 
 
 However seductive the rewards of material success, the 
 futility of making these things the ends of life is, on re- 
 flection, clearly enough apparent. But the case is differ- 
 ent when appeal is made to the desire to attain practical 
 results of a higher order. The desire to serve society, 
 to benefit one's fellow-men, is one of the noblest impulses 
 of human nature, and appeals strongly to men of idealistic 
 temperament. It is perhaps not too much to say that the 
 increase of this spirit is one of the most hopeful mani- 
 festations of our own time, implying, as it does, a grow- 
 ing consciousness of the profound truth that we are all 
 members one of another. Nevertheless, there is a real 
 danger, I venture to think, in the philanthropic ideal when 
 taken as an ultimate or exclusive end of life, and thus op- 
 posed to the pursuit of knowledge. The danger is that at- 
 tention may become so exclusively fixed on practical results 
 as to lead to impatience with the slow processes of 
 thought, and thus to a contempt for truth as opposed to 
 what seems for the time being to be the good of the in- 
 dividual or society. And it scarcely needs to be pointed 
 out that, when this happens, the good will is itself per- 
 verted. There is a strange paradox in all spiritual life, 
 yet a paradox that ceases to be perplexing when we re- 
 member that the mind is not a collection of separately act- 
 ing faculties, but an organic whole. The paradox to 
 which I refer is not merely that the corruption of the best 
 is the worst, but that even the best thoughts and motives, 
 when over-emphasized and taken apart from the other ele- 
 
ments with which they are naturally and normally associ- 
 ated, prove contradictory, and are transformed into their 
 opposites. Thus the desire to benefit society, when dis- 
 sociated from the love for knowledge, soon degenerates 
 into the extremest and emptiest form of egoism, into the 
 desire for power or honor; or it leads straightway to the 
 conviction that the practical end is so important that it 
 must be realized at once and at all costs. It is never safe 
 to love anything better than truth, no matter how high 
 or holy it may appear to be. "He who begins by loving j 
 Christianity better than truth," says Coleridge, "will pro- 1 
 ceed by loving his own sect or church better than Chris- j 
 tianity, and end by loving himself better than all." As 
 John Morley puts it: 
 
 The law of things is that they who tamper with veracity, from whatever 
 motive, are tampering with the vital force of human progress. Our comfort, 
 and the delight of the religious imagination, are no better than forms of self- 
 indulgence when they are secured at the cost of that love of truth on which, 
 more than on anything else, the increase^^Jight and happiness among men 
 must depend. We have to fight and cfl Blong battle against the forces 
 of darkness, and anything that turns tlBBfge of reason blunts the surest 
 and most potent of our weapons. 
 
 I shall try, a little lata:, to show that the intellectual 
 life, in its most comple^^xercise, includes within itself 
 the highest practical activities. There can be no ulti- 
 mate opposition between truth and goodness, between the 
 ends of the intellectual and the moral life, when these are 
 rightly understood. At present, however, I am rather 
 concerned to point out how the prevailing emphasis on 
 practice, although in its two forms seeming to appeal to 
 quite a different order of motives, leads in both cases alike 
 to an indifference to ideas that is destructive of the high- 
 est results. 
 
 I have put the matter in this way,, dwelling on the an- 
 tagonism between the ideals of your society and the pre- 
 vailing tendencies, not for the purpose of bringing 
 discouragement, but rather, so far as I may, to sound a 
 trumpet and to summon you to arms. And, as is usually 
 the case, the foes within are here more dangerous than 
 
8 
 
 the foes without. The greatest danger is that the prevail- 
 ing skepticism shall effect an entrance into our own minds 
 and thus paralyze our efforts in behalf of learning. At 
 the present time, it is essential, above everything else, that 
 scholars, and the universities as the representatives of 
 scholarship, should renew their faith in the sovereignty 
 and efficacy of truth. May it not be, that the indiffer- 
 ence to learning on the part of undergraduates of which 
 we are hearing so much at the present time, is to some ex- 
 tent the outcome and reflection of our own skepticism and 
 worldliness ? Unless scholars can keep alive in their own 
 hearts the love of truth, unless they are really absorbed 
 in its pursuit, they cannot hope to inspire others with 
 reverence for knowledge as for something high and noble. 
 The fault must lie in ourselves and not in our stars. Even 
 when circumstances seem most unpromising, the love of 
 truth is a motive to which one may always confidently 
 appeal. Next to distr^^ng his own reason, for the 
 scholar the most fatal s^Bs to assume that truth has no 
 power to awaken a resprase in the minds of others. In- 
 deed, these are both expressions of the same paralyzing 
 skeptical attitude. To distrusljtuman reason is to for- 
 get the fundamental fact that a^nowledge of the genuine 
 nature of reality is, as Plato says, the true nourishment 
 of the soul, and that it languishes and dies when it turns 
 away from truth and feeds upon opinion. Indifference 
 to truth can never long maintain itself, in the face of light 
 and conviction. It is vain, said Kant, to pretend to be 
 indifferent regarding questions to which the human rea- 
 son, from its very nature, can never be indifferent. 
 
 The first duty of the scholar, then, when he appears to be 
 surrounded by hostile forces, is to keep his own light 
 trimmed and burning: 
 
 To abate not one jot of heart or hope 
 But steer right onwards. 
 
 And he may derive encouragement by reminding him- 
 self that the cause of civilization is bound up with the 
 
maintenance of ideas, with the perpetuation of the spirit 
 of free inquiry. The cause in which he is enlisted is far- 
 reaching, and of the highest importance. Without the 
 work of the scholar who acknowledges as his master no 
 other sovereign than truth, who restricts his inquiries by 
 no practical or instrumental considerations, the spirit of 
 freedom would perish from the earth. Not only would 
 no real advances in the moral or intellectual life be possi- 
 ble, but with the free exercise of thought there would soon 
 pass away the higher ideas and ideals that form the basis 
 of our civilization. What the practical man holds in 
 light esteem, the scholar's work of promoting and keep- 
 ing alive the cultural ideas that form the basis of civiliza- 
 tion, regarding it as effeminate or unfit for a man with 
 red blood in his veins, is, on reflection, seen to be the most 
 practical and important concern of humanity. And, simi- 
 larly, the disinterested pursuit of ideas, that often appears 
 to the man enthusiastic for practical reforms to be noth- 
 ing more than a refined kind of selfishness, shows itself 
 as the necessary basis and support for the moral life. 
 "The love of knowledge for its own sake," says Locke, 
 "is the principal part of human perfection, and the seed- 
 plot of all the virtues. " f There is therefore no ground 
 for discouragement at the present time; and above all 
 no reason for the scholar to feel that his day is over, that 
 his place is to be taken by the practical inventor or the 
 politician or philanthropist who can show results that are 
 valuable to society. 
 
 It may help to give force to these considerations, and to 
 make them more concrete, if we consider their application 
 more specifically to some of the problems of university 
 life at the present time. As is well-known, very serious 
 criticisms have been recently brought against the educa- 
 tional results that are being attained by the colleges and 
 universities of the country, and various causes have been 
 assigned as explanations of existing evils, and a variety of 
 remedies proposed. Now, even if we agree among our- 
 selves that these defects have been set forth in a some- 
 
10 
 
 what sensational way, it is still impossible to deny that 
 conditions are serious enough to call for our most earnest 
 attention. It must be admitted, too, that the faculties and 
 governing bodies of these institutions have to accept the 
 primary responsibility for existing conditions, and that 
 on them falls the duty of correcting abuses. I have no 
 specific remedies to propose, but I feel sure that any 
 program of reform must proceed from, and go along with, 
 a renewal of faith in the value of ideas, and of courage in 
 proclaiming them on the part of university teachers. It 
 may be impossible to make headway directly against the 
 spirit of the age, as it expresses itself outside the uni- 
 versity; it may even be impossible to refuse admission 
 to college to students whose aims and capacities render 
 them to a great extent impervious to ideas ; but it is in- 
 cumbent on those of us who are teachers to hold up a 
 different standard and to maintain an asylum where 
 science and letters may be preserved and advanced, and 
 from which they may go forth to the service of humanity. 
 And I may add that the university has the right to expect 
 the same spirit of devotion to truth from her loyal alumni. 
 To be loyal to the university involves the duty of being 
 loyal to the idea of a university,*to its essential spirit and 
 highest purpose. There is perhaps nothing so thoroughly 
 discouraging to a university teacher, nothing so provoc- 
 ative of deep-seated pessimism, as the lack of sympathy 
 often shown by alumni with the highest aims and inter- 
 ests of their alma mater. The noisy loyalty that dis- 
 charges itself solely on the plane of sport is too often a 
 hindrance, rather than an inspiration, to the work of 
 the faculty. But, after all, the main responsibility for 
 educational results must rest with the faculty; and the 
 new spirit, if it is to come, must first find its expression 
 through them. I have attempted to state some familiar 
 truths regarding the essential nature of the scholar's 
 vocation, and the grounds which he may find for encour- 
 agement, even when conditions appear most unfavorable 
 to his efforts. But, looking at the matter from the ac- 
 
11 
 
 tual position in which the individual teacher finds himself 
 to-day, it may seem that these considerations are mere 
 empty words, and that as things are they will remain. It 
 is impossible, it may be urged, for either the teacher or 
 the student to maintain standards essentially different 
 from the society by which he is surrounded. And, more- 
 over, even if we grant that the promotion of the intel- 
 lectual life is the highest possible aim, when we take hu- 
 man nature and actual conditions as they are, have we any 
 reasonable hope of success 1 Have not our demands been 
 too high, the plan of education too far removed from the 
 interests of our American youth, to call forth their ac- 
 tivities ? Let us come down from the heights, and, taking 
 human nature as it is, aim at practical results, at giving 
 our young men a training for life, at making them effi- 
 cient leaders of business and qualifying them for holding 
 political offices. They may happily in the process acquire 
 some modicum of liberal culture and some respect for 
 ideas. In spite of the element of truth that such state- 
 ments contain, I cannot help feeling that they point en- 
 tirely in the wrong direction. A university teacher is 
 not the man to talk about taking human nature as it is, or 
 of gratifying the actually existing interests of stu- 
 dents. For his concern is with human nature as it ought 
 to be, his function to awaken and call out interests that 
 are yet only latent and which the student may not yet 
 know that he possesses. It is a poor philosophy to take 
 human nature as it is, and to fail to bear in mind that 
 which it is capable of becoming. Moreover, if the uni- 
 versity cannot maintain any higher ideals, or appeal to 
 different interests, than those which are dominant in the 
 outside world, what reason is there for its continuing to 
 exist? The practical preparation for life may be better 
 obtained in professional schools or in contact with the 
 actual conditions of business life. 
 
 The question of the relation of the university teacher 
 to practical life is most important, and one that demands 
 serious consideration. It may be that here is one source 
 
12 
 
 of his weakness. The older type of college professor was, 
 as a rule, much less actively engaged in practical affairs 
 than their successors are to-day. As a rule, too, the 
 teachers in the great European universities occupy them- 
 selves much less with practical matters than we do. They 
 accept scholarship and teaching as their high vocation, 
 reckoning other things as for them of altogether second- 
 ary importance. But, among ourselves, the unpractical 
 type of college professor, who lived in the world of ideas 
 and was somewhat oblivious to mundane affairs, is 
 rapidly vanishing. In the "Bepublic" Plato speaks of 
 the necessity of compelling the philosophers to resign for 
 a time the contemplation of the idea and to take part in 
 the affairs of the state. At the present time, however, 
 there seems to be no compulsion necessary in order to in- 
 duce scholars to take up practical pursuits. It is so 
 much easier to act than to think! We not only waste 
 our strength on all kinds of practical questions regard- 
 ing the organization and administration of the university, 
 but we are also ready to lead reform movements in church 
 and state, direct charities, organize conventions, or give 
 advice on any practical subject whatsoever, under the 
 pleasant conviction that we are rendering important pub- 
 lic service, and also demonstrating that the college pro- 
 fessor of to-day is a very wide-awake, practical person. 
 Of course, all these activities may be good, but do they 
 not tend to distract the mind of the scholar from his own 
 proper business ? The good may easily become the enemy 
 of the best ; and the best and highest for every man is his 
 own station and its duties. Where the line is to be drawn 
 in any case is a question for the individual. How far 
 any college teacher may find it possible to engage in prac- 
 tical affairs will depend partly on his temperament, and 
 partly on the degree of absorption that his own particu- 
 lar studies demand. But, if he finds that these things 
 tend to distract his mind, and to dull the edge of his 
 scholarly interest, let him not lay the flattering unction to 
 his soul that he is doing something higher and more im- 
 
13 
 
 portant. There can be no doubt that the highest effi- 
 ciency for the scholar and teacher requires that he should 
 sit apart from the practical world. He must, in a sense, 
 renounce the world, and live in the inner realm of ideas, 
 never allowing the things of sense and time to occupy the 
 chief place in his heart. This does not imply that he is to 
 be oblivious to what is taking place around him or in- 
 different to the interests of the society in which he lives. 
 But he must realize that he can serve those interests best 
 by devoting himself to his own proper work, by laboring 
 to the utmost of his strength that the truth which it is 
 his duty to teach be not error, that the light within his own 
 soul be not darkness. He must be in the world but not 
 of the world, having made the advancement and propa- 
 gation of learning the great end and object of his exist- 
 ence. It is, of course, true that this breed of men has 
 not entirely disappeared from the faculties of our colleges 
 and universities. Otherwise, our condition would be 
 hopeless indeed. But I think there are comparatively 
 few teachers who will not admit that the pressure of out- 
 side distractions is seriously interfering with their de- 
 votion to scholarship and dulling their finer enthusiasm 
 for truth. t i The world is too much with us ; " we are too 
 anxious and troubled about many things, and tend to 
 neglect the one thing needful. And truth is a jealous 
 mistress, who will not grant favors to him who serves 
 her with half a heart. 
 
 Moreover, there is no other motive than reverence for 
 truth that will supply moral fiber strong enough to with- 
 stand the temptation, under which the teacher always 
 labors, to obtain immediate results by pleasing his hear- 
 ers, by giving them something that will appeal to their 
 immediate interests and fancies, something that will pro- 
 duce an immediate effect. The desire to influence one's 
 students in a practical way even to make them better 
 morally is no proper substitute for the effort to lead 
 them to think clearly and independently, and with a ven- 
 eration for truth to follow the argument wherever it leads. 
 
14 
 
 Without this element, instruction degenerates into a mere 
 play of subjective opinions, and furnishes no true nour- 
 ishment for the mind. "The hungry sheep look up and 
 are not fed." When the guiding principle is lost, there 
 is danger that the relations between teacher and student 
 may tend toward the condition which Plato has described 
 in the "Bepublic," as characteristic of the democratic 
 state : 
 
 "The teacher, in these circumstances," he says, "fears and flatters his 
 students, and the students despise their masters and tutors. And, speaking 
 generally, the young copy their elders and enter the lists with them in speak- 
 ing and acting; and the elders unbend so far as to abound in wit and 
 pleasantry, in imitation of the young, in order, as they say, to avoid seem- 
 ing morose or exacting. ' ' 
 
 It may perhaps be said, however, in defense of the 
 practical teacher, that the main business of the universi- 
 ties is not to make scholars, but to train up men for the 
 professions and for the service of the state. The most 
 valuable and efficient teachers, therefore, will be men of 
 the world who can give the student the outlook on life 
 of the practical man and instruction in what will be of 
 value to him when he leaves the university. There are 
 two things that may be said in reply to this objection. 
 In the first place, it would seem to have much more force 
 when applied to the instruction demanded by professional 
 schools and colleges than to the colleges of arts and sci- 
 ences, of which I am now speaking. And, secondly, it 
 cannot be granted that it is necessary to be engrossed in 
 the affairs of the world in order to understand it. The 
 spectator of time and existence ? the man who would pene- 
 trate deeply into the meaning of things, must sit apart 
 and observe and reflect. It is only thus that he can at- 
 tain an objective point of view; his vision is obscured 
 by too near a prospect or by being himself in the heat of 
 the conflict. It is true, of course, that the majority of the 
 students who attend the universities will not devote their 
 lives to scholarship. Nevertheless, it is a mistake on the 
 part of the university to adopt any other end than that 
 
15 
 
 of producing scholars. The first function of the univer- 
 sity is to see that the race of scholars shall never fail, to 
 inspire and train men who shall perpetuate and advance 
 the cause of learning. And it is of fundamental impor- 
 tance that this shall be done, and that a fair share, at 
 least, of the very ablest and most capable men should be 
 led to devote themselves to teaching and scholarship. 
 Otherwise, if the noblest and best are drawn off into the 
 practical professions, the cause of learning will be left 
 to the spiritually lame and halt, the mediocre, cautious 
 type of men who look forward merely to comfortable po- 
 sitions and Carnegie pensions. But after the demands of 
 scholarship have been met, still the business in life of the 
 majority of the students will be to apply ideas in vari- 
 ous fields. This fact, however, is no argument for low- 
 ering the intellectual standards of the university in their 
 case or for the assumption that knowledge and scholar- 
 ship are for them of secondary importance. For the uni- 
 versity becomes false to its essential function as soon as 
 learning is subordinated to any other end. When a uni- 
 versity becomes a social club, or depends for its support 
 on the reputation of its athletic teams, it has ceased to 
 be a university, and should surrender its charter as an 
 institution of learning. 
 
 ^Moreover, it is of the utmost importance that the men 
 who are to go out into the world to administer its practical 
 affairs should be imbued with a loyalty to truth and 
 a passion for light and clearness of ideas. If we would 
 train men for the state, let us not forget that this 
 is what the affairs of the state demand : the clear-headed 
 courage that comes from loyalty to truth, the patience and 
 resolution that proceed from a faith in principles, the fine 
 sense of justice that can only be maintained by the man 
 who has learned to rise above his own individual point 
 of view and to understand the true objective relations of 
 things. To develop character by implanting a reverence 
 for truth, and a desire to serve under her banner, to 
 awaken in their students a love of light and a passion for 
 
16 
 
 clear and distinct ideas, this is the high duty of universi- 
 ties. If it is true that this aim has been somewhat obscured 
 of late, if, growing skeptical of the value of ideas, we have 
 put moral training and social experience and other false 
 gods in the place of truth, then we must put away these 
 idols from amongst us, and remember the high vocation 
 unto which we are called. But is this practical, it may be 
 asked ? Must not the university conform to the conditions 
 and needs of the country, and is not the demand of the 
 country for practical, efficient men? Well, what is the 
 test of efficiency? It is surely to be rated not primarily 
 by the quantity or amount of the activity, but rather by 
 the quality of the end achieved; not by the sensational 
 character of the immediate results, but by the permanent 
 value of that which has been realized. If, then, we insist 
 that we must look to the end in defining efficiency, it is 
 certainly true that to train and discipline the intellectual 
 faculties, awaken the desire to see things clearly and to 
 see them whole, is in the highest sense to promote effi- 
 ciency. The university can have no higher or more prac- 
 tical function than to implant in its students the love of 
 reality and truth, and the hatred of falsehood and shams. 
 The object of the Phi Beta Kappa society is the promo- 
 tion of the spirit of liberal scholarship. More particu- 
 larly, as I understand, it stands for literature in the 
 broadest sense, for the humanistic studies that deal with 
 the immaterial achievements of man's intellect. It is 
 especially in these fields, however, that it is difficult to 
 maintain an invigorating intellectual atmosphere at the 
 present time. There seem to be wanting to the repre- 
 sentatives of these branches of learning two sources of 
 encouragement and stimulus that are enjoyed by the 
 workers in the natural sciences. These are, first, the 
 consciousness of the immediate applicability of their re- 
 sults to the practical interests of mankind ; and, secondly, 
 the courage and confidence that come from success^ in 
 actually advancing the confines of knowledge and making 
 absolutely new discoveries. The scientific worker has the 
 
i 
 
 17 
 
 advantage over his colleague who is a humanist, also 
 in the more general recognition of the importance of his 
 results on the part of the public. Science may have its 
 uses, and if it does not gp too far afield it may be tolerated 
 by the practical spirit /but letters and liberal culture the 
 practical man regards as something weak and effeminate, 
 something not worthy of the attention of serious, grown-up 
 men. ,Even if it be desirable that students in the earlier 
 years of their course should get a taste of language or 
 literature or philosophy, it is felt by many that in their 
 later years they should devote themselves to something 
 more serious, if possible to studies bearing on some voca- 
 tion. We find a striking picture of this attitude toward 
 liberal study in the ' ' Gorgias. ' ' (MUcles, a Sophist of the 
 worst type, remonstrates with Socrates on continuing to 
 waste his time on a useless study like philosophy. 
 
 " Philosophy, " he says, "as a part of education is an excellent thing; 
 and there is no disgrace to a man while he is young in pursuing such a 
 study; but when he is older the thing becomes ridiculous, and I feel toward 
 philosophers as I do toward those that lisp and imitate children. . . . When 
 I see a youth continuing the study in later life and not leaving off, I should 
 like to beat him, Socrates ; for, as I was saying, such a one, even if he have 
 good parts, becomes effeminate. . . . What is the value of an art that con- 
 verts a man of sense into a fool? Then take my advice, learn the philosophy 
 of business, and leave to others these absurdities; for they will only bring 
 you to poverty. Take for your model, not these word-splitters, but solid, re- 
 spectable men of business who have shown their wisdom by becoming well 
 to do." 
 
 The reproach that liberal culture is useless and effemi- 
 nate, then, is not peculiar to our time, but represents the 
 universal estimate of all those who apply a purely worldly 
 standard of value. But there always has existed 
 another standard of what is worth while in human life; 
 and on the maintenance of that standard the cause of 
 civilization rests. The teachers of the humanities at the 
 present time have need of all their courage in order to 
 stand firmly and aggressively against the Philistinism that 
 nowadays vaunts itself in high places. They must re- 
 fuse to compromise with the enemy, or to accept some in- 
 ferior post in order to be kept alive, but continue to do 
 
18 
 
 battle for the supremacy of man's spiritual ideals. And 
 to carry on this work in the universities there is need of 
 recruits, men of imagination and brains, "the fairest of 
 our youth/' as Plato says, "men sound in mind and wind, 
 with a quick apprehension, a good memory, and a manly 
 and lofty spirit." To such men the old call is still ring- 
 ing out : Who will go up to the help of the Lord against the 
 mighty? We cannot doubt that the universities will pro- 
 duce a breed of men to carry on this work. The fight is 
 not over. It would be pessimistic to cry, "Zeus is now 
 dethroned and Vortex reigns in his stead. ' ' 
 
 The representative of the humanities, therefore, who 
 recognizes the full significance of his own work, has cer- 
 tainly not less real or solid grounds for enthusiasm than 
 his colleague who occupies himself with science. For it 
 is his mission to carry knowledge to its fullest and highest 
 fruition, to interpret man to himself in the light of his 
 past achievements and history. Knowledge is only real 
 and genuine when it takes the form of self-knowledge. 
 It is only then that it becomes human and liberating, that 
 it is the truth that makes us free. And in order to know 
 one's self as human, it is necessary to know humanity. 
 "What should they know of England who only England 
 know?" Kipling asks. Similarly, to know one's own 
 mind, involves an understanding of what mind has 
 achieved and become. In order to become rational and 
 human, the individual must go beyond himself and enter 
 into the heritage that belongs to him as a member of the 
 family of rational beings. Culture is defined by Matthew 
 Arnold as the effort to know the best that has been thought 
 and said in the world. This, of course, implies more 
 than a process of passive acquisition of foreign material. 
 What we have inherited from the past we have to make 
 our own, employing it as the means for the promotion of 
 our total perfection, as Arnold tells us. The humanist 
 accordingly has the duty of making the past live again, 
 not of mechanically reproducing its accidental and tem- 
 poral aspects, but of interpreting it in terms of its perma- 
 
19 
 
 nent and eternal significance. And, as this work must 
 be done by each age in the light of its own problems and 
 conditions, it demands powers that are at once creative 
 and critical. Indeed, all true criticism is at the same time 
 creative. The genuine humanist, then, like the real sci- 
 entist, is not deprived of the inspiration that comes from 
 creative activity. He is called upon to advance knowl- 
 edge, to contribute to the sum-total of ideas. The func- 
 tion which he is called upon to perform is to contribute 
 to the solution of that most difficult and fundamental of 
 human problems, the problem of self-knowledge. It is 
 the most difficult, for it is the all-inclusive problem, be- 
 ing the interpretation of reason by reason. It is the most 
 important, for only so far as the mind knows itself is it 
 free. The history of the human race, as Hegel says, is 
 the development of the consciousness of freedom. Or, 
 in other words, it is the development of the consciousness 
 of the true end and destiny of man that constitutes the 
 real education of both the individual and the race. 
 
 Philosophy thus becomes the pilot of life in the highest 
 and most complete sense when the desire for wisdom and 
 enlightenment enters into mind as its dominant and con- 
 trolling purpose. This motive, at its highest and best, 
 includes within itself the outer life of practice as its 
 necessary means of realization and mode of expression. 
 Truth can only be realized through contact with the ob- 
 jective world, and through sympathy and appreciation of 
 the thoughts of our fellow-men. The intellectual life is 
 not something isolated and abstract, something opposed 
 or antagonistic to the virtues of practical life. The 
 scholar cannot be essentially self -centered or selfish, or a 
 man of cowardly spirit or low passions. In so far as 
 these things enter into a man, they destroy his enthusi- 
 asm for truth and warp and pervert his ideas. On the 
 other hand, when the desire for light and wisdom becomes 
 the controlling principle of life, all the lower passions 
 and desires are dried up at the roots. The practical life 
 becomes the means and instrument of reason, its impulses 
 
20 
 
 and activities being tested and evaluated in the light of 
 the most complete knowledge that is attainable. And, 
 finally, the more we reflect, the more firmly will we be con- 
 vinced that devotion to truth, " loyalty to loyalty," in Pro- \ 
 fessor Koyce's fine phrase, is the only soil from which the J 
 other virtues can spring. For if this be lacking, if a man 
 be indifferent to truth, regarding it as a thing of no 
 practical importance, there is remaining no longer any 
 center or core of personality, to which a consistent or a 
 coherent character might attach. To be disloyal to our 
 own best convictions, then, is the only skepticism that we 
 need to dread. For this is to obscure the very fountain- \ 
 light of our being, to cherish "the lie in the soul," as I 
 Plato puts it, which destroys and corrupts the entire/ 
 character. 
 
 J. E. CREIGHTON. 
 CORNELL UNIVERSITY. 
 
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 
 THIS BOOK IS DUB ON THE LAST DATE 
 STAMPED BELOW 
 
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CALIFORNIA LIBRARY