Page:Cambridge Modern History Volume 7.djvu/782

 760 Science and education. [isoo- take his place, in the realm of scientific thought, with the deathless masters of the Old World. The practical character of American science has given rise, throughout the country, to a number of schools specially devoted to the higher scientific training. Schools of law and medicine and scientific labora- tories abound; hardly any of the numerous universities which, with widely varying standards, maintain everywhere at least the form of the higher learning, is without these adjuncts. But perhaps the most signifi- cant fact concerning American education to-day is that which must instantly impress the eye of any traveller from the Atlantic to the Pacific. In Europe, the architectural structures which attract attention are usually churches, castles, or buildings connected with some phase of government. In America the most conspicuous structures are, as a rule, the schools and the public libraries. This difference implies a deep contrast between the instinctive faith which, throughout the centuries, has animated the Old World and that which, for the moment, is most blindly cherished in America. From the days of Rome itself, the more serious imagination of Europe has been most deeply stirred by religious influences, which found architectural expression in the churches dominating almost every town. This pre- dominance may, no doubt, be passing away ; but the traces of it remain everywhere. In America, a faith in the saving grace of education seems more deeply rooted than even religion itself. And this faith finds expression, not only in the architectural facts so apparent to any eye, but in the vast sums which throughout the country are frequently given for the foundation or the support of schools and universities and libraries. Such enthusiasm as this has naturally given rise to a state of affairs perhaps unprecedented in educational history. Elsewhere edu- cation has generally been a matter either of tradition or else of alertly intelligent reform. In America it tends as religion has sometimes tended in the Old World to become a matter of unintelligent formalism. A typical incident occurred at San Francisco during the summer of 1901, when the Philippine Islands had just come, for better or worse, under American control. At that moment hundreds of half-trained public school-teachers, men and women alike, crowded into the transports which were to carry them to Manila, with a spirit as devoted, and a belief in their calling as absolute, as that which animated the crusaders of Peter the Hermit. In short, the nation that we are trying to understand is a nation whose most prominent characteristic at this moment is its superstitious devotion to education. What is necessary is that this devotion shall be enlightened and directed. Those leaders are probably right who maintain that the chief service which can be rendered to the country