Page:Essays on the Higher Education.djvu/97

 late. It is, of course, also true that both the matter and the method of education must change accordingly. The literary communication of nations is now such that no man can be the most successful student of any subject who is not able to use at least two or three of those languages in which the results of modern researches are chiefly recorded. The ancient classics can never again hold the same relatively great or exclusive place in the study of language, or as mental discipline. The new science, psychological and political, no less than physical, will certainly have its rights regarded. The subject-matter of education must change. It is also true that methods of education must change. The modern teacher stands in a different relation to his pupils from that held by the teacher of bygone days. He has a larger work than that of giving out tasks; he must rely on something more in his hearers than their reverence for his ex-officio dignity and their readiness to accept his ipse dixit. He must also stand in relations towards his pupils that are different from those which formerly obtained with respect to their discipline in manners and morals.

But it is simple matter of fact that all our most respectable educational institutions are recognizing the facts and truths to which I have just alluded, and are recognizing them in practical ways. Surely no most excessive admirer of Harvard and