Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 28.djvu/101

Rh botany, at least of so much of it as will enable him to recognize camomile when be sees it, and to tell the difference between hemlock and parsley. Now, this remarkable charge is laid against many of the candidates for this degree in Germany, that they have not obtained this knowledge. They may be able to read a quotation of Galen in Greek (although they would understand it infinitely better in the elegant German version they have in their library), but as for camomile and hemlock I—pshaw! That is the apothecary's business.

Without wishing to sit in judgment over such facts and views, this, at least, we may do: we may affirm that there are many persons, who are neither shallow nor uneducated, who yet prefer in their physician a thorough knowledge of botany to any degree of skill in reading Galen in Greek.

The American college crowns the educational structure of the state. To increase its power for good, it ought to be accessible to any student who has passed through the preliminary training of the common, grammar, and high schools. It is not at all true that those who oppose the present college preparation desire to make education less efficient; rather ought it to be said that many intelligent friends of education wish to make a more efficient collegiate education available for a larger number. The college should not be a school for one specialty, but rather a school in which many specialties are taught by the very best specialists. In such a school ancient languages and literatures would hold a place alongside of modern languages and literatures; the sciences of astronomy and physics would stand on the same level as the sciences of botany and geology; moral and mental, political and social science would be equally well represented. There is no reason to fear that ancient learning would suffer, but some to hope that it would be carried on by those who are drawn to it by natural taste and ability, and not simply because it is the fashion. What can be more unpractical to the common mind than the study of the stars? What immediate profit does "star-gazing" hold out? And yet Nature produces the requisite number of born astronomers, who, at one time or another, recognize their vocation, and reach it with the directness of the ball shot from a well-aimed rifle. The essential thing is, that the young student must not be allowed too soon to make his choice of studies. For this reason a preparatory course, which may extend through the first two years of college, seems to be a necessity. There is nothing to prevent an American college from allowing this preparatory course to be of such a nature as will enable the student to elect between two studies of similar value. This limited election would still be of the nature of a prescribed course. It would be very nearly what the Harvard faculty have tried to introduce. It will remain an open question for a long time to come, what study should be offset against the Greek,