Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 62.djvu/448

442 and linguistic preparation for professional study before entrance into the professional school and, as in law, for example, it is seldom wise to attempt to incorporate such work in the curriculum of the school.

It is becoming more and more common to exact of the candidate for admission into professional study the preparatory work which brings with it the diploma of a reputable college giving a liberal A.B. course. In the professional school, it is sometimes sought to arrange a system of electives for the A.B. course in the university or the college, such as will best combine its work with the requirements of the professional school, and will thus permit the accomplishment of the two lines of work in a reduced period, as, for example, at Cornell, in the Colleges of Arts and Sciences and of Engineering, in six years.

It is progress such as this which justifies the comment of Wendell Phillips regarding the value of modern education and that of Andrew Carnegie respecting the changes which have justified the words of that great orator, in our day as never before:

'Education,' says the orator, 'is the only interest worthy the deep, controlling anxiety of thoughtful men.' Says the business man and philanthropist: "The changes and the advances made in education, in deference to modern ideas, have almost transformed our universities. These now give degrees for scientific instruction upon the same footing as for classics. . . . No university could stand to-day which had not changed its methods and realized, at last, that its duty was to make our young men fit to be American citizens and not to waste their time trying to make poor imitations of Greeks and Romans."

Now, as never before, education is coming to represent the ideal of John Milton, so often quoted and so rarely disputed, an ideal that can not be too often or too impressively placed before the youth of our own day: "I call a complete and generous education that which fits a man to perform, justly, skilfully, and magnanimously, all the offices, both public and private, of peace and war." This ideal was embodied in the plan of Cowley for a 'Philosophic College' more perfectly than in the curriculum of any modern institution until, in fact, that aspiration began to find expression in the liberalized and enriched elective system inaugurated by President Wayland, and until, in the last generation, Ezra Cornell proclaimed his aspiration to 'found an institution in which any man can find instruction in any study.' This modern, and now almost universally accepted, Miltonian curriculum is based upon principles well-stated by Forel:

Education should promote comprehension and combination, but discharge the vast work of memorizing as much as possible upon books, which should be merely consulted, not learned. Make haste to forget useless trash. It obstructs your own thoughts, paralyzes your artistic sense, and dries up your emotions. Read only the choice books from among the thousands with which we are flooded.

Man must seek to improve his brain 'by a sane, voluntary and rational selection, rather negative than positive, by instructing both sexes, and by urging