Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 63.djvu/149

Rh on his mastery of mechanics and the calculus. In the same fashion, the student in medicine is willing to accept chemistry and physiology as prescribed studies. But a year in chemistry, or two years in higher mathematics, put in for the broadening of the mind or because the faculty decrees it, has no broadening effect. Work arbitrarily prescribed is always poorly done, sets low standards, and works demoralization instead of training. There can not be a greater educational farce than the required year of science in certain literary courses. The student picks out the easiest science, the easiest teacher and the easiest way to avoid work, and the whole requirement is a source of moral evil. Nothing could be farther from the scientific method than a course in science taken without the element of personal choice.

The traditional courses of study were first broken up by the addition of short courses in one thing or another, substitutes for Latin or Greek, patchwork courses without point or continuity. These substitute courses were naturally regarded as inferior, and for them very properly a new degree was devised, the degree of B.S.—Bachelor of Surfaces.

That work which is required in the nature of things is taken seriously. Serious work sets the pace, exalts the teacher, inspires the man. The individual man is important enough to justify his teachers in taking the time and the effort to plan a special course for him.

Through the movement towards the democracy of studies and constructive individualism, a new ideal is being reached in American universities, that of personal effectiveness. The ideal in England has always been that of personal culture; that of France, the achieving, through competitive examinations, of ready-made careers, the satisfaction of what Villari calls 'Impiegomania,' the craze for appointment; that of Germany, thoroughness of knowledge; that of America, the power to deal with men and conditions. Everywhere we find abundant evidence of personal effectiveness of American scholars. Not abstract thought, not life-long investigation of minute data, not separation from men of lower fortune, but the power to bring about results is the characteristic of the American scholar of to-day.

From this point of view the progress of the American university is most satisfactory, and most encouraging. The large tendencies are moving in the right direction. What shall we say of the smaller ones?

Not long ago, the subject of discussion in a thoughtful address was this: the 'Peril of the Small College.' The small college has been the guardian of higher education in the past. It is most helpful in the present and we can not afford to let it die. We understand that the large college becomes the university. Because it is rich, it at