Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 64.djvu/207

Rh utmost use not to himself only, but to his fellows also. It asserted that a man must earn the right to live by being of service, and denied that training along the prevalent narrow lines was education in the proper sense. It ridiculed the pretensions of a system which boasted of its success in producing men whose scholarship was proved by volumes filled with quotations illustrating the use of Latin or Greek particles; it demanded a training which should develop all sides of the man and fit him for the exigencies of active life as contrasted with that of the cloister.

Efforts made in our country sixty years ago to remodel the curriculum so as to satisfy both sides are spoken of as absurd, because they were not radical. They were not absurd; they were the first steps along an untried way. Educational institutions were controlled by medievalists, and the doctrine was ingrained that instruction belonged to the province of the christian minister as much as did the pulpit; the whole system had grown up under the requirements of the church and under the limitations permitted by the church; so that, in considering the change, those in charge found themselves at a loss. Their Latin was no longer a 'modern' language, it was no longer the common tongue of learned men; Greek, at best, had been only a luxury. The study of material things, having led men to doubt respecting some matters of religious belief which had come down without challenge from antiquity, was tainted with suspicion of sacrilege; of its true nature they were wholly ignorant. The best that could be done was done; within college walls, the classical languages gradually ceased to be living languages, came to be regarded as dead languages, their words were used as medium for teaching a kind of universal grammar, and the average student, after spending a round dozen of years in the so-called study of Latin, thought himself uncommonly accomplished if he were able to read his diploma without resort to a lexicon or grammar. The course leading up to the degree, for there was but one degree, was broadened gradually so as to embrace additional subjects. But until fifty years ago it consisted in most colleges of linguistics, that is to say, Latin and Greek with practical neglect of English, a notable amount of pure mathematics, a medley of courses in history and philosophy, with a trifle of natural science. In some institutions, additional branches were inserted, the courses were differentiated and a new degree was granted to those who, neglecting the classical languages, had taken instead modern languages and somewhat extended work in natural science.

The concessions to the claims of natural science were made grudgingly; the study of nature was looked upon by 'educated' men generally as a rather low-lived pursuit, not to be encouraged, as it led men away from man, 'man's noblest study.' But there were those who felt