Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 74.djvu/312

308

is still the chief educational center of the country. Among its institutions for higher education, Harvard is our greatest university and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology our greatest school of technology. This year Harvard is for the first time surpassed by Columbia in the number of students, and it will soon be overtaken by several of the state universities. Cornell and Michigan have more students in applied science than the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. But Harvard and the institute have been leaders in setting certain educational ideals, and each will for a long time maintain its preeminence. Harvard consists of a college with free electives for culture and professional schools based on it; whereas the institute aims to give culture with and through its professional studies. The outcome appears to be more play at Harvard and I more work at the institute. It is extremely difficult to appraise the value of an educational system by its results on the students. So long as students of the upper classes with their hereditary and social advantages or students

i selected from all classes by their superior ability and enterprise go to college, and so long as the college is the natural gateway to certain careers, it is not possible to test the value of a college education by its objective results on the future success of the students. When, however, the graduate school of applied science endowed with the income of the McKay bequest at Harvard has been completely established, it may be possible to make an interesting comparison of its work with that of the institute.