Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 77.djvu/565

Rh diverting men from consideration of the spiritual to love of the material. Then came the genius who, remembering the classical statement that the first step in education is the study of words, asserted that the chief thing is the study of words; and he discovered that in the study of Latin and Greek words one gains an all-around training, a "mental culture" which is imparted by no other study. With that came the conception that colleges are to give a "liberal education" without any reference to utility. For more than half a century the gospel of culture has been preached by college graduates, who, too often, are themselves living proofs of its falsity.

It is difficult to speak or to write meekly respecting the ceaseless chatter about "culture" and the "education of a gentleman." If study of Greek and Latin in college should make men "cultured," should convert them into "gentlemen," there must be something wrong in the mode of teaching or in the mode of study, for the results are not wholly gratifying. Of course, there may be a difference of opinion as to the meaning of "culture." If it mean comfortable self-satisfaction without basis of knowledge, certainly a very great number of men have acquired "culture" at slight cost; an insignificant quantity of classical or other lore found lodgment in their minds and their chief relic of college days is the recollection that they took the classical course. But if "culture" mean intellectual breadth, judicial attitude of mind, the ability to express one's thoughts clearly, not much of it could be acquired in the old classical course and still less in a modern classical group.

But one is told that a tree is known by its fruits, and the classicist proceeds to prove results by presenting a long list of brilliant authors who studied classics, while he challenges his opponent to show a similar list made up from graduates of non-classical courses. This can not be regarded as a legitimate argument. A field of blasted corn always contains a considerable number of good ears. If one should take the whole product, he might be inclined to say that the classical course is destructive of culture and that the men on the list were those who had escaped the blasting influence of the study; for a very great proportion of the graduates who have entered professional life, exhibit a charming indifference to the rules of rhetoric and notable inability to express their thoughts clearly. But the argument is worthless in either direction. It is absurd as an argument for teaching the classics; nearly all of the polished writers in this land and Great Britain were graduated before the change in curriculum came about; they had to study the classics or nothing.

The writer holds no brief for defence of any special type of education or of any special curriculum but he maintains that a curriculum which ignores utility is wasteful. All training should aim to make a