Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 82.djvu/197

Rh activity. So many institutions have assumed the name without justification by deeds that it is necessary to lead up to our definition by a preface of negation. The university is not, as some people believe it to be, an overgrown college with an increased number of students, a larger faculty, and greater material resources. Neither is the principle upon which it is administered one that is based upon an expression of merely local or parochial interests. Chauvinism and insularity do not thrive in the true university atmosphere. On this account, it is impossible to conceive of any university as an institution which is solely dependent upon the support of its own alumni.

In order to understand the positive attributes distinctively characteristic of a university, we must have some clear conception of what constitutes an education; inasmuch as the institution under consideration represents the acme of the entire educational system.

Education, according to the original usage of the word, is a leading out process, marked first by an attempt to measure the individual's capacity and then to direct his energies along lines where growth is possible. From this it is obvious that the chief aim of education is the cultivation of good mental habits and not the imparting of information. Modern educational reforms have for their object instruction in methods of work, the information incidentally supplied being of secondary importance. The older system put the chief emphasis upon the imparting of information. First one set of correctives or tonics and then another was administered to students, and if they survived the treatment they were classed with those "who had received an education." Fortunately, there are signs that the age of this form of drug-giving is rapidly passing away. A few pedagogues still have faith in cultural specifics and liberalizing studies, with virtues as well advertised and as highly extolled as any of the life-giving tonics and nostrums of the quacks, but the general public is beginning to appreciate that the original use of the word education, or intelligent effort to e-duct, not a forcible attempt to ad-duct, expresses the modern trend of our educational system. Recently the suggestion has been made that mental training is the only remedy for most of the evils connected with our present system of education.

How often the cart is put in front of the horse! How often cause is mistaken for effect! People possessing special mental qualities have predilections for certain subjects and these choices are the expression of a complex individuality largely made up of factors acquired, not by training, but by heredity. The doctrinaire often attempts to reverse the natural order and attributes the characteristics of the personality to the subjects studied. If the humanizing and cultural potency of an education depends upon the proper selection of subjects of study, what a poor showing is made by the human race after centuries of expectant treatment! How long will the old superstition that all