Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 82.djvu/198

194 mental disorders, as well as all bodily ailments, can be cured by administering the proper combination of drugs continue to delude a credulous public?

Modern education starts from quite a different standpoint, first taking into account the biological or inherited trends of the individual, and then trying to estimate his latent capacity or brain-power in the expectation of giving the assistance needed to help the student in the task of self-government and self-improvement. We talk so glibly about "hereditary influences," "individual capacity," "individualism as opposed to collectivism," that, if we had a keen sense of humor the ridiculousness of a system of tutelage which attempts to treat students en masse, without any reference to their inherited traits and natural capacities, would strike us as farcical. This method has been described as "education by cram and emetic." In the model school or college the different subjects should not be taught as ends in themselves, but in order to train the student how to observe intelligently, concentrate his attention, repress unhealthy instincts and cultivate those qualities making for a broader, saner life. From kindergarten to the day of graduation from the university the mental training of students is dominated to so great an extent by the servile preparation for examinations that a special degree of B.E. (bachelor of examination) might be conferred on all applicants who require written evidence of having satisfactorily "passed" in order to be assured of their right to be classed as "educated persons."

An education should, as Goethe expressed it, make it possible for the individual to live his life to the fullest. Only after the idea has been clearly set forth that education and mental training should be synonymous terms are we ready to comprehend the relationship of the college to the university. Having grasped this principle, we are then in a position to realize that in the school and college every effort should be directed to the formation of good mental habits, while in the university the student should be given, under general direction, an opportunity to practise these habits, and, in addition, to develop to the fullest extent possible the spirit of intelligent curiosity.

Without the presence of universities, whose chief aim should be to cultivate the spirit of investigation and of open rebellion against conventional teaching-authority, the intellectual vigor of the entire nation is seriously impaired. Political freedom can never atone for the loss of intellectual liberty which should be faithfully guarded by the university. In a democracy there is constant danger of forgetting that the loftiest ideals of freedom are not those associated with the political life of the nation, but are indissolubly connected with the search for the truth that alone makes its possessor free. How strange that in a nation which boasts of the freedom of its political institutions so little is done by our universities to encourage and protect the agencies which