Page:Under Dispute (1924).pdf/297

 acquaintance, never clearly defined, with precise academic studies. The scientist discards many of these studies as not being germane to his subject. The professional student deals with them as charily as possible. The future financier fears to embarrass his mind with things he does not need to know.

Yet back of every field of labour lies the story of the labourer, and back of every chapter in the history of civilization lie the chapters that elucidate it. "Wisdom," says Santayana, "is the funded experience which mankind has gathered by living." Education gives to a student that fraction of knowledge which sometimes leads to understanding and a clean-cut basis of opinions. The process is engrossing, and, to certain minds, agreeable and consolatory. Man contemplates his fellow man with varied emotions, but never with unconcern. "The world," observed Bagehot tersely, "has a vested interest in itself."