The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1895-07-10

Scholarly Address BY Professor Butler
ef Colunhia College.
WHAT LEANING is or WORTH!
Extresss troo ths prssident's Annual
Addrsss nsfoss Meeting OF Eduea-
tioas1 Association ut Dsuver.
ColosaAo-Officers Elected.

Denver. Colo, July 9.-The Nationai
Council Of Education closed its work
this morning In short executive ses-
sion. The committee appointed Mon
day to consider the recommendations
of Henry Sabin. Of Des NJ Dimes, relative
to the organization of u.yraded schools
reported In favor Of committee of
nine to fully investigate the subject,
reporting within two years.
1t was decided that hereafter papers
should be printed and distributed a
month before the meeting. No more
public meetings win be held.
The following officers were elected,
after which the council adjourned: II,
8. Tarbell. Providence. r. l.. president;
Earl Barnes. Menlo Park Calf vice.
president: Miss Bette A. Dutton,
Cleveland. O., secretary and treasurer;
Charles De Garmo, Swarthmore. Pa;
David L. Koele. Minneapolis. Mimi; ],
X. Preston. jackson, Miss. ard James
M. Green. Trenton. N. j.. executive
committee.
Among the features Of the convention
was the annual address OF the as
sociation's president, Professor But
SVAaA0i8 ColitSc, .Nc"
York. on "Whet knowledge Is Of the
Most WORTH" was scholarly paper. to
whsoh q brief synopsis fails to do JUS
tice. He said in part:
1hc student Of history Is struck with
the complexity Of modern thought From
the dawn OF philosophy to the great re-
vival Of learning the lines of development
are comparatively simple and direct. Dur
n -k<x<l
step. the evolution Of the main problems
Of thought and action. and discover read
fly how tho theory Of the seers stood the
test Of application by the msn of deeds.
Inthese modern days all this is changed.
Man has come to doubt not only his SUI
premacy In the universe. but even his i'm
portance. A host Of new knowledges has
appealed to human sympathy and inter-
est, and has taxed them to the utmost.
Within generation or two biology has
been created. and physics, chemistry and
geology haven been born again. Already
1t is proclaimed by Nordeau and his school
that we are In an age of decadence, and
that many Of our contemporary nterpre-
ters of life and thought-Wagner, Tolstoi.
lbsen. Zola. the pre-Raphaelites-a 1T
subjects for an insane asylum.
Amid all this confusion, however, a
%A8hs HoS cS~h 6ioWiHS stciu4iN " .SHtcl
FOR those who have eyes TO See. In our
own country two great masters OF thought
have come forward Offering. Ike Adr. .adne
OF old. to place in our hands the guiding
thread that shall lead US through the laby
rinth--the German Hegel and the English
man Herbert Spencer Hegel, schooed in
the teachings OF Kant and Fichte and
coming early to an appreciation the seed
thought Of Plato and Aristotle, Bruno and
6pinoza, has taught us in unm!stakable
language that Independent, sclf-active be-
ing is the father OF all things. Spencer,
feeling the thrill of that unity which
makes the cosmos one, and receiving from
Ismayek and Won BasY the hint that led
see that the lie Of the individual
hes the clew to the understanding
life of the aggregate. whether nat
OR social. has formulated into a single
irrefutable law of progress the terms
that development, or evolution, which
n been more or less dimly before the
hind Of man since thought began.
The Privacv Of Thonght.
despite the fact that our age Is one Of
unexampled scientific and industrial prog
ress. yet nothing in all our modern scien-
tAfc activity is more striking than the in
disputable primacy Of Thought Thought,
not In antagonism to Sense. but interpre-
tative Of the date of sense. Idealism,
shorn of its crud'tes and its extrava-
gances, and based on reason rather than
on Berkeley's analysis Of sense-percept;on,
10 conquering the world. The physicist,
also. IL coming to see that his principles
Of the conversation of energy in its var
tous manifestations, Is a new and start
ling proof Of the fundamental philosophical
principle Of self-activity. Energy mani
tests itself as motion, heat, light, cleo
trictty, chemical action, and sound. Each
form Of Its manifestation is transmutable
into others. The self-active cycle is com
plete. regard this insight as to self-ac-
fivity and the primacy of reflective thought
as the profoundest that philosophy has to
offer; and, instead Of being urged, as In
centuries past, in antagonism to the
teachings Of science, 1t Is now becoming
the Joint conclusion Of philosophy and
science together.
''The question that am as!s,ng-what
knowledge IL Of most worth?-!s very old
one, and the answers to It that have been
HANDED down through the centuries are
many and various. 1t is question that
each age must put to itself. and answer
from the standpoint of its deepest and
widest knowledge. The wisest philoso-