The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1916-1920, 1919-10-12

demonstrate Darwinian selection and
evolution. They have a far greater
and more important mission in plant
forms and great laws OF practical use.
You may cringe at the utility and
commercialism OF such education, but
it IS utility linked up to culture and
discipline. The north star lost nothing
of It's glory by being connected with
the compass and chart OF a steamship.
Medical learning lost nothing when It
LETT alchemy for anatomy and started
the blood into circulation.
We have discovered that learning
is not to lead man back into the dark
ages OF history or forward into specu-
lative maZes or sophistries of philos-
ophy simply, but it is to bring all
things to his hand and make him
know the wealth OF his dominion. 1t
Is not to make him a slave but q
corQueror. II is not to leave him with
q stoIehouse of remembered facts of
no practical value Tor q trained mind
10 use indifferently, but il has trained
MN III every faculty to use forces and
elements and instruments that are cree
alive for world building.
In fact, the amendments OF the old
are striking in tho larger range of
Greek. Mang of its present day sub
jects are alive and enter largely into
the worlds practical thought, such as
archaeology, geography. &C.
In the preface TO mis- choice book
Beginning Latin" just issued. DR..
Perley Oakland Place says, "The study
of Latin fosters habits OF persiste nee.
thoroughness and accuracy-it cult
Yates the power to understand the
thought of others and to express ones
own. Translating is laboratory work
in literature, admirable exercise in
expression, insuring steadily increas-
ing power in the use OF a rich and
varied vocabulary"
do not sympathize with the otter
repeated remark and the boast of the
new educator that those old days did
not fit men for their life work as
these do. Nothing fits men for their
life work as does mental discipline,
It far surpasses knowledge of things
He is the best prepared for his life's
responsibilities who can do the best
thinking. The old education was prac-
teal.
Why did we not keep it? We have
kept it. The old has not been sup
planted by the new with those who
can secure it and are wisely directed
to use it. All that Is being done in the
best colleges and universities is to
extend 1t and supplement it. There
is as much Greek and Latin, as much
mathematics and philosophy and logic
as ever, and there are more who
| major in them. But there Is more
than these. And these things are not
! N side buildings with distinguishing
signs painted on them. but they are
included in the sanctity of the old
college halls. If they are not IN the
old time curricula. they are coordinate
in university groupings.
Some of them have gone into he
most conservative colleges. There i:
| English, for instance, and also chem
istry and so-called natural philosophy
which scarcely had more than names
Natural philosophy has given place t.
| physics, housed in building of it,
| own with shelves loaded heavily with
testing apparatus for the study o
| reconcile and mentally discipllnins
subjects scarcely known TO the ripes
scholars of fifty years ago. Bacteri
ology has come in and biology also. II
the student seeks science courses fol
soft courses serious embarrassment
awaits him. Chemistry is no longel
the memorizing OF symbols, bu
analysis with blow pipes. reactine
chemicals and an appalling array o
| Iva 40
representing great expenditures Their
is physical chemistry, industrial chem
istry, chemical engineering, fooC
chemistry, water chemistry, plan
chemistry, soil chemistry, milk chem
istry, &c.
Geology and mineralogy, once prac
tically the same, their specimen
slowed away in the attic, are now il
several departments eXpensivei,
equipped, and their study runs tn
gamut from building stones to pre-
cious and semiprecious minerals. will
the secret labyrinths OF oils ant
aerated waters, the structure OF tn
globe, the study of all strata and crys
tals-that infinite mystery of creation
still going onward.
IL the laboratory was Srudgingl
given space in the old time colleg
when It came no man would attemp
to teach to-day without a laborator
where experimental demonstration
can be made, and made not for tn
students but by the students. Som
of us recall the insulating machin
With our long hair swapping in the all
and the leyden jars which jerked OF
hands apart as we stood a wonderin
group around the lecture room. An
, those/were scientific experiments. n
, department of experimental science
taught now where the student doe
not do his work himself.
And these new studies, all Of whic
) I have not enumerated, are not toy
} They are not object lessons. The
have justified themselves by takin
their place with the great disciplinar
+. classical and mathematical branches
They are equally great intellect build
. ers. They are safe equivalents. The
, claim the college degree and worIhil,