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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

man who has no intention of professional pursuits? If we can, then, and then only, may we assert that it is a fit subject for academic study.

By a superficial knowledge of many things, we break all continuity in education; we may reach a "top-dressing," but the subsoil has never been turned and cultivated. From this standpoint, academic education will, I feel certain, grow more and more technical education; the man who has exercised his mind in thoroughly examining one small field of knowledge, who has seen its solved and unsolved problems, and who has tried his own powers in even some little bit of pioneer work, has received a training which will stand him in good stead, whatever he may afterwards turn his mind to in life. I can conceive a great university for the training of mind, in which the whole teaching force should be devoted to the manufacture of problems, calculated to exercise and develop the youthful mind, without any regard to their bearing on real knowledge. Such was very nearly the system of the Cambridge mathematical school of a generation ago. It produced splendid lawyers, subtle theologians and a few ardent students of science. But the labor expended in the manufacture of problems, the sole purpose of which was to provide material for mental gymnastics, might have achieved European reputation for the manufacturers had it been devoted to the pressing problems of technical science. It is because every university has a duty in the creation of new knowledge, as well as a duty in education, that it seems desirable that our mental training should take as its problems those which are actually demanding solution in practical life.

If we are to have a school of statecraft, I venture to suggest that a special technical education shall be developed for it. We must not be content with the mental gymnastics which can be provided by philosophy or political history. We must add that study of the biological factors which York Powell saw was so needful to historical investigation. We must approach with the detached mind and calm criticism of Mark Pattison those problems as to the rate of change of races, a knowledge of which Raphael Weldon has told us is "the only legitimate basis for speculations as to their past history and future fate."

If we attempt to define the scope of statecraft we enter no doubt the field of controversy, but may we not extend the condition which so fitly expresses the primary need of the individual—the healthy mind in healthy body—to the swarm of individuals with which the statesman has to deal? Taking the word "sanity" in its broadest sense of health and soundness, the primary purpose of statecraft is to insure that the nation as a whole shall possess sanity; it must be sound in body and sound in mind. This is the bedrock on which alone a great nation can be built up; by aid of this sanity alone an empire once founded can be preserved. There are secondary important conditions—too often regarded as primary—which are undoubted parts of statecraft. The nation must have the instruments and the training needful to protect