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THE HIGHER EDUCATION

system under which we live as bound together by associated action.

The ground of Professor Palmer's argument from experience has now been pretty well traversed. I am quite content to leave the facts and impressions on both sides to be weighed by all who may be interested in such discussion. In closing I shall express—in the name of the great majority of those engaged in the practical work of education in this country—some of the fears felt as to the ultimate results of the New Education. These fears are not bugbears, incontinently and obstinately opposed to the fair spirit of progress; they are honest and strong fears.

We are afraid that the New Education (meaning by this the method in use at Harvard) will increase the tendency to self-indulgence and shallowness, which is already great enough in American student life. A smattering of many knowledges, hastily and superficially got, is the temptation of our modern education. The chief remedy must be in a selection of certain topics to be pursued with large persistence and thoroughness by all those who choose to associate themselves for purposes of common study. H the average American boy, on entering college, had had a discipline, and had made acquisitions in a few lines of study, at all equalling the results reached by the German gymnasium, he might