these classes of scholastic pursuits! I am inclined to believe that, on the whole, the improvement of the methods of teaching Latin and Greek has been quite as marked as that made by the teachers of the natural sciences.
As to psychology and philosophy, whenever these subjects are in the hands of men who have themselves received a thorough modern training, the same claim can be established. Unfortunately, however, the impression still prevails widely that any one can teach psychology, ethics, and philosophy who can read in advance of his pupils a text-book on these subjects—especially if he happens to have had training in a peculiar set of prejudices by having been a student of theology.
But in all three groups of essentials—in language and literature, in mathematics and natural science, and in psychology and philosophy—the present generation has seen more advances in equipment and in method than all the rest of the world's past history. What is chiefly needed, in order properly to modernize our liberal culture, is the possession of this equipment in the hands of men who know how to use it. Here I am tempted to make a side remark which has an important bearing on all higher educational development in this country. The conduct of many educational institutions and the estimate placed upon them by the American public are such as to depreciate
