Complaint is made by some scholarly and very intelligent observers of educational work and tendencies in this country that a too exclu

The Study of Literature in American Colleges.

sive devotion to science is "dehumanizing" literary study in American colleges. It is not that literature is denied a place in the curriculum, but rather that there is a failure to adopt the ways and means requisite to true literary culture. This charge is laid especially at the door of the professors whose business it is to teach the world's great literary languages, ancient as well as modern. "As it is," writes Irving Babbit, of Harvard University, to the New York Nation, "the more vigorous and pushing teachers of language feel that they must assert their manhood by philological research. At bottom, they agree with the scientist-and the dilettante-in seeing in literature, the source not of a law of life, but of more or less agreeable personal impressions. * Perhaps a majority of the more important chairs of ancient and modern literature in this country is already held by men whose whole preparation and achievement have been scientific rather than literary. This situation is on the face of it absurd, in some respects even scandalous."

* *

Mr. Babbit thinks the primary difficulty with which learned foundations have to deal in this matter is the difficulty of finding professors who are really qualified to occupy a chair of literature.

"The degree Ph. D. is no proof of fitness for the place; but, as now administered, puts a premium, not on the man who has read wisely and thought maturely, but on the man who has shown proficiency in research. It thus encourages the student to devote the time he still needs for general reading and reflection of Greece and Rome is a hodge-podge of to straining after a premature 'originality.'" For this reason he suggests that a new degree is necessary as an alternative, if not as a substitute for the present Ph. D., a degree laying the stress on aesthetic appreciativeness and linguistic accuracy, wide reading and whatever is necessary to the equipment of the literary critic. It is an old complaint that too many boys at school are taught Latin and Greek in a fashion that disgusts them with the masterpieces of literature in those ancient languages, and now a like complaint is made in regard to the prevalent system of teaching modern languages. German and French, for example, are taught either from the philological point of view or from a business standpoint, and the priceless treasures of German and French literature are ignored. "From the lists of books read in schools and colleges and from publishers' catalogues," says Mr. Babbit, "one might infer that what is now taking the place of the masterpieces second rate French and German novels. Even the best judges are impressionists in dealing with contemporaries, so that from the teachers' point of view one is

tempted to lay down the rule that the only good authors are dead authors."

Mr. F. C. Prescott, writing also to the Nation on this subject, makes the point that literature cannot be directly taught at all, but that a taste for good literature can be induced by a proper system of training: "The appreciation and enjoyment of literature are matters extraacademic and belonging to the home. *** Literature for the colleges is one of these two things-history of literature and the general principles of literary criticisms. But," he argues, "from these studies, as well as from the study of foreign languages, literary appreciation may come as a by-product. It will come inevitably in proportion to the culture and the enthusiasm of the teacher."

It is a familiar fact that doctors differ; but the great fact to be borne in mind here is that literature is educative, and that a knowledge of the best books in ancient and modern languages confers a knowledge of the world-of mankind, the proper study of man-which is hardly attainable from any other source. Literature, deserving the name, is an embodiment of the world's most profound, comprehensive and subtle criticism of life. It is learning, experience, reflection, translated in terms of life, and he who is not a master of it is still to some extent ignorant and immature.

Religion at State Universities.

When the state university began to assume importance in western educational circles the friends of the denominational colleges which had sprung up in numbers in every state found it profitable to set forth in warning words the dangers which attended residence at a seat of learning under the control of some other body than a board of trustees all members of a particular church. They even had a story of a chapel service at one of the ungodly institutions, where, after a painful silence, one of the professors upon the platform rose and said, "The praying professor is absent today

and there will be no chapel this morning."

It has been interesting to note how the religious life of the state institutions has developed, as a wider horizon has made the limitations of denominationalism less conspicuous. In many places guild houses have been established under the auspices of particular churches, to serve as rallying places for the members of that denomination in the university, presided over by heads who give their whole time to the religious interests of these students, and making powerful adjuncts to the work of the Young Men's Christian association and the corresponding organization in the interests of women.

The right man at the head of one of these houses is able to do much good for the persons whom he desires to serve. He keeps in touch with the pastor of the home church from which the student came, as well as with that of the church in the college town. He makes his guild house a home where students may come in times of special need. There may not be that aggressive denominationalism which too often asserts itself unduly in the small institution traditionally attached to a particular sect, but the influences are wholesome and the opportunities for good are many.

It is entirely likely that the Wisconsin. clergyman who made the recent attack. upon the religious life at the University of Wisconsin did not mean to imply that the whole body of students was coated with a "religious veneer," striking as that phrase is and much as it expresses the spiritual condition of thousands of people of this generation. What he seems to have had in mind was the need for some sort of a religious establishment under the auspices of his own denomination. In working toward this he probably used stronger terms than were justified by the facts in the

Considering the increasing influence which the state universities are steadily gaining it is desirable that every force which works for character and fits for usefulness should be encouraged. It is entirely unlikely that distinct irre

ligious influences are allowed to have control at any university in this day when personal religion, even if it be thinly veneered, is counted of much worth to character.

Statistics in support of this belief have been brought forward by Dr. George Macadam, pastor of the Madison Methodist Church, who last year conducted a religious canvass among the 2,292 students in the undergraduate classes. Of this number 1,648 were either church members or expressed some church preference. One hundred and fifty-two expressed no choice, and 492 could not be seen. The percentage of students from the four classes who are either church members or who expressed church preference was 70, a very high proportion.

In the various sororities there are 210 members. Of these 115 are church members, while 81 have some church preference and 14 have no choice whatever. The percentage of church members among sorority girls is 55, and that of those having church preference 93.

The boys in the fraternity houses have nearly as good a record to their credit as have the sorority girls. In the various fraternities there are 338 members. Of these 170 are church members, while 130 indicated some church preference, and 38 expressed no choice whatever. Fifty per cent. of them are church members and 83 per cent. expressed some church preference.

The convocation orator of the University of Chicago deplored the failure of the large univerAre Universities Lacking in General Culture?

sities of to-day to do as much for manners, taste, and general culture as the smaller institutions of a generation or two ago. Is the charge true, and, if it is, are the universities to blame?

The Chicago Tribune says: The colleges of the United States fifty years ago were attended by men who had in view the calling of lawyer or of minister, and

by the sons of wealthy men of family and culture. The men who had in view a professional life were quick to catch the tone of those who aspired to be gentlemen of leisure and a certain diffusion of refinement of manner was inevitable. The colleges were small and the students. lived in closer intimacy than is possible in the large mass of students in a modern university. America was still fond of looking to Europe for models of deportment and overrated the prevalence of good breeding in the old world. Stately manners and stately language were highly esteemed. Newspapers and magazines were few and unimportant and the reading of the students was forced into ciassic channels. Athletic sports occupied little time or thought. The percentage of students who, upon graduation, were or bade fair to be polished gentlemen was large.

Modern standards of deportment differ from the older ones. The colleges have felt the change. The elegant language and stately demeanor of the heroes of fiction in the first half of the nineteenth century would not be accepted as a pattern by college students of the first half of the twentieth century. The students come from a wider range of homes and enter college with different aspirations. The percentage of college students who become lawyers or ministers is dwindling yearly. Judged by the standard of fifty years ago the students of to-day probably would seem to lack polish. Judged by the standard of today they probably carry away as large a stock of manners as they ever did. As for taste and general culture, opportunities are presented students to-day for which students sighed in vain in the older days. Every large university has its course of art and music. Courses are offered in a variety of topics never touched in an old-fashioned college. The poorest student to-day is nearer to a realization of the wonders of science than the most broadminded of his ancestors.

It is probably true that the polish aimed at by the upper classes of society a half century ago is not to be found to

day either among college graduates or elsewhere. On the other hand, the universities to-day are sources of culture to a wider range of humanity than the old colleges reached. Manners may have suffered in the case of the few, but the gulf which of old separated gentlemen by birth and breeding from the crowd has vanished, and the average is higher than ever. The universities are in nowise responsible for the disappearance of the old ideals, except as they have taught the greater worth of sincerity over ceremony. Time is of greater value now than then, mentality of more importance than manners. There has been an actual gain in knowledge, a loss in manners, which is only a seeming loss, because truth is absolute and elegance only relative.

Greeks vs. the Modern.

There is no other study from kindergarten to post-graduate school that has received So many hard knocks of late years as Greek. The scientists and the utilitarians have taken it for their stock example of the folly of the old education. People whose schooling ceased before they had a familiar acquaintance with the three Rs are quite sure that most any language is better than Greek. They line up with the other authorities and exhibit a fine contempt for the institutions that attempt to teach such stuff and the young men who waste their valuable time upon it.

But the Greeks of our colleges are not dead yet. They are a hardy lot after their training at digging among roots, and they have faith and pride to sustain them. A long article by Professor J. Irving Manatt of Brown University Brown University shows how confident they are in the justice of their cause. The professor begins by arguing that the wideopen optional system is proved already to be a failure, and his Greek helps him with an illustration. Like Hercules at the crossroads, the schoolboy must choose his path, but Hercules had a comparatively easy time.

"In place of the simple old cross-oads conceive a trolley terminal, with its network of radiation, and the choice of your schoolboy Hercules becomes a serious matter."

In order to fortify his position still further, Professor Manatt then refers to the confessions of Charles Francis Adams in his recent Phi Beta Kappa address at Columbia. Mr. Adams was one of the radicals at Harvard who were for ousting Greek, but now he has no faith in the judgment of the boy of 18 who is left to go as he pleases. He says of himself: "I gave up the classics; I got rid of mathematics, and I have since learned that educationally the thing of al things I needed for my subsequent good was a severe and continued training in mathematics and Greek."

"Severe and continued training" is undoubtedly what every student needs, and dancing about from trolley to trolley is not a good discipline. Possibly, therefore, the Greeks may be gaining now that the trolley exercise has received a pretty thorough test. At least, they have the chance to attack, and it is natural that they should make the most of the opportunity.

Excavations of the ancient city of Gezer, mentioned in early sacred and profane history, carried on by members of the Palestine exploration

Report of Members of Palestine Exploration Fund.

fund for the last three years have developed numerous "finds," according to advices from Jerusalem published in the September number of the Biblical World.

Eight cities have been found, superimposed upon each other, on the side of the old defense to the western road to Jerusalem from the mountains of Judah. The culture, history, religion, and customs from as far back as 3,500 B. C. have been revealed by architecture, jugs, weapons, masonry, etc.

Claims that Gezer was the prehistoric home of "geezers" and that the cognomen is a 5,000 years' survival are given