Dr. Thwing notes a further difference between the English and the German seats of learning. The philosophical and scientific interests of Germany have been committed to the universities, but the corresponding interests of Great Britain have been committed to the individual investigator. Spencer, Darwin, John Stuart Mill, James Mill and Ricardo represent great scholastic achievements made outside of university walls. In Germany the great philosophers and scientists have almost always been university professors. What is true of philosophy is true also of the writing of history. Mommsen and Curtius were engaged in professorial work when they produced their histories of Rome and Greece, but neither George Grote nor George Finlay, the English historians of Greece, had a university education, and Gibson averred that he had learned absolutely nothing during his very short term of residence at Oxford. Thwing recognizes one outcome of the difference in the fact that German philosophy has been characterized as systematic and English philosophy as individualistic.

Dr.

Passing from German to American universities Dr. Thwing sees in the latter also more points of unlikeness than of likeness to Oxford. It is true that like Oxford the American university is ordained to train men, but that is not its

single primary purpose. Its primary purpose is a double one: both to train men and to find truth. We are reminded that the Harvard shield bears the word "Veritas" written across the pages of an open book; but it also intimates a human purpose by the further inscription of devotion to the Church and to Christ. One feature in which the two institutions differ is that Oxford has no special chair devoted to the training of students in the art of English composition. The Oxford system presupposes that the writing of English is an art and a science in which it is a duty of every instructorwhatever be his province-to give tuition. Dr. Thwing holds that the results bear witness to the superiority of the Oxford method, for in his opinion Oxford graduates write better than American graduates.

We observe, finally, that he does not believe that we should reproduce in large institutions like Harvard and Yale the Oxford mode of segregating undergraduates in different colleges, but he thinks that we might with great advantage copy the Oxford tutorial system, by which not only is knowledge imparted, but an impression of personal character is conveyed and personal influence is exercised. In a word, "More teachers, smaller classes," should be, he maintains, our college cry.

In the latest number of the Technology Review Isaac W. Litchfield, one of the most prominent of the alumni

New Plan of

Business Education. workers of the Massachusetts Institute

of Technology, presents an article on apprenticeship for business responsibility that is most startling from an educational viewpoint. He proposes that the student activities at the institute be taken charge of by a committee made up of alumni, faculty members and students, and the work of all of these activities be a required part of the school curriculum.

In the opening of his article he shows that the college does not train the student for business responsibilities, this being especially true of the Institute. He shows that all of the steps in all other lines of development of the student's mind are slow and by degrees, and that in the case of business enterprises the student goes into them without training of any kind, and is called upon to do a great share in work that he is in no way prepared for.

The main idea of his scheme in making this work a part of the school curdergraduate enterprises such as the riculum is to take advantage of the unTechnique, the Institute annual; the Tech, the school paper, the various athletic teams, and other organizations for experience for a student. In these the student could gain the experience, and these enterprises would become identified with the school itself rather than with the individual student. He speaks of the good experience gained at the present time by the students who go in for such things, and shows the immense ad

vantage both for the students and for the various institutions if his idea were installed.

He proposes that the work be carried on under a carefully selected resident engineer in whom all responsibility and authority be vested, and the student body be organized on the general plan of a large industrial corporation, with a board of directors chosen from the junior and senior classes, including this resident engineer. Under this executive body the administrative department will be headed. by a general manager, either a junior or senior, and the various departments will be headed by division managers.

Under this system, according to Mr. Litchfield, the student would become acquainted with every phase of conducting a big business concern, and would be taught in the most practical manner the idea of general management, division of authority, theory of costs, inspection of material and discipline. In fact, it would lead into the various lines which are essential to the supplementary education of an engineer.

He also proposes to bring politics, spoken of in the same sense as in municipal and state elections, into the student life at the Institute. All of the offices in this proposed system would be elective by popular vote among the students, and the student body would be divided once a year into two political parties. Two or three men would be elected for each office, and the real selection would be made by a faculty committee, together with resident engineer, as in all cases an attempt would be made to select the men best fitted for the positions.

Mr. Litchfield in the latter part of the article devotes himself to showing the great advantages of the scheme, and calls on the alumni for help and suggestion. One of the greatest arguments that he puts forward is that it would place the institute ahead of any other institution of learning in the country. The advertising that would follow the installation of such a plan would be great, and wealthy manufacturers would be interested in the attempt to supply a lack which is universally recognized. He also shows that such a plan would be of the greatest good for the student, if the un

761

dergraduate body as a whole would go into the work with a hearty enthusiasm.

To Found a Nautical Museum.

Dr. Charles Lane Poor, Professor of Astronomy in Columbia University, announced in a recent address before the New York Academy of Sciences that Frederick G. Bourne, Cornelius Vanderbilt, and several other well-known citizens of New York have agreed to apply to the city authorities and the State Legislature for a charter to found the New York Observatory and Nautical MuThese same men have agreed, he added, to raise an endowment for the proposed institution, and also to purchase all the instruments and apparatus that will be required to make the New York institution one of the best equipped in existence.

seum.

"To establish such an institution worthy of the City of New York," said Dr. Poor, "Frederick G. Bourne, Cornelius Vanderbilt, and other broad-minded citizens of New York, propose to apply to the city authorities and to the State Legislature for a charter, so that they may found the New York Observatory and Nautical Museum. Their plan is that the new museum shall have the same privileges and be governed in a manner similar to that of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the American Museum of Natural History, and the great institution in the Bronx..

"The gentlemen interested in this plan will raise an endowment sufficiently large to purchase all the instruments, apparatus, and collections necessary to carry out the general plan to make it one of the great museums of the city. In accordance with the customs prevailing, the New York Observatory and Nautical Museum will establish various degrees of membership by which the citizens of New York, who may be interested in the general work of the museum or in some particular line of investigation may become allied with it and contribute toward the support and maintenance of its scientific reputation. Special arrangements will be made whereby officers of the United States Navy, the United States Marine

Corps, the Revenue Service, and the Merchant Marine may become affiliated with and entitled to the privileges of the institution during their active service.

"The principal aim of the institution. will be to investigate all problems arising in transportation by water, especially in the careful study of all matters which tend to increase the usefulness and importance of New York City as a maritime port. Some of these problems, such as the study of the tides and currents and the development of harbor facilities are a part of the functions of the National Government, but with so many thousands of miles of ocean, lake, and river coast to chart, buoy, and light, the Federal Government cannot always adequately examine and study the local conditions that effect the efficiency of any one port.

"In furthering the interests of the Port of New York, the observatory can aid and supplement the work of the Washington bureaus by collecting data and by making detailed and exhaustive examinations and reports. The position of the museum in the city and in the world will be unique. It will conflict with no institution, Federal, State, or private, but would supplement and add to the usefulness of many other institutions and organizations.

"The safety of ships at sea depends upon the accuracy of their navigating instruments, upon the adjustment of their compasses, the reliability of their sextants, and the rating of their chronometers. The master of an English ship can by the payment of a small fee have his instruments tested under Government supervision, his chronometers rated at Greenwich, and his sextants standardized at Kew, but in this country there is no place where the navigating instruments of an American vessel can be scientifically investigated and adjusted. The vessels of the navy have the naval observatory at Washington, but the vessels of the Merchant Marine have to depend upon the honesty and skill of the instrumentmaker.

"The observatory, to be established in this city, would aim to have a bureau for the standardization of instruments, where, upon the payment of a reasonable

fee, the navigating instrum. ts of any vessel in the port of New York would be investigated and adjusted and a reliable 'certificate of inspection' furnished.

"Methods of rating chronometers and standardizing instruments depend on astronomical observations and calculations, hence the institution must be equipped with a complete astronomical observatory. New York alone, of all the great cities of the world, is without an observatory of any kind or description worthy of the name. Boston has the Harvard Observatory, Chicago the Yerkes, San Francisco the Lick, Philadelphia the Flower, Washington the Naval, Paris the Paris, London the Greenwich, and Berlin the Potsdam.

"There are in existence today fiftythree telescopic lenses of fifteen or more inches in diameter, and of these fourteen are in the various observatories of the United States. An astronomical observatory, irrespective of its necessity as an adjunct to the nautical museum, must and would be of great interest and benefit to the New York public generally.

"The New York observatory, when completed, will contain a fairly large equatorial lens for public use and instruction. It is planned that this telescope shall be open to the public two or three evenings each week. The other instruments, those for purely scientific work in connection with the work of the institution, will be located in small buildings. separated from the main observatory. The plans for the various buildings of the institution have been made, the main building of the group being that of the museum, which is to be 320 feet long, 48 feet wide, and three stories in height.

"In the museum will be collected and exhibited models of all types of vessels, safety and signal devices, nautical instruments, and methods of determining positions, charts, historic instruments, and relics. The museum will be open to the public and so arranged that properly qualified persons can avail themselves of the facilities offered there for investigation and research."

The persons who are to incorporate the new institution hope that the city will provide a site for the building in Bronx

Park and will furnish the buildings for the museum and observatory. The corporation is to be governed by a self perpetuating Board of Trustees and is to have an endowment of not less than $500,000. The price, which is said to run well up into the hundreds of thousands, necessary to equip the buildings and procure the necessary apparatus, was not given out.

In addition to Messrs. Bourne and Vanderbilt, the committee on preliminary organization consists of Edward S. Isham, George A. Cormack, J. D. Jerrold Kelley, and Prof. Poor.

Ex-President Grover Cleveland paid a fine tribute to the national services of Princeton University, at the formal dedication last month of the new faculty-room in Nassau Hall, where the federal congress held its sessions in 1783.

Princeton's New Faculty-room Dedicated.

"Princeton," said the former President, "stands related by indestructible traditions to the saving devotion to country which lies at the foundation of our republic; and her mission and achievement in the field of higher education have since the beginning of the nation made her teaching known of all men, as a source of the most enlightened patriotism, and an instrumentality of the highest importance to our country's progress and security.

"The meaning of this occasion should be that Nassau Hall is to-day consecrated anew to the high ideals of her early time; that those who held in trust her name and fame are to-day newly stimulated in the cause of sound learning and high patriotism, and that the true Princeton spirit is to always here preside to bless and prosper those who keep the Princeton faith and follow the standard that Princeton holds aloft."

The new room was dedicated with appropriate ceremonies. The academic procession marched from the university library to Nassau street, and re-entered the campus through the Fitz Randolph gateway, the gate being opened by Miss Marjorie Van Wickle, a descendant of Nathaniel Fitz Randolph, who gave the

original campus of Princeton, on which the gateway and Nassau Hall stand.

Professor Charles Waldstein, professor of fine arts in King's College, Cambridge, England, is Excavation in Rome to perfect

of Herculaneum.

an

agreement with the Italian govern

ment concerning the carrying out of his project for the excavation of the ancient city of Herculaneum. The professor's plans have been accepted by the government on condition that the participation of foreign countries in the work be only under the form of private contributions, and that there be no foreign official interference. Professor Waldstein has secured the active co-operation of King Victor Emmanuel as president of his organization, as well as that of Emperor William, King Edward and President Roosevelt.

The excavation of Herculaneum will be a gigantic enterprise. The work of digging up the ancient city was begun by King Charles III in 1738. It was resumed under the direction of the Italian government in 1866. It has always been attended with the greatest difficulty, as over the ruins of the ancient city stands the town of Resina, with 20,000 inhab itants. The location of Resina has often made it necessary to abandon the research work.

The excavation of Herculaneum will be a far more difficult task than was the uncovering of Pompeii. The latter city was covered only by the ashes of Vesuvius, but the former lies beneath layers of hardened lava, which must be cut away with much hard labor and keenedged tools.

In his latest book, "A History of Higher Education in America," Pressdent Charles F. President Thwing's Thwing of Western History of Reserve University Higher Education. traces the course of educational development in this country from the beginning up to the present day, pointing out the various influences which have been responsible for changes in administrative policy and theory of

education. The work is historical rather than philosophical or argumentative. The opening chapters are admirable in their presentation of the struggles of the early institutions and the laying of the foundation for the great structure which was to be built in later years. But from a practical standpoint the most important part of the history is the discussion of present day conditions, especially the inception and progress of the elective system.

President Thwing presents statistics gathered from many of the more important colleges and universities, which apparently prove that the benefits to be derived from the system are not nearly as great as was hoped for by the men responsible for the enforcement of this radical policy. The most instructive. figures are those of Harvard University, the pioneer in the elective field, and the institution where the idea is carried to its logical extreme. These statistics show that students at Harvard have in a great degree failed to appreciate the advantages claimed for the elective system by its advocates. Specialized work at Harvard is not large, when the inducements and encouragements constantly placed before the students are considered. In too many instances the system is regarded as a license rather than a privilege. Students are not compelled to specialize, nor to choose from among related courses, but are allowed to pick and choose at will from an immense number of courses. A great many take advantage of this freedom. and select, after careful consideration and investigation, only the most notable "cinch" courses, those which require the minimum amount of study. Many students each year graduate who have but a superficial education, made possible by shirking work as far as possible and by always keeping just within the extremely flexible law. On the other hand, Harvard supplies the really earnest students with the most admirable means of specializing and of preparation for serious work along many lines. In other words, as has been said by a Harvard man, "Harvard is the worst place for bad students and the best place for good students."

It is a grave question if the colleges should be administered to suit chiefly the needs of the "best" students. Many boys, naturally a bit lazy and irresponsible, take advantage of liberal administration and slide through an elective course haphazard who would be compelled to do honest work under the old system. These men regret their folly in later years and feel that their own unformed ideals and the laxity of the system have deprived them of the training they needed and allowed the practical waste of four valuable years.

The remedy which has been suggested, the dividing of the courses into groups, and the enforcement of study. along the lines of special groups, might result in arbitrary inflexibility hardly less than all the old prescribed course systems. The problem is a puzzling one. Both ideas have their advantages and disadvantages. These are clearly presented by President Thwing in his history, but, as he writes from the historian's standpoint, he suggests no solution. Clearly the elective system as at present carried to its extreme is seriously deficient, but whether or not its advantages must be sacrificed on this account remains for the educators of the future to decide.

President Faunce on "Religious Education."

President William H. P. Faunce of Brown University, Providence, R. I., delivered an address recently in St. Louis for the conference on "Religious Education." He was recently elected president of the Religious Educational Association, a national organization, composed of 2,000 university presidents, professors, teachers and ministers. He said in part:

"In the early history of our country religion and education were indissolubly connected, just as the church and state, but in the past seventy-five years this connection has more and more been severed. Religion would gain nothing by hiring men in our schools to teach it to those who themselves have not experienced it in any way. There ought to be no difference between the preacher and