tory, but they insist upon a better opportunity for modern literatures, modern languages, and modern history; and that modern science, by which all these subjects are more and more interpreted, and which is itself the transcendent intellectual interest of the age, shall have the leading place in schools of all grades. Holding to the practical value of positive knowledge for use and guidance in both private and public life, and seeing that it is as true now, as it was in the days of the prophets, that the people perish for lack of it, they demand such a reorganization of educational work as shall most effectually secure this end. The reform now required is, to make available for society the stores of valuable applicable truth which is the latest and highest result of human thought.
And this is a work that remains yet to be done. If it be said that changes have already been made and institutions modified so that modern knowledge is practically attainable, we reply that it has been nothing more than attempted. Notwithstanding the endless talk, the tide of influence is powerfully against the reformers. The question is not what special arrangements may have been made to meet special cases, but what is the ascendant ideal which governs the general practice. When a mother is ambitious that her son shall have a liberal education, and commits him to the accredited agencies, the question is, "What will become of him?" It is notorious that a pupil can go through a course of so-called liberal study, and graduate with honor at the highest institutions, in complete ignorance of that vast body of facts and principles which has arisen in modern times under the name of science, and the object of which is to explain the existing order of the world. There are great educational establishments from which modern knowledge is almost entirely barred out, and which oppose its intrusion with all their power. They fight the "encroachments" of modern science, modern literature, modern language, and modern history, at every point; and it is equally certain that this scheme of higher education in the ancient seats of learning reacts with great power upon inferior institutions, making them also unsympathetic with modern ideas as means and objects of culture.
It is true that we have scientific schools, and that they are doing an excellent work; but the shape they are compelled to take sufficiently attests the vigor and vitality of the traditional system. Where allowed to exist at all, they generally take the form of separate and supplementary institutions—outside appendages to the older colleges which, having grudgingly made this concession to "popular clamor," cling resolutely to their inherited methods. The new schools, in fact, became an excuse for resisting all modifications in the policy of the old, for it is said that the new wants are abundantly supplied by the new arrangements. Meantime it is assiduously maintained that the technical schools are only fitted to make chemists and engineers, and cannot educate in any broad or liberal sense, while thorough culture—the complete training of men—can only be accomplished by the old classical colleges. It is, therefore, as far as possible from true that the public have as yet realized the advantages of modern knowledge in education.
In an able article in our present number, Canon Mozely has shown not only the educational importance of modern literature, but he has shown also how grossly it is neglected in the English universities; and this testimony is the more valuable, as coming from a doctor of divinity, trained in the classical system, and holding a distinguished place in the University of Oxford. How desperate has been the struggle for the past generation to get even the nominal recognition of the sciences in these establishments is well
