tion to have occurred.' His successor replied: 'Almost without exception, the working naturalists in this country believe in evolution. . . . In England and Germany the belief in evolution is almost universal among the active workers in biology. In France the belief is less general, but is rapidly gaining ground. . . . I should regard a teacher of science who denied the truth of evolution as being as incompetent as one who doubted the Copernican theory.' We challenge the 'Observer to find three working naturalists of repute in the United States—or two (it can find one in Canada)—that is not an evolutionist. And where a man believes in evolution, it goes without saying that the law holds as to man's physical structure."
These, then, are the "sciolists," the smatterers, the shallow novices, to whom President Seelye leaves the subject; meantime the learned professors of Amherst illustrate the dignity of scholarship and the ripeness of knowledge by teaching the biology of the ancient Hebrews. The theory of evolution is now guiding the researches of the scientific world because it is being constantly and increasingly verified in the new results to which it leads; but President Anderson will not teach it because it is "an unverified hypothesis." Has he a verified hypothesis, then? or do they, at the University of Rochester, dodge the foremost philosophic question of the age?
The college presidents seem to resent the imputation that they teach the derivation of man from "irrational animals"; and the "Observer" calls the doctrine "vile" and "degrading." There is a current vulgar belief that the idea of human derivation from inferior animals is scandalous and revolting. But is not this, after all, the established method of producing man? "What is a new-born babe but an "irrational animal," and does not each president of a college come from such an "irrational animal" by a process of development? And that is not all. Each human individual, beginning as a protoplasmic germ, is evolved step by step, passing in the gestative period through type after type of "irrational animals" before the developed human life begins. "Will the nine doctors of divinity be good enough to say who it was that they think designed this arrangement? And do they not, moreover, teach that the Creator first tried the miraculous method of bringing people into existence at once and perfect, and then abandoned it for the present plan of developing them gradually out of "irrational animals" through the common processes by which inferior creatures are multiplied?
EDUCATION FOR GUIDANCE.
We heard a good thing recently of a distinguished Professor at a distinguished university, eminent for its high toned devotion to the interests of pure scholarship. The Professor had been lecturing upon a favorite subject, and declared the charm of it to be that "it could not possibly be prostituted to any practical or useful purpose." There is much to admire in this plucky spirit of devotion to truth for its own sake; but it is easy to make this transcendent state of mind subservient to a very bad utility. And, while we value great seats of learning, which provide for the devotees who pursue knowledge for the love of it, we have to guard against the prostitution of this idea to pernicious ends in current education. For, while the exceptional scholar may ignore the practical and the beneficial, the mass of mankind can not do so. They live in a world of action and struggle, and have minds to guide them in their labors and conflicts. These minds require cultivation, that they may do their work better. Knowledge is, therefore, for guidance, and education for the more intelligent direction of the activities and
