of their high accomplishments. "Culture" for culture's sake has been the idea, rather than culture for the sake of more efficient work. Now, we are well aware that to some it will sound like a great heresy, but we must frankly confess that we do not believe in culture for culture's sake, nor in art for art's sake, nor in science for science's sake, nor even in truth for truth's sake. "We believe that culture and art and science and truth all find their value in the human life which they tend to beautify and improve. "When culture is given merely for culture's sake, it lacks definiteness of aim, and never seems to know what boundaries to observe. "We fancy—though at this moment we are not prepared to speak positively on the point—that we see a result of the "unchartered freedom" of female education in the more ambitious programmes of female seminaries as compared with those devoted to the teaching of young men. Men know that they must concentrate their energies if they are to succeed in the special objects they have set before them. "Women, not having (in general) such special objects, think the whole circle of knowledge none too vast for their grasp. We read in a recent article by a lady upon a well-known college for ladies that, "in passing from class-room to laboratory and lecture-room, while observing the work done by professors and students, one can not fail to be astonished at its breadth and depth and wide scope, at its immense quantity and superb quality. Pages would be required to do it full justice." Is there any college for men in this country to which such a description could be applied without seeming somewhat overstrained? We certainly do not remember to have seen anything so glowing of either Harvard, Yale, Johns Hopkins, or Columbia.
Supposing, now, we ask for a moment, What is "higher education" for any given individual? we should be inclined to answer—with that bent toward practical views which we have already avowed—that it is not so much education in the minutiæ of any branch or branches of knowledge, as education dominated by a relatively high purpose and expressly directed to the perfecting of the individual life with reference to its normal sphere of activity. Now, individual life is not perfected, not improved, by any education that ministers to vanity or ambition. That the college education of young men often has that effect we are quite sure; that the college education of young women has it still oftener we are disposed to believe. Anything that has such an effect forfeits, in our opinion, its title to be regarded as "higher education," since it really is the education and stimulation of lower impulses and instincts. Apart from this consideration, however, true intelligence is not always promoted by the imparting of a great variety of knowledge, or even by the special prosecution of particular lines of study. "Whether the mind becomes truly intelligent depends upon whether it is enabled to apply to every-day life the lessons of the school-room, and to see all knowledge in its practical bearings. Many minds, male and female, are, we are convinced, simply educated away from true intelligence by the costly efforts that are made to give them the highest educational advantages. As between men and women we draw at present no line whatever in respect to intellectual qualifications. That the distinction of sex extends to mind as well as to bodily organization we think highly probable; but precisely how the distinction operates in the mental region can not be dogmatically affirmed; and the best thing to do under the circumstances is to let the distinction, if there is one, establish itself in practice. Let the same educational facilities and privileges be available for women as for men; and in the course of time we shall perhaps see better than we do now
