trial education. To confine their choice of professors to any one denomination, or circle of denominations, is to dwarf them; to put them under control of any synod, conference, association, council, or convention, is to strangle them.
2. I name freedom of choice between various courses of study. The old way in the more venerable colleges and universities was, to force all students through one single classical course—the same for all. This system the "new education" discards. General courses in literature, science, and arts, are presented, as well as special courses having reference to the great industries; and the student, with the advice of friends and instructors, takes that which best suits the bent of his mind. We believe that the results are already better than those of the old system. Certainly they could not be worse. The famous "Blue-Book of the Parliamentary Commission" on advanced education, in England, shows that under the old system there, seventy per cent, of the students in their great schools and universities take no real hold upon classical studies. Few will claim that our system of classical instruction is better than that in England. If any of you think it more promising, look at President Barnard's cogent statistics on this point. We make no opposition to classical instruction. We agree that, for those who take earnest hold of it, it is one of the noblest means of discipline and culture; but it is no less evident that for those who do not take hold of it—who merely "drone" over it—it is one of the worst.
3. I name equality in position and privilege between different courses of study. I have already shown how courses of study in science, and especially those bearing on industry, have been held, in various places, virtually inferior to courses of study in literature. Against this we stand pledged. We are determined to hold all courses and all students as equal; educating them together, graduating them together, welcoming them back as alumni together. But the "new education" does not merely endeavor to give a greater range of studies, it seeks also to improve methods. Let me mention two of these:
1. I name the better use of the lecture system. Those who knew Louis Agassiz well will never be at a loss to recall conversations, instructive and entertaining; but I think that, among them all, none conveyed a better mixture of philosophy and fun than his delineation of the recitation of text-books by rote, as it has been so long practised in our American colleges. No system was ever better calculated to deaden enthusiasm and stiffen knowledge. More and more we are coming to see that, wherever possible, we must bring the living mind to bear on the student. Thus may we supplement text-books, and take from them their present woodenness and dreariness.
2. I name the union of study of things with study about things. Under the old system it was book in the morning, book in
