studies they should pursue in the College of Arts and Sciences so far as preparation for their future profession is concerned; the second group of students, by recent legislation of the Faculty, will have professorial advisers during the last two years of the course and partially prescribed studies during the first two; but for the third group of students, constantly increasing though it is, no special provision has yet been made. The President suggests to the Faculty the consideration of the policy of formulating, with the aid of outside experts in business, journalism, etc., courses to be recommended to undergraduates who look forward to those vocations. Were this plan adopted, all undergraduates in arts and not merely, as now, those who are to become teachers, lawyers, physicians, or engineers, would have expert advice, based both on educational principles and the demands of their future vocations, in regard to the subjects of study they should pursue while enrolled in the College of Arts and Sciences. This step is merely the consummation of a movement already begun and carried, though perhaps unconsciously, a good way forward at Cornell. Nor need any apology be made for it. No one can deny that the idea of liberal education, precious though it is, is to-day so vague and uncertain that neither professor nor student gets any light from it in his educational work. The proposal, therefore, is to give the undergraduate guidance in the choice of his studies and inspiration in the pursuit of his work by having him in his arts course study, among other subjects, a goodly number of those which bear directly upon his future life-work. It may even be that American educators will recover the now obscured idea of liberal education by carefully training students for the various intellectual vocations. And it would undoubtedly promote greater seriousness and studiousness among undergraduates in arts if, by eighteen or nineteen years of

age, they were urged to select their future vocations, as prospective engineers and lawyers often do at the present time, and to pursue their studies with reference to them.

This leads to the consideration of a third obstacle with which a modern college of arts is confronted. And this obstacle is not merely national but world-wide in its existence and operation. It is especially conspicuous in old universities to which a large proportion of undergraduates in arts go more for pleasure than for study, more for subsequent social recognition than for present intellectual attainment. It was fully discussed recently in England, when Bishop Gore declared in the House of Lords that Oxford and Cambridge Universities had declined from their position of intellectual centres of the country to become the playground of the wealthier classes. And a few years ago it was stated in a faculty report on improving instruction in Harvard College-a report based mainly on replies to inquiries received from students (to the number of 1,757)— that "the average amount of study is discreditably small.' Formerly only the picked boys were sent to college in the United States. But nowadays rich and well-to-do parents send their sons to college as in summer they send them to the seashore and the mountains. Undoubtedly it is a great advantage for the boys, but they create serious problems for the universities they frequent, especially for the academic department or college of liberal arts, in which they are generally enrolled.

It cannot be said that the College of Arts of Cornell has suffered from a large influx of this class of students. The majority of students in the University come from families of narrow means, and this is as true of the College of Arts as of any other division of the University. Nevertheless the undergraduates of that College have among their fellow students the reputation of doing less work than other

students. The course in arts is believed to be easier than the course in engineering or medicine or law. This disparagement is probably well founded. Arts students have not a definite goal before them like students in the professional and techuical courses and lazy students take advantage of the elective system, which is peculiar to the course in arts. The evil may not be a serious one; and the character of the student population of Cornell and the all-pervading spirit of hard work are sufficient to correct defects in any College, once the Faculty is aware of their existence and determined on their elimination. Perhaps the professors and instructors can improve their methods of teaching, making the work more interesting, stimulating, and vital. Perhaps they can get into closer personal touch with their students. It is indispensable that somehow, in the class-room or out of it, they give the students individual attention and training. Nor should undergraduates be given opportunities to shirk their regular work. It is little less than pathetic to read in the Harvard report already referred to (and the implied criticism is not more deserved by the Harvard faculty than by others) that "students themselves express the opinion that the instructor or assistants should by means of frequent 'quizzes' or conferences keep them to their work, and enable them to read with greater understanding."

It is very gratifying to add that in this year's annual reports from the arts professors in Cornell there is evidence both of an increasing use of "quizzes" and conferences and of closer personal contact between professors and students outside the class-room. Here are short extracts from four different reports:

(1) The experiment of having frequent quizzes, which was introduced for the first time this year, has had most gratifying results. The students do much better work than formerly and seem to find more interest in the work they do."

(2) "For these quizzes the class has met once a week in two sections of about twenty four members each. This adjustment, I believe, is a marked improvement over the purely lecture method fol. lowed in the past."

(3) "I gave last term, on the average, nine hours a week to consultation with the students in this course."

(4) "During the first half-year I met each member of the class three times in personal conference, criticising and discussing with him reports which he had previously handed in.”

This is the sort of service to students which will impart. new energy and vitality to a college of arts. And it cannot be too often repeated that at Cornell as elsewhere the hope of the college is in the faculty. Changes in the administrative machinery, though they should be made when improvements, will yet prove ineffectual to vitalize and energize a college of liberal arts. That is an end which the faculty, and the faculty alone, can accomplish. And, if it is asked what the faculty can do, the President replies that the ideal is described in that passage of Agassiz's address on Humboldt which recalls his own student days in the University of Munich:

"I was then a student in Munich. That University had opened under the most brilliant auspices. Almost every name on the list of professors was also prominent in some department of science or literature. They were not men who taught from text-books or even read lectures made from extracts of original works. They were themselves original investigators, daily contributing to the sum of human knowledge. And they were not only our teachers but our friends. The best spirit prevailed among the professors and students. We were often the companions of their walks, often present at their discussions, and when we met for conversation or to give lectures among ourselves, as we constantly did, our professors were often among our listeners, cheering and stimulating us in all our efforts after independent research."

In the report of the committee on improving instruction in Harvard College, to which reference has already been made, it is stated that at Harvard "students regard English and other modern languages, philosophy, history, geology, and some other studies, as culture subjects in a higher sense than mathematics, the classics, and most of

the sciences." A somewhat similar line of cleavage is drawn by students at Cornell. Latin and Greek are more and more left to those who study them for professional purposes, so that the professors find themselves with smaller classes than formerly, but the amount and quality of the work done "atone in great measure for the small numbers. " Mathematics fares somewhat better, as was to have been expected from its indispensableness to courses in the physical sciences, which are possibly a little more popular with arts students at Cornell than they seem to be at Harvard, though at Cornell also the great majority pass them over for the humanities. Hereafter, however, no undergraduate in arts can register as a junior who has not had at least one course in physics, chemistry, geology, or biology in his freshman or sophomore year. There should now be courses in all these subjects especially adapted to the needs of arts students, and in carrying out this programme a new professorship of biology is a necessity. The spirit of the change is illustrated by a few sentences from the Life of Louis Agassiz:

"As a teacher he always discriminated between the special student, and the one to whom he cared to impart only such a knowledge of the facts of nature as would make the world at least partially intelligible to him. 'What I would wish for you,' he would say, 'is culture that is alive, active, susceptible of farther development. Do not think that I care to teach you this or the other special science. My instruction is only intended to show you the thoughts in nature which science reveals, and the facts I give you are useful only, or chiefly, for this object.'

But, when all is done for science that should be done, it will still remain true that English and other modern languages and literatures, history and political science, psychology and philosophy, constitute the principal materials of education for students enrolled in the college. That fact alone emphasizes the importance of