other forms of burner, or to use it with Welsbach mantles. Successful
acetylene burners of the Argand or of the regenerative type have not
yet been introduced; but in Germany a new acetylene burner with
Welsbach mantle promises good results. Experiments in England with an
acetylene Bunsen burner and Welsbach mantle gave a light of ninety
candles per cubic foot of acetylene used. It remains to be seen
whether it is necessary to modify the composition of the mantles
because of the intense heat of the acetylene Bunsen flame, which gives
a temperature of 2100° to 2400° C. (3812° to 4397° Fahrenheit).
It would extend this article to undue length to speak of the various
uses of acetylene as an enricher of other gases, but a mixture of
acetylene and Pintsch oil gas now in use on all the Prussian state
railways deserves mention, as it is a success, and ten thousand tons
of carbide will be used this year for lighting cars by this system.
Lewes's new invention of a very cheap methane water gas which is
enriched by acetylene, carried to the consumer through mains, and
burned in ordinary burners, is also promising.
Insurance and police regulations vary for every country. As a rule,
restrictions are put on the use of liquid acetylene, and on the amount
of carbide to be kept in storage. Generators must stand in separate
buildings, which, in towns, must be fireproof.
The Willson patents cover the manufacture of crystalline carbide in
the United States, Canada, and the South American states; and, as all
carbide made by the electric furnace is crystalline, no carbide can be
made independently of these patents in these countries.
In conclusion, it may be predicted that within the next few years
acetylene will prove a factor in giving us an improved and cheaper
light. Whether this will be an acetylene-Welsbach light or whether the
acetylene will be chiefly used as an enricher of cheaper gases the
future will show.
THOUGHTS ABOUT UNIVERSITIES.
BY WILLIAM KEITH BROOKS,
PROFESSOR OF ZOÖLOGY IN THE JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY.
You are aware that the pedagogue is no longer treated with that
deference and respect which he feels to be due to his love of
learning. Past is all his fame. Past is the day when the village all
declared how much he knew. Nowadays he is accustomed to be told by the
rustics, who once gazed and wondered, that he is old-fashioned and out
of place in our modern world; that he does not represent the nation;
that the love he bears to learning is at fault; and that the
university the people want must be universal like an omnibus, with a
place for all, either for a single square or to the end.
He is also used to hearing from those successful people of whom all
must speak with reverence--those who have demonstrated their
superiority by laying their hands on everything they think worth the
getting--that he is a mere "bookish theorist," and that they are much
more able to show him the path to success than he to tell them
anything to their advantage.
Unless he can minister to their comfort or entertainment, or make
smooth the royal road to learning, or at the very least help to
maintain the patent office, he is told to be content with such
treatment as they think good enough for him, and to keep himself to
his work of teaching the lower classes to be lowly and reverent to all
their betters.
I have been much interested of late by two books on certain aspects of
modern society. One treats of the dangers which threaten liberal
culture and constitutional government, and all the best products of
civilization, through the increasing prevalence of the belief that our
institutions have been _devised_ by a few for their own selfish ends.
So long as men differ in natural endowments the ignorant and the
incapable and the unsuccessful must outnumber those whose industry and
energy and foresight insure success. As those who have little have
always outnumbered those who have much of the desired fruits of
civilization, this writer says that one of the great questions of the
day is whether, in last resort, the world shall be governed by its
ignorance or by its intelligence. He is alarmed by the diffusion of
belief that our established institutions do not represent the people,
and that they are hostile to the best interest of mankind, and by the
prevalence of the opinion that the true way to reform the world and to
secure rational progress is to intrust the organization and
administration of government and of education and of all matters of
public interest and importance to the majority.
The danger so clearly pointed out is real, beyond question; but I can
not agree with the author that it is exclusively or distinctively
modern. If some in our day interpret the belief that the voice of the
people is the voice of God, as conviction that the loudest voice is
most divine; if they assert that the man with pure and lofty ideals of
education and duty and loyalty is a public enemy; we must remember
that so wise a man as Aristotle taught, in the day of Athenian
democracy, that the man who is virtuous in undue measure is a moral
monster, as justly repugnant to his neighbors as one pre-eminent in
vice.
If the first book calls Aristotle to mind, one must often think of
Jeremiah while reading the second, for its author is a dismal prophet,
who holds that, formidable as unbridled democracy seems, it is
helpless in the struggle with organized plutocracy, and that its
efforts to shake off the restraints and limitations of social
existence can end in nothing but a more crushing despotism, while
submission may bring such rewards of merit for good behavior in the
past and such prizes for good conduct in the future as seem to the
givers to be good investments.
Both writers draw many of their illustrations from the history of our
own country, and they hold that our great political contests are
struggles between those who wish to maintain our institutions for the
sake of what they can themselves make out of them, and those who seek
to wreck the ship of state for very similar reasons.
Some hold that, these things being true, they can show the learned
professor how he may win back, through the struggle between these two
great classes of mankind, some of that confidence in his wisdom which
his predecessors enjoyed. They tell him he may make his learning
represent the people if he will extend his university until it becomes
as universal as the kindergarten, and that he may at the same time
increase his popularity with the select if he will devote more of his
time and more of his energy to that branch of learning which was in
olden times pursued in that secluded cloister called the campus,
although it is better known to the polite society of our day through
the banjo club, the football team, and the mask and wig club.
If he will cultivate these two fields, and, refraining from the
theoretical pursuit of empty generalities, will enter upon a three
months' campaign of education at some time when men's minds are
stimulated by the heat of faction to welcome calm discussion of the
principles of common honesty and good citizenship, he can not fail to
win the respect and confidence of all.
When I wrote this last sentence I thought that it was all out of my
own head, and I was proud of it; but as I laid down my pen in my
satisfaction for a moment's rest, my eye fell upon this passage in the
prospectus of a new university--one which is said, in the prospectus,
to be not only universal, but cosmopolitan: "When a question arises
which divides scholars, like the tariff, the causes and course of the
Reformation, money, etc., the student will be referred to the ablest
exponents of the opposing sides."
No professor can plead ignorance of the way to enter this new career
of usefulness. One can scarcely pick up a college catalogue or a
magazine or a newspaper without learning how to make the university
universal. One of the simplest plans, with which all are familiar, is
to send to men with a reputation for learning a ruled form and a
request that each will write, in the proper columns, the price,
publisher, and title of the best book on his own subject--mathematics,
astronomy, moral science, or whatever it may be--or, if he knows of no
such book, that he will write one. An accompanying circular tells how
these lists are to be scattered through the innumerable homes of our
land, and how diplomas are to be distributed as prizes to those who,
after purchasing the books, prepare and submit the most exhaustive
permutations of their tables of contents.
Learned men who do not approve this plan are offered a choice from
many others: six-week courses in law, medicine, and theology; summer
schools for the promotion of science and the liberal arts; questions
and answers in the educational column of some journal for the home; or
a national university so universal that it shall supply lunches and
learning for all out of the public chest, with no doorkeeper to
examine passports.
The way to extend the university in this direction is so well
understood that I will turn now to another part of our subject, for
some may be less familiar with our opportunity to construct a royal
road to learning for those who are entitled to use it.
A recent writer on education, who says American universities impose
"upon young men in the nineteenth century a curriculum devised by
dead-and-gone priests for the young men of the twelfth," calls upon
the teachers of America to reconstruct their curriculum on
psychological principles. I myself am no psychologist, and while I
fail to see how this fact concerns the public, it has recently been
pointed out in print, although no one has ever charged me with lack of
reverence for the psychologist. In truth, he is to me what the good
old family doctor is to many, for I am convinced that it would be hard
to name one among all the educational ills that flesh is heir
to that he would not be able to throw on the spot, with a good
collar-and-elbow hold. I have a prodigious respect for those fine big
words _curriculum_ and _psychological principles_, and I welcome the
plan for reconstructing the curriculum on psychological principles the
more eagerly because it is extremely simple and not hard to
understand, like some psychological utterances. In fact, it is so very
simple and easy that it is sure of enthusiastic indorsement by
innumerable children, for this reformer's plan is neither more nor
less than the abolition of the pedagogue.
"If," he says, "I was director general of education for all America"
(which at the present moment he is not), "I would abolish colleges,
but send American youths to travel for two years in Europe. In my
opinion," he says, "a father who has sons and daughters of a proper
age to go to college will do better by his children if he sends them
for two years to travel in Europe than if he sends them for three
years to an American or English university."
Admirable and simple as is this plan for ascending Parnassus in
vestibuled trains of drawing-room cars, personally conducted by Grant
Allen, this psychologist seems to me to err in thinking it new, for it
was in high favor in England during the reign of that merry monarch
who was always so furious at the sight of books that his queen, who
loved reading, had to practice it in secret in her closet.
Euphranor having asked, in the reign of George II, "Who are these
learned men that of late years have demolished the whole fabric which
lawgivers, philosophers, and divines have been erecting for so many
ages? Lysicles, hearing these words, smiled and said he believed
Euphranor had figured to himself philosophers in square caps and long
gowns; but, thanks to these happy times, the reign of pedantry was
over. Our philosophers, said he, are of a different kind from those
awkward students. They are the best-bred men of the age, men of the
world, men of pleasure, men of fashion, and fine gentlemen. I will
undertake a lad of fourteen bred in the modern way shall make a better
figure and be more considered in any drawing-room or assembly of
polite people than one at four-and-twenty who hath lain by a long time
at school and college. He will say better things in a better manner,
and be more liked by good judges. I say, when a man observes and
considers all this, he will be apt to ascribe it to the force of truth
and the merits of our cause, which, had it been supported by the
revenues and establishments of the Church and universities, you may
guess what a figure it would make by the figure it makes without them.
People begin to open their eyes. It is not impossible but the revenues
that in ignorant times were applied to a wrong use may hereafter, in a
more enlightened age, be applied to a better."
"The money that went to found the Leland Stanford or the Johns
Hopkins University," says the modern reformer, "would have been
immeasurably better spent in bringing St. Marks at Venice and the
Uffizi at Florence into the lives of innumerable young Americans.
Here, then, is the opportunity for a wiser Cornell."
A few years ago an acquaintance of my own, himself an accomplished
psychologist, brought with him to Washington a young man, a native of
north Greenland, that he might take into his life the best substitute
for St. Marks at Venice that this country affords. While limited in
range, the results were as definite as one could wish, for two of the
most refined delights of our wonderful civilization--rum and
horses--were at once taken into the life of Eskimo Joe with all the
fresh enthusiasm of youth. In his boyish impetuosity he could not see
why a hired horse should not have the fleetness of Santa Claus's
reindeer and the endurance of wild dogs; and as few horses survived
the first lesson, the psychologist soon reconstructed the curriculum,
for Joe's progress in rum and oysters was most gratifying. You who
have attended my lectures in anthropology will remember that Nature
has bestowed on the Eskimos two endowments which are not elsewhere
found united, although they are exhibited separately in high
perfection by the anaconda and the camel. Joe was able to load himself
with food and drink like a pirate ship victualed for a long cruise,
and he became so proficient in three months that a two-year course
seemed unnecessary, so he was shipped off to Labrador at the first
opportunity, and was left there to carry St. Marks at Venice into the
homes of Greenland as best he might. It is clear that our
psychological reformer's plan is not new, but he says our curriculum
is some thousand years behind the times, and he asks, "Will somebody
one day have the wisdom to perceive that the education which sufficed
for the mediæval England of the Plantagenets is not absolutely adapted
to the America of the nineteenth century?" I myself know so little of
the curriculum of that day that this charge may, for all I know, be
well founded, and if so it were a grievous fault. For all I know the
dead-and-gone priests of the twelfth century may have read Homer in
the original Greek, and carried on their studies in trigonometry and
navigation with the aid of logarithms and the nautical almanac,
although it has come in my way to know something of their method of
teaching zoölogy, for my studies have led me to examine a text-book on
this subject, which was written early in the twelfth century for the
education of the young Queen Adelaide, who was married to Henry I of
England in 1121. The dedication is as follows:
"Philippi de Thann into the French language has translated the
Bestiary, a book of science, for the honor of a jewel, who is a very
handsome woman, Aliz is she named, a queen is she crowned, Queen she
is of England, may her soul never have trouble! In Hebrew in truth
Aliz means praise of God. I will compose a book, may God be with the
commencement!"
As a sample of the zoölogical curriculum of the twelfth century take
this chapter:
"Onager by right is named the wild ass; of it the Physiologus says, in
his speech, when March in his course has completed twenty-five days,
then that day of the month he brays twelve times, and also in the
night for this reason, that that season is the equinox, that is that
night and day are of equal length; by the twelve times that it makes
its braying and its crying, it shows that night and day have twelve
hours in their circuit. The ass is grieved when he makes his cry, that
the night and day have equal length; he likes better the length of the
night than of the day. Now hear without doubt the signification of
this. Onager signifies the devil in this life; and by March we
understand all the time that we have; by the day we understand good
people, by right, who will go in light; and by night we understand
those who were Neros; and by hours we understand the number of people.
And when the devil perceives that his people decrease, as do the hours
which are in the night, after the vernal equinox which we have in
March, then he begins to cry, to deplore greatly, as the ass does
which brays and crys."
One need not go back to the middle ages for a measure of progress, for
all who remember the American college of thirty years ago know there
has been notable improvement in this short time, and they also know
that every change has not been an improvement. All who are concerned
with education see many defects, and wish to do what they can to
remedy them, and to increase the efficiency and usefulness of our
whole educational system in all its branches from the lowest to the
highest, although I believe they still find much wisdom in the advice
of the prophet of old, "that we make a stand upon the ancient way, and
then look about us and discover what is the straight and right way,
and so walk in it."
Many who are now before the public as reformers seem to me to fall
into error through belief that our educational system has been
_devised_ by some one, either in the twelfth century or at some other
time, and that they may therefore hope to devise a better. All who
know that it is a highly complex and delicate organism which has grown
up imperceptibly and naturally in accordance with many needs,
fulfilling many different purposes and acting in many diversified and
far-reaching ways, know also that while reform always has been and
always will be needed, organic change is quite another matter. They
know, too, that a disposition to pull it to pieces in the interest of
some theory or speculation must inevitably end in disaster, for they
must agree with Bacon that "it were good, therefore, that men in their
innovations would follow the example of time itself, which indeed
innovateth greatly, but quietly, and by degrees scarce to be
perceived."
The complaint that learning is no longer treated with due deference is
not exclusively modern, for it was enumerated long ago among the
things that are not new under the sun; and he who for his own pleasure
or distinction devotes himself to work in fields that yield nothing
but the interest of the exploration should look to his own pleasure
for his reward, since learning is no more exalted by turning it into
an aristocratic and exclusive pleasure ground than by making it a shop
for profit. While no weak and foolish brother of the laboratory should
be permitted to think that he belongs to a favored class or has any
claims to support or respect except for service rendered, it is the
duty of our graduates to teach the world, by the example of their
lives, what the work of the university is.
Lyceum lectures and summer schools and systematic courses of reading
are good things, and the common school and the home are the foundation
of all education. Travel is a most valuable adjunct, but those who are
to profit by it must first know what they go out to see, "for else
shall young men go hooded and look abroad little."
No school or college can improve its work by calling itself a
university, although the prevalence of belief that its work is the
work of a university may bring harm incalculable; for that university
is universal, in the best sense of the word, where students are
inspired with enthusiasm for truth by the example of those whose minds
are "as a mirror or glass capable of the image of the universal world,
and joyful to receive the impression thereof as the eye joyeth to
receive light."
What nobler task can our graduate undertake than to teach the world
that while the benefits which learning confers are its only claim to
consideration, these benefits will cease so soon as they are made an
end or aim? All men prize the fruit; but who else is there to tell
them that the tree will soon be barren if they visit it only at the
harvest, that they must dig about it and nourish it and cherish the
flowers and green leaves? What better service can he render than to
point out that the gifts of learning are like health, which comes to
him who does not seek it, but flies farther and farther from him who
would lure it back by physic or indulgence?
The two authors I referred to at the beginning can not both be right,
and both may be partly wrong, for it is possible that neither
plutocracy nor a democratic majority makes a state. No university
need humble itself to seek the favor of either plutocracy or democracy
if its graduates can convince mankind, by their own lives, that its
aim is not to gain deference or success or distinction or reward of
any sort, but solely to propagate and diffuse among mankind "that
enthusiasm for truth, that fanaticism of veracity, which is a greater
possession than much learning, a nobler gift than the power of
increasing knowledge."
IN THE LITTLE BROOK.
BY DAVID STARR JORDAN.
Long ago, in the old Devonian times, when life was very leisurely, all
the beasts and people that there were lived in the sea together. The
air was dull and murky on the land. It was so light that it gave no
support to the body, and so those that ventured about in it had to lie
prone on the ground all the time wherever they went. So they preferred
to stay in the water, where motion is much easier. Then, too, water is
so much better to breathe than air, if one has gills fitted for it! He
has only to open his mouth and the water rushes in. Then he has only
to shut his mouth and the water rushes out backward, bathing his gills
on the way. Thus, the air dissolved in the water purifies all the
little drops of blood that run up and back through the slender tubes
of which the gills are made.
But in those days, besides the gills, some of the beasts of the sea
had also a sac in the throat above the stomach in which they could
stow away air which they took from the atmosphere itself. This served
them in good stead when they were in crowded places, in which the air
dissolved in the water would fail them.
And those which were so provided used to venture farther and farther
out of the water, pushing their way heavily on the ground. And those
which could put forth most effort survived, until at last their
descendants were able to maintain themselves on the land altogether.
These gave rise to the races of reptiles and birds and mammals, the
ancestors of all the land beasts that you know, as well as men and
women and all the monkey people. But it was very long ago when this
happened, and because these ancestors came finally out of the water
they have no part in the story I am trying to tell to-day.
Those that remained in the water grew more and more contented with
their condition. Because the medium in which they lived was as heavy
as their bodies, they swam without much effort, and effort not being
needed, it was not put forth. As there was food enough in the water,
they did not need to go on land. As they did not go on land, they did
not use their lungs for breathing, the air sac gradually shrank away,
or was used for some other purpose, and all the parts of the body
became adjusted for life in water, as those of their cousins who left
the sea became fitted for the life in air. Being now fishes for good,
all the progress since then has made them with each succeeding century
more and more decidedly fishy.
And because they are fishes they are contented to live in little
brooks, which would not satisfy you and me at all. But our ancestors
in the early days were more ambitious, and by struggle and effort won
what seems to us a larger heritage.
So it happened one spring when the ice melted out from some little
brook that flows down from somebody's hills somewhere toward some
river that sets toward the Mississippi, the little fishes began to
run.