depression of selected individuals." The remnant, as Matthew Arnold reminds us, is the word not only of Plato, grandest of philosophers, but of Isaiah, greatest of prophets.

It is argued that there have now come into existence many and various colleges and universities that are able to do all that need be done for him who is described as the ordinary or average man, and that the time has arrived when American democracy can best be served by emphasis upon excellence, by the constant production of the excellent, by the exaltation of the excellent, and by an institution that would devote itself exclusively to the excellent.

It cannot be denied that this argument makes strong appeal, but the question arises whether this function cannot be, ought not to be, and is not being, combined with the more obvious public service of offering training and instruction to the so-called average man.

It is undoubtedly true that a ruling tendency of modern democracy is to wage war upon excellence and to give preference to the commonplace and the ordinary. The great mass of mankind feel what they are pleased to call “safer" under the guidance of mediocrity than under the leadership of excellence. Ideas are unfamiliar things and rather terrifying as well. Instincts and unconscious sympathies are less jarring and less disturbing. Human beings as a whole greatly dislike any interference with the conventional. The notion that the average man is a radical is a figment of the imagination of him who has no real contact with human beings. In truth, the average man is a sturdy and inexpugnable conservative. Were this not so, civilization would have committed suicide long ago.

'Abbott, Wilbur C.-Conflicts with Oblivion. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1924) P. 49.

Were a university to confine itself to the truly excellent, it would immediately subject itself to the criticism, which should in truth be a compliment but which would in fact be regarded as a reproach, that it was aristocratic. If it be aristocratic to seek for the best, to deal with the best, and to exalt the best, then a university, like all education, is essentially and of necessity aristocratic. If it be not the purpose of education to uphold standards and ideals and to raise an increasing number of human beings to a plane where they can and will both conform to these standards and uphold these ideals, then surely education is without any significant meaning whatever. The difficulty lies in the fact that the best is superlative, and therefore by definition must exclude the great mass of competitors in the unending human race. Power and authority, however, are lodged not with the best, the superlative, but with the ordinary, the great mass. Every form of false democracy grows out of this fact and rests upon the power and authority of the mass when exerted to repress, to restrain, and to penalize the excellent. True democracy, on the other hand, is something quite different and is precisely what Mazzini defined it to be, "The progress of all through all, under the leadership of the best and wisest." The world is almost everywhere floundering in a morass of false democracy, while only now and then and for a limited time, setting its foot on the solid ground of that democracy which is true. Under the operation of the law of liberty, true democracy will provide itself with real leaders, not limited by rank, or birth, or wealth, or circumstance, by opening the way for each individual to rise to a place of honor and of influence by the expression of his own best and highest self. If democracy is to maintain and to justify itself, it must displace its pasteboard heroes and its papier

mâché leaders of opinion, who are constantly making democracy both a mocking and a jest, for leaders of tried and tested courage, of sound and well-grounded knowledge, and of that far-seeing vision by which alone a people may be kept from perishing. The ant-hills of civilization are always crowded; its beehives are often empty. It is the function of a university to help populate the beehives.

Wants, Tastes

and Leisure

There are signs, constantly increasing in number, that the public is beginning to appreciate both the novelty and the magnitude of the problems which face organized society in this twentieth century. Over a period of some two hundred or three hundred years greatest emphasis has been laid upon productive industry, whether on the land, at the home, or in the factory. Following productive industry and measured by its success, has come the problem of transportation. First roads, then canals and rivers, then railways, and now air transport have been developed, multiplied and improved in order to bring the products of human industry quickly and cheaply to their several points of final distribution for consumption. So rapid has been the development of productive industry, so powerful, so time-saving and so labor-saving are its newest devices and machines, that the hours of human labor have everywhere been greatly shortened without depriving mankind of any of the means with which to meet his needs. There has been lifted from many millions of workers with hand and with brain the intolerable burden of unending occupation through pretty much all the waking hours, while at the same time a new and unfamiliar measure of leisure has been added to their lives.

One result of these far-reaching changes, which while everywhere visible may perhaps be but temporary, has

been to give strength to the false economic notion that there is not work enough to go around, and that the more time a worker spends upon a given job the better for himself and his mates. This practice, which is more strongly rooted in English-speaking countries than anywhere else in the world, operates directly to raise the cost of production, to increase the cost of living and to reduce the value of the money wages paid to the worker. Until the fallacy of this dawdling and slacking method of work can be brought home to the worker, a large part of the good effects which might follow from the greatly increased wages and the greatly shortened hours of labor, will be lost both to the workers themselves and to society as a whole.

With these changes there comes a new and difficult but very pressing educational and social problem. This problem is that of finding ways and means for the useful and agreeable occupation of leisure. This signifies that men must be taught new wants and given new tastes, such as can only be met and gratified by the judicious and fortunate use of those hours that need no longer be spent upon productive industry. Outdoor sports, enjoyment of nature, a love of the fine arts and a growing appreciation of their ideals and chief accomplishments; a love of reading, not merely that of any mechanically printed page, but of something which should be read for its form and style and nobility of thought, even more than for the subject-matter with which it deals or the information which it may convey; these are instruments for the worthy use of leisure. Moreover, some part of the leisure of every citizen, man or woman, should be given to the willing support of those causes, religious, ethical, relief, educational, which have the public interest as their end, and which in our American society are fortunately left for their advancement to the sphere of

liberty and the voluntary cooperation of individual men and women.

Those notions of the school, which would fix its aim as the preparation for work rather than for leisure, are in contradiction not only to the etymology of the word school itself, but to every sound notion of education. Guidance in the right use of leisure is vastly more important than what is now called vocational guidance. One hundred youths will find vocations unaided where one will know what to do with such leisure as he may obtain. It cannot be too often repeated that the educational process is an unending one. While it is based on infancy and its prolongation in man, it reaches out to include the whole of human life, with its constantly new adjustments between man and his environment. The right balance between work and leisure, the development of those wants which increase the value of work and of those tastes which increase the value of leisure, are at the bottom of the problem of human education.

Adult Education and Home Study

That part of the work of University Extension which is known as Home Study is developing in interesting fashion and may yet find ways and means to astonish the University by reason of its value and effectiveness. The Summer Session, and later University Extension, were both started without any considerable measure of University understanding or University sympathy, but both have proved, whatever their cost, invaluable adjuncts to the university's work and influence and are now universally held in high regard. Home Study, which is at present in the position of a Cinderella, may one day be transformed into a Fairy Godmother. Only the surface of the problem of adult education has yet been scratched. Cooperation of the home, the library, the school, and the university are essential if the minds of