PRESIDENT A. LAWRENCE LOWELL, OF HARVARD

C HANGES many and important are in progress at Harvard University. The Rev. A. A. Berle, D.D., writing in the Bibliotheca Sacra, goes so far as to say that they mark "the beginning of an educational revolution in America." Forty years ago when Dr. Eliot assumed control at Harvard the great State universities had not attained their present importance. At that time a degree from Harvard connoted in the minds of the people of the country something which it did not really possess. It stood for qualities, discipline, and intellectual strenuousness which the elective system as administered did as much as any one thing which happened at Harvard in the last twenty-five years to depress. Harvard men among themselves have always admitted this." Under the unre

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stricted elective system many youths were

sent to Harvard who neither wanted a liberal education nor had the capacity for receiving it." In its new head "the finest trait of Harvard finds illustration, namely, the power and the determination to allow no traditional attitude to hinder development in the university, and least of all to blind the administrative head to the obvious evils which have been long known and remain unremedied in the instruction of students."

Besides their remarkable educational advancement, the great State universities have demonstrated the fundamental fact of modern democratic organization,-that "great communities extending over vast areas can be co-ordinated with their higher institutions in affectionate and permanent interest in such a way as to make them the premier force in democratic civilization." To quote Dr. Berle further, the State universities have shown

that enormous taxation for the higher education not only will be borne, but gladly borne, by a democratic community which has few or no scholarly traditions; and that what has obtained as a species of religion at Cambridge,-that you have to rely upon the third generation of college men for endowment,-is a pure absurdity when you have real democracy in education. No university in this land has paid so costly a price for this contempt for the masses as Harvard has; for she is at this moment in the midst of a thoroughly hostile community which would not hesitate to tax her out of existence if there were not so many and such selfish motives against it. Even the great public-service corporations have found out that you cannot operate successfully in a hostile community. Harvard failed to find that out under the most expert financier that any university in America ever had.

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In this matter President Lowell has a great advantage over Dr. Eliot, for he starts with a knowledge which his predecessor did not even suspect." As trustee for the Lowell Institute "he has really been at the head of a popular university and has felt the popular pulse as Mr. Eliot never felt it." President Lowell has announced his determination to "co-ordinate Harvard University with the community, and to federate it with all the neighboring institutions to this end." In a word, he proposes that Harvard shall be as it originally was, rooted and grounded in the life of the community and have a place in its affections as well as in its intellectual regard."

Speaking of the changes in the system of education at the new Harvard, Dr. Berle says that President Lowell believes in the college. He does not believe in handling a youth just out of a high school as though he were a man ready for professional studies." No sooner were the formalities of President Lowell's inauguration over than the faculty and governing boards agreed upon a plan under which a standing committee prepared general rules for the choice of electives, based upon the principle "that a student must take a considerable amount of work in some one field, and that the rest of his courses must be well distributed." Also that at the end of his first year in college each student must present to his adviser a plan of study for the remainder of his college course; and that a student's plan be subsequently changed only for a cause satisfactory to the committee." The rules in accordance with which the freshman class of 1910 will begin the new régime show a real revolution in Harvard education.

Nothing that is really valuable in the elective system is lost; in fact, it is generally understood that any student who shows himself capable of electing wisely and effectively will have

little or no difficulty in making any elections he

chooses. But what has been made certain is that every student in Harvard College hereafter is going to get something resembling education; and none will go out of the college despising the men who achieve academic distinction, because they will have some conception, attained by hard work, what that distinction means in brain force, in character, in concentration and devotion to a purely intellectual end.

Citing the case of a certain professor at Harvard, who less than a generation ago would decline to answer a simple question on which his opinion merely as an educated man would have been valuable by saying "It is not in my department," Dr. Berle remarks that "President Lowell evidently will not regard, as a superior qualification for any chair in Harvard, total and arrogant ignorance of every other department of knowledge." The insular characters, the want of solidarity, the absence of cohesiveness which

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made Harvard stand for something so purely individualistic as to appear a rather poorly concealed superciliousness and contempt for other forms and methods of education," have passed with the advent of the new president. Harvard from this time is with her sister institutions, not apart from them."

BY

Y the death of William Graham Sumner, which occurred on April 12, 1910, the United States has lost one of its ablest professional economists, and, as the Yale Review comments, there has been closed "an epoch not only in economic and sociological instruction at Yale but also in the economic thought of the country." In place of the ordinary obituary notice the editors of that journal conceived the happy idea of a series of short, signed articles treating of the late professor from different points of view,-namely, as pioneer, teacher, inspirer, idealist, man, and

veteran.

THE PIONEER

Prof. Henry W. Farnam, writing under this heading, calls to mind the fact that when Sumner succeeded to the chair of political and social science at Yale College in 1872 there were but few professional economists in the country. Besides Walker at the Shef

field Scientific School, Dunbar at Harvard, and Perry at Williams College there were few who could be said to have taken up the teaching of economics as a profession. At that time when new tutors were appointed at Yale they were expected to teach either Latin, Greek, or mathematics, as might be required of them. Hence, Mr. Sumner, when he came to the college in 1866, had to teach, first, mathematics and afterward Greek." The effect of his teaching on the student body was marvelous. Says Professor Farnam:

We had no one who SO stimulated our thoughts and so interested us. We felt that he put new interpretations upon history and upon the facts of everyday life; a new world of ideas was opened to us. He not only inspired his classes, but he at once became known to the public by his attacks upon inflation and protection. was a magnificent fighter. While he hit hard, he was always fair and frank. But his vigorous blows produced antagonism. The protectionists were outraged

He

THE LATE PROF. WILLIAM GRAHAM SUMNER

and incensed at his advocacy of free-trade. The greenbackers, silver men, and bimetallists could not endure his advocacy of the gold standard. In his teaching, in his research work, and in his public influence he was essentially a pioneer. He possessed the strong convictions, the splendid physique, and the militant spirit which pioneers must have.

THE TEACHER

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That the late professor will be remembered as one of the great teachers of his time is the opinion expressed by Prof. J. C. Schwab. His pre-eminence in this respect "hinged on his unusual power to draw his pupils with him." He had the power to stir his pupils to observe carefully social and economic phenomena, and to describe them in clear terms. His deductions were always striking and caught his hearers. . . He is remembered by his aphorisms and generalizations. His hatred of humbug and sham was an inspiration to successive generations of students. The best and truest in their mental and moral make-up were deeply stirred by Professor Sumner's rugged honesty, his devoted loyalty to his calling, and withal his kindly personal interest in their growth."

Prof. Irving Fisher thinks "few teachers have ever lived who have influenced the lives of their students as did Professor Sumner." In his nature concealment found no place. Few men have been more ready to admit an error, more anxious to know and teach the naked truth, and more free from pride of opinion."

The tribute of Prof. Albert G. Keller to the engaging personality of Professor Sumner is a particularly happy one. He writes:

As the writer looks back over the years of association with Professor Sumner the reflection which disengages itself from many others is this: how inevitably, yet without effort, did this man win allegiance, at first intellectual, and then of the affections to himself. Whatever he touched he transformed with interest,-lending such glamour, for example, to such an uninspiring object as a colonial piece of eight that all of us wanted to own one, or to see one essayed, at once. This was the sort of teaching that counted. His invariable background

was common sense.

Of Professor Sumner's fidelity to obligation, the following example is cited:

Not many years ago there occurred a heavy snowstorm on a Sunday night and Monday morning; and the trolley cars had not yet begun to run on time for an 8.30 class. Some of us who had waded in through the drifts were wagering that Sumner had been stopped for once, for he lived a mile or so from college, and was not very strong at the time. But when we went to his lecture-room to look, he was there, in his familiar, old-fashioned leather boots, flushed and panting, but ready for business. None of us can hope to rival that compelling quality of his which caused young men to wish to follow him above all others; for that was part of his genius.

PROFESSOR ELY'S TRIBUTE

Such a stu

OCEAN travel, more specifically passage across the Atlantic,-has come to be regarded as so particularly safe, the assertions of the various steamship companies as to the precautions taken for the protection of their patrons having hitherto been accepted so implicitly, that it is much to be regretted that there should be published any statement calIculated to cause uneasiness among the seagoing public, unless, of course, conditions endangering life and calling for exposal really exist. In the Atlantic Monthly an article, entitled "The Man on the Bridge," by Charles Terry Delaney, has caused something of a sensation among those who in the pursuit of health or of pleasure "go down to the sea in ships "; and it is not going too far to say that, if true, the allegations made should result in immediate action on the part of the steamship companies for the remedy of the conditions depicted, and that if not capable of substantiation the article should never have been printed. Take, for example, the following extract:

Except when rounding headlands, approaching harbor, or during fog, the master rarely mounts the bridge at all; everything is left in charge of the officer of the watch. There is no risk in this if the officer has had a sufficient amount of sleep. But does the officer in charge always get sufficient sleep to act quickly for the benefit and safety of those whose lives are in his keeping? I answer, emphatically, "No." At times he is no more fit to be left in charge than is a lunatic; and a moment's delay, a wrong order, or the slightest let-up in his vigilance is often all that is required to send both the liner and its freight

of between three and four thousand souls to the bottom.

This passage occurs in a description of a voyage from Liverpool to New York; and Mr. Delaney charges that when leaving port the second officer, when he goes on the bridge, has been on his feet without sleep for at least thirty-nine hours." He claims that in nothing are his statements exaggerated; and he goes on to say:

I have experienced all that I have described, many times. I have been left in charge of a liner carrying in all about thirty-three hundred souls. These, in addition to the valuable ship and freight, have been under my charge at a time when I have been from thirty to forty

waters

hours on my feet, and without sleep or rest. The safety of all has depended on my vigilance at a time when soul, mind, and body have long been worn out. To keep awake at such times is torture; one must walk, walk, walk, and get through somehow; and all this in crowded with shipping and where vessels are subjected to the whims of tides! At no other time in their lives, perhaps, are passengers in such jeopardy. Just when an officer should be at his best and have all his wits about him, he is as heavy as lead and worse than useless.

While the tracks adopted by the leading steamship companies minimize the risks of an ocean passage, the gravest and most unwarrantable risks are taken in the very worst places in the world,—the English channels.” The condition of sailors and officers at the commencement of a voyage is thus described:

Sailors on leaving port, often muddled through drink, are of no assistance to the officer in keeping a lookout. The officers, though not through drink, are worse than muddled. Their faculties are impaired, their eyes are almost closed, their bodies are worn out; all this through false economy, or ignorance and bad management, on somebody's part. Until some fine vessel with her precious cargo is sent to the bottom through collision, these things, I believe, will not be rectified. It is only by good luck that this has not happened already.

Mr. Delaney pays a high tribute to the qualifications of the young officers on the liners; and he assures his readers that "if there were only one certificated officer left on a ship the passengers need have no fear of her not coming into port." Indeed, he says plainly, that whereas the British authorities call for the presence of the master on the bridge of his vessel "at all times durof the ship if the command were handed over ing fog," it would be far better for the safety himself worn out by watching. Under existto the chief officer when the master finds ing conditions the writer of the article under review has seen "a master sixty years of age or thereabout stand on a bridge for over seventy hours, with eyes that were useless through strain and hearing impaired by the constant shrieking of the fog-whistle." Is it right, he asks, to expect such a man to command in case of emergency? But hazy weather,―in sailor language, one part clear to two parts thick,"-is even more danger