tain the turbines, that drive the dynamos, that generate the electric force that turns thousands of wheels and lights thousands of lamps over thousands of square miles of adjoining territory; or with the kind that conceives the sending of human thoughts across three thousand miles of stormy sea instantaneously, on nothing more substantial than ethereal There is no crime, cruelty, or lust about these last two sorts of imagining. No lurid fire of hell or human passion illumines their scenes. They are calm, accurate, just, and responsible; and nothing but beneficence and increased human well-being results from them. There is going to be room in the hearts of twentieth-century men for a high admiration of these kinds of imagination, as well as for that of the poet, artist, or dramatist.

Another kind of imagination deserves a moment's consideration the receptive imagination which entertains and holds fast the visions which genius creates or the analogies nature suggests. A young woman is absorbed for hours in conning the squalid scenes and situations through which Thackeray portrays the malign motives and unclean soul of Becky Sharp. Another young woman watches for days the pairing, nesting, brooding, and foraging of two robins that have established home and family in the notch of a maple near her window. She notes the unselfish labors of the father and mother for each other and for their little ones, and weaves into the simple drama all sorts of protective instincts and human affections. Here are two employments for the receptive imagination. Shall systematic education compel the first but make no room for the second? The increasing attention to nature study suggests the hope that the imaginative study of human ills and woes is not to be allowed to exclude the imaginative

study of nature, and that both studies may count toward culture.

It is one lesson of the nineteenth century, then, that in every field of human knowledge the constructive imagination finds play in literature, in history, in theology, in anthropology, and in the whole field of physical and biological research. That great century has taught us that, on the whole, the scientific imagination is quite as productive for human service as the literary or poetic imagination. The imagination of Darwin or Pasteur, for example, is as high and productive a form of imagination as that of Dante, or Goethe, or even Shakespeare, if we regard the human uses which result from the exercise of imaginative powers, and mean by human uses not merely meat and drink, clothes and shelter, but also the satisfaction of mental and spiritual needs. We must, therefore, allow in our contemplation of the cultivated man a large expansion of the fields in which the cultivated imagination may be exercised. We must extend our training of the imagination beyond literature and the fine arts, to history, philosophy, science, government, and sociology. We must recognize the prodigious variety of fruits of the imagination that the last century has given to our race.

It results from this brief survey that the elements and means of cultivation are much more numerous than they used to be; so that it is not wise to say of any one acquisition or faculty: With it cultivation becomes possible, without it, impossible. The one acquisition or faculty may be immense, and yet cultivation may not have been attained. Thus it is obvious that a man may have a wide acquaintance with music, and possess great musical skill and that wonderful imaginative power which conceives delicious melodies

and harmonies for the delight of mankind through centuries, and yet not be a cultivated man in the ordinary acceptation of the words. We have met artists who were rude and uncouth, yet possessed a high degree of technical skill and strong powers of imagination. We have seen philanthropists and statesmen whose minds have played on great causes and great affairs, and yet who lacked a correct use of their native language, and had no historical perspective or background of historical knowledge. On the other hand, is there any single acquisition or faculty which is essential to culture, except indeed a reasonably accurate and refined use of the mother tongue? Again, though we can discern in different individuals different elements of the perfect type of cultivated man, we seldom find combined in any human being all the elements of the type. Here, as in painting or sculpture, we make up our ideal from traits picked out from many imperfect individuals and put together. We must not, therefore, expect systematic education to produce multitudes of highly cultivated and symmetrically developed persons; the multitudinous product will always be imperfect, just as there are no perfect trees, animals, flowers, or crystals.

It has been my object to point out that our conception of the type of cultivated man has been greatly enlarged, and on the whole exalted, by observation of the experiences of mankind during the last hundred years. Let us as teachers accept no single element or kind of culture as the one essential; let us remember that the best fruits of real culture are an open mind, broad sympathies, and respect for all the diverse achievements of the human intellect at whatever stage of development they may actually be - the stage of fresh discovery, or bold exploration, or complete conquest.

Let us remember that the moral elements of the new education are individual choice of studies and career among a great, new variety of studies and careers, early responsibility accompanying this freedom of choice, love of truth, now that truth may be directly sought through rational inquiry, and an omnipresent sense of social obligation. These moral elements are so strong that the new forms of culture are likely to prove themselves quite as productive of morality, high-mindedness, and idealism as the old.

TWO KINDS OF EDUCATION FOR

ENGINEERS 1

1

BY JOHN BUTLER JOHNSON

EDUCATION may be defined as a means of gradual emancipation from the thraldom of incompetence. Since incompetence leads of necessity to failure, and since competence alone leads to certain success, in any line of human endeavor, and since the natural or uneducated man is but incompetence personified, it is of supreme importance that this thraldom, or this enslaved condition in which we are all born, should be removed in some way. While unaided individual effort has worked, and will continue to work, marvels in rare instances in our so-called self-made men, these recognized exceptions acknowledge the rule that mankind in general must be aided in acquiring this complete mastery over the latent powers of head, heart, and hand. These formal aids in this process of emancipation are found in the grades of schools and colleges with which the children of this country are now blessed beyond those of almost any other country or time. The boys or girls who fail to embrace these emancipating opportunities to the fullest extent practicable, are thereby consenting to degrees of incompetence and their corresponding and resulting failures in life, which they have

1 First given as an Address before the College of Engineering of the University of Wisconsin, and reprinted here by special permission of Mrs. Phoebe E. Johnson.