Is the American college too much under the influence of German educational standards in that it tends to "put technique before pure science, philology before literature, facts before ideas, classifications before generalizations"? A French professor who spent some time in Yale is quoted in the New York Herald as believing that it is. Facts are the basis of knowledge, but they are only the basis, and it is this latter truth which American students fail to see.

"In all stages of education students are urged not to lose sight of the real. Whether in a drawing, in mathematics, in history, always the same desire to make knowledge of practical utility. All that is purely bookish is condemned, and all that is based on observation is lauded. Thus is developed little by little the idea that in all mental work the facts are the essential thing, that without them the thought is of no consequence. A great truth in itself, but one which leads by a treacherous descent to the error of supposing that the facts are more important than the thought, that they are the only things that count. The best among the students rebel against this narrow dogma; a number, I fear, accept it implicitly as indisputable.

"This habit of dealing with reality has a happy result for those destined for a business career; it develops men who are shrewd, clear-sighted, of sound judgment, endowed with the very qualities necessary for success in a world in which every mistake has to be paid for. But at the same time it kills the desire to deduce from facts the abstract significance which they present-The student fails to see that the power of generalization is the greatest force possessed by the human intellect, and that facts should be considered only steps by which to rise to those heights where shine, pure and clear, principles and laws."

It must be admitted that scholars are needed and to that extent this article can be accepted; for only as there is a vanguard of seekers after knowledge who are not interested primarily in profiting personally, but rather in discovering, can there be any development toward truth. Scholars are necessary, however, only in so far as they do contribute toward the ultimate social end; and what is needed, is not to change the educational standards entirely, but to change them so as to permit the easier development of those who are now discouraged, if not actually prevented, from following out their inclination toward real higher learning. -The Dally Texan