Arts and Letters

It was fortunate for American education that it numbered among its leaders men who took the same large view of life that Mitchell did. And of such men none was more eminent for his catholicity of understanding than Daniel Coit Gilman. Well might he have said, with the Roman of old, Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto. His literary activity indicates his breadth of interest. In his work on Monroe he is a historian; in his life of Dana he is a biographer; in his two books on education he appears as an essayist and a critic.

There was but one thing which Gilman demanded of a subject, and that was that it should be interesting. Dullness, whenever and wherever found, was an unpardonable fault; persistent and confirmed dullness was the sin against the Holy Ghost which could not be forgiven. This demand was what most frequently brought Gilman into conflict with the conservatives in educational matters. As far as mere pedagogic theory was concerned, he was by no means so radical as Eliot or White. For classical study, if classical study could be made stimulating, he had the strongest sympathy; to a well-ordered curriculum, if it could enlist the active interest of the students, he gave appreciation and approval. But the college curriculum as Gilman generally found it was not made interesting. Language was taught mechanically; psychology and metaphysics were handled according to the dictates of the Scotch school, that apotheosis of dullness; history and science were either learned by rote or not learned at all. No wonder that his earlier years at Yale and at California were spent in waging conflicts not always successful against those who loved the dry bones of routine or inefficiency.

At Johns Hopkins he was given a freer hand, and was able to collect about him as the nucleus of a new university men who were animated by intellectual interest of a type akin to Gilman's own. They cared enough about their several subjects to make researches. They were animated by Gilman's example and precept to give the benefit of their researches to the world of science and letters. Students were not numerous, appliances were not adequate; but Gilman had created, as Socrates in his day had created, a phrontistery, a thinking-shop, of a kind America has probably never seen before or since.

No man's total contribution to science or letters is measured by his own published work. The best service which he renders is generally found in the stimulus which he gives to others about him and after him. He who approves what is vital and rejects what is sterile, who encourages the men of talent and genius and protects them against the tyranny of routine, is the man whose labor counts for most in the end. Measured in this fashion, Gilman's work stands out in its true proportions as a contribution to the arts and letters of the country and the world.

Thus thought on thought is piled, till some vast mass
Is loosened, and the nations echo round.