How about education?  In the first place there are, as I read the history of education, two main methods of training youth—­the individual method and the class method.  No two boys or girls are alike; no two have like reactions to the same stimulus.  Each ought to have a separate teacher, for the methods to be employed must be adapted especially to the material on which we have to work.  This means a separate tutor for every child.

On the other hand, the training that we give must be social—­must prepare for life with and among one’s fellow beings, otherwise it is worthless.  This means training in class, with and among other students, where each mind responds not to the teacher’s alone but to those of its fellow pupils.

Here are two irreconcilable requirements.  In our modern systems of education we are trying to respond to them as best we may, teaching in class and at the same time giving each pupil as much personal attention as we can.  The tutorial system, now employed in Princeton University, is an interesting example of our efforts as applied to the higher education.

At the same time, eclecticism in our choice of subjects is very manifest, and at times our success here seems as doubtful as our mixture of architectural styles.  In the old college days, not so very long ago, Latin, Greek, and mathematics made up the curriculum.  Now our boys choose from a thousand subjects grouped in a hundred courses.  In our common schools we have introduced so many new subjects as to crowd the curriculum.  Signs of a reaction are evident.  I am alluding to the matter here only as another example of our modern passion for wide selection and for the combination of things that apparently defy amalgamation.

What of religion?  Prof.  George E. Woodberry, in his interesting book on North Africa, says in substance that there are only two kinds of religion, the simple and the complex.  Mohammedanism he considers a simple religion, like New England Puritanism, with which he thinks it has points in common.  Both are very different from Buddhism, for instance.  Accepting for the moment his classification I believe that the facts show an effort to combine the two types in the United States.  Many of the Christian denominations that Woodberry would class as “simple”—­those that began with a total absence of ritual, are becoming ritualized.  Creeds once simple are becoming complicated with interpretation and comment.  On the other hand we may see in the Roman Catholic Church and among the so-called “High Church” Episcopalians a disposition to adopt some of the methods that have hitherto distinguished other religious bodies.  Consider, for example, some of the religious meetings held by the Paulist Fathers in New York, characterized by popular addresses and the singing of simple hymns.  As another example of the eclectic spirit of churches in America we may point to the various efforts at combination or unity, with such results as the Federation