Not only does the general student tend to be as restricted in subject-matter as the specialist, but he lacks the training in investigation, reasoning, and concentration which the latter’s responsibility for independent research imposes. The definition of the aim of general education on which Professor Wendell rested his case for the old curriculum in the article quoted above, is “such training as shall enable a man to devote his faculties intently to matters which of themselves do not interest him.” Now clearly if the student persistently chooses only the subjects which interest him, and follows them only as far as his interest extends, he escapes all training in voluntary attention and concentration. In his natural disposition to avoid mental work he finds ready accomplices in his instructors and text-book writers. They realize that they are on trial, and that interest alone is the basis of the verdict. Accordingly they cheerfully assume the burden of preliminary digestion of material, leaving to the student the assimilation of so much as his queasy stomach can bear. One way in which the study of English literature or history can be made a matter of training in criticism and reasoning is to send the student to the sources, the original material, and hold him responsible for his conclusions. He may gain a wrong or inadequate view, but at any rate it is his own, and it affords him a solid basis for enlargement or correction. Instead of this the student is invited to a set of criticisms and summaries already made, and is usually discouraged if by chance he attempts a verification on his own account. The actual reading of Shakespeare, Bacon, Milton, Swift, Burke will give the student at least a certain training in concentration; but this is hard, slow, and dry work. It is much easier and more comprehensive, instead of reading one play of Shakespeare, to read _about_ all the plays, including the life of the author, his dramatic art, and some speculations in regard to the Elizabethan stage. It was William James who pointed out the difference between _knowledge about_ and _acquaintance with_ an author. The extent to which we have substituted for the direct vision, with its stimulating appeal to individual reaction, the conventional summary and accepted criticism, the official formula and the stereotyped view, is the chief reason for the ready-made uniformity of our educated product.