“Of all the substitutes for the classical discipline there is none more popular and, when applied to immature minds, more pernicious than economics. To a very considerable degree the present peril of socialism and other eccentricities of political creed is due to the fact that so many young men are crammed with economical theory (whether orthodox or not) when their minds have not been weighted with the study of human nature in its larger aspects. From this lack of balance they fall an easy prey to the fallacy that history is wholly determined by economical conditions, or to the sophism of Rousseau that the evil in society is essentially the result of property. The very thoroughness of this training in economics is thus a danger.”[52] The positions both of Mr. Ghent and of Mr. More are extreme. As for the special ethics of the trading class, of which the former makes so much, it is doubtful if anything exists more foreign to current academic ideals. So marked is this aversion that it is distinctly difficult for the ordinary professor to estimate correctly the real value to the community of the service of the business man. That equal difficulty exists on the other side is apparent from the openly expressed conviction of many business men that the college teacher is a thoroughly unpractical sort of person. The latter attitude, by the way, is a most remarkable one for a client to assume toward his social apologist,—taking Mr. Ghent’s view of the situation. A prisoner at the bar who should rail at the abilities of his counsel is certainly not putting himself in the way of acquittal. As for “moral weaklings,” no profession can honestly deny the existence of some examples of this pestiferous species in its ranks. If academic promotion depended upon moral weakness, however, the bankruptcy of the profession would have been announced long ago. As a matter of fact, the system of selection and advancement employed by colleges is admirably adapted to their requirements. In spite of the machinations of occasional cliques, chiefly of a personal or churchly character, it usually succeeds in placing the best prepared and most capable men in desirable and influential positions. Certainly college administration as a whole deserves the reputation of success which it enjoys, a reputation, by the way, much superior to that of most of our governmental machinery. If, for example, an equally effective system could be employed in the selection of the administrative heads of American city governments it is safe to say that many of our municipal problems would find a speedy solution.