“For power and service.” This phrase not only expresses a utilitarian view of education, but, in the true American spirit of haste, it has tended to emphasize the desire not only for “results”—that is, “practical” results—but immediate ones. It has emphasized our belief that “culture” either is something to help one in his economic career or else is a mere fandangle ornament for those who wish to “put on side”—not something vital in one’s own spiritual growth. American education cannot be considered as disconnected from all the shortcuts advertised in almost every American journal—the fifteen-minute-a-day French courses that will enable you to entertain the representative of a foreign firm and in a week astonish your employer into raising your salary fifty per cent; or the scrapbook of the world’s wisdom that will enable you to impress your hostess and to become popular in cultured society by a few moments a day; or the five-foot shelf that will make you the intellectual equal of the lifelong student. The American has no use for the old Greek saying that “good things are hard.” He wants knowledge and wisdom without striving. His education has taught him no other path or ideal. If knowledge and culture are only for “power and service,” why not buy them “canned,” if it is possible, much as he stops at the service station to fill up with gas? [Pg 155] As compared with the “plants” of all our educational institutions in America, those of Europe make but a shabby showing for the most part—but they appear to get results that ours do not. There are idle students everywhere in all lands, but one cannot help comparing the mental outlook of the graduate of the high schools or “gymnasiums” or the universities abroad with those here at home and finding there a something which our students do not have—a maturity and a character.