erience and rule-of-thumb
information are inadequate for the solution of the problems of a
democracy which no longer owns the safety fund of an unlimited quantity
of untouched resources. Scientific farming must increase the yield of
the field, scientific forestry must economize the woodlands, scientific
experiment and construction by chemist, physicist, biologist and
engineer must be applied to all of nature's forces in our complex modern
society. The test tube and the microscope are needed rather than ax and
rifle in this new ideal of conquest. The very discoveries of science in
such fields as public health and manufacturing processes have made it
necessary to depend upon the expert, and if the ranks of experts are to
be recruited broadly from the democratic masses as well as from those of
larger means, the State Universities must furnish at least as liberal
opportunities for research and training as the universities based on
private endowments furnish. It needs no argument to show that it is not
to the advantage of democracy to give over the training of the expert
exclusively to privately endowed institutions.

But quite as much in the field of legislation and of public life in
general as in the industrial world is the expert needed. The industrial
conditions which shape society are too complex, problems of labor,
finance, social reform too difficult to be dealt with intelligently and
wisely without the leadership of highly educated men familiar with the
legislation and literature on social questions in other States and
nations.

By training in science, in law, politics, economics and history the
universities may supply from the ranks of democracy administrators,
legislators, judges and experts for commissions who shall
disinterestedly and intelligently mediate between contending interests.
When the words "capitalistic classes" and "the proletariate" can be used
and understood in America it is surely time to develop such men, with
the ideal of service to the State, who may help to break the force of
these collisions, to find common grounds between the contestants and to
possess the respect and confidence of all parties which are genuinely
loyal to the best American ideals.

The signs of such a development are already plain in the expert
commissions of some States; in the increasing proportion of university
men in legislatures; in the university men's influence in federal
departments and commissions. It is hardly to