could come
approximately near to knowing all that then was known and worth the
knowing. The wisdom and science of the world could be included in the
compass of a modest bookshelf. But the province of human knowledge has
become so wide that, however much "general information" a man may have,
he can truly know nothing unless he studies it as a specialist. It is,
perhaps, largely as a reaction against the Jacksonian theory of
universal competence that the avowed ideal of American education to-day
is to cultivate the student's power of concentration--to give him a
survey, elementary but sound, of as wide a field as possible, but above
all to teach him so to use his mind that to whatever corner of that
field he may turn for his walk in life, he will be able to focus all his
intellect upon it--to concentrate and bring to bear all his energies on
whatever tussock or mole-hill it may be out of which he has to dig his
fortune. When the youth steps out into life, it may be that his actual
store of knowledge is superficial--a smattering of too many things--but
superficiality is precisely the one quality which, in theory at least,
his training has been calculated not to produce. Englishmen know that
the American throws tremendous energy and earnestness into his business.
They know that he throws the same earnestness into his sports. Is it not
reasonable to suppose that he will be no less earnest in the study of
Botticelli? And it is a great advantage (which the American nation
shares with the American youth) to have the products, the literature,
the art, the institutions of the whole world to choose from, with
practically no traditions to hamper the choice.

When the Japanese determined to adopt Western ways, seeing that so only
could they hold their own against the peoples of the West, they did not
model their civilisation on that of any one European country. They sent
the most intelligent of their young men abroad into every country, each
with a mission to study certain things in that country; and so,
gathering for comparison the ways of thought and the institutions of all
peoples, they were able to pick and choose from each what seemed best to
them and to reject all else. They did not propose to make themselves a
nation of imitation Englishmen or Germans or Americans. "But," we can
imagine them saying, "if we take whatever is best in each country we
ought surely to be able to make ourselves into a nation better than
any." They