oney later? If we restrict the meaning
of the word in this way, we seem to strike a blow at liberal studies in
general.

Thus, no one would think of maintaining that the study of mathematics
is not of practical value--sometimes and to some persons. The
physicist and the engineer need to know a good deal about mathematics.
But how is it with the merchant, the lawyer, the clergyman, the
physician? How much of their algebra, geometry, and trigonometry do
these remember after they have become absorbed in the practice of their
several callings, and how often do they find it necessary to use
anything beyond certain simple rules of arithmetic?

Sometimes we are tempted to condemn the study of the classics as
unpractical, and to turn instead to the modern languages and to the
physical sciences. Now, it is, of course, a fair question to ask what
should and what should not be regarded as forming part of a liberal
education, and I shall make no effort to decide the question here. But
it should be borne well in mind that one cannot decide it by
determining what studies are practical in the sense of the word under
discussion.

If we keep strictly to this sense, the modern languages are to the
majority of Americans of little more practical value than are the Latin
and Greek. We scarcely need them except when we travel abroad, and
when we do that we find that the concierge and the waiter use English
with surprising fluency. As for the sciences, those who expect to earn
a living through a knowledge of them, seek, as a rule, that knowledge
in a technical or professional school, and the rest of us can enjoy the
fruit of their labors without sharing them. It is a popular fallacy
that because certain studies have a practical value to the world at
large, they must necessarily have a practical value to every one, and
can be recommended to the individual on that account. It is worth
while to sit down quietly and ask oneself how many of the bits of
information acquired during the course of a liberal education are
directly used in the carrying on of a given business or in the practice
of a given profession.

Nevertheless, we all believe that liberal education is a good thing for
the individual and for the race. One must not too much restrict the
meaning of the word "practical." A civilized state composed of men who
know nothing save what has a direct bearing upon their especial work in
life is an absurdity; it cannot exist. The