rling metal of their holders,
the more widespread these corruptions will become. We ought to look to
the future carefully, for it takes generations for a national custom,
once rooted, to be grown away from. All the European countries are
seeking to diminish the check upon individual spontaneity which state
examinations with their tyrannous growth have brought in their train.
We have had to institute state examinations too; and it will perhaps be
fortunate if some day hereafter our descendants, comparing machine with
machine, do not sigh with regret for old times and American freedom,
and wish that the _regime_ of the dear old bosses might be reinstalled,
with plain human nature, the glad hand and the marble heart, liking and
disliking, and man-to-man relations grown possible again. Meanwhile,
whatever evolution our state-examinations are destined to undergo, our
universities at least should never cease to regard themselves as the
jealous custodians of personal and spiritual spontaneity. They are
indeed its only organized and recognized custodians in America to-day.
They ought to guard against contributing to the increase of officialism
and snobbery and insincerity as against a pestilence; they ought to
keep truth and disinterested labor always in the foreground, treat
degrees as secondary incidents, and in season and out of season make it
plain that what they live for is to help men's souls, and not to
decorate their persons with diplomas.

There seem to be three obvious ways in which the increasing hold of the
Ph.D. Octopus upon American life can be kept in check.

The first way lies with the universities. They can lower their
fantastic standards (which here at Harvard we are so proud of) and give
the doctorate as a matter of course, just as they give the bachelor's
degree, for a due amount of time spent in patient labor in a special
department of learning, whether the man be a brilliantly gifted
individual or not. Surely native distinction needs no official stamp,
and should disdain to ask for one. On the other hand, faithful labor,
however commonplace, and years devoted to a subject, always deserve to
be acknowledged and requited.

The second way lies with both the universities and colleges. Let them
give up their unspeakably silly ambition to bespangle their lists of
officers with these doctorial titles. Let them look more to substance
and less to vanity and sham.

The third way lies with the individual