Word: modernized
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...apostles of modern progress assert, indeed, that all individual force and manliness have not died out with the decline of some of the old observances which tended to foster these qualities. Civilization, it is said, has changed the form but not the essence of heroism. The moral of the omission of the exercises at the tree, it is claimed, would not be that the free, rollicking, glorious creature we know as the Harvard student has become a cynic, mounted on the hobby horse of "indifference," or a prig prating of "the true, the beautiful, and the good," both too superior...
...such were here the case, the epithet would indeed be welcome; but this profound specialist seems to have failed to comprehend the whole bearing of the argument. The "elaborate application of Mr. Spencer's doctrine" consisted in a passing reference, seven lines in length, to prove that a modern specialist needs a highly differentiated mind. The rest of the argument - maintaining that specialization was not the object of an academic course, and thus accounting for our collegiate indifference - was in no manner dependent on any knowledge, superficial or the reverse, of Mr. Spencer's theories...
...celebrated Spinoza; for, instead of assuming a proposition which involves the desired conclusion, he has hit upon the equally beautiful and simple method of stating at once, in ipsis verbis, the things to be proved. If this is the development of reason fished from the ultramarine depths of modern thought, we may save ourselves the trouble of classifying it; for it is an exceedingly nasty creature, and was known to our old-fogy ancestors under the name of gratuitous invective. However, such argument has the merit of being easily confuted. As the premises and the conclusions are identical, we suppress...
...this indifference is the necessary, though temporary evil - if it be an evil - which attends the growth of our old College into a modern University; and is both the evanescent result and the prerequisite of modern modes of thought. From this general and comparative view of history, philosophy, science, and language, springs that broad, dynamic method, which considers things both in their past, their future, and their relations with coexistent things; a method which narrow-minded specialists have so often and so falsely termed atheistic or utilitarian, but which embodies and necessitates the highest possible conception...
...processes of thought. The object of a college is not that of a machine-shop; it does not fit a man directly for active life, but for broad and right modes of thought. To specialize or differentiate is the object of a post-graduate course, or a professional school. Modern induction requires the eye of the thinker to have a broad range, - college teaches us to see widely; then, properly, should begin that special investigation which is to turn our inert comparison and Fakir-like contemplation into the enthusiastic pursuit of that knowledge for which our collegiate course has shown...