n as
we can. The tutorial system, now employed in Princeton University, is an
interesting example of our efforts as applied to the higher education.

At the same time, eclecticism in our choice of subjects is very manifest,
and at times our success here seems as doubtful as our mixture of
architectural styles. In the old college days, not so very long ago,
Latin, Greek, and mathematics made up the curriculum. Now our boys choose
from a thousand subjects grouped in a hundred courses. In our common
schools we have introduced so many new subjects as to crowd the
curriculum. Signs of a reaction are evident. I am alluding to the matter
here only as another example of our modern passion for wide selection and
for the combination of things that apparently defy amalgamation.

What of religion? Prof. George E. Woodberry, in his interesting book on
North Africa, says in substance that there are only two kinds of religion,
the simple and the complex. Mohammedanism he considers a simple religion,
like New England Puritanism, with which he thinks it has points in common.
Both are very different from Buddhism, for instance. Accepting for the
moment his classification I believe that the facts show an effort to
combine the two types in the United States. Many of the Christian
denominations that Woodberry would class as "simple"--those that began
with a total absence of ritual, are becoming ritualized. Creeds once
simple are becoming complicated with interpretation and comment. On the
other hand we may see in the Roman Catholic Church and among the so-called
"High Church" Episcopalians a disposition to adopt some of the methods
that have hitherto distinguished other religious bodies. Consider, for
example, some of the religious meetings held by the Paulist Fathers in New
York, characterized by popular addresses and the singing of simple hymns.
As another example of the eclectic spirit of churches in America we may
point to the various efforts at combination or unity, with such results as
the Federation of the Churches of Christ in America--an ambitious name,
not yet justified by the facts--the proposed amalgamation of several of
the most powerful Protestant bodies in Canada, and the accomplished fact
of the University of Toronto--an institution whose constituent colleges
are controlled by different religious denominations, including the Roman
Catholic Church. I may also mention the present organization of the New
York Public Library, ma