KNOWLEDGE PLUS

In an article in the current issue of the Atlantic Monthly Albert North Whitehead, professor of philosophy at Harvard, comes to the conclusion that the welding together of imagination and knowledge is the true function of a university. The imaginative consideration of acquired knowledge is the duty of teacher and student alike; the contact of the mind of the scholar engaged in research with the eager intellect of the young at its most imaginative stage is the prescription for the fulfillment of this task.

Mr. Whithead's definition is timeless. In all ages imagination and knowledge have walked hand-in-hand, supplementing each other. Great steps forward have been made only with the cooperation of these two. Some perpetuation of this union is essential to insure the steady growth of durable work.

A modern university is a miniature of the modern world, embracing every endeavor found elsewhere on a larger scale. The students of a university are players taking part in a dummy scrimmage. They are going through the motions, and in doing so they may plan to meet emergencies which may never come. They can make mistakes which would be fatal in a larger sphere of life but which, after they are made, may be stored up as profit for the future. Knowledge gained from observation and from the acquisition of facts may be illumined by imagination that comes from speculation on this knowledge.

Modern education has devised expedients which give free rein in a large latitude to the individual fancy. The sense of community of interest among many working in several fields for a common aim favors breadth and vision.

By position and composition, then, the university is qualified and bound to act as the medium of perpetuation of the union of knowledge and imagination. The legacy of the university, the proof of a duty fulfilled, is the men it contributes to every field of human action. As long as universities can translate into human terms their welding of fact and fancy they will justify themselves. Loss of the human equation means failure.