one's knowledge to some account; to plan not alone to sell it for
money, but to _use_ it in various ways in daily life. If, instead
of this, one aims to do nothing but collect facts, no matter how
ardently, he has the spirit of a bookworm at best and stands on the
same plane as the miser. Or if, notwithstanding good intentions, he
leaves the effect of his knowledge on life mainly to accident, he is
grossly careless in regard to the chief object of study. Yet the
average student regards himself as mainly a collector of facts, a
storehouse of knowledge; and his teachers also regard him in that
light. Planning to turn knowledge to some account is not thought to be
essential to scholarship.

There are, no doubt, various reasons for this, but it is not because
an effect on life is not finally desired. The explanation seems to be
largely found in a very peculiar theory, namely, that the fewer
bearings on life a student now concerns himself with, the more he will
somehow ultimately realize; and if he aims at none in particular, he
will very likely hit most of them. Thus aimlessness, so far as
relations of study to life are concerned, is put at a premium, and
students are directly encouraged to be omnivorous absorbers without
further responsibility.

Meanwhile, sensible people are convinced of the unsoundness of this
theory. How often, after having read a book from no particular point
of view, one feels it necessary to reexamine it in order to know how
it treats some particular topic! The former reading was too defective
to meet a special need, because the very general aim caused the
attitude to be general or non-selective. How often do young people who
have been taught to have no particular aim in their reading, have no
aim at all, beyond intellectual dissipation, the momentary tickle of