Mathematical philosophy, a study of fate and freedom; lectures for educated laymen, by Cassius J. Keyser.

346 MATHEMATICAL PHILOSOPHY
ing of specialists like themselves, in terms, that is, that
are highly technical and jargonistic. In the course of a
good many years of university experience, I have had
occasion to attend many public examinations of candidates
for the degree of doctor of philosophy, not only in mathematics but in other branches of science. There is one
question which I have been accustomed to ask the candidates. The question is: Can you state intelligibly, in
the language current among educated men and women
the nature of your research,-the problem you have
solved, the methods you have employed, and the results
you have obtained? And in every instance the response
has amounted to this: "I have never attempted to do
it; I have not thought of it; but I believe it would be very
difficult or quite impossible." What is to be said of their
estate? I think we may say this: Their estate is pitiable;
they have devoted long laborious years to qualifying
themselves for a certain ordeal,-the ordeal of demonstrating that they have acquired a certain competence of
highly technical scholarship in some field of study and
that they have the ability to do independent research in
the field; they have, let us say, gone through the ordeal
successfully; that, in itself, is well, but the price they have
paid is terrible; they have submitted to the painful process
by which men are converted into mere technicians; the
education they have acquired in the best years of growth
is lacking in the quality of amplitude; they have become
narrowly technologized; long confined within the prison
walls of a Specialty, sinking deeper and deeper in its
profound indeed but narrow shaft, they have become
more and more detached from the thronging life of the
world, and lost alike the power of sympathy and the
power of communion with their fellow men and women;