But why strive for the highest standing in professional school? Let us pursue the inquiry one step further. Let us ask whether success in studies gives promise of success in life. As far as the study of law is concerned, we may answer at once that the known success of honor graduates of the Harvard Law School is one reason why even college undergraduates at Cambridge believe that law students should study law—hard and seriously. For the same reason, leading law-offices the country over give preference to honor graduates of law-schools. But what is success in life? That is the first problem. It is one difficulty that confronts every one who attempts to speak with certainty about the meaning of education. There is no accepted definition of the aim of education. The philosopher has been likened to a blind man in a dark cellar hunting for a black cat that isn't there. The aim of education seems as elusive as the proverbial black cat. Nevertheless, we do not close our schools. We strive for concrete ends, such as proficiency in handwriting, aware that any particular end may not be regarded as not worth the effort to attain it. Until recently we could not say even what we meant by proficiency in handwriting, for we had not attempted to define our aim or devise a measure of progress toward it. We still speak of educational processes and results about as accurately as the Indians spoke of temperature. We still speak of the science of education without precise measurement. From our fragmentary beginnings to an adequate science of education is a long journey, and the road is beset with difficulties. While we struggle along this road, generations will come and go. We will help them to attain what seem, for the time, the proper aims of education. And each individual will strive for what seems to him success in life. As one measure of success in life, we may take the judgment of certain men. In so far as we accept their judgment of our findings concerning the relation between college students and this kind of success will seem important to us. Here, as in most questions of educational aim, we can do no better for the present than take the consensus of opinion of competent judges. Using this measure for success, I endeavored to find out whether the members of the class of 1894 of Harvard College who had become notable for their life-work had been notable in their studies. I therefore asked the judges to select, independently, the most successful men from that class. I chose the judges the dean of the college, the secretary of the Alumni Association, and a professor in Columbia University who is a member of the class. I left each judge free to use his own definitions of success, but I asked them not to select men whose achievements appeared to be due principally to family wealth or position. The judges agreed in naming twenty-three successful men. I then had the entire undergraduate records of these men accurately copied from the college records and compared with the standing of twenty-three men chosen at random from the same class. The result was striking. The men who were thus named as most successful attained in their college studies nearly four times as many highest grades as the random selection. To the credit of the successful men are 196 "A's"; to the credit of the other men, only 56. Following a similar plan, three judges selected the most successful men among the graduates of the first twenty-four (1878-1901) classes from the University of Oregon.. An examination of the scholarship records of these men showed that 53 per cent. had been good students and 17 per cent. had been weak students. Of the graduates who were not regarded as successful, 52 per cent. had been weak students and only 12 per cent. had been good students. Similar results have been found by Prof. A. A. Potter, Dean of Kansas State Agricultural College, in an unpublished study of the relationship between the superiority in the undergraduate scholarship and success in the practice of engineering as indicated by the salaries received. The director of the School of Forestry of Yale University has collected evidence of the same kind in an unpublished study of the graduates of the Yale School of Forestry. It appears that about 90 per cent. of the men who had conspicuous success in the field of forestry were among the better students in their professional studies. Dean Sills of Bowdoin College has made a long list of famous graduates of Bowdoin and shown that their scholarship records were, as a rule, noteworthy. The graduates of West Point—General Grant to the contrary notwithstanding—follow the same general rule; high scholarship at the academy is the single safest criterion of success in the Army.