It takes us longer to learn it.
Simultaneously, by research and also by the use of the
printing-press, the locomotive, and the telegraph wire (which
speed up the production as well as the dissemination of
knowledge), Science has brought forth, in every field of human
interest and of human value, a mass of facts and of principles so
enormous and so important that the labors of our predecessors on
this planet overwhelm us, and we grow to our full physical
development long before we have caught up, in any degree, with
the previous experience of the race. And till we have done that,
to some degree, we are not mature.
With this postponement of personal maturity, there is an even
greater postponement of what might be called "technical"
maturity. The real mastery of a real technique takes longer and
longer. The teacher must not only go to college but must do
graduate work. The young doctor, after he finishes college and
medical school, is found as an interne in hospitals, as an
assistant to specialists, as a traveler through European
lecture-rooms. The young engineer, the young architect, the young
specialist of every sort, finds his period of preparation
steadily extending before him.
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