Western Reserve chronicle. [volume] (Warren, Ohio) 1855-1921, 1869-08-04
The Value Of a Business Education.

ADDRESS BY GEN. GARFIELD.
At the late anniversary of the How
ard University, at Washington, d. C..
Hon. JAMES A. GARFIELD delivered
the anniversary address before the
students of the consolidated Busines:
College of that city. He spoke as fol
lows:
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: L have
consented to address you this evening
chiefly for two reasons: one of them
personal to myself, the other public
The personal reason is that l have 9
deep and peculiar sympathy with
young people who are engaged in any
department of education. The pur.
suits of young people are to me moi
only matters of deep interest, but OF
profound mystery. /, perhaps, shall
not fiatter you older people when say
that l have far less interest in you
than in these young people. With us
the great questions of life are measur-
ably settled. Our days go on, their
shadows lengthening as we approach
nearer to the evening which will be
followed by the night of life; but with
these young people, the dawn, the
sunrise, the coming noon, all the won
ders and mysteries of life are before
them. Pardon me, then, if feel more
interest in them than in you. For
ourselves, much of all the possibilities
of life is ended, and the very angels
look down upon us with less curiosity
than upon these, whose lives are just
opening.
1 feel a profounder reverence for a
boy than / do for man. never meet
a ragged boy of the street without
feeling that may owe him a salute,
for know not what possibilities may
be buttoned up under his shabby coat.
When 1 meet you in the flush of ma
ture life, / see nearly all there is of
you; but among these boys are
the great men of the future. The he
roes of the next generation, the phi
losophers, the statesmen, the philan-
thropists, the great reformers. and
moulders of the next age. Therefore,
l say, there is peculiar charm to me
in the exhibitions of young people
connected at work in the business of
education.
But there was another reason of pub
lie policy which brought me here to-
night, and it was to testify the i'm
pOrtance of these business colleges, and
to give two or three reasons why they
have been established in the United
States. l wish every college president
in the United States could hear the
first reason 1 propose to give. Busi-
ness colleges, my fellow-citizens, orig
mated in this country as a protest
against the insufficiency of our sys-
TEN of education. They originated as
a protest against the failure, the abso-
lutte failure of our American schools
and colleges TO fit young men and wo-
men for the business of life. Ap-
plause.l Take the great classes grad
uated from the leading colleges of the
country during this and the next
month, and how many, or rather how
few of their members are fitted to go
into the practical business of life and
transact it like sensible men. These
business colleges furnish their gradu-
ates with better education for prac-
tical purposes, than either Princeton,
Harvard, or Yale.
The people are making a grave
charge against our system of higher
education when they complain that
it is disconnected from the active busi-
ness of life. 1t is a charge to which
our colleges can not plead guilty and
live. They must rectify the fault or
miserably fail in their great purpose.
There is scarcely a more pitiable sight
than to see here and there learned
men, sO-called, who have graduated
in our own and the universities OF
of Europe with honors-men who
know the whole gamut of classical
learning, who can run the scale OF
speculative philosophy, and yet who
can not harness q horse, or make out
a bill of sale if the world depended up
on it. Laughter and applause.
The fact is that our curriculum OF
college studies has not been based
on modern ideas and the appreciation
of our modern necessities. The pre-
vailing system was established at a
time when all the learning of the world
wa in Latin and Greek; when, if a
man would learn arithmetic he must
learn Latin, and if he would
learn the history and geography of his
own country, he could acquire that
knowledge only through the Latin
language. OF course, in those days, il
was necessary to lay the foundation OF
study in o knowledge of the learned
languages. The universities of Europe
from which our colleges are copied,
were founded before the modern Ian
guages were born. The leading lam
guages of Europe are scarcely six hun
dred years old. The reasons for 8
course of study then are not good now.
The old necessities have passed away.
We now have strong and noble living
languages, rich in literature, replete
with high and earnest thought; the
language of science, religion and lib
erty, and yet we bid our children feed
their spirits on the life of dead ages,
instead of the inspiring life and vigol
of our own times. do not object TO Q
classical learning; far from it, but
would not have it exclude the living
present. Therefore l welcome the
business college in the form it has Ia
ken in the United States, because il
meets an acknowledged want, by af'
fOrding to young people of only COM
mon scholastic c-attainments, and even
TO the classes that graduate from Har'
ward and Yale, an opportunity to learn
important and indispensable lessons
before they go out into the business o.
life. The present chancellor of the
British exchecquer, the Right Honor
able Robert Lowe, one of the bright
est minds in that kingdom, said in 6
recent address before the venerable
university of Edinburg: al was few
months ago ia Paris, and two gradu.
ates of Oxford went with me to get ouI
dinner at "a restaurant, and if the white
aprOned waiter had not been better
educated than all three of us, We
might have starved to death. We
could not ask for our dinner in his
language, but fortunately he could
ask us in our own language what We
wanted" There was one test ofmod.
ern education. [Applause.
There is another reason why / am
glad that these business colleges have
been established, and particularly in
the city of Washington. If there j:
any city on this continent where such
ON insfitufior, io na..dad mora fhaO in