The Jackson standard. [volume] (Jackson C.H., Ohio) 1847-1888, 1873-07-31
From Harper's Weekly.l
The Commencement Season.

The Comm ent season has brought
forth its ever-increasing throng of young
men who aim at professional success, and
who are to make their way in the world
often by privation and toll. College
graduates are. not always prepared for
the struggle by the best training. We
fear that there is too little of the prac-
teal mingled with our teaching, that our
young men seldom learn in the atmos-
phere of college the necessity and the
duty of labor, that dreamy Incidence is
often the result of four years of languid
study, that the college has sometimes
been the school of vice, and that mental
and moral Vigor are not the qualities
that most frequentlyssad the graduate.
The more innocent follies and vanities of
the student might easily be overlooked,
and there is sufficient natural strength in
many OF our youth to enable them to
break away in mature life from the re
suits of an imperfect training; yet it
would be plainly far better for all of them
to learn ii their first education that man
liness and selfrelianca which can alone
lead them to future success, and to es-
cape from those influences at the begin
ming which must be finally thrown aside
Our colleges are too isolated from the
general current of life. Each has its own
traditions, its fashions, and its time-hon-
cred follies. In one the brutal practice
Of hazng is persisted in from class to
class, in another there is a perpetual re-
bellion against order and good discipline
In ali there is a common desire to escape
from appointed duties, and to treat the
course of education as if it were a pain
rather than a pleasure. Nearly all our
colleges are scenes of disorder. The au-
thority of the teacher can only be enforc-
ed by a severity of vigilance that pre-
vents all effective instruction, and too
many of our students in private fnstitu-
tions are more apt to boast, of the lessons
they have evaded or the tricks they have
played than of the literary progress they
have achieved and the solid foundations
they have laid for laborious and useful
life.
1t is noticed that colleges have already
ceased to be popular, that the proportion
of graduates declines with the growth Of
the country, and that the plain defects in
the system of private training, the moral
dangers and the temptations to Incidence
and evasion of duty that seem to attend
it necessarily, have prevented parents
from seeking for their children those ad-
vantages that once were supposed to fol-
low from college education. Even the
professions are no longer filled by college
graduates, and our professional schools
show an increasing proportion of students
who have never known q college training.
OF the two institutions in the city of
Now Y ork the number of students has
steadily decreased, and is less now than
it was ten years ago Columbia College
has few more than one hundred, the
University still less, and our only -four
ishipg seminary is the Free College, where
The best scholars of the public schools
throng in great numbers The prosperity
even of Harvard, fostered as it is by the
eminent names in letters. and science
which its cultivated managers draw
around it, has not kept pace with the
growth of the country; and the rich en-
dowments of Yale and Princeton have
been no more effective.
The plain reform needed in all these
institutions is to bring them into unison
with the progress of republicanism. They
have sunk behind the age, and are falling
into neglect. What the people require is
an education that while it oultivates the
intellect to the highest point inculcates
the duty of labor; that teaches trades
and mechanical pursuits as well as the
less useful or active professions that
provides the farmer, mechanic, and mer-
chant with the highest results of science,
and some knowledge of the practical part
of his occupation. Every college should
be a workshop, and every student in
structed in some kind of manuel labor
Every person who shares its privileges
should be made to feel that he Is prepar-
ing for his future support; that he is al
ready at work upon the real business of
life; and that while he mingles the sports
of youth with his daily toll, he is yet en-
gagged in real and serious pursuit Our
young men have intellect, activity and
energy; they need only to have their
powers properly directed; and it is prob
may yet grow up in which our private
colleges may be included, to the common
benefit of all classes.