The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1885-04-20
TOPICS OF THE PULPIT.
The Views of President Jordan on the
Benefits of College Education.
An Interesting Sermon by DR.. Bayliss on
the Influence of Religion-Dr. Baugher's
Discourse ON Light.
COLLEGE Quotations.


President Jordan's Lecture at Plymouth
Church Last Evening on Their Benefits.
President David S. Jordan, of the State Uni
versity, delivered short but interesting lecture
at Plymouth Church, last night, on THE Benefits
of College Education" He said that the work of
installing the next century belongs to the young
men of the day, and that educated men, whether
they come from the college or 'sewhere, must
fight the battles and win the yict. es of the future
The college is the place for higher education, as
furnished by the schools The four years usu-
ally spent in college is the best part of life, and
if youngis made of the right stuff much Of en-
during value may result from his
training There are some young men
who have no right to attend
college. You cannot fasten a So, 600 education
on 50-cent boy. The fool and dude come out
of college pretty much as they go in. They dive
into the Pierian springs of learning like the
duck, and come up fully as dry The college
will bring one in contact with the great of the
past from Plato to Emerson, from Homer and
Euripides to Schiller and Browning. The col
lege student comes in contact with the laws and
problems of nature. His conceit and fippancy
is proverbia but the schools of the country are
progressing, and the conceit generally
from those who know something, which is
better than the egotism of the fool. A college
course will bring young men in contact with
men whose influence is strengthening and puri
flying. An ideal college professor is to the stu
dent as Agnes was to David Copperfeld-a always
pointing the way upward. Garfield has
said that log with Mark Hopkins
university in itself. In any college the young
mar may attend he may find his Mark Hopkins
Again, the training which comes from asso
citation with feow-students cannot be oyeresti
mated Here and there student leaves college
in worse condition than he entered it. but these
cases the windfalls of education. The aver
age student enters college for a purpose, and
loses nothing, but rather molds himself for
greatness 1t was owing to his associations at
Munich with his fellow-students that Agassiz
was stimulated and began thatcareer as anatur-
alst which has won for him an immortal name.
Methodsm took its start from band of college
students, and at Williams College three college
English students planned and effected the first for
eign missionary society of America. Thoreau
graduate Of Harvard, spent many years of soli-
tude in the woods by Walden pond,
studying nature and writing words that
will never die. Harvard College GER
tainly did not make Thoreau, but
he was worth more to the world than he would
shores of Wolden pond. The self-made geologist
Hugh Miller, knew stromness no one else
could, but another great geo. sist of his time,
the scholar Alexander Won HI,,Ibodt, knew the
world as Hugh Miller knew stromness. The
chances of young men who are left to work out
their own education are that they will not i'm
prove their minds. The stimulus which a col
lege affords is almost necessary for the ordinary
young men. There is nothing like the steady
pressure of the schools to maintain and
strengthen the habits of mental diligence. The
unschooled mind rebels at steady work, but it is
the steady work which counts The
man. It takes his best abilities and
raises them to the second or third power, as in
algebra. Colleges have been conservative, and
as some claim, guilty of old fogyisw. Ihfy have
worshiped false idols in education, peqAps, but
the world moves and the college withit If the
college is not yet what it should be- it is for us
all to improve it, Notwithstanding the defects
of the college, either in the past or present. no
one deny that it has attained great ends.
The educated man has the courage of his con-
victions. What he believes he takes on his own
evidence not because it is in the creed of his
church The lecturer did not believe that riches
were essential to obtain an education. Pluck,
good health and good ambition is all that is re-
Quired. Any poor boy can contrive in this coun-
try to attend university, and the great
number Of impoverished young men in
America who have worked their way through
college and afterwards attained eminence proves
life the young without money stands the
best chance to make success He is more
in earnest, harder worker, and does not, for
| lack of means, contract the vicious habits which
damn so many students the world over If
young man cannot afford to spend four years in
college, let him take ten to complete his course
1t will pay in the end. AS financial invest
ment college education pays. But the scholar
can do better than get rich. He will say, like
Agassz said to the Boston publisher, Il have no
time to make money" Ii Darwin, Humboldt,
Luther Milton, Washington and Lincoln had
turned their minds to making money, what would
the world be to-day But as fact, educated men
are better paid than ignorant laborers. Mind
work is higher than hand work and is worth
more in any market The man with the mind is
the ''boss" and receives greater salary than the
the hands" Everywhere in the country,
among our doctors, lawyers, teachers, editors
\ and politicians, college men take the lead. In
education there is no upper class to reap the ben
efts for which the poor man has to payne caste
ruling by right of birth, because our scholars
and leaders are of the people Professional life
in this country is crowded with men who
have rushed into business prematurely,
without laying the proper educational founda-
ton. The spirit of haste is also the bane of the
American college. America is full of educa-
tional frauds and shams. The name university
is applied to the common cross roads school
house, and the name professor is applied to the
country schoolmaster, barber. and manager of
the skating Kinks. We have to 90 to Europe
for our model universities. Inc catalogues or our
schools read like the advertisements of our
patent medicines, and the bachelors diploma in
Indiana is given to those who could not pass
entrance examination ir a decent high school. 1t
is the mission of the scholar to combat these frauds
and elevate. the collegeto higher plane. In
regard to the moral and religious training which
the college Affords the lecturer said that it could
not take the place of the home. The college
elevates the morals of the student by making
him a man and giving him higher ideals. If the
faculty acts like notice force, the young men
will give it plenty to do. The system of de-
merit marks is not conducive to either manli-
ness or right conduct. The scholar must be
given manly liberty. The college may lead the
student away from childish things, but not by
rules and regulations or by rewards and pun
ishments Enforced attendance at church or