Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1886-12-22
LIBERAL EDUCATION.
Quarter Millennium of General and ALI
Around American Culture.


Around American Culture
Perhaps no investment ever made
has borne better interest than that
made by the young minister who left
his library and "half his estate, being
G8O0," to found q college in the
infant colony of Massachusetts, Bay.
Since money alwaJ ''gathers money"
it is nothing w nderful that that
slendel. endowme~lt has multiplied
thousend-fold; that the modest collec-
ton of books has become a library of
which no university need to be
ashamed; that a goodly array of noble
buildings now gives local habltation
to what III the beginning was little
more than a name. 1t was to be ex-
pected that the little band of nine
young men who first presented then1-
selves for maticulation in Harvard
College should, after two hundred and
fifty years, have become many thou
sands, and that the long roll of grad
yates should include many whose
names adorn their country $ history.
All this increase and gain doubtless
entered, in sorne Sort into the calcula-
tions of the founder. But who counts
up all this has yet another item to add
to the list: the wonderful spread and
all-pervading power of that idea OF
liberal education, which, of all that
Harvard College has had to give to
America is unquestionably the most
important. and has yielded the most
abundant profit.
The idea itself was but meager one
as to It's means, but as to its ends and
purposes it was most ample. The
standard of liberal education adopted
by Harvard in the beginning was the
standard which prevailed in England
at that time, and was but narrow
one But the underlying purpose
that of giving to men broad founda-
ton of intellectual culture previous
and preparatory to the more special
studies of a professional education
was capable of indefinite expansion,
and has never needed to be changed,
with all the change and additions
which have befallen the original
standard of the means by which such
an education was to be secured.
1t is the breadth of this idea, and its
capacity for expansion, which has
multiplied the original college at Cam
bridge, not only by score or so OF
frst-rate colleges and universities, but
| by an almost countless number of
minor colleges, which, notwithstand-
ing the paucity of their endowment,
Rave by the Illuminating power Of this
.dea become centers Of light and cult
| are all up and down our land. From
chem the country draws, not special
sts, not men of profound learning,
not men of elegant culture, but that
vast army of well-taught people who
are the strength of our Govern
ment and our institutions. 1t
is from these minor colleges, and the
preparatory and high schools rendered
necessary by them, that come the
thoughtful readers of books, the intel
ligent auditors of Sunday sermons, the
great array of writers for the local
/ press, the better class of men upon our
iuries, who form the safeguard of our
nation. 1t is from these that we get
the large majority of that immeasura-
BILE multitude of teachers which ou1
system of public schools requires. II
is owing to this widespread general
culture, not of a high standard, but
well grounded. that we have found ii
possible to absorb without danger the
vast hcrdes of immigrants that have
crowded to our shores
It is to be hoped that this idea is not
now to be lost III that demand for spe-
cii. training which the new departure
in education has created Within a
generation the field of knowledge has
widened immensely, and the tendency
of this greater breadth, with the op-
sion of choice it necessitates, is to limit
rather than expand the culture of the
individual. Specialists we must have,
especially among the professors in our
colleges, and among the seekers after
scientific truth; but it is still general
and all-around culture that is needed
by the rank and file of men, as that by
which they can most widely sub
serve the general good. Frank Leslie
Illustrated Newspaper.