The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1889-11-21
Is There Too Much Learning?


of learning at least, in some countries ;
and there is danger of the same overplus
coming to US here, if it be not upon us
already. A German professor has pub
lished statistical book on the condition
of educated men in Germany, and it is
shown that a good tradesman, a brewer
for instance, commands larger wages
than q Greek professor. In Boston it is
a common saying that the head cook at q
leading hotel receives larger pay than
the president of Harvard College.
There are, it appears, 10000 Univer-
sity students in Germany; and the sta
tistical professor says that at least 16, 900
of these, when graduated, must enter on
a life of hopeless poverty and disaE'.
pointment.
In the United States and Canada the
number of youths receiving college
education is much larger, as, happily,
are their opportunities. We are not
overridden by militarism and oaicialisn,
as Germany is; and the wants of new
are vastly different from those of an old
country.
But, with all our demands, the supply
of graduates is rising like tidal wave.
And not from the colleges alone, but
from the academies and high schools,
public aud private, are rolling streams CT
young men and women whose purely
literary education has turned them frorn
the ranks of skilled labor and sent them
to recruit the standing army clerks,
book keepers, salesmeu, teachers, bad
lawyers, typewriters, copyists, etc.
Out of the academies and high schools
we are getting absolutely no recruits foE
the manly skilled trades and cratic, such
as carpenters, moulders, blaeksmiths,
turner's, glass. blowers, machinists.
The average graduate is "above Il
trade;;" but he will learn as the years
pass and the cares increase that the
tradesman and craftsman are above him
in wages, comfort and independence.
The clerk and salesman and typewriter
are helpless people when employment
fails. The skilled man has no fear Of
want; he is always in demand here OF
there.
There is risk of having too much
learning of the unskilled kind. There is
as much learning and knowledge and
honor in knowing how to make or do q
thing as in memorizing date or acquir-
ing literary taste or 'style of writing"
We need schools to train the hands as
we'll as to train the mind. It is as easy
for children to apply mathematics to mo.
ton, force and mechanics as to apply
arbitrary rules of grammar to sentence
or to fasten lists of dry. as dust dates in
the memory.
We fear that many schools, public and
private, are guilty of the grave error of
teaching or implying that literary or
aesthetic learning is higher and more
desirable than practical, skillful or sci
enti6c learning. At any rate, the aver
age graduate is found to discredit the
soiled hands and oily clothes of the
sturdy aud independent mechanic, and
to prefer and select for himself the life of
the adorned clerk or salesman. who
spends all his earnings on living and
clothes, to find himself at thirty.fve or
forty years of age, when the young spring
has gone, discredited, dependent, hope
less individual.
We cannot have too many colleges for
the classics and aesthetics so long as ne
have enough skill and science. The
latter are the column, the former the
capital. The manual training school is
the plant, the literary school is the
flower. A building all capitals and no
columns or a plant all flowers and no
stem is an abortion.-Boston Pilot.