The Manning times. [volume] (Manning, Clarendon County, S.C.) 1884-current, 1889-09-25
IS THERE TOO MUCH LEARNING.
The Greatest Idleness is in the lntellec-
tual Trades, Not in the Manuals.

The alarming increase IN the number
of learned men forms the theme Of 4
statistical work which has just been is
sued by Gottingen professor. DR..
Lexis's figures refer more especially to
Germany, though they are not much less
applicable to many other parts both of
Europe and America.
Taking the number Of students en-
tered on the books of the tTenty-one
Teutonic universities at twensy-nine
thousand-Berlin heading the list with
less than five thousand, while Rostock
brings up the rear with something over
three hundred-the Professor shows that
fully one half of these hopeful youths
are doomed to a life of poverty and dis
appointment. The vast majority of
these twenty-nine thousand B1uSc1,en
are looking forward to becoming law
yers, or doctors, or pastors, or school
mas g. j.; sans other way. either lSS
sfsi; >Esi !sse o. ssasSss - az
ucation tbse at pres
iouSl lNaaequiring.
his is not the first time that SINH
lar alarm has been sounded. No less a
parsonage thar Prof. Virchow recently
advised young men to abandon all
thought of finding career in medicine,
and more than once, both in America
and in Great Britain, figures have been
published showing that there are not
patients for half the doctors, or clients
for half the lawyers, or churches for
fifth of the curates, who are every year
let loose upon the world.
The rush to the learned professions
began, it is sometimes affirmed, after the
depression in agriculture, and the cor
responding rebound from the commer-
cial prosperity of fifteen or twenty years
ago. This may, no doubt, be partially
true. But, as the same phenomenon has
been noticed in every other country, the
explanation must be sought little
deeper. The real cause will, we venture
to think, Ae found in the ever increasing
tendency on the part of parents and their
sons to look to the ''gentlemanly pro-
fessions" instead of the more lucra-
tive and more certain callings of
a less 'sgenteel'' description. In
Germany and America this trait is per.
hapS exhibited in its most exaggerated
form, simply because III those countries
professional training is cheap and the
preliminary education abundant or easy
to obtain. But we see it everywhere
else. Since the school boards brought
the three B's within the reach OF every
child, it is notorious that these youthful
graduates have displayed a rupugnance
to the useful lives in which they have
been born They want to ''better them
selves" by becoming city clerks or Durs-
ery coyernesses. 1t is the first result
produced by an unwonted state of af-
fairs. BY and by education will get too
common to be marketable. 1t will then
be regarded simply as a preliminary to
any calling, and not as necessary an
tecedent of what the Germans call bread
studies" A carpenter, or blacksmith,
or machinist, or shopkeeper will dis
cover thut he is none the worse for be.
ing a GOOD scholar, and will even find
that in the enhanced esteem, the greater
pleasure, and the enlarged chances in
life which it gives him. be is quite us
much benefited by his education rs if he
had sought to earn his living by means
OF Sitilircctly.-L0ndOn .SuNdatu.