Daily independent. [volume] (Elko, Nev.) 188?-1915, 1889-11-23
TOO MUCH LEARNING.
AAx,AiaE Increaso In the Numbot ~ Pro-
foSSIonNI Men.


Ala<snine Increaso In the humber ~ Pro-
fossional MOa.
Tho alarming increase IN the mum.
Der Of learned men forms the theme Of
a statistical work which has just
been issued by Gottingen professor
DR.. Lexis figures refer more especially
70 Germaay. though they arc not much
less applicable to many other pats
both of Europe and America
Taking the number of students en-
tered on the books of the twenty-one
Teutonic universities at 29, OO0-Berlin
heading the list with less than 8, 900,
while Rostock brings up the rear with
something over 30O--the professor
shows that fully one-half of these
hopeful youths are doomed to O life of
poverty and disappointment. The vast
majority Of these $4,000 burschen are
looking forward to becoming lawyers
or doctors or pastors or schoolmasters
or Ia some other way, either in pri-
vate life or rs servants OF the state, to
earn their bread by means of the edu-
cation they are at present 80 labor
tousiy acquiring. .r
This Is not the first time that a SINH
lar alarm has been sounded. No less
parsonage than Prof. Virchow re-
Gently advised young men to abandon
all thought OF finding career in med
ieine, and more than once, both in
America and in Great Britain, figures
have been published showing that
there are no patients for half the doc
tors, or no 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, 1t is sometimes affirmed, after
the depression in agriculture, and
the corresponding rebound from the
commercial prosperity of fifteen or
twenty years ago. This may, no
dWht DO partially true. But, as the
same phenomenon has been noticed in
every other country, the explanation
must be sought q little deeper The
real cause will, we venture to think,
be found in the ever-increasing
tendency on the part of parents and
their sons to look to the "gentleman-
ly professions" instead of the more
lucrative and more certain callings of
q less ''genteel" description. In
Germany and America this trait is
perhaps exhibited in its most ex-
aggerated' form, simply because in
those countries professional training
Ii cheap and the preliminary educa-
ton abundant or easy to attain. But
we see it everywhere else. Since the
school boards brought the three RS
within the reach OF every child. it is
notorious that these youthful gradu-
ates have displayed n repugnance to
the useful lives in which they have
been born. They want to ''better
themselves" by becoming city clerks
or nursery governesses 1t Is tho
first result produced by an unwonted
state Of affairs. BY and by education
will get too common to be market
able. 1t will then be regarded simply
as a preliminary to any calling, and
not rs a necessary antecedent Of what
the Germans call "bread studies"
A carpenter. or blacksmith, or q
machinist, or q storekeeper will dis
cover that he Is none the worse for
being good scholar, and will even
find that in the enhanced esteem, the
greater pleasure, and the enlarged
chances in life which it gives him. he
is quite as much benefited by his edu
cation as If he had sought to earn his
living by means of 1t directly. Lon
don Standard.