The Portland daily press., 1895-06-18
MAINE STATE COLLEGE.
Annual Address Delivered Before the
Alumni.
Mr.. Reynolds Speaks of Deficient Pro
fessional Training''-Other Com
mencenent NJ alters.

leSsioual framing Com
mencement Matters.
Orono, June IT. The annual address to
the Alumni of the Maine State College,
was delivered here this evening by E. c..
Reynolds. Esq, Register of Probate, for
Cumberland County. Mr.. Reynolds sub
ject was Deficient Professional Train
ing" The following extract embodies
the most important portion of the ad-
dress:
II believe in a college training as a
requisite for q professional career, yes,
more than that, in professional school
training besides Do not think this a
movement that dayors of the class idea,
that is to say, something un-American.
Not that at all, open wider the gates if
you will; make opportunities for prepara-
ton for professional careers greater if you
choose, but take the precaution to have
those who would assume it, properly
qualified for the duties a nd responsible
ties of professional life. In the matter
of legal education, I believe there is no
State that requires liberal education as
a condition precedent to becoming a
student at law. In two or three States,
such q preparation reduces the time of
study required for admission, one year.
While the time required in that study
varies from one to four years, in the
different States, with two years course
most frequent, in one State, all that is
required is that person shall possess a
good moral character and be voter.
With these facts in mind and with a
view to more exact knowledge of the
relationship existing between a liberal
education and the professional school, for
with the means at hand, have been un-
able to obtain an approximate estimate of
the number of those in the professions
without either college or PROFESSIONAL
school training, let us widen the scope
of our inquiry just little.
According to the last cennSuS there
were in the professional schools in the
United States, fer the school year 1929,
1923 theological students, and of these
1861 had the B. A. or B S. degree, or
26 per cent; there were g. 073 law students
and of these /, 118 had the B. A. or B. S.
degree, or IS per cent; there were in the
Medical schools in their various depart
ments, including pharmacy, dentistry and
veterinary surgery, 25 9S4 students, of
whom l, 342 had the degree of B. A. or
B. s., or about per cent
How does that appear to you as stand
ard of preparation for professional study. /?
1t must ever be borne in mind, too, that
there is largo percentage of those in
the professions, which not only has not
acquired a liberal education Cor even the
training of the High School or Academy,
it may be said) but which has never at
tended a school for professional study.
Why do SO many take a short cut to the
practice of their profession? l believe they
take it because the way which includes
the liberal education is SO long that young
men, struggling for livelihood and for
achievement, who are wholly dependent
upon themselves cannot afford such an
expenditure of time, and such an eXpen-
diture Of money, as this education makes
necessary: And the general purposes of
lIfe's professional work do not require it.
No gentleman, they do not. A few
years since the average for admission to
Harvard College was eighteen years.
-Four years there and the average student
becomes twenty-five years of age when he
graduates. Three years of professional
training and he has reached twenty-five,
and his opportunities for the beginning
of his actual lie work, then, lie before
him wholly untouched. All this train
ing, if not tinctured too strongly with
scholasticism, and too little in touch with
the every day life that the average people
live, is good for him with time and
means at his command, just as would be
two years spent in travel. But for the
needs of actual professional work, re-
peat, it is not essential. The results of
the present conditions are apparent in the
comparatively small number of those in
the professions who have obtained this
education. Better less rigorous prepara-
tion and a more general requirement To
accomplish the change indicated, the
college course must be modified. Reduce
the average age of admission to seventeen
years, perhaps little lower, depend upon
this, make the college course three or
four years. If seventeen years, with a
four years college course, the studies of
the senior year should be designated with
special reference to the professional study
to be pursued. Then with a two or three
years course, at a professional school, the
average man at twenty three years of age
would be ready for the business of life
fairly equipped with a good preparatory
education, and, possessing a better pro-
fessional education than generally pre-
walls today.
Lacking this advanced education myself
it would seem that my right to speak as
l have ought not be questioned. Who
should understand better than those who
have failed of these privileges, and who
have had the experience of trying to sup
ply, in some degree, by unaided effort
the deficiencies which this failure has
occasioned, how to appreciate them?
1t seems to me that this method would
provide a college course that would popu-
larize itself, and that would bring college
training nearer the affections of the
people, because more of them would try
it, and have personal appreciation of
is advantage and worth