The age-herald., 1898-02-12
COLLEGES IN NATIONAL LIFE.


 For a number of years past the presi- dent of the Western Reserve University at Cleveland, O., the Rev. pr. Charles Franklin Thwing, has been studying the re- lationships borne by colleges and universi- ties to the broad, national Tiff of the Amer ican people, embodying his conclusions In a series os volumes, of which the fourth, ''The American College in American Life, has just been published Htmsef a col lege graduate and an instructor of na- tonal reputation. Dr. Thwing does not blind his eyes to the shortcomings and fail- ures of the institutions of learning among us, even while praisins the good that they have done and are doing. Generally speak ing, he holds, though not in so many words, that anything which will substitute the ideals of scholarship or learning or original investigation for the lower stand ard of money making for the sake of money is bound to have a benefcent effect upon the American people and he points out what has already been accomplished in this direction.
 In the first place, the number of men whom the colleges have trained for the highest offices in the gift of the people or of the government is altogether dispropor- donate to the relative number of such per sons in the community as a whole For example, Harvard has given the nation three presidents, two vice-presidents, seven ministers to England and host of judges, senators, diplomatists. governors and oth- ers Yale has supplied one vice-president, seventeen cabinet officers, chief jus tice of the United States supreme court and three associate justices, fifty senators, 1S7 members of the house of representa- tives, twenty-two ministers plenipoten- tiary, forty state governors and many more, and Princeton's roll of honor includes one president, three vice-presidents, twen- ty cabinet officers, twenty-eight state gov | nd mo, nf These are the three oldest of the colleges with a single exception. and are the three most important; yet their graduates have never exceeded one in every 2,000 of population. When it comes into the field of letters the preponderance is still more marked. Of our greatest poets Poe was a short time at West Point, Longfellow was a graduate of Bowdoin. Bryant was at Williams for two years, Lowell and Holmes were Har- yard men, leaving Whittier as the only man without college training of some kind. All the historians who have given this country its reputation, Motley, Parkman, Sparks, Prescott, Bancroft, were gradu- ates of Harvard. Among great inventors, Morse and Whitney received collegiate ed ucations. In all ranks of life, broadly speaking, the college man has exercised more influence than his numbers indicate as his due proportion. So far he shows at his best, for his influence upon politics, diplomacy, legislation. education, at the bar, In the practice of medicine and in the pulpit has been almost supreme along cer- tain lines.
 Dr. Thwing observes that the college must be prepared to justify it's existence and should welcome all proper criticism. If 1t could be shown that 1t did not fit young Americans properly for American life it would be better that the college should cease to exist. In this spirit he takes up and examines the harm that college may do to young man placed in its care during his most impressionable years. First of all, it may make him lazy and there is no place for iders in this great republic. It may cultivate the habit of luxury. It may grant much freedom that it degenerates into license and evil habits. All these are phases of a single fault. Undoubtedly some students are unpleasantly affected in these direc- tions, generally, however, among the sons of the well-to-do and in this respect these do not differ widely from young men from similar families who do not go to college at all. Secondly, the instruction received may help his judgment at the expense of his energy; and there seems to be no doubt that America needs thinkers rather than mere scholars, men of action and intelli- gence rather than men of the closet and library. The place occupied in every com munity by the college men appears to prove that this objection is a slight one. In another form it is said that the learn ing inparted is useless. The reply man. ifestly is that the student is learning not for the sake of the learning but for the training it gives, and that it is no more to be expected that healthy mind should be taught to earn a living at college than that the physical exercise should be lim- ited to saving wood, thrashing wheat and useful things of a similar kind
 That the college Is out of touch with great class in the cities from which the body of artisans and mechanics is recruit ed Is. unfortunately, too true. Through the establishment of "college settlements" this breach in the continuity of national life is being repaired: and Americans may hope soon to see the same broad sympathy as is shown in England by university men.
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