The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1898-02-13
THE oRAToRICAL EVIL.

The Kansas Agricultural College has a
radically revised course of study under the
present political regime. Nearly all the
exact sciences have been stricken from the
course of study Geometry is the highest
branch of mathematics in the college
course. Physics and chemistry are the
only sciences offered the student. No lam
guage modern or ancient, has place in
the new college course. The college stud
les are bookkeeping, English composition,
''rhetoricals,'' military service, English lit
erature, hygiene, civics, economics and
oratory. Oratory is studied throughout the
entire course.
Thus it appears that those studies which
require close application and which develop
the reasoning powers are left out of this
new college course. "Rhetoricals'' take the
place of logic and oratory is taught to
every student every week he is connected
with the institution. "Rhetoricals' and
oratory mean the stimulation of the mag
ination and the neglect of anything that
will promote exact scholarship, systematic
Investigation, or even thoughtful consider
alton. The understanding is to be sacrificed
tc the imagination. Sound argument, exact
reasoning and clear statement are to be
sacrificed to baseless exaggerations and
wordy but empty defamation. That disci-
pine which comes from the study of the
exact sciences, the languages and logic, SO
necessary to the useful professional man,
are to give place to oratory-that is. to the
propagation of a class of men who are of
no use in this practical world.
The action of the managers of the Kan
sas Agricultural College naturally leads to
inquiry if the tendency. or rather, the in
fluence of those who have the direction of
higher education in Indiana is not to stimu-
late Oratory at the expense of close rea-
soning and exact expression. This sus-
picion is not aroused by anything which
appears in the courses of study in the
higher institutions of education, but rather
by the Importance which is given to COM
petitive display or oratory over more inn
portant departments of learning There
seems to be no other popular test of schol-
arship than the intercollegiate contests for
excellence in oratory. That there are ora
toricaI contests and competitive con-
tests between the colleges in mathematics,
in written treatises. or to show scholarship
and discipline in other achievements, would
indicate to the young student that oratory
is the great end of higher education.
1t is not intended to undervalue oratory
The man who has something to say and
who has thought his subject out by the
! aid of the discipline which the study of ex-
act science and treatise afford has need
of good rhetoric and oratory to attract
public attention. Oratory is the embellish-
Elent of the message which the thinker has
to give. Its importance is secondary; in
deed, the device of the orator may be ig-
nored by the great thinker The real diff
Guilty is that oratory. or what is called ora
tory, takes the place of real thought in
public speaking. Take the glittering words
from the sentences of the speaker who
II axes oratory the whole of 1t, and there
is nothing left. Feeling that he has no ar
guments for his hearers. the word-monger
resorts to the inaccuracies Of the magma
| ton He does not ask himself II the things
he SAYS are true or logical, but If they can