The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1899-07-15
CONVENTION is AT AN END.
EDUCATORS CLOSE THEIR WORK
AT Los ANGELES.


Convention One of Most Notable
in National Educational ASsocin-
>tiOn's HistOry-Lnst Day SignaIizcd
by Able Addresscs-DnVid Starr
Jordan of stanford University and
schaefer of Pennsylvania the
Leading Speakers.
Los Angeles, July 1.-THE National Ed
ucatonai Association convention is num-
beTed with the events of the past. but
it will live in memory as ore of The most
notable meetings in the history of the
association.
At the general session to-day the pavil-
ion was crowded to excess, and while the
papers read in the morning were de-
voted almost exclusively to the press,
lhose read at the evening session were
sufficiently varied to hold the attention
of the vast audience uninterruptedly
THE usefulness of the University"
served as a text in the evening for Presi-
dent David Starr Jordan of Stanford Uni
versity. The following are extracts from
Jordans addfess:
at is certain that to speak of 'over-ed-
ucation,' is misuse of terms. If educa-
ton is rational and effective there can
not be too much of it. 1t is not men
trained and efficient who enter into de-
structive competition. 1t is the ignorant
and ineffective who make the struggle
! for existence so dire a battle. Whatever
leaves men weak and ineffective cannot
justly be called education. There is moth
ing more useful than wisdom, nothing
more effective than training, nothing more
practical than sunshine. Surely no one
can claim that the American people are
too wise, too skilful, or too enlightened
for their own good. Yet to give wisdom,
skill and enlightenment is the main func-
ton OF higher education. 1t cannot give
brains, courage and virtue where these
qualities were wanting before. 1t cannot
make man, but it furnishes the best
known means to help man to make him
self
The gain through self-buildlng often
outwe.ghs in value the original material
1t maybe more important even than the
finished product "a effort is greater source
of strength and happiness to a man than
final achievement. What these critics
4 usually mean to attack is msht educa-
| ton, the training or straining of the MEM
DRY rather than the acquisition of power
to think and act They mean that the
colleges give schooling rather than train
ing. They teach young people how to
talk rather than how to live This Is
still true 10 some extent in some places,
but the whole tendency of university move
ment is toward reality and practically.
Critics Have Not Watched 1t.
"These critics have not watched this
movement. They do not draw their idea
of university from the powerful, well
organized institutions of the day, which
lay hold of every various power of hui
mainly and seek to draw it into effective
harmonious action. Rather they picture
| to themselves the starveling colleges of
| their youth where callow boys were drlv-
en- against their will over race courses
of study, no part of which appealed to
their own souls, or was related in any
| direct way to their lives. Such colleges
and such ideals of education exist in
our time in certain forgotten corners, but
| they are in no sense typical of the Amer
| lean University of to-day
Harvard University, Cornell University,
| the great and growing stale universities
! of the West are IS firmly and thoroughly
| devoted TO the needs of American demo-
! cracy as the modern harvester is 10 the
! needs of the American wheat fields. No
| doubt inferior methods, dun, stupid tradi-
tons can be found here and there under
! the names of higher education, as rusty
! and outworn machinery exists under the
! name Of agricultural implements. II is not
/ by these that the best we have should he
| judged No one knows better than our
! college authorities the insists aud fail
| ures of education. No one strives haFf so
! hard to prevent them. though in all large
enterprises no one can avoid a certain per-
| ceniage of failure.
Not all The critics in business life taken
together have done one-tenth as much to
make education practical as has one of
/ the great university presidents of our
/ time. Under the hands OF Eliot and While
and Angel and Tappan and others like
these, the whole face of higher education
| in America has changed IN the last TWEEN
ty years, and the change has been in every
way towards greater usefulness and
| greater practically.
THE American college of the past was
a feeble copy of the colleges Of England.
The American university of to-day draws
its inspiration from the deeper. stronger
currents of German scholarship.
1t Promotes Democracy.
ITO the university we must look for he
promotion of true democra.y. It's fuuc-
ton as a part of public education is TO
break up the masses that they may be
| masses no more, but living men and wo-
men, to draw forth from the multitude the
| man. The mass is the real foe Of de-
! mocracy, for the slave in ali ages has wo-
| ven his own lash. Where men are driven
or sold like sheep, there the tyrant rules.
II matters not whether the tyrant be a
king in velvet and satin, or a ward boss in
SLOUGH hat and striped waist-coat. when
| Individual intelligence does not rule men
are governed by brute force.
The function Of democracy is not good
| government. Its effect is 10 stimulate the
people to broader outlook, TO deeper inter-