The record-union., 1899-07-15
The National Convention Numbered
With Events Of the Past,
But VIII Live In Memory as One Of the
Most Notable Ever Held.
The Attendance Was the Largest In
the History of the Association,
There Having Been Over Twelve
Thousand Visiting Teachers In
Attendance Interesting Ad-
dresses at the Closing Sessions

LOS ANGELES, July 14.-The Ma
tional Educational Association convenT
t;on is numbered with the events that
are passed, but will live in memory as
one of the most notable ever held, and
the one most numerously attended.
there having been over 1000 visiting
teachers registered here.
At the general sessions to-day the
pavilion was crowded to excess, and
while the papers read in the morning
were devoted almost exclusively to the
educational press, those read at the
evening session were sufficiently varied
to hold the attention OF the vast auoi-
ence uninterruptedly
There was paper, however, read at
the morning session by Superintendent
A. Cove of Denver, on the "Usurpatlon
of Home by School," that was of vast
Importance. The growth OF paternai-
ism, the speaker urged, reaches over
to the schools, and much of the training
formerly done at home is now relega-
ted to the school. The severe rellglous
and effective discipline of the early
American home is disappearing, ana the
remedy advocated was more time Win
the teacher Rather than idleness at
home. ten hours in school, instead OF
six and Superintendent Cove argued
that the State must assume the new
duties being indicated for Self-preser-
walton.
THE Usefulness of the University
served as a text in the evening 1or
President David Starr Jordan of Stan
ford University to deliver an address
upon the work being done in Amer
lean universities in turning out many
and cultured men, and that in the
fullest sense of those terms. He said
in part:
Now and then in these days some
successful business man raises his eyes
from his counter to question the Amer
lean university's right to exist, Does
higher education pay? he asks, and
from his own experience of tirele 3
energy and from his own contact with
the thin-legged, white faced collegians
seeking a job, he gives to this question
a qualified negative. He further claims,
should he care to pursue the subject
at greater length, that opportunities
for higher education are too widely diff
fused, and that the American masses
are victims of over education.
IF all this is true, it is time to call
a halt and take account of stock. We
have invested too much in universities.
love and devotion. as we'll as bonds and
gold. for US to be Indifferent to their
usefulness.
1T is certain that to speak of over
education is misuse of terms. If
education is rational and effective there
cannot be too much of it. 1t is not
men trained and efficient who enter
into destructive competition. 1t is the
ignorant and ineffective who make the
struggle for existence SO dire battle.
Whatever leaves men weak and ineffec-
tive cannot justly be called education.
There is nothing more useful than wis
dom. nothing more effective than train
ing, nothing more practical than sum
shine Surely no one can claim that
the American people are too wise, too
skillful, or too enlightened for their
own good Yet to give wisdom, skill
and enlightenment is the main function
of higher education. 1t cannot give
brains, courage and virtue where thesa
qualities were wanting before. 1t can
not make a man, but it furnishes the
best known means to help man to
make himself
The gain through self building often
outweighs in value the original ma
terial. 1t may be more important even
than the finished product, as effort is
a greater source of strength and hap
piness to a man than final achieve
ment. What these critics usually mean
to attack is misfit education, the train
ing or straining of the memory rather
he ,iciti Of 10 in k
and act They mean that the collegea
give schooling rather than training.
They teach young people how to talk
rather than how to live. This is still
true to some extent in some places, but
the whole tendency of university
movement is toward reality and prac-
ticality.
These critics have not watched this
movement. They do not draw their
idea of a university from the power
full, well-organized institutions of the
day. which lay hold of every various
power of humanity and seek to draw
it into effective, harmonious action.
Rather they picture to themselves the
starving colleges of their youth, where
callow boys were driven 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 Uni
versity, the great and growing state
universities of the West. are as firmly
and thoroughly devoted to the needs
of American democracy as the modern
harvester is to the needs of the Amer
lean wheat fields. No doubt inferior
methods dull. stupid traditions can be
found here and there under the name
of higher education. as rusty and out
worn machinery exists under the name
OF agricultural implements 1t is not
by these that the best we have should
be judged. No one knows better than
our college authorities the misfits and
failures Of education. No one strives
half so hard to prevent them. though
in all large enterprises no one can avoid
certain percentage of failure
ssNot all the critics in business life
taken together have done one-tenth as