The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1901-06-09
EDUCATION FOR THE MONEY
MAKER.


Doubtless more than one school SUI
perintendent and college president, dur
ing the commencement exercises which
have marked the past fortnight, has felt
the way DR.. c. NJ Jordan, superintend-
ent Of the Minneapolis city schools, ex-
pressed himself at the hign school grad
uation exercises in that city the other
evening. He arose to give the class their
diplomas and a little parting advice as
to their careers. Before him stood a
class of ffty-nine forty-seven young la
dies and only twelve young men. What
could he say about careers, when those
of four out of five of the graduating
class before him would undoubtedly be
of the kind associated with parlors and
kitchens, bathrooms and cradles, nurse
ries and sewing bees?
What had become of the young men?
Had it come to the pass that the young
men of progressive Minneapolis and
Minnesota could not take the time even
to get a high school education? Must
the god of mammon in this age of en-
lightenment cut short the culture of the
young men with the bare rudiments of
reading, writing and arithmetic taught
in the common school grades? Was
mOney-making so all-important that the
young men who are to carry on the ma
tion's work during the coming genera
ton could not spare time even for
high school education, to say nothing of
college and university training?
The professor. as he stood looking over
his almost male-less class, brought to
mind the recent utterance of President
Schwab the magnate with a million dol
lar salary as head of a billion dollar
trust. to the effect that higher education
was useless waste of time to young
man entering upon a business career in
this age of scientific progress and intel
lectuaI advancement. Then said the pro-
fessor, with indignant eloquence: IF
money-lnaking is everything, if citizen
ship and culture are nothing, we might
just as well close our schools and col
legesr'
The cold-blooded utterance of the big
trust magnate has undoubtedly stirred
many an educator during the past few
weeks. as he looked over the white ar
ray of feminine graduation dresses on a
platform where the occasional black male
attire was about as prominent as the
punctuation mark in piece of literature.
Evidently the money making mania has
been so thoroughly impaired even to the
boys of the age, that they deem science,
literature, art culture and citizenship
as trihes that should not be allowed to
interrupt their money-getting careers
The trust magnate's gospel has been too
thoroughly disseminated. It is in the
very air. 1t says to the young men of
the age: you have no time to waste
on anything except money making; sci
ence. literature, art and such like are
all right for women, and they are wei
come to them
The trouble is, if the trust magnate's
first premise is granted, namely, that
the all-important mission of a man on
earth is to make money, and all he
can, the conclusion follows, that higher
education, except for the specialist in the
professional field, does not pay.
The law of success in practically every
field of life is, that the young man should
enter his special field at the earliest Dos
sfble moment and grow up in it from
the bottom. The earlier he enters his
chosen field, the more his intellectual de-
velopment will conform to the require
ments of success in that field and the
more certainly will his energies be con-
centrated within it to the success winning
point In this age of desperate conrpe-
tition, he wins the highest goal whose
whole character and force of mind and
body is developed to perform the one
thing and is most concentrated upon
that one thing. If the one thing in life
Is to become great money maker in a
commercial field, what the coming COM
mercial prince requires is complete sat
uration in the details of that field to the
exclusion Of all else that may Broaden
rather than specialize his talents, ener-
gies and interests.
Take a few examples il other fields
than trade. In music in painting. in lit
erature, in science, in war, even in the
ministry the men who have achieved
signal success as leaders of their age and
profession have begun upon their chosen
careers almost as children. Beethoven
achieved fame before lee was ten and be-
gan to publish MS musical compost
tons art thirteen. MendeIssohn appeared
before the Berlin public at nine and
toured Europe as a musical director at
twenty. Raphael was a painter of PROM
ise at twelve and produced three of his
masterpieces at twenty. MacauIey was
a Latin versider at ten. took Cambridge
medals at eighteen and gave the world
several of his greatest essays before
twenty-five. Booth appeared in Shake
spearean roles before a Boston housa