The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1902-11-09
Between Demands for Sound Learning
and Requirements OF American Life.

Between Demands for Sound Learning
and Requirements OF American Life.
Electrical World and Engineer.
The American college president is just
now in a most embarrassing dilemma.
| Hemmed in between the futile pottering
of the elementary and secondary schools
and the strenuous demands of the profess
sional schools for more and better train
| ing, he is face to face with most serious
educational problem. The American col
lege has been for many years the backbone
of our whole educational system. OF its
immense usefulness and the high impor-
tance the achievements of its graduates
bear witness. OF late it has often been de-
/ cried by that class of our fellow-country-
men which holds that a finer and more val
| liable ethical training is 10 be found In ap-
| premiership in a brokers' office, but those
who thus protest furnish their own sufh-
| Gent condemna ton. In our own PROBES
| sion such doubts are settled once Tor all Dy
the action of the great electrical companies
| in demanding college education In those
1 who cast their lot with them for technical
/ training. But we Americans are hur-
/ rying and restless race, and too often
| grudge the time that 1t takes to make a
| well-grounded man or a scholarly institu-
/ ton. We demand of a college the CELEBRITY
| and concrete results best exemplified In d
| pork-packing establishment. But the pres
| ent anomalous status of the college Is due
/ perhaps more to its own laudable but Ill
| judged ambition than TO the pressure or
the times. For many years President Eliot,
/ one of the most able and progressive edu-
| Gators of this generation, bent every en-
| ergy toward lifting the college by its boot
straps to the plane of the foreign univer-
j sty. This programme demanded that the
/ fitting schools should play the role or the
| German gymnasia, but twenty years OF in
dustrious goading has failed to produce the
| desired result, and the chief effect has been
| to push the college into the existing diem
ma. With a very few conspicuous excep-
| tons university remains purely breVet
| rank in American education.
| And now that the conditions of the times
| demand longer and more thorough profess
| Is indeed hard pressed. 1t is crowded from
| above by the necessity for more time in
| the professional schools, and for a neither
milestone ii finds the secondary school that
| its own hands have fashioned. And truth
| to tell, the college is losing heart. 1t has
| virtually surrendered its last year to pro-
| fessional electives, but the sacrifice has
| not served its purpose. The latest sugges-
| ton from no less eminent source than
| President Butler, of Columbia, is for a
| two-year college course leading to post
graduate training, and parallel four-year
/ course for such as may desire it. We hope
| this experiment may not be tried, for its
| success would mean the disintegration of
the college as IL has been, and the intro
| duction OF nothing TO take its place. The
American student is not fit for post-grad-
| uate university work at the end of his
sophomore year, and will not be until his
| training in the secondary school is more
| thorough and less diffuse than 1t ever yet
| has been or is likely to be for some time to
| come. Nor can one successfully serve two
| masters, college and university. If the
| American college is to remain a part of
our educational system il must stand by
its old ideals and neither retreat nor COM
| promise. 1t is capable of giving a splendid
| training for professional study, or in the
so-called humanities, but 1t cannot do
either in two years now any more than it
| could quarter of century ago. 1t can
not turn out well-grounded men by the
| simple process of tagging them A. y. at
| the end OF three years, and Ii would do it's
noblest work in REFRESHING the tendency to
| hurry instead OF encouraging 1t. We grant
| that there have been those who found a
| sound education outside of college walls,
| but we do not believe that any man who
has made deep and strong mark on the
| worlds progress ever regretted the time
spent in his education, save in that it was
too short.
We grant readily enough that there is a.
| demand for saving of time in modern edu-
cation, but In so far as it voices legiti-
mate criticism 1t had better be directed at
the elementary and secondary schools than
| at the college. These have, partly through
| unwlse pressure from the colleges and part
| ly through the misguided efforts of educa-
| tors who spell their title in large capitals
and are so devoid of a sense of humor as to
take themselves seriously, been so filled
| with bogus humanitieS and trumpery sci
| ence that they have scant time left for the
| fundamentals OF a sound education. When
| a child starts in a kindergarten at six
learns his letters at seven, to write at eight
| and the multiplication tables at nine: when
he daobles In sloyd and nature study, bad
music ana worse art; when he potters
around three or four kinds of kindergarten
| laboratories, acquiring pseudo knowledge
| which he must unlearn later, ii is small
| wonder that he turns up a year or two
later at college and hunts there for cleo
tives that will not strain his undeveloped
powers or concentration. If the college
would do the greatest possible service to
education 1t should sharpen its ak, not to
decapltate itself according to the present
| programme, but to hew out of its curricu-
lum the courses that demand a diffuse
preparation in the secondary schools, and
out of these latter the tim e-wastine re-
quirements. The student who knows a few
Things thoroughly when he enters college
is better fitted than he who has a smatter-
ing or many. This is the secret of the sue
cess OF the German gymnasium. Its gradu-
ate may be totally ignorant of the Italian
Renaissance, but he knows his Latin and
ms algebra. There are few American COL
legeS that turn out men so soundly and
tnorOugnly educated, capable OF using
their knowledge and of taking care of
themselves anywhere on earth as those
that don the blue from West Point and An
napolis, and there are no colleges with so
simple requirements for admission But
the boy who wins his appointment in COM
petition is pretty sure to know this little
thoroughly, and In so knowing IL he has the
key TO all that follows. and of this ali none
| consists of educational hobbies If the col
| leges would get grimly down 10 work and
force the elementary schools to teach less
| and better they would turn ont mon 70
whom the professional schools Would no NO
toilsome task. And with the time thus
saved we should hear no more walls of too
| much time spent in education The COL
ieges nave the remedy in their own hands
| IL they are hard pressed they have only
| themselves to thank.
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