The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1902-06-20
No CREATIVE POWER
Does College Education Unfit
One for Business?
SUCH is TRIGGS' IDEA
College Shaped Brain Lacks in
Essential of Originality

Chicago. June 19.-Fatally weak in tbs
matter Of originality and in creative
activity, the graduate fresh from col
Iege has no place in the business world
the practical side of commercial life
offers no place for the talents he has
spent the years of youth in acquiring.
Such was the tenor of an address made
yesterday by Professor Oscar L. Triggs
of the University of Chicago.
Professor Triggs was saying a last
word to the graduates of the Jewish
Training school in Sinai temple, and his
remarks anent the future confronting
the young man preparing to leave col
lege were preliminary to his endorsement
Of DR.. Hirsch's ambition to have work
shop for the production of commercial
materials in connection with the training
school
Employers do right when they ques-
ton the fitness OF college graduates for
practical affairs, the professor declared.
These young people are not being
trained for the conditions which they
must actually meet. If the signs of
the times indicate Alright to my mind
the direction Of the vital world-currents,
it becomes pertinent to inquire what our
educators are doing to interpret to their
charges the meaning of the present re-
gime For the most part the attitude
Of the educators seems to be one of in
difference. The ideal Of culture upheld
in the colleges can be effective for the
Individual only in a state Of comparative
idleness.
Students live in an artificial commun-
ity. the basis Of which is the idea of
privilege privilege extending from the
free. use Of enormous endowments to the
license which the college boy assumes
to be his to play Halloween prank. IN
the years before their graduation they
PASS the time carelessly, and their con
tact is with words rather than things.
Lacking realities, they have been cod
d,e1 with athletics and stimu atpd by
rlIzes. But however valued he culture
the graduate has gained for certain
conditions, so far as the worlds WORK is
concerned, he is fatally weak il respect
to originality creative activity. and, IN
point of sympathy, in those ideals that
relate to conduct.
1T is the inclination of the graduate
to engage in some of the cultural pro-
LESSONS and avoid the practical work Of
the world. Where he succeeds il this
ambition he may be said to be educated
for his environments, but that throws
the charge of ipadequacy further back
Il tie college itself. 1t - tae aristo-
cratic and not the democratic AMI hides
trial portion of the cGl.nunit1 thar is
Iona educated. Much vas hoped for
fror she university ex'ss on, but as
vet it has affected only the same cul-
tured classes that send their children to
the universities The public schools anS
state universities are more general and
in their scope than the |
sectarian and privately endowed insti- |
tutions. 1 believe the Tuskegee insti- |
tute, as directed by Booker T. Washing |
ton, made the first genuine effort TO |
1emocratize education Would it not |
be surprising if a school for the educa-
ton OF negroes became the model for |
The future educational system of the |
United States? Certain it is that what |
nay be called broadly a school of tech |
lology' will be the favorite type OF |
school of the future2
Il am right in saying that the atti-
ude of educators toward work is one /
II indifference. And to the culture of /
colleges the labor world itself is indif-
'erent, even hostile. The old culture.
If the mind. is static. symbolized by a
scholar Dassively acquiring knowledge
n library. The new culture. of life.
$ dynamic. typifed by the man of af-
airs subduing nature to his own uses.
But all the primary virtues are indie
PENDENT of learning. The ability to do
s more important than the ability to
-ead"