Omaha daily bee., 1902-11-02
TRAINING AND BUSINESS.
College Men wanted by the Great
Electrical Companies.
Electrical World.

Electrical World.
The American college has been for many
years the backbone OF our whole educa-
tional system. OF its immense usefulness
and high Importance the achievements Of
its graduates bear witness. OF late It has
often been decrted by that class of our
fellow countrymen which holds that a
finer and more valuable ethical training Is
to be found in apprenticeship in a brokers'
Office, but those who thus protest furnish
their W sufficient condemnation.
In our profession such doubts are settled
once for all by the great electrical COM
panies in demanding a college education
in those who cast their lot with them
for technical training. But the present
anomalous status of the college is due
perhaps more to it's own laudable but
ill-judged ambition than to the pressure
Of the times. For many years President
Eliot, one of the most able and progressive
educators Of this generation, benz every
energy oward lifting the college by it's
boOtstraps to the plane of the foreign uni
versity. The chief effect has been to push
the college into the existing dilemma. 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 professional electives, but the sacrifice
has not served its purpose. The latest
suggestion from no less eminent a source
than President Butler OF Columbia is for
a two-year college course leading to post
graduate training, and a parallel four-year
course for such as may desire 1t. We
hope this experiment may not be tried, for
its success would mean the disintegration
of the college as It has been, and the In
PRODUCTION of nothing to take Its place.
The American student is not At for post
graduate university work at the end OF his
sophomore year, and will not be until his
training in the secondary schools 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.
II the American college is still to remain
a part OF our educational system, 1t must
stand by it's old ideals and neither re-
treat nor compromise. II is capable Of
giving a splendid training for professional
study, or in the so-called humanities, but
II cannot do either in two years now any
more than 1t could a quarter of a century
ago. 1t cannot turn out well-grounded men
by the simple process of tagging them
A. B. at the end OF three years, and 1t
would do its noblest work in repressine
the tendency to hurry instead Of encourag-
ing 1t. II the college would do the greatest
possible service to education 1t should
sharpen its ak, not to decapitate itself
according to the present program, but to
hew out of it's curriculum the courses that
demand a diffuse preparation In the Sec
ondary schools, and out OF these latter the
time-wasting requirements. The student
who knows a few things thoroughly when
he enters college is better fitted than he
who has a smattering Of many. This is the
secret of the success Of the German gym
nasium.