The Minneapolis journal., 1902-06-21
CHANGING CONCEPTIONS OF: EDUCATION

The present is a time of change and
unrest in the educational world. On every
hand arise men who audaciously attack
the very foundations of the present sys-
tenn of education from the Kindergarten
to the professional and post graduate
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The" grades Of the public schools are
accused Of doing more harm than good and
Of being organized Instruments for the
perversion of Juvenile human nature. n
The high schools are accused Of teach
ing their pupils pretty nothings and Civ
ing them smatterings of the humanities
when they ought to be giving them USE
full practical Instruction. training hand
and brain for the work OF life, instead of
intoxicating distaste and something of
contempt for that life.
The undergraduate college course is de-
clared to, be a monstrous waste Of time
spent&largely in acquiring nothing.
The study Of the classics as conducted
at present is declared to be an absolute
failure. A hundred universities scarcely
produce pne scholar a year who really
knows his Latin and his Greek. The,
modern languages are studied in very lit
tie better fashion. we are told.
Finally the candidates for admission to
the professional schools begin preparation
for real life work with almost
nothing in the. whole preceding fifteen
or twenty years of their training that
supplies really good foundation for seri-.
GUS work.
The idea is taking hold Of minds every
| where that education has heretofore been
too much q thing apart from life. The
new idea rs that education and educa-
tional systems should be related to human
life from the cradle to the grave. In the
Popular. Science Monthly for June. Pro-
fessor J. McKeen Cattel, of Columbia uni-
versity discusses the present changing
state. of the American university, change
that is going on SO rapidly that the entire
system as 1t exists now is only twenty
five years Of age, having come into ex-
istence since Johns Hopkins opened It's
doors.> The idea Of the university as
group of professional schools with one
school that serves as a sort of viaduct to
all Of them is more and more taking the
| place Of the old idea OF a college or a
university as a place where, as Lowell
thought it should be, nothing useful was
taught Says Professor Cattel:
| IN my opinion. the university is, or should
sbessa group of professional schools, giving
the best available preparation for each trade
and profession. It is more feasible to give
such training than to teach culture and re-
search. These, like the building of charac-
ter, are not the result of any particular kind
| immediate association with the best that the
world has. and this should be found at the
university. The colleges Of
Oxford and Cambridge were monasteries for
learned men before they became boarding
schools. It may be. our part here in America
to develop the true university; place where
each would gladly learn and gladly teach );
open summer and winter, night and day; a
center in each community for the conserva-
ton of the best traditions and for the orig
Sination Of the newest ideas; closely III touch
with every forward movement In civic and
national life: home from which will go
out, and to which will return. our leaders in
| every Departmental human activity.
| This is certainly noble conception Of
the part the American university should
and Is coming to play in national life. It
will, If this ideal and the tendency are
realized, become the great fountain and
renewer Of national intellectual activity.
FROM It will 60 out trained men. to It
they will return from time to time to
! recrsate themselves from the toll Of do