Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1902-11-08
n
THE COLLEGE AND BUSINESS.
College Men . Wanted by the Great
Electrical Companies.
From the Electrical World.

From the Electrical World.
The American college has been for many
years the backbone Of our whole educa-
tional system. OF IT'S immense usefulness
and high Importance the achievements of
it's graduates bear Witness OF late It has
often been decried by that class of our
fellow countrymen which holds that finer
and more valuable ethical training Is to be
found in apprenticeship in brokers' office,
but those who thus protest furnish their
own 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 anoma-
lous status of the college is due perhaps
more to its own laudable but ill-judged am
bition than 10 the pressure of the times.
For many years President Eliot, one of the
most able and progressive educators of this
generation. bent every energy toward lift
ing the college by its bootstraps to the
plane of the foreign university. 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 neither mill
stone 1t finds the secondary school that it's
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
mas not served IT'S purpose. me latest Sug
gestion from no less eminent a source than
President Butler of Columbia, is for a two
year college course leading to post-gradu-
ate 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 it has been, and the introduce
ton of nothing to take it's place. The
American student Is not fit for post-gradu-
ate university work at the end of his soph-
omore 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
If the American college is still to remain
a part of our educational system, it must
stand by its old ideals and neither retreat
splendid training for professional study, or
in the so-called humanities but it cannot
do either in two years now any more than
1t could quarter of 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 it would do its
nobleSt work In depressing the tendency
to hurry instead of encoura ging It, If the
college would do the greatest possible SER
vice to education it should sharpen its ak
not to decapitate itself according to the
present program. but to hew out of it's cur
riculum the courses that demand a diffuse
preparation in the secondary schools, and
out of these latter the time-wasting re-
quirements The student who knows a few
things thoroughly when he enters college
is better fitted than he who has a smatter-
ing of many This is the secret of the
success of the German gymna sum-