The Savannah morning news., 1903-04-23
HIGHER EDUCATION.
An Article in the Nineteenth Gem
fury Review Criticised.

fury Review Criticised.
Several days ago my attention was
drawn to an article and an editorial
in the Morning News based upon the
disadvantages of higher education AS
l am Savannah man who has prodted
much through this self-same chimera
of super-culture, 1 wish to express a
few ideas in self-defense and in APP
probation of the other side of the
question. Modern education is the re
suit of evolution as truly as man him
self. Therefore, it is not only narrow
to oppose education, but it ludicrously
resembles upbraiding the present ape
because his forbears have evolved him
as he is and not made man of him.
To fight not education, but evil now
existing, in its methods, is quite diff
ferent matter, and this is what Mr..
Eltzbacher,f in his article in the Nine
teenth Century Review, has attempted
to do Education he rates so high that
he desires not to prove that it is in
itself in the slightest degree harmful,
but to rid it of it's harmful clements
quite a different point of view.
tsSome of his evils, however, are eXag-
gerated. The many examples he takes
of men not college-bred who have ac-
complished something for the world
are intended to show that education
cripples initiative. Almost as many
benefactors can be mentioned among
college graduates. Three now occur
to me who were Yale men: DR.. Gal
laudet, the inventor of the deaf-mute
system; S. F. B. Morse of Geographic
reputation, and Eli Whitney, whose
genius evolved the now Indispensable
cotton gin Examine the Hall of Fame
will Ind Of
college men, for example, the three
mentioned above, Gallaudet, Morse and
Whitney. Examine the roll of our late
Presidents: Garfield was a Williams
man; Arthur, a Union College man;
Harrison, Miami man, and Roosevelt,
a Harvard man. Does this fact indi-
cate a lack of initiative on the part
of college graduates?
Taking UP Mr.. Eltzbacher's long
list of self-made men, is it fair to
speak of Cromwell in rather sugges-
tive way as though he were a leader
of men because he was a farmer, or
Edison, for example, as an invaluable
electrician, because he was a news
vendor? Circumstances may bar, never
illustrate the plans of Genius, so the
world tells, us. Would Edison's genius
have been crippled by any disadvan-
tages of a college education? Hardly,
4
Vantages of such a course might have
swept away obstacles that necessitat-
ed many a hard battle before he won
his fair share of recognition. What is
higher education, anyway? Is it not
the development of all the faculties in
man so that he can more ably Crap
pie with the world and understand the
problems not only of the present, but
even of the past, and certainly of the
nvh
higher education he often is fighting
the very method by which his idol, the
so-called "self-made man. has achieved
his ends. One sometimes reaches the
realms of great culture without going
to college, but the struggle is a bitter
ly hard one. That is why so many
self-made men send their sons into uni
versity life. Let us look for a second,
anyway, at the list of non-educated,
find once more eXhumed as the IRON
handed lumberman. Mr.. Eltzbacher
seems to forget the many nights that
Lincoln spent over books by the light
of a pickering pine-torch. Here is an
extract from the article in the Review:
"Spinoza was glassblower, Adam
Smith, a clergyman; Lord Armstrong
an attorney; Herbert Spencer an en-
gineer; Pasteur, a chemist Does |
education? Is a man illiterate because
he is a glassblower, a clergyman, an |
attorney, an engineer a chemist? I'm |
fortunately for Mr.. Eltzbacher, Spi- |
noza was versed in Talmudic literature, |
the old philosophy of the Jews, and the |
more recent doctrine of Descartes as |
few men have been or ever shall be. |
Armstrong received an excellent educa-
ton at the school of Bishop Auckland. |
Adam Smith went to the University |
years. then successfully professor OF |
logic and moral philosophy in Glas-
gov. Spencer was a schoomaster be- |
fore he was an engineer and his book /
on Conventional Geometry is still pop
ular in England. Pasteur took his
chemical degree in 1S47 and was then
professor of physical sci
ence at Dion, professor of chemistry
at Strassburg, scientific director of the
New Paris Normal School, and finally
the new faculty of science
at Lille. 1t is strange that Mr. Eltz-
bacher for point of view that is fair
ly tenable, should have picked out the
most prominent men upon the other
side. men who were not guilty of high
er education, but of the highestl 1t
seems a moderate statement that there
are lots of men upon the lists of this
English writer who have been we'll
and have contributed their
quota to the benefit of man
kind. Any men who, without culture,
have succeeded. have done so not
through their lack Of education, but In
spite of IL.
ri L A.. 1