The Minneapolis journal. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn.) 1888-1939, 1903-06-16
NORTHROP IN IOWA
He Discusses at Seat Of Iowa GU
''The Education Which Our
Country Needs"
Modern Scholarship Much Broader
and More Productive Than
That of the Fathers.
Special to The Journal,

Special to The Journal, .... .u. 3.
Iowa City, Iowa, June 16.--President
Cyrus Northrop Of the University of Min
nesota delivered the Phi Beta Kappa adj
dress at the University of Iowa COM
mencement exercises this morning. His
subject was 1.-THE Education Which Our
country Needs and he said In part:
. Different people require different education and
the same people may require different education
at Inherent stages of their development. There
are peculiar conditions Of population and de-
velopment In this country which justify depart
ures In education from the lines of work desir-
aoie In some other countries
First-0ur people are not Homogeneous: they
need to be assimilat ted. -
Second-Our people all equal in political
rights In power. 1t is as necessary for the
day laborer to know what Is necessary for the
country as man in any other position
Ih1rd-Our country is not yet fully settled
our population IS exceedingly movable. When as
In this country the children of a family are
destined to be scattered and each child in the
course of his life may live In dozen different
states, come in contact with dozen different
grades Of civilization, the problem Of adapta-
tton and assimilation becomes difficult.
Under existing conditions the educa tional work
as now done involves tremendous waste of force
In all directions. We have not in the past
been careful to specialize our training as we
ought, and as a consequence there has been a
great deal of waste in foolish experiments in
education and labor alike.
To-day there Is Il demand for educated men In
multitude Of occupations that formerly had no
existence. Our education must fit men for all
these occupa tious. for which in the olden time
there was no call for any one. The situation
of itself would require revolution in the scope
of our educational work. l do not by any means
believe that we have reached educational mil
ienium but 1 am far from thinking that most
of the evils in country be charged to
defects in out educational system.
Knowledge and Power.
Education. like literature. may be divided into
two kinds. The education of knowledge and the
education Of power. In respect to the amount
of knowledge impaired our institutions of learn.
ing comparatively superior to those of for
mer times. The graduate of to-day knows a
great deal more than graduate of fifty years
ago knew But in respect to power, to real in,
telectual vigor and the ability to impress 9th.
ers with ones ideas and to guide the thought
of the age the situation is not so clear. There
has been much lamenting over the disappear
ance of the creative power as represented in
oratory, poetry and prose literature. But men
write and think clearly they ever
did. The country needs to-day good many
things than it needs another great poet
What this age needs is knowledge. What this
age is therefore trying to get Is knowledge
knowledge, not for favored class, but fol-
Z the world. Every important fact and principle
discovered to be used for the good of the race.
Modern scholarship, despite its tendency tc
specializing. is much broader and much more
Influential and much productive than the
old. The old studies which were so honored fol
centuries have not reinquished, not single
one: but we have added great many others tina
needed. true university will furnish al
these, leaving to the student reasonable choice
Does he want to attain eloquence. the old path il
open to him with the footmarks of many genera
lions still visible. But the other hand,
multitude of sciences that relate closely II
real life and it's work appeal to the modern stu
dent for attention. and If he turns to these
doubtless there will be some loss if cloquenc
is considered the chief end of education.
But the world hns long ago ceased to regar
elOouencp the chief end. Facts have take1
the place of tropes. Legislation IS no longe
a matter of feeling and emotion. 1t is practi
cal matter. To-day the world stands with Lin
coin in his three-minutc speech at Gettysburg
and cares little for the two hours eloquence a
The place.
In short. the old Is words: the other is deeds
Macauay's list of achievements shows wha
has done, but 1t does not touch the questio
ms to what man is to be. Is he to be swee
or bitter, refined coarse, gentleman or
boor. Gladstone a Gradgrind. in sympath
or out of sympathy with mankind. We mus
not neglect the culture which will determine tht
question Alright There is still left in the worl
a divine of beauty and poetry cor
tribIting to something in man to which brea
and butter do not contribute. We want to max
human life comfortable. But we do not want t
reduce universal human existence to dead leVe
Of mere comfortable animal life Music ART
literature, none of these do for what foo
does but they must not be neglected. OF
Homer. with his divine epic, is refining in hi
influence as ever; the Greek tragedies are
grand; Virgil Is delightful; Shakspere a
thousand soued. All of these will do for the SIT
dent something that the mere education Of know
edge cannot do. v.' .. .-.
ra Man Before the Specialist
The glory of modern education is that
provides for both culture and knowledge. 1t
well for us While training students for specif
work III life and giving them the knowleds
necessary for this work, If can also Civ
them that degree of culture which they need
order to become the truest kind of and cit
zeus The a xiom of the ole education is trr
to-day as ever. that discipline is the first essel
tjal of education-that the is to be IL
veloped before the specialist and that tt
power to Investigate and wisely discriminate ar