The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1903-08-29
COLLEGE EDUCATION.

" Al NAlC CdlleQ PUBLIC III
tention to the fact that of the people
now living in the United States who
have achieved sufficient distinction to
make brief biography of them mat
ter of general interest-in short the men
included in Who's Whoa large
percentage are college graduates The
natural inference from this discovery,
that college graduates stand a better
chance to win than the socalled self
made man. was resented by some of the
people who have not had the advantage
of college training and yet who have
managed to make something of stir in
the world and the incident started a
heated discussion. This was some
months ago, interest in the question has
died and the whole affair has been for
gotten. therefore it is about time for the
Injured Husband to volunteer some
thinklets on the subject.
Without doing injustice to the colleges
and universities or their graduates it
perhaps may be permitted one to say
that the average college education is not
sufficient excuse for either getting you
into the Hall of Fame or keeping you
out. If it were not for the college
graduates very fair prospect of being
able to forget a few things and learn
good many in the years Immediately
following his college career. Heaven help
him.
A college education is at best only the
beginning of wisdom, and in those occa-
sional instances when its possessor i'm
AGNES it to be the end it is not even
fair start. Many a university educa-
ton in these hurried utilitarian days
oo1cfcfc Of a ne "a
arts and sciences, year of French,
two years of German, a dip into Eng
lish literature. a dab of history, sans
higher mathematics, sans the classic
tongues, sans everything justly consld-
cred a basis for true intellectual Gull
ture. If 1t were not for the advantages
of the athletics and the college social
life the ordinary university training in
this country might without hesitation
be declared much less useful to young
man or woman than cosmopolitan
taste for good reading and some oppor-
tunity for Its indulgence. When col
lege education means a thorough
grounding in Greek. Latin and Oriental
antiquity, the history OF the intellec-
tual development of modern civiIiza-
/ TONS mathematics at least through
calculus, and some acquaintance with
the modern romantic tongues, it is
decided aid to advancement in any
career. It is not even under those cir
cumstances a complete education. for
that ends only with life, but it fur
nishes a man with the means to that
wide information and general culture
without which life misses so much of
appreciation and enjoyment
But nowadays every college and uni
versity seems to have borrowed some
thing of the Get Smart Quick ideas Of
the correspondence school and adver-
tises courses calculated to catch the
student" who cares more for a college
diploma than the learning which it rep
resents- In these courses the studies
are largely optional and include a wear
or two each of modern history. Ian
guage and literature with a BRIEF ex-
curslon INTO philosophy and the sci
encas.
The graduate of such a course is limo
sense educated He has at best a mere
tumble of INFORMATION, possibly in
teresting, and useful to a degree but
no mental discipline and foundation for
real intellectual work. In competition
with people who have never attended
college he will enjoy no advantage
L
ual and careful reader of current lit
erature will be quite as well informed.
The advantages of thorough classical
education can. however, scarcely be
over estimated. The man who would
belittle them only proves his inability
to appreciate intellectual culture. All
knowledge, all training, all informa-
ton widens the horizon, increases the
capacity for enjoyment and the capa-
bilities to do and to be. To the people
who are always pointing out the fact
that the multi-millionaires started in
life without educa ton, know no Latin
and less Greek and buy books and pic
lures only because they have come to
understand that the rest of the world
values them. nothing can be said. They
are of the kind to whom success
means money and nothing else and no
one expects them to realize the impor-
tance or the value of anything that can
not assist in the making of a fortune.
But when it becomes a question of the
things of the mind and heart, of intel
llectual attainment and contributions to
the sum of the worlds knowledge the
Importance of a broad and thorough
education, of true intellectual attain
ment becomes apparent. If a man is
only successful insofar as he is rich then
leducation and intellectual training are
rather an obstacle than an aid to prog
ress. but if wealth should really count
less than mind and heart the young
person should miss no chance to get
understanding although not necessarily
with the idea of having his name in
Who's Who.