The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-09-13

VIII bpec1aIlZatl0n leaQ 70 cultureI When we ask this question, we confront the tendency of the time: which is to pledge education to worldly success. The proposed shortening of the college course, that rush may be made for the profess sional school, is but the meeting of the spirit of the age. Many of our educa- tional leaders are planning for that achievement that will prepare the student for successful professional men in the shortest possible time. The practical and material enters so largely into the educa- t1onal idea that there is danger of over looking the ethical standard, upon which some of our highest universities are lay ing great stress.
 Just now when the youth of our land is facing the question of which to do- what to make of ones -self-where to go in order to best determine the decision of ones life work, the word which greets their ears most frequently is Specialize" This is an age of specialism and students are advised to attend universities where they may pursue work of definite bearing. Can the special school meet youths, with aspirations set toward the highest de- mands of duty as a satisfactory solution to the call of personal responsibility? What is the pivotal question with the young man or woman facing life? Is 1t Ito be or to do?''
 AhS "oAi iu ol CuiIcIt lllcI dtutc lc hllcu with the educational agitation. The ex- tremes are observable in all the expressed of what is necessary for the time. In- deed, we may observe an uncertainty and tndecision, about all the proposed meth ods. since this is transitional period with our institutions, as well as peda- gogues. There Is looping off here and taking on there. all of which must be as- simulated before the result shall be known. Rt1f a -xua InSa ciorhf Aff fa hot neither the material, nor the ethical train ing. when taken separately shall furnish that broad culture. by which a man has the power to know and feel the best in life and thought, in other words the bring ing out of the best in the man to appre- ciate the best in the world" What re- serve of power in such man! What we have been used to call the 'well-rounded man." may be successful applicant for almost any field of endeavor.
 Specialized preparation for worldly suc- cess means that man shall be able to do something. Does 1t exclude the broad CT cultural meaning that he shall be able to be something? We have often heard the truth stated that specialization mar rows the vision. The man who has been trained to do but one thing is necessarily limited In his activities; but the one of broad and general culture, shall. bring to his specialization all his breadth of knowl- edge; and so have in his work that ethi- cal quality which makes mankind his debtor. Nothing less than broad educa- tion can accomplish this thing
 One of our most observant scholars has said: Ideal human personality is the one event towards which the whole race moves" If this be the case the highest cultivation of all the faculties of a man. is far more essential than the develop ment exclusively, of his one dominant sense.
 The Standard in an educational review asks; Does strength of body answer the requirements of ideal manhood?" The reply is, ''Time was when this was so, when the successful warrior was a demi- god, and the strongest man was the lead CT. In spite of persistent reminders of that barbarous age, the world has passed beyond that day. Brawn was long ago pushed of the throne by brain. Up from savage times comes an even growing con- viction that the sound body Is important chiefly as the house where the sound mind may dwell. And we are learning slowly that even the sound mind in the sound body is not enough The value element in the individual and in society is neither chiefly physical nor mental. but ethical"
 True Culture.
 True culture. then. as Is explained for us by the Interior. is not a thing to be bounded within the limits of an individ- uals' life. It exists hot fin a mans con- tained character but in his outgrowing interests. and 1t Is small or large az those interests are few or many" And further the position is taken that the antithesis of culture Is not ignorance. but selfish ness" And also that 'isolated culture is impossible"
 President Eliot said recently that the men and women who were most acceptable as teachers were those of ideal cultivat- ed personality" and that the same idea is working into the thoughts of men and women of other countries So that he who would prove himself harmonious in his relations with life and well balanced to- ward the people and things of his envir- onment, must be enlarged in his under standing, on every side. How impossible for the specialist, only as a specialist, to fulfill these conditions. To quote again from The Interior: 'HThe student who has spent all of his time on the secrets of one profession. will no doubt be com potent for ready response to the relations but he may be stupid dullard towards courses of events and experiences of men in other realms of human concern"
 So we conclude that specialization can- not lead to culture. but that the special fists to be a true specialist, must have the broadest culture.
 Especially true is this of the literary specialist. That work which the cultured literature does for the world holds in it what he has learned of generations past what they have done and thought: and also betrays an interested attention in all