The Evening statesman. [volume] (Walla Walla, Wash.) 1903-1910, 1904-04-01

will fit them to stand with the states
men OF other great countries
That is tantamount to saying that
we have no university where the high
er education, as generally understood
is taught efficiently, and no postgradu-
ate courses, where provision is made to
meet the demand for instruction in the
vast domains Of learning and discovery
following the steady increase of knowl
edge and the closer contact of the HUI
man race with each other, requiring
knowledge of the history of diploma tic
Intercourse, international treaties, ETC.
Americans must, according to DR..
Parkin, go to Oxford to become finish
ed statesmen and diplomats.
AS matter of fact, we began our
life as nation with such public men as
John Adams, Franklin, Jefferson, John
Jay, Hamilton and other illustrious
statesmen, some of whom most effect
|
al foreign courts. Nor can inefficiency
in the representatives of this nation
be charged, either at the great foreign
courts or in the present head of the
state department, who has greatly en-
HANGED the respect of the other world
powers for our influence abroad.
Our universities have their defects,
no doubt, but they cannot be charged
with not keeping up with the educa-
tiOnal progress Of the world. Oxford
and its neighbOr Cambridge, in Eng
land, long ago held on to the old uni
versity idea that such an institution
was intended to operate theological
law and medical faculties, with a large
place for Greek. Latin and mathemat-
les. This idea of university no longer
holds. oxford and Cambridge were so
behind the time-spirit, that we got out
of the old educational rut ahead of
them and expanded the educational ia
accordance with the literal significance
Of the root of the word university"
1t was not until 1882 that Oxford
and Cambridge got on a modern edu-
.cational basis and great changes were
made. The University of London was
founded in 1868. as was Victoria uni
versity in 1880, to meet the demands
which had not been met by the two
ancient heads of learning. There has.
IL our country, been no symmetry in
the method of university construction
OF management and no conformity to
fixed rule, but this has always been
the case in England, too. This is not
serious fault; but, in England, there
IS chronic complaint that education
az both of the old universities is too
expensive for students of moderate
universities. The charge made against
Oxford and Cambridge until compara-
lively recent years, was that they were
reVerentially contemplated as the abode
of the elect and desgnedly known as
class institutions, the private preserve
OF the wealthy, from which facilities
for intellectual progress are wrung only
after intolerable labor.
These old institutions, it is fair to
say. are now trying to get in accord
with the requirements of the present
day, but it is manifestly absurd for the
agent of the trustees of the Rhodes
scholarships, to hold up Oxford as the
place where Americans will get that
training which will fit them to stand
with the statesmen of other great
Countries Such a preliminary re-
mark is hardly calculated to swell the
number of American applicants for
the Rhodes scholarships.