The Montgomery advertiser. [volume] (Montgomery, Ala.) 1885-1982, 1904-06-18
LIGHT AT PRINCETON.

1t is no concern or secular news
paper to advocate this or that system
of education that may be established
and in vogue at different colleges or
universities. These must make their
the standing of their faculties, the
studies they profess to teach and the
actual impress made upon the COM
munity or the State. A recent depart
ure at Princeton is so notable in its
way and so much worth while to be
commemorated that in the interest of
the cause of education as a whole at
tention ought to be directed to it.
Harvard University, our greatest in
stitution. at least in numbers and one
the inspiration and lead of President
Eliot, so modified and changed her cur
riculum in conformity to the elective
idea, that broad scholarship has de-
parted from the academic elms of Cam
bridge and the young men are educat-
ed almost exclusively as specialists.
This is said in derogation, but with no
unfriendliness of spirit. President
Eliot has in effect declared that If a
boy loves flowers. he should be en-
couraged to study flowers. If music.
then music; history, then history:
chemistry, then chemistry, and If Greek
then Greek. He should be discouraged
in all efforts to acquire any body of
learning that does not minister direct
ly to the speciality he is pursuing Har-
ward has achieved an undoubted tri-
umph under President Eliot, but we
gravely doubt whether 1t is to be last
ing.
At Princeton the Board of Trustees
has just announced a policy to be in
augurated during the year 1866.
which practically denounces the cleo
tive system and restores the old con-
servative curriculum to the first rank
in that institution. 1t is easy to charge
favoring conservative methods in
teaching to senility or what not; to
say that 1t is a demand for the re-es-
tablishment of the log school house
1t Is nothing of the sort. 1t Is nothing
more than to recognize, as the Prince
ton authorities appear to have done.
that all learning is related and that
for four years of young manhood or
young womanhood. 1t is better as a
principle to try to place in the stu
dents mind something about every
thing rather than everything about
something. Neither ideal can be fully
accomplished, but since specialization
must in the greater number of in
stances come later with the man, he is
the better and undoubtedly the happier
specialist, IL in his younger days hi
has caught the least bit of the charm
OF other and wider fields of learning
Princeton will put Greek and Latin
the Mathematics anu english in thu
forefront of her educational scheme
1t is the fashion we know to derid,
these studies with the exception o
English. The lovers OF the humani
ties can take their turn in deriding
The much heralded elective. specialize
ing system may be giving US more ma
chinery and greater wealth, but 1t fl
robbing US of the best flavor in life, tn,
love and care for the more permanent
things, art literature and the grea
political and social tides of ours an,
other times.
The Board OF Trustees at Princeton
say their degree of bachelor of Letters
is to represent "a purely liberal educa
ton OF the modern type. with empha
sis on humanistic studies" 1t MAJ
sound strange in a work a day news
paper to confess these words have
cheerful sound. They seem to portent
a recurrence to saner methods in edu
cation. There is promise of men ant
women broadly and generously. cult