The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1911-12-13
VIM. Allen White on Weakness
of Educational System.
College Graduate Suffers From
Intellectual Dyspepsia.
MUCH USELESS STUFF
Should Teach Students More of
the Practical.
Equip Them to Meet Problems
of State.
USELESS STUFF

William Allen White believes in the
simplification of the course of study
taught in the schools and universe
ties of the country. He thinks there
is TOO much cultured stuff taught
under the guise of education. He gives
it as his opinion that to teach practi-
cal things and to encourage industry
and love of beautiful things and ae-
QUESTION of noble ideas is the greatest
and most useful thing the school can
do for the boy or girl Mr.. White is a
regent Of the State University. He is
a member of the committee of three
appointed to report on efficiency to
the board of higher education at its
session this week. He has for d year
past, made a deep study of school
problems and educational questions
And more than these he is d broad.
able man himself a reporter editor
author, economist and philosopher.
No one in this country can write bet
ter human interest stuff than the En-
poria editor. He has a gift and his
heart il right.
Kansas Should Lead.
Mr.. White today gave the state
Journal the following interview on ed
vocational and political questions that
are now before the people that is char
acteristic of the man and his work:
THE meeting OF the board of higher
education developed the fact that not
only is there a lack of coordination
and sympathy between the institutions.
but that harmony is fundamental IN
education. This is not peculiar to
KansaS or the United States. 1t . ,
fig world problem and must be set
tied by evolution rather than by rrac-
tice. However it seemed to the re-
gents of the three institutions compos-
ing this commission that something
may be done by Kansas to strike out
into a new field and take some pre-
col
tucsuCns.
Every one must admit that there
is a lot of lost force and motion in the
child from the time it enters school,
either in the eighth grade, the high
school, the college or the university
A lot OF things are studied that have
no relation 10 life A lot of stuff is
taken on that clogs the educational di-
gestive organs and causes mental dys-
pepsia and renders clear, sane judg
ment difficult and leaves the boy or
SRI for the most part to go through
period of recovery for from two to
three years after the course of educa-
uon hctore he or she is worth any
thing.
The Pool college Graduate
''The phrase, fool college graduate.
is too popular not to have some basis.
There is no question whatever that
after the college graduate gets rid of
intellectual dyspepsia and dlgeStS the
stuff he is crammed with and gets a
capacity for clear, sane judgment that
he is on the whole better citizen than
the man without a college training.
But there is a profound feeling
through the world, in America and es-
pecially here in Kansas that lots of
the stuff taken on by the child and
youth in the guise of education is what
lawyers call Incompetent, irrelevant
and immaterial and not the best edu-
cation.
We hope to get into the facts of
education. The Carnegie foundation,
through Mr.. Pritchett, is greatly in
terested in our movement. I have
been in correspondence with Mr.
Pritchett ever since the last legislature
adjourned He represents the best
American thought on education. If
his directors Will consent he proposes
70 make an educational survey Of
Kansas, getting all the facts about our
schools. ascertaining what it costs to
teach each branch now combined in
our educational system from kinder
sarten to university. How much it
costs to educate through the grades by
way of different courses and then
through high school. college. then fin
ally out of the university. giving esti-
mate of cost of courses. whether man
ual. English. scientific classical or any
professional courses
Whether II Pays.
This material will be of vast i'm
portance. The survey Will also at
tempt to show what becomes of the
y
whether not. after leaving the
schools, they do better in the first ten
years after leaving high school, and
what courses of the high school were
most practical The survey will go
on through higher education When
We have all these facts We viii he able
to take one step through the recon
structiOn of orr educational system.
I'VE will know. for instance. wheth-
or it pays to give the ordinary boy or
girl who becomes a business man or
mechanic or mother course in high
er mathematics and algebra and TO
neglect to educate them in the know
ledge of trees. grasses. crops and an
acquaintance with the friendly stars.
We will know whether or not it is
more important to he able to bound
kamchatka. or TimbuctOo. or Man
churia than for the pupil to know the
names of the creeks in his township
the rivers in his county and the water
sheds that drain his state and how
they contribute TO crops and affect the
life we live
Has Become Too Technical.
THE whole business of education has
grown technical and over refined A lot
of stuff is put into the common schools
. on the theory that it is cultural and vo-
caJlonal and whatnot- The colleges and
univ ersities. it seems to me- need over
hauling as bad as the common schools
For after all. education should not be a
mere accumulation of facts more or less
related TO a supposed system of knowl-
edge, but education should be an in
fluence upon youth that best prepares t
for maturity
believe that it is infinitely more inn
poTtant to teach young people to do work
we'll than It IS TO teach them lot OF un-
important facts they will forget when !
they get out of school
The habit of well directed co-ordina- |
ton work is about all the net results of |
the influence the school should have upon I
the mind of child after he is taught to /
love beautiful things and noble deeds (
Industry and nobility are about all that /
education should definitely implant in the /