United labor bulletin., 1912-03-14
ARE UNIVERSITIES WORTH wHILEa
Proposal to Establish a Federal Univers-
ity Where Men and Not IdIers
Will Be Made.
(ey H. X. Bush Brown.)

man can do. Is it fair to put a CONNER
cial test to a university degree? Such
test, however, has been made by the Har-
ward appointments office and the show
ing, while startling, is certainly far from
fattering. According to the statistics
available, the average wage of a man
d, who has received bachelors degree is
at first about els per week. Princeton
reports show that its graduates start at
an average of Sc per week. From tables
made up from the salaries paid gradu-
ates in certain lines of employment the
averages are as follows: Brokerage bus
mess, SO to IS per week; manufacturing,
81 to S12 and engineering, $40 to SIS. In
all these lines the college graduate does
not receive more than the average high
school graduate. 1t is obvious that these
Institutions are not measuring education
in dollars and cents. Their declared pur-
pose is to give an all around education
for a gentleman. That they are doing
this to good purpose is shown by the fol
lowing incident which recently occurred
at Harvard. Professor w. II. Scofield,
instructor of comparative literature,
asked a class of more than 100 when Ar
istotle lived. Not one could answer.
When he further inquired how many
thought he was born after 1s40, six men
held up their hands.
stands for culture insures, however, a re-
spectacle position in society. Most grad
yates are also skilled in several of the
gentle arts of idleness, and while they
have not increased their earning capac-
tiles, they have quite necessarily ac-
quired the needs and facilities for spend
ing more than when they entered college.
With the earning capacities of children
and the spending capacities of men, the
period of dependence is prolonged and
unless the earning and spending can be
made to balance. the danger is that our
elegantly educated gentlemen will serve
no higher purpose than to distribute the
wealth that his forbears have accumulat-
ed. And this alas, through no particular
/ fault of his own. OF course our average
college graduate has higher ambition,
and SO let us leave him to struggle with
life on his small earnings and strain our
Imagination while we contemplate dif-
ferent kind of university. One that
does not deal with the theory of life as
set forth in text books, lectures and IL
braries. but is ruled by science and art
| in every phase of its manifestation, hav-
ing control over a large area of land and
dedicated to showing youth by actual
contact with all kinds of productive occu-
pations, the marvellous possibilities OF
the arts and sciences. Not merely talk
ing about them and analyzing them but
learning how to produce by means OF
them.
1t would be necessarily divided into
two great interlacing and overlapping
sections. one of which would be devoted
to the minor arts of expression or to
those things which are devoted to the
care development and welfare OF the
body. and the other to the major arts or
those things devoted to the care, devel-
opment and welfare of the spirit
In order to comprehend this new uni
yersity we must establish new funda-
mental principle that education is not
commodity that can be acquired for
fee. II can only be had by living 1t. That
only by self-reiiant. self-supporting and
self.respecting work can we attain reai
knowledge of the arts and sciences. BY
dealing with them personally at hrst
hand and not by the means OF indlrectlon
from someone else. 4 great university
would deal with life in all its conditions
and be in perpetual experimentation with
every problem for the uplift OF mankind
An ideal. perfect city, state in itself
wherein every vocation would play its
part in the highest form. so that those
who studied in these surroundings would
find no contrast in stepping into the out
side world. except that inspired by the
knowledge OF his own great work to DO
in order to fulfll his part in the great
struggle for better surroundings and bet
ter kind of living innate in every soul.
That II our great republic is to succeed.
ii must be through constructive, cooper
ative work for the uplift OF all, and not
through individualism and competing lot
better places by pulling each other down.
Heretofore we have had sections OF
humanitay dominated and controlled by
the military spirit, at other times by the
religious spirit, not infrequently by the
two combined; again, by the legal spirit
and by the military and legal spirit, anu
always ruled by the power of money; at
all times preaching and promising the
brotherhood of man but never attaining
1t except in modified and attenuateo
form.
Here we have a great republic estab-
lished on the fundamental base that all
men are created free and equal" With
the best of intentions and efforts al
equal opportunities of education through
the highest development of the public
school that the world has seen. yet we
have nevertheless failed of attaining the
maximum of productive capacities both
for the poor, who are allowed to leave
school at IA, and for the rich, who are
educated in false atmosphere and
know not life itself. We have in conse-
auence one kind of education for the
POOR another for the rich. and through
individualism. selfshness and the love OF
power have people divided against IT
self. and II is known that n house divid-
ed against itself cannot stand"
Let us then be frank with ourselves
and our national ideal, and establish one
community in the form of university
wherein science and art will be en-
throned as the dominating spirits, and
where everyone will be judged by his
deeds, where self-reliance and selfsup-
port shall rule.
Under such influence the mature stu
dents when leaving the institution may
hope to have n greater earning capacity
than when they entered 1t, and be better
attad 20 toEo hold of life tn make of IL