The Leavenworth echo. [volume] (Leavenworth, Wash.) 1904-current, 1912-03-15
NATIONAL UNIVERSITY AT
SEAT OF GOVERNMENT
To Make Useful Democratic Citizens
Equipped for the Battle of
Life.
(BY H. K. Bush Brown)
Washington, D. c. March 7th, '12

what man can do. Is it fair to put a
commercial test to a University degree7
Such test, however, has been made
by the Harvard Appointments Office
and the showing while startling is GER
tainly far from fattering. According
to the statistics available the average
wage of a man vino has received
bachelors degree is at first about SIS
per week. Princeton reports show
that its graduates start at an average of
$6 per week. From tables made up
from the salaries paid graduates in
certain lines of employment the aver
ages are as follows: Brokerage busi-
ness, So to So per week; manufactur-
ing, 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 purpose is
to give an all around education for
gentleman. That they are doing this
to good purpose is shown by the fol-
lowing incident which recently oc-
cured at Harvard. Professor w. H.
Scofeld, instructor Of comparative lit
erature, asked class of more than 100
when Aristotle lived. Not one could
answer. When he further inquired
how many thought he was born after
1840, six men held up their hands.
The attainment OF the degree which
stands for culture insures, however, a
respectable position in society. Most
graduates are also skilled in several Of
the gentle arts of idleness, and while
they have not increased their earning
capacities, they have quite necessarily
acquired the needs and facilities for
spending more than when they en-
tered college. With the earning ca
pacities of children and the spending
capacities of men, the period of de-
pendance is prolonged and unless the
earning and spending can be made to
balance the danger is that our ele-
gantly educated gentlemen will serve
no higher purpose than to distribute
the wealth that his forbears have ac-
cumulated. And this alas, through no
fault of his own. Of course our aver
age college graduate has higher am
bition, and so let US leave him to
struggle with life on his small earnings
and strain our imagination while we
contemplate different kind of uni
yersity. One that does not deal with
the theory of life as set forth in text
books, lectures, and Libraries, but is
ruled by science and art in every
phase of its manifestation, having con-
troll over large area Of land dedicated
to showing youth by actual contact
with all kinds OF productive occupa-
tions, the marvellous possibilities OF
the arts and sciences. Not merely
talking 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 de-
voted to the minor arts OF expression
or to those things which are devoted
TO the care, and development and well
fare of the body, and the other to the
major arts or those things devoted to
the care, development and welfare OF
the spirit.
In order to comprehend this new
university we must establish a new
fundamental principle that Education
is not a Commodity that can be ac-
ouired for a fee. 1t can only be had
by living it. That only by self-reliant'
self-supporting and self-respecting
work can we attain real knowledge OF
the Arts and Sciences. By dealing
with them personally at first hand and
not by the means Of indirection from
someone else; a great university would
deal with life in all its conditions and
be in perpetual experimentation with