Honolulu star-bulletin. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1912-2010, 1914-06-04

place, Tor the ages nTteen 10 eighteen.
the college culture formerly claimed
by the exclusive few.
In the old-fashioned college the
disciplinary studies-language. litera-
ture, history, mathematics and philo-
sophy-engrossed the students atten-
ton from fifteen to eighteen. and then
two years of the professional semi
nary embarked him on the ocean OF
life. At twenty-onP Patrick Henry
was a judge on the bench. The mo-
dern freshman is considered a mere
boy at nineteen, does not get a bach.
eior's degree until he is twenty-five.
finishes his professional course at
twenty-five, carries on research in lab
eight. and often does not set sail un-
til he is Twenty-Five or thirty. And
we hear recently, as though it were
a new discovery. of executives like
Roosevelt who believe in giving jobs
TO young men! This is the crux OF
the difference between the old educa-
ton and the new--the new is not only
prolonged it is delayed. On his nine
teenth birthday a college-bred Amer
lean was a practicing lawyer in 100,
a graduating senior in 1900 and a
high-school senior in 1900.
Where then is the fundamental
cleavage between culture and Voca-
ton? 1t clearly ought to be at a
definite age, for whatever the vast
ness of things known. the discipline
that makes womanly woman and man.
~ man remains ever the same, and
in our teens we can best store habits,
and jewels Of thought.
Call nineteen the dividing age. and
If we speak OF college" studies as
meaning the disciplinary ones before
nineteen, and university" Subjects
the professional ones thereafter. then
the present high school should be
truly the peoples college. as Mr. Da-
vid Snedden has called 1t. 1t behooves
us then to make all studies in the
high school disciplinary. To elimi-
nate those things which are merely
fascinating interests and experiences.
II the cleavage is to be made definite.
let us realize the enormous advantage
of collective training in the high
school. and leave individual training
to the university; the earlier school
ing is for habit and Judgment, the
later for experience and productive
ness; the earlier for culture, the later
for vocation: the earlier for learning.
the later for skill; the earlier for
civic responsibility, the later for indi-
viduaI interest: the earlier for loyalty,
the later for science; the earlier anna
teur, meaning devoted neophyte, the
later professicnal-and no profession
can ever be successful without being
''amator in enthusiasm.
In the light of such division be-
tween disciplines and craft studies,
based on the unchanging age limits
of boys and girls, can put my fin
ger on the weak spot in modern edu-
caticnal delay? 1t shows plainly II
you look at our educational edifice as
a sky-scraper with fairly broad pri-
mary and grammar foundation, high
school next a pyramid thinning to-
ward the top with students who drop
cut and weak, indefinite upper grades;
college next an inverted pyramid, thin
at the bottom and -elongate upward
with freshman emancipation and dis
sotpation, widening above its. broad
serious senior year and surmounted
by ever heavier, wider and thicker top
heavy layers of professional and re-
search schools. Is it any wonder that
it topples over and breaks? And in
personal experience, venture 10 be-
lieve, nine out of ten persons here
who look back to their own college
days will find that the flaw in their
Hfn or oh khok
fatal emancipation which followed the
entrance examination. Instead OF be-
ing continuous great shaft. it was
a top-heavy, inverted pyramid.
The weak spot is the confused pre-
judice which venerates a culture col
lege which never existed except in
England. The A. B. today in America
signifies half-hearted semi-profession.
al work in university, The entrance
examination restricts the high
school, the name college," "da1nns"
the high school with faint praise"
preparation for the entrance examin-
alton destroys all collective training,
introduces absurd electives, and
works injustice to those important
citizens who are not able to go to the
university. Revolutionary as it
seems, believe the American univer-
stiles and colleges should demand a
standard disciplinary college course
of the high schools, and give it up
themselves. And then they should all
admit on certificate, and make work
after entrance the test of scholarship,
and school legislation should main
tain in the high schools a standard
equivalent to the culture portion of
the old fashioned colleges.
Our present educational system
with its overlaps is a haphazard,
wasteful flux. hope to see the Amer
lean high school emerge triumphant
as the real college Of discipline, put
ting stop to the waste, determining
a critical point in life. and controlling
education as the summit and crown
Of the cultivation Of youth, not below
the professional college, but revered
and looked up to by the universities
as the mountain fountain head of the
life-stream which feeds them.