The Lancaster news. [volume] (Lancaster, S.C.) 1905-current, 1915-10-12
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WHERE EDUCATION FAILS.

All over the country, at ever-in-
creasing cost. we are constructing
splendid buildings for the service of
primary and higher instruction of all
the children and young men and wo-
men. We are training teachers from
the scholastic standpoint, and are try
ing to make the schools serve in a
better way the individual prepara-
tion for industry, commerce and agri-
culture. But we are almost wholly
failing to utilize the educational sys-
tenn for the specific training of citi-
zens in their various duties as such.
The consequence is that the stand
ards and methods of our political and
organized life are lower than those
of our private life. There is perfect
consistency between the ideals of
those who glorify peace. ana the aims
of those who woul" train every Am
erican boy to be ready to help main
tain peace in any time of emergency
or danger. We are not getting any
thing like the social and public val
ues that We ought to be reaping from
our investment in schools and edu-
cation. Scholarship is not popular
In our universities and colleges, Ath-
letic life furnishes no proper outlet.
lbeospsejt is vicartous and quasi,pro-
fessional. A few young sadiators
monopolize the athletic activity Gof
our institutions. and the vast ma1on-
~ are taught to look on and yell for
the maintenance OF college or school
spirit.
Thus our great institutions. though
more and more costly in their ap
pointments and maintenance, are
painfully aware that they are not nro
ducing the results that ought to be
manifest. Many of their Students
possible majority-cannot write n
well phrased or correctly spelled let
ter. They do not know Bible. or
shakespeare, or Charles Dickens.
Ihey are not capable of reading the
editorial page of good newspaper.
This criticism does not apply to all
but to what in at least n good MANY
large institutions must include fully
half of the undergraduates. 1t would
De unjust to locate blame in any spe
cihc quarter. The faults lie deem in
our current life. and are widesnread
mere are great resources of worth
and OF power latent in those very
youths who do not find themselves
absorbed in the study of textbooks
or held to discipline by the sternness
or the football coach. But there is a
gospel OF social and public duty. ac-
complained by certain practical apnIi.
cations, that might be used to bring
out the earnestness and personal
worth or thousands Of these young
men. They should be strongly i'm
pressed with the gravity of the is-
sues or this momentous time in wbic,,
we live. Without much If any addi-
'ionai burden to the taxpayers every
one OF these students of high schools.
normal schools. colleges. and uniyer-
sities could be SO taught and trained
as 70 be well prepared to exercise
many of the usual. and some Of the
unusual. duties of citizenship. Such
training would benefit students in
their health and morals, would give
them a finer sense of private as weu
as public duty. and would furnish
them with various kinds of practical
experience and knowledge that would
rebound to the welfare of our politi-
cal and governmental life.-Rev.ew
OF Reviews for September.
\ NIOTHER'S InVE