Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1919-10-08
Give Brains q Chance.

Bread ana Drains. Tne nlgn cost Oh
living and the need Of leadership.
All.absorbins, all-important top
les.
What Is the connection? What is
the answer?
The country needs brains. 1t needs
leadership. Some of US need bread,
especially the underpaid teachers and
preachers who furnish the intellectual
and moral fibre of the nation. They
cannot get it because of the high cost
Of living. Result: They plod along in
shabby clothes which co,er underfed
bodies, using up strength in the mere
process of living that ought to be
given to their students; or they quit
their PROFESSIONAL pursuits and get a
Job at which they can make a liv-
ing.
The war proved that the college
man was most valuable for his
adaptability. Perhaps you have never
heard of one taking a course, in
adaptabiLty at college. 1t is the
greatest asset the modern college
possesses. 4 college course is not so
valuable for the facts it teaches as for
the power to think and act ii re-
Spouse to a situation which it arouses
in its students. Adaptability is 4
distinctly modern course and its ef-
feet is seen in the change Of occu-
pations of modern college graduates.
Colleges used to fit men tor the min
lstry almost exclusively; then they
began to produce lawyers and doc
tors. Now they turn out admins
traitors, business men. executives who
hold positions that call Tor thinking.
power of decision. judgment, nerve.
Men of this kind are the ones needed
to direct the affairs Of this nation,
and the nation needs to realize that
they are The product of their college
instruction. 1t needs to realize Iur-
Their that before they went to college
they had long years OF primary edu-
cation. and that on that education de-
ponds their ability 10 even. enter a
college.
The colleges themselves. partly
from pressure Of necessity and part
ly from sensible foresight. are issuing
The warning against cheap education
and its results. President Lowell of
Harvard, President Hibben of Prince
ton, President McLaurin of Technol-
ogy, and Professor Strayer of Column
bia are a few Of the more prominent
men who are prophets Of the threat
ened educational disaster. They speak
not only for their own institutions, but
for the public school teachers as we'll
The endowment drives of Harvard
and Technology are a beginning of
better paid college teaching, and 9TH
ers must be conducted by smaller
colleges if they are to maintain and
improve their standards.
The preachers are as a class paid
less than the professors. But their
calling is even greater. Their field of
activity is the whole span and sum
of human life. They christen the
babies. guide the children and youths,
marry the young men and women,
lend support, aid and comfort to
fathers and mothers, visit the sick
and bury the dead. AS Acknowledged
moral leaders. they are expected to
he the ethical guides Of their COM
munities. the voices Of right and JUS
tice. and the spiritual intercessors to
God Almighty.
Could they exchange jobs with the
man who yields the pick and shovel?
He gets SIS per week.. They get $12,
$15 or $1s-if they can collect It.
Both preachers and teachers-ths
real ones-have joy in their work and
they work for the love of it, but JOY
and love will not purchase shoes or
sugar. beef or biscuits. There are GER
tain practical matters that viii not
give way to argument.
Things win have to be evened up
somewhat. to keep the balance in ma
tonA life. Steel workers at $50 psr
day and doctors Of philosophy at SIS
par week are Incompatible. Let's re-
peal the premium on niteracy and
eubstdise brains for q while.