Evening capital and Maryland gazette. (Annapolis, Md.) 1910-1922, 1921-04-25
LIBERAL EDUCATION
THEME OF TALK TO
UNIVERSITY CLUB


Confined From Page ~
are their aims in the field OF eduea-
tion? These are the questions all in
telligent people are asking, and the
questions which those seeking intel
ligence are asking the educators. Are
the colleges fulfilling their mission
Are they adequately supplying the
needs OF those who hunger and thirst
after knowledge? These questions.
confronting The educational world
with full force and vigor today. were
answered BY the speaker in the AFR
native. more particularly as 10 the
New England Colleges.
The western schools. because of the
tremendous number of students in
single classes. great university
having as many as fifteen hundred in
a single class-were not doing the
same great. work as their eastern
and clder-brotIers Personal con-
tact between pupil and teacher, inn
possible where such great numbers
compose a class. is what counts in
getting an education. and these older
colleges, having smaller classes, are
letter able TO stress this element in
their work, with the result that their
students go out into the world not
-machine-made." but rather, fired by
that human touch" which they have
received, they go out, well rounded
individuals. able to meet and cope
with the problems confronting them.
What Liberal Education Is
A liberal education does not nee
essarily consist in the mastery of some
intricate subject, such as Latin or
Greek. or even English. but is the
ability to see one subject in its true
relation to other subjects. and some-
times may be gained as we'll by the
intimate understanding of a greasy
piece of machinery as by high stand
ing in some one of the arts or
sciences.
A book of Alfred Wallace. written
about twenty years ago, shows that of
the worlds greatest inventions all but
seven have been discovered since the
beginning of the nineteenth century.
As examples of the seven, the speaker
gave the printing press, the cotton gin,
and gunpowder; of those since 1900.
the steam engine, the telegraph. the
telephone. the harvesting machine and
the electric light The world began
TO wake up about the beginning of
the nineteenth century, and during the
few years of the twentieth--our gen.
eration-all other cycles have been
far surpassed in the field of inventive
genius. George Washington and
Julius Caesar rode in the same kind
of carriage. though Washington never
saw one of such magnifcence as the
cd Roman used; locomotion made few
advances throughout all the interven-
ing years.
But what changes had there been
in the individual during this span?
The girl in the textile mill, Winding
the shuttle as it shoots back and
forth, weaving out silks and satins;
is the same as that other girl,-her
great-grandmother,- sat. patient
ly. at the spinning wheel making the
"homospuns" of our ancestors? The
speaker refused to attempt to answer
this question. The sailor boy of to-
day manning our dreadnaughts. is. in
appearance, the same as that boy of
years gone by who fought with our
immortal John Paul Jones on the
Bonhomme Richard; has education
broadened his vision during the in
tervening years? These are some of
the questions the world is asking of
the educators. and the colleges are
called upon TO answer them. The
means of locomotion, for example,
have been UNNECESSARILY improved /;
now about the minds of the men of
our generation?
Where Students Fail
The failure of the present day stu
dent TO see his subject in its true re-
lation to associated subjects. is too
often the cause of awful mistakes.
The young thing who, in describing
the domestic life of the poet Milton,--