Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1921-07-16
DR.. THEODORE J. GRAYSoN

A TEARING down of the Chinese wall OF
"A higher learning, so that a liberal edu-
cation may be desired by more and nc
cessible to as many as want it., is sought
the Wharton evening and extra mural
courses Of the University of Pennsylvania.
"Unless," says DIR. Grayson, provision
Is made for something more than to catch
the nearest way to success and the earning
Of livelihood, the future Is fraught with
grave dangers to humanity as n whole.
"For instance" he muses., "a food in
Colorado, one dark night in May, bereft a
world wrapt in sleep of little multitude of
its most useful citizens. Among its numbers
were a distinguished physician, an eminent
lawyer or Judge, several kinds of capable
engineer and a college professor of sorts.
This led me to figure out, from motives
stand, exactly how much 1t would cost, for
instance, these days to turn out first
class medical man. This Is easily enough
DONE so far as figures nre concerned, but
management of the result would be the
difficulty for the father of a family to sur
mount.
What an Education Costs
From this result, it appears that to
bring such a man to the moment when he
may hang out thoroughly respectable
shingle Of his own costs. under favorable
conditions, twenty seven years Of life and
some $500 worth of university learning.
In addition, there will have been other
costs-books, instruments, unavoidable ex-
tras and bite to eat during that time. Pro-
vded he may not have INDUCED himself in
matrimony, children and such like frivoli-
ties. the chances are that at something. over
thirty he may be able to relieve his family
of the major part of his support.
Much the same might be said for the
other distinguished men who were taken off
on that fateful May night. The thought,
therefore, keeps intruding itself that if such
hoocausts happened frequently the land
must sooner or later come to a most painful
sense of want.
stance. the best education is possible only
for sons and daughters of fairly well to do
parents. AS all the brains of the country
are not absorbed by this class, it seems only
reasonable that every obstacle, save the task
itself, should be removed from such an edu-
cation.
y When World Needs Help
'As the number of self sacrificing souls,
who would 60 to remote place, spend their
days in healing and their nights In the pur-
suit of science is small and the world cries
out for help when 1t is a matter of life and
DEATH it is easy to see where the quack, the
empiric, the half-trained practitioner of
strange practices takes the place of the
trained physician In the land.
1--WE may develop sound medical schools
that accept and train candidates of less pre-
limnary schooling than our great uniyersi-
ties have come to require who make first
rate medical men. But SUCH men will not
have the time and the equipment to carry on
that patient and unremuneratiye research
out of which new science grows. Education
however elaborate and prolonged. cannot
make n great inventive mind
The ignorant patient who has been re-
lieved of his pain by the knife of the surgeon
would naturally think that he had that sur
gcon. to thank. lie might argue that Mis-
support should go for surgeons and NO fnr.
ther. But you know that from the point of
that surgeons instrument leaps as il were
from an electrode the accumulated science
of the ages.
The Genesis OF Results
"This knowledge has only been gatbercd
by hard and patient toll in the laboratories
of biologists, physicists and chemists, In
the closets OF mathematicians and the OBJ.
seryatorics of astronomers. These men must
be tHhined that others may be relieved VET
th0/world is not likely to hear of them and
therefore no immediate returns will be dis.
cernible.
"There are economic conditions that con
crush the soul, yet the sufferer must learn
enough letters to spell out his misery we
depend on science for our lives, but how
little of our life is just living.
There may be many reforms necessary
for all our ills, but to my mind the first
should be 10 make all the higher learning
free. The cry is, Where Is the money to