Evening star., 1926-10-05
BY RICHARD GILBERT MASSOCK

BY RICHARD GILBERT MASSOCK.
MADISON, Wis, October 5 R).-
Educators are approaching the task
of making university graduates some
thing more than specialists in cir
cumscribed fields or storehouses OF
purposeless learning.
One of the first laboratories for
developing greater and more useful
enjoyment of advanced education Will
be the University of Wisconsin,
where an experimental college. a
sort of university within a university
is being set up.
Glenn Frank, the youthful jour
nalist and educator, sat in his office
and in characteristic phraseology
| unfolded for the first time some new
| ideas, unusual thoughts and conclu-
sions, grounded in his first years
experience in the presidency of the
| university.
As Alert As Ever.
1t was his thirty-ninth birthday an
niversary. He was as alert, as enthusi
astic as when he came to Madison
slightly more than year ago to be
director of the exploration of thou
sands of young men and women into
| the vast accumulation of the learning
of the ages.
His European trip in the Summer
| had given him rest after the tiring
round of last Winter and Spring. He
| was back from brief but intimate
contact with some of the great minds
| abroad.
Mass education has produced new
| problems in university education"
| the writer ventured. What do you
1
| teaching methods. and what do you
| consider the challenge to teachers in
| the great educational institutions 2"
THE student in the average uni
versity is today in danger of falling
victim to either of two dangers-the
| danger of suicidal Smattering or the
danger of suicidal specialization" he
replied.
| The challenge to educators Is to
devise ways and means of insuring to
students both the advantages of broad
cultural background and the advan-
tages Of intensive specialization later.
This must be done. 1 think, by
concentrating our attention on the
first two years of college as a period
to be devoted to the conquest of a
cultural background and the develop
| ment of general intellectual tech
nique for finding ones way about in
modern society. 1 don't think this
can be achieved today by turning
students loose to take a series of sep
arate studies. Some radically new ap-
proach to this problem is necessary,
an approach that may mean the COM
plete scrapping of the present cur
riculum."
| Experiments Needed.
| How would you begin to search
for the path that leads to solution of
the problem" was the next question.
approach should be-" he said. Some
of us have our gueSSeS. But they
must be ruthlessly tested by expert
ment. That Is why we are setting up
at Wisconsin inside our college, of
liberal arts an experimental college
Of ESQ students, in which we shall be
free to try a wholly new approach to
this part of higher education. We are
going at 1t exactly as a scientist would
so at his experiments on cancer in
his laboratory.
"A time will come, think, when
we shall find formula for these two
years that will produce for the aver
age student actually more in the way
of coherent cultural background than
the average student now gets out OF
four college years"
The question of the growth of stu
dent bodies and control of their size
then was brought out.
1T is not fantastic, l think" DR.
Frank said, ito suppose that a time