The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1930-11-28
L. the Cnlleoe Passing?

Is Alma Mater breathing her last and on the point
of being handed over to the undertaken? Are the
uncovered cloisters and the resoundng stadums to
be abandoned in our age when sentiment is sacrificed
to efficiency and logic many fronts?
Such is the prophecy of Dr. Louis A. Pechsteln
dean of the college of education of the University OF
Cincinnati in lecture on rs the College Passing?"
before the Kansas state teachers convention There
: no doubt in Dean Pechstens mind that the college
Is on it's last legs, and he gives cogent and convincing
arguments to buttress his notions.
The liberal college was in large part creature OF
arrogance and sentiment 1t aimed to train gentle
men and rhetoricans. It's products were to be set
of apart from the rest of mankind and viewed as SUI
perior to them
1t had no interest in training the masses to live
more effectively and abundantly. But it could claim
some justification to existence when it did distinct
lob of carrying the culture of few beyond the level
of learning attained in the high school and academy
But this justification has ceased to exist. Today
there has been saving oNtwo years in the eleme1-
tary and grammar grades. This has made possible
the Junior high school, where pupils take much OF the
work once given in the older high school and academy
Today the better senior high schools are doing far
more competent and advanced work than was open to
students in the liberal college of generation ago.
Mr. Coodges education in Amherst from 1891 to 1895
to the curriculum open to the student in one OF our
more up-to-date senior high schools.
Can we permit the waste of time involved in four
years of liberal training beyond the high school or
what was once the objective of the liberal college?
This is particularly relevant question today when
the first two years of college work usually dupli
cation of the high school studies but taught by gener
ally inferior teachers.
Again, we have to consider the terrific demands of
time and money on typical professional student to-
day He has to go through the junior high school,
the senior high school, the liberal college and the pro-
fessonal school before he is able to start his pro-
sessonal work He usually is around 80 before he can
get along. and his education represents an invest
nent of thousands of dollars.
Dean Pechstein believes that present proposals to
reform the college largely irrelevant for he thinks
colleges will be thing of the past before such reforms
can be introduced in practice The chief problem of the
future is to bring all high schools up to the level
IF performance as now is achieved the better senior
high schools.
Then the high school graduate can pass directly
to the medical school, engineering college, law school
and teachers college. -Four years and many thou
sands of dollars viii be saved with apprecabe loss
Certainly there justification for liberal educa-
ton which extends beyond the program of the pres
ent junior college.
may say that Dean Pechstein has opened one of the
most revolutionary and significant discussions in the
whole history of higher education.