obtain a college education. This is a serious mistake. "Whatsoever a
man soweth, that shall he also reap," is as true in an intellectual
career as in any other work of life. The laws of mental growth must be
observed to make the most of ourselves, and to do the most for
humanity and God. The young must learn that it takes years of work to
get a college education. "If I am asked," says President J. W.
Bashford, "why Methodism does not produce more John Wesleys, I assign
as one reason of this failure the fact that none of us observe the
laws of mental development as John Wesley kept them, and devote the
time to mental growth which John Wesley gladly gave. I turn to
Arminius, and find that he spent between twelve and thirteen years at
the universities of Europe before he began to preach. Arminius died at
fifty-nine. Yet he left behind him a work on divinity which ranks him
with La Place and Newton, with Calvin and Augustine and Spinoza, as
one of the world's master minds. Calvin spent nine years at college,
and later was able to devote three years more to study. Augustine
devoted thirteen years to study after his father sent him away to
college before he accepted the professorship at Milan. It was eleven
years after Luther left home for college before he left the scholar's
bench for the professor's chair. Four years later, Luther took another
scholastic degree, showing that he was still pursuing his studies.
Five years more were required for Luther to reach clear convictions
on religion and theology. Paul was a student in the most celebrated
schools in Jerusalem for fifteen years. If, therefore, you do not seem
to have that mastery of truth, if you do not find yourself the
intellectual giant which you once thought you might become, do not
blame the Lord, do not depreciate your talent, until you have devoted
as many years to college studies as did Arminius, and Calvin, and
Augustine, and Wesley, and Luther, and Paul. If you would do a great
work in the world, fulfill the conditions by which men outgrow their
fellows." The student should be willing to begin at the bottom of the
ladder and work upward. It will take more time, but it will yield rich
returns and bring real satisfaction.
Again, if the college life is to be profitable and pleasant, the
student should refuse to enter an advanced class when his general
culture or discipline is so deficient as to render it difficult to
make reasonable progress in his studies. It is true that the entrance
examination is not always a fair test of the student's capacity or
promise. The difficulty cannot be corrected, and study be made a
pleasure, unless a student himself shows frankness, and is willing to
begin where every step forward is thoroughly understood.
Among the _personal advantages_ of a college education is the fact
that it helps to _emancipate the individual_. The studies pursued take
the student out of his narrow self and his present environment, and
make him conversant with other ages and conditions, where he finds his
larger self. The personality becomes enlarged and enriched by a wider
vision and a knowledge of the great and good men who have lived to
make the world better. The best thoughts of the past and the present
are at the student's command. He may place himself in touch with all
ages and peoples and feel that he is contemporaneous with the best
spirit and thought of all that have gone before. Truth thus gathered
and stored up in life and character has a wonderful emancipating
power. The gateway of truth is always thrown open to those who
earnestly knock and search for her hidden treasures. The individual in
this age, more than in any other, needs the emancipating power of
truth to act intelligently and effectively in the drama of life.
A college education likewise _tends to liberalize the individual_ by
first eliminating any self-conceit, or inclination to rashness or
falsity, and to build up firmness, judgment, and sincerity of
character. The aim of the college is to enable the student to know
himself and his mission in life. He must have a right conception of
self, because he must everywhere live and act with self. He owes it to
himself, and to the race, and to God, to make the most of life by
developing his God-given faculties. God had a purpose in creating each
person, and the aim of each individual should be to live worthy of his
origin, by finding out what God wants of him, and then training his
faculties and aptitudes on the line of this purpose. He who lives in
willful ignorance lives beneath the privileges and possibilities of a
human being created in the divine image. No one ought to be satisfied
with anything short of the noblest and best possibilities for himself.
The majority of men and women have rich capacities, and their natures
are full of resources, but these are not always called out. Their
incipient powers often need some outside impulse or suggestion to open
the chambers of the soul and lead them to discover their unconscious
capacities, natural aptitudes, and untried powers.
There are hidden forces in our nature and in life about us of which we
little dream. The marvelous forces of electricity are being applied to
all human activities, and are unfolding to us new life and new
possibilities. We are told that there are mightier currents in the
atmosphere above us than those in the Mississippi or the Amazon.
Likewise, the science of education exhibits how the trained powers of
man reveal unexpected forces and capacities, which have needed only
the touch of truth and personality to awaken a higher life and to
impart fresh inspiration. Now the college is the best place to
discover our inborn energies, and to awaken talent and develop
greatness through the influence of men and books.
The student is also liberalized by a knowledge of the truth. Ignorance
is the synonym for narrowness and bigotry. Charity, good-will, and
human brotherhood spring from a kind heart and an enlightened
understanding. The student, by reason of years of study, is better
able to see truth in its various human relations and personally
exhibit a breadth of charity unknown to those of narrow vision. His
informed judgment and quickened conscience will enable him to act
generously and to stuffer courageously, because his soul is quietly
resting in the bosom of truth.
A college education likewise _helps to fortify the individual_ for
complete living. It is in the college that the student gains a deeper
consciousness of his own ability, which gives independence to
character. Through genius, or by dint of extraordinary application, he
attains an intellectual ability which gives him the right to wield his
trained powers to uphold the truth and work for the general good. His
mental powers, stores of knowledge, and humanitarian sympathies
naturally give greater opportunity for influence and usefulness. The
judgment and reasoning powers have been trained so that the student
goes forth fortified against the acceptance of plausible delusions and
sophisms, and can speak with rightful authority as to the facts or
principles he has observed and verified. Truth and personality, thus
coupled together, face practical duties and questions with the
confident strength and heroic courage which presage victory.
The college-trained man, who enters his vocation in life as a
vigorous, virtuous and capable being, equipped with facts and
principles as the propelling power of life, will wield the greatest
influence for good. He will be fortified for the battles of life, and
able to maintain himself in honest independence.
The college offers another safeguard to the student by conserving
scholarly tastes and habits. The student who acquires a literary taste
is never at a loss to know how he may best employ his time. The baser
things of life are crowded out to give place to nobler thoughts and
higher aims. He finds his real happiness in cultivating the inner life
of exalted thought and generous impulses. He realizes that, as the
body demands sustenance, and the soul needs "bread from heaven," so
the mind must have intellectual food, which gratifies a taste for the
best thoughts of the best thinkers.
The student is also helped to fortify himself with a noble purpose. He
is led to feel that he has a mission in life, and the power of this
purpose gives an elevation to the spirit and a dignity and loftiness
to conduct. More than anything else, it helps to strengthen the will
to resist temptation and to conform to the highest moral code. By far
too many of our youth are drifting through life without any particular
aim or purpose. They fail to act in life under the inspiration of a
devotion to a great purpose. Henry D. Thoreau was right when he wrote:
"The fact is, you have got to take the world on your shoulders, like
Atlas, and put along with it. You will do this for an idea's sake, and
your success will be in proportion to your devotion to ideas. It may
make your back ache occasionally, but you will have the satisfaction
of hanging it or twirling it to suit yourself. Cowards suffer; heroes
enjoy." Any worthy calling or useful employment will lead to honor and
a broader development of self, providing that self is filled with an
absorbing love to God, so that it will be the unit of measure for
action towards a neighbor and the true base line from which his rights
and boundaries are surveyed and determined.
The college helps to fortify the young by imparting good impulses,
which enable them to enter upon life full of hope and courage. It is
the place to kindle the youth with a glow of enthusiasm, and impart an
inspiration which will pervade the whole career of life. It speaks for
the immaterial and unseen forces of life, and supplies the purest
motives by which to form a true and beautiful character.
No young man can afford to enter the wide-open door of the twentieth
century without a harmonious development of his faculties, and a
nature sensitive to the best and holiest influences, and responsive to
the most generous impulses. The aspirations of bright minds and noble
natures can never excel the lofty descriptions of wisdom by the wisest
of men.
"Happy is the man that findeth wisdom
And the man that getteth understanding,
For the merchandise of it is better than silver,
And the gain thereof than fine gold.
She is more precious than rubies,
And all things thou canst desire are not to be compared unto her.
Length of days is in her right hand,
And in her left hand riches and honor;
Her ways are ways of pleasantness,
And all her paths are peace."
VII.
THE PRACTICAL VALUE OF EDUCATION.
Prince Bismarck is reported to have said that in Germany "there were
ten times as many people educated for the higher walks as there were
places to fill." Many uninformed persons are ready to make similar
statements in regard to this country, and believe that we are
over-educating the people. Colonel R. G. Ingersoll says: "You have no
idea how many men education spoils. Colleges are institutions where
brickbats are polished and diamonds dimmed."
The public schools have nearly fifteen million pupils enrolled, or
nearly one-fourth of the population of the entire country. In 1890,
the four hundred and fifteen colleges had 118,581 students in all
departments. This vast army of youth receiving instruction is
regarded, on the part of some people, with a little disquietude, and
it is believed that we are likely to have too many college-trained men
and women. There are certainly no grounds for fear if we take
education to mean the broadest culture for complete living.
If we examine more closely the figures regarding our school
population, we will find that, of the large number of pupils enrolled
in 1890, there was only "an average of three and one-half in one
hundred pupils studying any branches above the courses of study laid
down for the first eight years; that is, between the ages of six and
fourteen years."
Of the 118,581 students in our colleges, there were only 35,791 men
and 7,847 women in the collegiate department, making a total of 43,638
receiving higher instruction. The remaining number were in the
preparatory, normal, and professional departments. These students are
scattered over a great nation, and if we take students in all
departments they represent one in four hundred and fifty-five of the
population who are under superior instruction, and only one male
student in the collegiate department to a group of 1,770 of the
population. Many of those enrolled in college do not complete the
course of study. It is evident that the number of students in our
colleges is proportionately small, considering our population and the
requirements of our age, and the proportion of graduates is even
smaller.
The practical value of a college education is seriously questioned by
many good people unacquainted with the facts. There is abundant
evidence, however, which goes to prove that the college graduate has
better chances for success than the non-graduate.
It is admitted at the outset that some self-educated men have
succeeded without a college education, while some college-trained men
have failed in active life. It should be remembered that colleges do
not exist to make ability, but to develop it. There is certainly
nothing in a college education which unfits men for the practical
duties of life. Some college students have meager talent to begin
with, and a college training aims to help them make the most of
themselves.
The so-called "self-made" men have undergone the severest discipline.
By force of native ability and energy, they have surmounted
difficulties and achieved success which merits the warmest praise.
There is scarcely one of them who would not have availed himself of a
collegiate or technical training if force of circumstances had not
ordered otherwise. They feel keenly their educational disadvantages,
and believe that they would have had greater success if they could
have had the disciplinary training of a college course. Many feel as
did the distinguished orator, Henry Clay, who, when in Congressional
debate with John Randolph, a collegian, is said to have acknowledged,
with tears, the disadvantage he suffered from not having had a liberal
education.
Washington, Franklin, and Lincoln achieved success by their
application, but they were among the foremost to recognize the value
of a college training. These examples show that a college education is
not always essential to the highest service. The only just claim for a
collegiate training is that it increases the probabilities of a
person's success in life.
The criteria of comparison of the achievements of men are imperfect,
and the measure of success is not easily calculated. Great men are not
those who simply climb up to some conspicuous position. It is
important to estimate the quality of the work done, as well as the
place occupied. A greater premium should be placed upon the manhood
and womanhood put into the work, rather than the place filled. The
teachings of Christ show that there is no place in the Kingdom of God
for a place hunter, but that greatness is measured by service. In the
competition for success in life, it is often necessary to have not
only ability and worth, but the commercial instinct to gain public
recognition. The safe rule for men of talent to follow is to make
themselves conspicuously great in their present position, and make it
a stepping-stone for something greater. Charles Kingsley occupied, in
England, an apparently humble position in his rural pastorate, but the
thinking world has felt the power and influence of his great life.
Bearing in mind these restrictions in regard to the idea of success,
we offer a few suggestive facts to show the number of college men who
have made a record in the annals of the country.
The college has been the open doorway to positions of eminence and
usefulness in all countries. Lord Macaulay, in one of his speeches in
Parliament, said: "Take the Cambridge Calendar, or take the Oxford
Calendar for two hundred years; look at the church, the parliament, or
the bar, and it has always been the case that men who were first in
the competition of the schools have been first in the competition of
life."
Speaking of the advantages of a university education in Germany,
Professor J. M. Hart says: "I am warranted in saying that the majority
of the members of every legislative body in Germany, and three-fourths
of the higher office holders, and all the heads of departments, are
university graduates, or have at least taken a partial course--enough
to catch the university spirit. All the controlling elements of German
national life, therefore, have been trained to sympathize with the
freedom, intellectual and individual, which is the characteristic of
the university method."
It is estimated that only one-half of one per cent. of the male
population in America receives a college education, and yet this small
contingent of college men furnishes one-half of the Senators and
Vice-Presidents, two-thirds of the Presidents and Secretaries of
State, and seven-eighths of the Justices of the Supreme Court of the
United States.
Rev. W. F. Crafts says: "I have examined the educational records of
the seventy foremost men in American politics--Cabinet officers,
Senators, Congressmen, and Governors of national reputation--and I
find that thirty-seven of them are college graduates; that five more
had a part of the college course, but did not graduate, while only
twenty-eight did not go to college at all. As not more than one young
man in five hundred goes to college, and as this one-five-hundredth of
the young men furnishes four-sevenths of our distinguished public
officers, it appears that a collegian has seven hundred and fifty
times as many chances of being an eminent Governor or Congressman as
other young men."
The college graduate generally has the pre-eminence among professional
men. The proportion of successful men in the professions is difficult
to obtain, but if a wide reputation be regarded as the criterion of
success, the college-bred men take the lead.
President Thwing has carefully estimated that, of the 15,142 most
conspicuous persons of our American history, whose record is sketched
in "Appleton's Cyclopaedia of American Biography," 5,326 are college
men. Among the latter, the percentage found in the various callings is
as follows: "Pioneers and explorers, 3.6 per cent.; artists, 10.4 per
cent.; inventors, 11 per cent.; philanthropists, 16 per cent.;
business men, 17 per cent.; public men, 18 per cent.; statesmen, 33
per cent.; authors, 37 per cent.; physicians, 46 per cent.; lawyers,
50 per cent.; clergymen, 58 per cent.; educators, 61 per cent.;
scientists, 63 per cent." He further estimates that one college man
in every forty attains recognition, to one in every ten thousand
non-college men; and a college-bred man has 250 times the chance of
attaining recognition that the non-college man has.
Dr. Channing says: "The grounds of a man's culture lie in his nature,
and not in his calling;" and, in keeping with this, the primary aim of
a college is to train men. Yet, it should be the door of approach to
all professions. The studies pursued in college are the foundations of
the practice of the various professions, and a young man does himself
and his profession no credit when he neglects to master a college
course because of his impatience to rush into a professional career,
and thus help to swell the army of poorly-equipped professional men.
"To practice law or medicine in France," says Matthew Arnold, "a
person must possess a diploma, which serves as a guarantee to the
public that such a person is qualified for his profession. A
licentiate of law must first have got the degree of Bachelor of
Letters; have then attended two years' lectures in a faculty of law,
and undergone two examinations, one in Justinian's Code, and the Codes
of Civil Procedure and Criminal Instruction. The new bachelor must
then, in order to become licentiate, follow a third year's lectures in
a faculty of law; undergo two more examinations, the first on the
Institutes of Justinian again, the second on the Code Napoleon, the
Code of Commerce, and Administrative Law, and must support a thesis on
questions of Roman and French Law. To be a physician or surgeon in
France, a man must have a diploma of a doctor either in medicine or in
surgery. To obtain this, he must have attended four years' lectures in
a faculty of medicine, and have two years' practice in a hospital.
When he presents himself for the first year's lectures, he must
produce a diploma of Bachelor of Letters; when for the third, that of
a Bachelor of Sciences, a certain portion of the mathematics generally
required for a third degree being, in his case, cut away. He must pass
eight examinations, and at the end of his course he must support a
thesis before his faculty."
Young men with talent and ambition are led to believe that the
professions are so over-crowded that there is very little opportunity,
in these days, for a collegian to succeed in a professional career. A
comparative study of the number of students in the professional
schools in Germany, France, and the United States, for 1890 reveals
the following facts:
KEY:
A: _Law._
B: _No. to every 100,000 population._
C: _Medicine._
D: _No. to every 100,000 population._
E: _Theology._
F: _No. to every 100,000 population._
A B C D E F
Germany, 6,304 13 8,886 18 5,849 12
France, 5,152 14 6,455 17 101 ..
United States, 4,518 7 14,884 24 7,013 11
We glance briefly at the promises which the so-called learned
professions hold out to young men. The opening for young men in the
legal profession has many difficulties, but it is not without its
rewards. David Dudley Field estimated that in 1893 there were 70,000
lawyers in the United States. If we estimate the population of the
nation at 70,000,000, there would be one lawyer for every 1,000 of the
population. Assuming that three-fourths of the population are women,
children, and men under age, there would be one lawyer to every 250
males of full age in the United States.
Germany, with a population of 50,000,000, has about 7,000 lawyers, or
one to every 7,000 persons. In the State of New York, with a
population of 6,000,000, there are 11,000 lawyers, or one for every
545 of the population. Of this number of lawyers, there is a great
proportion engaged in real estate business, or other outside matters,
which enables them to secure a maintenance. Others have entered the
law because of its promise of social position and honor.
Aside from the numbers in the legal profession, there are other
considerations in the problem. The people of to-day are less disposed
to controversy, and avoid employing lawyers to settle disputes and
differences in court, and others often hesitate to employ a lawyer for
fear of being made a victim of the rapacity of some who have brought
the profession into disrepute. Again, there is less confusion in the
laws. They are being collected, condensed, arranged, and simplified,
and people are coming to understand the codes. Likewise, the courts
are adopting simpler rules and codes of civil procedure, which give
less room for pettyfogging hindrances and delays in litigation. A
lawyer of talent, with the aid of a good stenographer and typewriter
and other advantages of to-day, can do double and treble the work of a
lawyer twenty-five years ago.