One of the personal elements entering into a college education is the choice of a college to attend. This decision is a problem of the first importance, and should not be left to ignorance or caprice, but ought to be carefully considered, inasmuch as it largely involves the future type of character a student will have after the formative period of college life. The college puts a life-long stamp upon its graduates. It largely shapes their tastes, determines the company they keep, and greatly influences the serious work of their lives. There are a few principles by which we may test the excellence of a college without undue disparagement of any.
In the first place, a young man or woman should select a college where the standard of scholarship is high. The number and extent of studies in the college curriculum is not so important as the quality and tone of instruction. The world has come to require accuracy and thoroughness in instruction. What little a student knows he ought to know thoroughly, and then he can speak and act with assurance. A low intellectual tone or lack of critical work on the part of a college has a debilitating influence on the student. The professors should have a ripe scholarship, and be earnest and strong in their work, as well as inspire scholarly ambitions. Their bearing should be kind, courteous, and gentlemanly, in order that the students may come to possess more manly and womanly qualities of character as well as scholarship. Such teachers, in close personal contact with students, will awaken new powers, and help to discipline the mind to clear thinking, and impartnoble impulses that will enrich manhood and womanhood.
Again, the college buildings, libraries, apparatus, and general equipment are important, but not as essential as the teaching force. President Gates says: "Harvard ranked as a small training college, and had no cabinets illustrative of science, when she trained Emerson and Holmes and Lowell, among all her gifted sons still her triple crown of glory. Bowdoin had no expensive buildings upon her modest campus when Hawthorne and Longfellow there drank at the celestial fount. Amherst, among her purple hills, boasted no wealth of appliances or endowment when she printed the roll of undergraduates rendered forever illustrious by the names of Richard S. Storrs, Henry Ward Beecher, and Roswell D. Hitchcock. Presidents Woolsey and Wayland, and Mark Hopkins and Martin B. Anderson, were trained for their noble and ennobling work in colleges which lacked rich appliances and thronging numbers." Such, however, has been the growth of the sciences and advancement in the methods of teaching, that in our modern schools for superior instruction the well-equipped college has a decided advantage over those with meager appliances.
Likewise, select a college where the life andesprit de corpsis the very best. The college is not an exercising ground for the intellect alone, but a place for inspiring ideas and aims. These are the soul of college life. They are more important than college buildings, endowment or libraries.
The religious principle should have the ascendancy in the choice of a college, because religion demands the supreme place in life. The moral and religious character is by no means fixed when the student enters college, and he needs to come into a pure Christian atmosphere, where the heart, as well as the mind, is molded and stimulated.
Other things being equal, the student should favor a college of his own denomination, or the one that he thinks best represents the spirit and form of Christianity. His church affiliations should be strengthened. In advising this, we do so not from any sectarian bigotry. The probabilities are that if the student attends a college of another denomination, the impressions made may tend to produce indifference to the church of his fathers, or weaken his own Christian efficiency in it. The young should maintain personal loyalty to the church that has helped to build up their Christian character and to inspire in them a thirst for a broader culture.
It is claimed to be an advantage to the student living in the West to select a college in his own state, where he will form his friendships and associations, which afterward may be of value to him in his chosen profession. In such cases, it is thought advisable to take graduate work in the East, in some university which ispre-eminent for its special courses, libraries, laboratories, and appliances. On the other hand, it would often be an advantage for the Eastern student to take work in the best universities of the West.
We come now to speak of some of thepersonal hindrances and advantagesin acquiring an education. Student life has its hindrances. All have not the same capacity to assimilate culture. It requires more effort for some to master a college course than for others. A thorough college training costs arduous labor. Many are not willing to pay the price, and to practice the self-denial necessary to acquire the power to think and master the great subjects of study. It demands all the force of a strong conviction and an earnest resolution to go through college and win a place among the thinkers of the world. One reason why so many students enter college and drop out before they complete their course of study, arises from the fact that they have not acquired the power of application. Their feeble wills and intellectual lethargy succumb before mental tasks requiring eight or ten hours of hard, earnest work a day. They should be encouraged with the words of Lord Bacon, who says: "There is no comparison between that which we may lose by not trying and not succeeding, since by not trying we throw away the chance of an immense good, and by not succeeding we only incur the loss of a little human labor."
Again, there are those who are led to look for some short cut to 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 JohnWesleys, 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. Fiveyears 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 reasonableprogress 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 thepersonal advantagesof a college education is the fact that it helps toemancipate 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 havegone 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 likewisetends to liberalize the individualby 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 outwhat 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 theAmazon. 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 likewisehelps to fortify the individualfor 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 hisvocation 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 tofeel 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 wisdomAnd 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."
"Happy is the man that findeth wisdomAnd 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."
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 andfifteen 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 withouta 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, HenryClay, 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 theplace 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 ofhis 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 oneper 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 aneminent 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 Cyclopædia 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 personis 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:
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.
Finally, the qualifications of a lawyernever reached so high a standard. To attain the greatest professional success, it is indispensable to get the highest development which a college training can give. Chauncey M. Depew says that three-fifths of the lawyers are unfit for their profession from lack of ability or training. The people demand abler and better lawyers. The requisite qualities of a good lawyer to-day are not only knowledge and a good judgment, but patience, industry, honesty, and certain other aptitudes for his work. He must be ready to compete with a trained and talented rival. Special training is of great value. A lawyer of several years' standing at the bar in New York, in a recent conversation, remarked: "I studied law in a lawyer's office. My brother, here, several years younger than myself, went through the law school, and he has so much the advantage of me, in consequence of that training, in the studious habits he has formed, in being brought into immediate contact with thebest legal minds, in being held to the highest standards, that this fall I shall enter the law school and take the entire course."
In facing these difficulties, let it be remembered that there are always openings for young men of superior qualifications. Some one asked Daniel Webster whether the legal profession was not over-crowded, and he replied that there was always room at the top. An ambitious young man of ability can win his way to the front, while mediocrity will wait for patronage. There is jostling and crowding in the rear ranks of every profession. It is surprising how few thoroughly trained men are entering the profession. In 1890 there were in the various law schools in this country 4,518 students, and only 1,255 of these had degrees in letters or science. In the same year, 1,514 were graduated in the schools of law, which was only 2.4 in every 100,000 of the population. There is a demand for specialists. The field is enlarging in the department of patent law, railroad law, and other legal specialties. The business transactions of this age are more complex, and the interests more important. Corporation controversies need to be adjusted by those who thoroughly understand the principles and practices of equity. "I was a teacher of law to young men for more than twenty years," says Judge Hoadley, "and have never seen any reason to discourage a sober, honest, and industrious young man from studying law. He needs, first of all, absolute fidelity, trustworthiness, and integrity; secondly, devotion to his calling—in other words, industry that will not be interfered with by the distraction of society or pursuit of politics. If he be honest and willing to work, he will, with reasonable intelligence make a sufficient success, if he have the patience to wait for success. If, in addition, he have what I may call the lawyer's faculty—that God-given power to appreciate leading principles and apply them tofacts as they arise, coupled with ability to reason, and to state results cogently and persuasively,—he will make a shining success."
Again, the advantages of a thorough medical education are generally recognized. The sacred work of ministering to the suffering demands the most thorough instruction in medicine and methods of treatment. In 1890 there were 15,404 students in 116 medical schools in the United States, distributed as follows: Regulars, 13,521; eclectics, 719; homeopathists, 1,164. For the same year there were 4,492 graduates, or 7 in every 100,000 of the population. Sixteen of the medical schools had no students enrolled who had previously obtained a literary or scientific degree. Only 15 per cent. of all the students matriculated had obtained a degree before entering the medical schools. There is an evident lack of thorough preparation in foundation studies on the part of the students. The medical profession is second to none in importance, and the students of medicine who will give time to the more extended culture of a college course will naturally obtain greater skill and a broader range of thought, which will contribute to their efficiency as practicing physicians.
It is also encouraging to know that the statistics of each decade indicate that an increasing proportion of young men entering the ministry have received a college education. There were 112 theological schools in 1890, that reported 7,013 students, of whom 1,372 were graduated, or two for every one hundred thousand of population. This is certainly not over-crowding.
Of the students in theology enrolled in the schools of the various denominations in 1890, the proportion was as follows: Baptists, 15.6 per cent.; Presbyterians, 15 per cent.; Methodists, 14.9 per cent.; Lutheran, 14.7 per cent.; Roman Catholic, 13.4 per cent.; Congregational, 9.7 per cent.; Christian, 5.5 per cent.; Episcopal,4.7 per cent.; Hebrew, .5 per cent. Of the total enrollment, 7,013, only 1,559 students had received degrees in letters or science. The church demands educated men for the pulpit. A call to the ministry in these days means that a man should prepare for the work. God does not honor the slothful, but the man who seeks to make full proof of his ministry. This is done when a man of piety takes the time to acquire mental culture and refinement, and to become able properly to guide and instruct the people. Such ministers, "thoroughly furnished unto every good word and work," honor the church, and strengthen the cause of Christ. Their mental endowments command respect and inspire confidence. There never has been a time in the Christian ministry when there was such a demand as now for ministers with minds cultivated and well stored with knowledge, and hearts set on fire by the Holy Ghost.
The old idea that a college graduate must study for medicine, law, or the pulpit,has attracted a large number of them into these professions. We have learned, however, that these professions are not superior to other avenues in science and business. A college training is only a means to an end. It is giving a man fitness for work of any kind. The departments opening up to college-trained men in all lines of work are multiplying and expanding with each succeeding year.
The future is bright for those who will take up statesmanship as a profession. Nothing has a more important bearing on the social interests of the people than the science of civil government. The nation is burdened with politicians, but intelligent Christian statesmen are few. The intelligent people of this nation are asking for men educated in history, political and social science, who, with clear heads and loyal hearts, will use their ability for the welfare of the public. Good citizens have too long held themselves aloof from the great concerns of our organized society.All civic matters are worthy of our best thought and noblest effort. The management of our political and social interests has too often been usurped by politicians, who, with little self-respect, efficiency, or character, have worked not for the public good, but on the principle that "to the victors belong the spoils." Their rapacity and greed have led them to sacrifice principle to party. They aim to manage caucuses, pervert elections, override the wishes and defy the moral sense of the people, and corrupt the sources of national life.
We have come to ask for a remedy. Its answer must be found in the young men whose patriotism will lead them to thoroughly prepare themselves for public service and make statesmanship a profession. Along with a broad and comprehensive knowledge of the science of government they should cultivate the capacity for effective public speech, in order to present political and social themes with such power as to guide public opinion in theright direction. They must be willing to carry their independent convictions into civil affairs, and help to ennoble the national spirit, and purify public life, and make it expressive of the highest intelligence and the best moral sentiments of the people. Statesmanship is a sacred calling, and the people are ready to uphold and encourage young men who will dedicate themselves to this exalted work.
It is an omen of good that chairs of political and social science are being established in all our high grade colleges to train young men for this service. They ought to prosper, and will. Milton saw this need years ago, and said: "The next remove must be to the study of politics, to know the beginning, end, and reasons of political societies; that they may not, in a dangerous fit of the commonwealth, be such poor, shaken, uncertain reeds, of such a tottering conscience, as many of our great counsellors have lately shown themselves, but steadfast pillars of the state."
Those who are to be trained for this leadership, and expect to gain a strong hold on society, should be taught and trained to think upon complicated questions, and able not only to frame platforms and shape legislation, but to grapple with modern social problems, and lead the people to nobler action.
Journalism is another important field for talented young men and women. The journalists of to-day need breadth and concentration of mind to meet the demands of a reading and thinking people. They need a knowledge based on history, literature, and politics in order to report speeches correctly and to discuss living questions clearly, cogently, and with a broad knowledge of principles and facts. The press wields an influence next to the pulpit, and it should be consecrated to the highest service through men qualified for editorial work.
The profession of teaching has justly assumed a position in this country second to none in influence and power.
There are 15,000,000 pupils in the public schools of this country. There are 364,000 teachers employed in giving instruction to this army of youth. College graduates are rapidly acquiring a control of the high positions in these schools. The superintendents, principals, and the majority of the male assistants are college graduates. A college education is fast becoming an absolute necessity to secure a position in the best schools. School boards will rarely select a superintendent or a principal of the high school who has not received a collegiate education. There is an increasing demand for thoroughly trained men and women in this work. Few teachers can hope to attain prominence in their profession without these advantages.
There is, likewise, a rich and fruitful field opening up to those who receive a careful scientific education. The application of science to the arts and industries is rapidly changing the social and economic conditions of the people. We are unableto conceive of the ever-widening field in which educated men will be needed to discover new methods of concentrating and transmitting electrical and mechanical power, thereby reducing the cost of production, and adding to the comfort and happiness of the human family. There is a growing demand for men versed in electrical science, who can take charge of establishments for the transmission of power. Civil and mechanical engineers are needed, who can wisely and economically construct our bridges and highways of commerce, and who can apply the highest scientific skill to all the constructive enterprises of the country.
"The Swiss and Germans aver," says Matthew Arnold, "if you question them as to the benefit they have received from theirrealschulenandpolytechnicums, that in every part of the world their men of business, trained in these schools, are beating the English when they meet on equal terms as to capital, and that where Englishcapital, as so often happens, is superior, the advantage of the Swiss or German in instruction tends more and more to balance this superiority. I was lately saying to one of the first mathematicians in England, who has been a distinguished senior wrangler at Cambridge and a practical mathematician besides, that in one department, at any rate—that of mechanics and engineering,—we seemed, in spite of the absence of special schools, good instruction, and the idea of science, to get on wonderfully well. 'On the contrary,' said he, 'we get on wonderfully ill. Our engineers have no real scientific instruction, and we let them learn their business at our expense by the rule of thumb, but it is a ruinous system of blunder and plunder. A man without a requisite scientific knowledge undertakes to build a difficult bridge; he builds three which tumble down, and so learns how to build a fourth which stands, but somebody pays for the three failures. In France or Switzerland hewould not have been suffered to build his first bridge until he had satisfied competent persons that he knew how to build it, because abroad they cannot afford our extravagance.'"
We find, likewise, that our industries are demanding men trained in applied chemistry. The application of the principles of chemical philosophy to manufacturing steel, chemical fertilizers, artificial preparation of articles of food, bleaching, dyeing, and printing of cloths, offers a very inviting field of study. We might multiply instances, but enough has been said to suggest to our minds the rich possibilities before educated young men and women. We are only on the edge of the future of applied science.
We need, also, to carry our culture and training into business careers. Business is conducted by different methods than in the past. The management affords a broader field for judgment and thought. Many, in the future, may succeed without a collegeeducation, but they will work at a disadvantage. The chances are always in favor of the man who is well educated. It is a common belief that a college education unfits a man for practical work. He often does appear at a disadvantage on leaving college, but, other things being equal, he will distance, within a few years, the man of like ability who has not been rigorously trained to see, think, and judge. "Experience also confirms this impression by the decisive testimony gathered from a multitude of witnesses," says Noah Porter, "that the young man who leaves college at twenty-one, and enters a counting or sales-room, will, at twenty-three, if diligent and devoted, have outstripped in business capacity the companion who entered the same position at sixteen and has remained in it continuously, while in his general resources of intellect and culture he will be greatly his superior."
Germany has for more than fifty years insisted that her youth should not onlyhave the foundation of a general education, but that opportunities should be given for higher commercial instruction. This superior education and training is producing its legitimate results. Notwithstanding the many unfavorable circumstances which have combined to prevent her growth in commerce and industry, Germany has gained an amount of skill and experience in mercantile training that has no parallel in France, England, or America. The advance of German trade is due to the superior fitness of the Germans through their systematic training in technical schools.
M. Ricard, in his report to the French Chamber of Commerce, said: "Every intelligent man must admit that the invasion of our commerce by foreigners is due entirely to this educational inferiority. The Germans are taking our places everywhere. They even supplant the English. Let the merchants of France take warning in time. German commerce has betterinstruction, better discipline, and greater enterprise than French commerce; it is at home everywhere; no languages are foreign to it; it keeps a lookout over the world; it is not ashamed to go to school, and if you do not awake from your lethargy, it will annihilate you."
The London Chamber of Commerce found, on examination, that ninety-nine per cent. of Englishmen who take to commercial life are unable to correspond in any foreign language. The comparative disadvantage, on all commercial lines, of England with Germany, is owing to "a higher average of mercantile intelligence all round." It is not to be alleged that the English are mentally inferior to the Germans, but, as Professor W. G. Blackie said before the Educational Institute of Scotland: "The question is solely an intellectual one, and must be solved through educational means. It assumes the aspect of an educational duel between the mercantile population of this country and theircompetitors on the continent, in which the mastery is sure to remain with those who are the most fully equipped for the contest."
The report on the superior instruction of Antwerp contains the following words: "Men have seemed to imagine that, in order to prosper, commerce and industry have only required money and favorable treaties of commerce. Governments have occupied themselves with the material side of the future merchant, without taking care to develop his intellectual capacity, which is, indeed, the spirit of his operations, without taking care to improve his intelligence, which is the germ of enterprise in the commercial life of a nation."
Young men and women are often led to believe that there is no chance for them to have a successful career, and so fail to attend college and develop their capacity, and, as a consequence, often become restless and idle. But this is no age for triflers. The world is in need of educatedmen in all of the higher walks of life. There is abundant room for men of ability and culture who can bring things to pass. The fact that earnest, talented, and consecrated men and women are overworked in their professions shows that there is a place in the front ranks of all useful professions and vocations.
The door of the twentieth century swings open and invites the ambitious men and women of talent and consecration to the service of humanity, and extends the widest opportunities and the most exalted privileges ever vouchsafed to man. Will the youth of the land be ready to enter?