Jasper County Democrat, Volume 7, Number 25, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 September 1904 — THE BEST COLLEGE [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

THE BEST COLLEGE

It That Which Furnishes the Com* pletest Men. DR. HUGHES ON HIGHER EDUCATION

Its Lofty Purpose Should Be to Fit Men to Further the Legitimate Interests of the Race and Push Those Interests to the Supreme Goal. ISncclal Correspondence.] Greencastle, Ind., Sept. 12.—Within a few days this old college town will take on new life with the return Of eight hundred students to the halls of DePauw University, an institution which for three-quarters of a century has been a training ground for the youth of the middle West, and during that period has given to the work of the world many men and women who have become eminent in their chosen fields of endeavor. Some recently compiled statistics show that of the graduates of this typical Western institution who received their diplomas up to 1900, two have become governors of states, two lieutenant governors, two cabinet officers, rive foreign ministers. five attaches and consuls, seven United States senators, ten members of the house of representatives, ten state officers, twenty-one state senators, twenty-three federal and state supreme judges, fifty-nine state representatives, and seventy-seven officers in the army and navy; fifty-one college presidents, 129 college professors, and 104 city and county superintendents. It is interesting to know that of the graduates of DePauw 6p4 have become teachers, 510 lawyers, 389 ministers and missionaries, 147 physicians, 102 newspaper men, 52 authors. It is not strange that the authorities of DePauw have chosen as a motto: “The test of an institution of learning is the man it produces.” Judged by this standard DePauw University is entitled to rank high among the colleges and universities of the country. As to President Hughes. DePauw University is fortunate in having enlisted the services as president of Edwin Holt Hughes, formerly of Malden, Mass., one of the most enlightened and progressive educational leaders of the country, and the college year is inaugurated under auspices un-

usually favorable because of his accession as chief executive. The faculty for the coming year has been materially strengthened and the year’s work is undertaken under auspices unusually favorable. To your correspondent President Hughes gives an interesting interview wherein he outlines his views of the purpose of the college, which may be taken as an expression of the ideals he is seeking to realize at DePatiw: “The college should stand,” says President Hughes, “as a preparing agent between the theory and the practice of life. To make the statement more human and personal, a college should carry the power that resides in young people out to cacet the opportunities that wait in the world. With

these general conceptions all men would agree. The skeptic might query whether our average college was meeting this ideal, but he would not deny that the proper aim of a higher institution is to unite the theoretic and the practical worlds. The Crux In the Problem.

“The crux In the whole problem comes when methods are discussed. The strict advocates of the old classical learning would not have admitted that the ancient languages were merely the luxuries and the trimmings of the intellectual life. They would rather have claimed that the classical studies were the servants of a genuine practicalness. Undoubtedly the oldfashioned courses were often too inflexible. Studies were sometimes pressed upon students quite without regard to tastes and aptitudes. It Is not to be wondered that a reaction came, and that now the passing fancy of the matriculate often selects the easy subjects and pays small heed to the matter of all-round development. But the point now urged is, that the defender of the old fixed curriculum and the advicate of the new system of electives both claim that their plans made men more capable of dealing with the practical forces of the real world. "We need not enter into this debate. The promoter of elective studies has had a large day; he has had even a decade of victory. Nor does any wellinformed educator believe that the regime of inflexible courses will ever be fully reinstated. There are, however, some signs and influences that portend a slight reaction. Indiana has many colleges. The Cecil Rhodes scholarship calls for a careful training in both Latin and Greek. It is a sig nificant thing that only three Indiana students presented themselves for the Rhodes examinations in April last, and one of these came from an institution beyond the state. That only two young men appeared from all our Indiana colleges to try the tests for a scholarship netting $1,500 a year shows how very few of our present day students are studying two ancient languages. It is interesting to figure whether the Rhodes’ scholarship will not tend to revive somewhat the study of the ancient classics. Oxford stands for the old way. Perhaps Cecil Rhodes will prove to he the unwitting reviver of the dead languages, especially of Greek, in many of our institutions. Its Duty to Students. “But quite apart from this mooted matter—what should a college do for its students? It being allowed that its function is to prepare men for real life, what more detailed demands may we make of each higher institution of learning? Since life should he symmetrical, preparation for life should be likewise symmetrical. This merfhs that a college should give heed to all normal types of human living. “Under this conception the college has a duty with reference to the physical development of its students. The discussion of certain athletics is perennial, but the admission of the beneficial character of gymnastics should be just as perennial. He who implies that a student should pass from study to recitation and from recitation to study again, and that college life should follow this regular round alone, is a maker of the paths of death. The body has its rights, and these rights must be recognized in any proper plan of coliege life. Purpose of College Training. “Inasmuch as the very idea of a college presumes that it has a vital relation to the mental life, it may justly be demanded that an institution shall train minds into accuracy and power—into accuracy because may serve falsehood; into power, because otherwise accuracy may prove the mere vanity of exactness. Probably none will deny that the function of the trne college, as somewhat distinguished from the university, is to give the mental life an approach to completeness; It is plain that specialism may become too special. The ideal is stated in the sentence, a man should know something of everything and everything of something.

“This implies that a college should provide both for generalism and specialism. The generalism will save the specialism from narrowness; and the specialism will save the generalism from indeflniteness. Men sometimes say that intellectual development comes from studying rather than from a study, and that the plea for the old curriculum failed to take note of this fact. There is a truth here. And yet

it omits an important item. Overspecialism may train the mental faculties; but over-specialism cannot open the various avenues through which the mind moves out toward life and through which life moves in upon the mind. As to the Social Side.

“Then also our higher institutions should make men strong or the social side. This statment does not relate to the frills and bows of etiquette—though in the sense of social formality the college is not without a duty. The monastic idea has passed; the joys of fellowship should have a right of way; the graces of sociability should be cultivated. If the world will not be patient with the college graduate who is mainly a dandy, neither should it be patient with him who is mainly a boor.

“But when ‘social’ is used as relating to human fellowships and their influence, the colleges have a large field. Often they set lives in permanent directions. Garfield’s statement about the log. with himself on one end and Mark Hopkins on the other, as constituting a college, is over-done. Yet It holds a truth. The first qualification of a teacher is personality; without that mysterious equipment his technical lore lacks a sufficient channel and remains clogged up within his own nature. Teachers there are who pour power into youth. Happy the young men and the young women who come under their instructions! Ideals of Public Service. “And society has a right to ask that the college shall fill students with noble ideals of public- service. There is something defective in the work of any institution when it fails to send men out as strong servants of the state and nation. The public in general and the prospective student in particular, should pay heed to a college’s relation to public service. It. was right that Hiram college should he exalted in popular esteem by Garfield’s eminent work! It was right that. Miami should gain- effective advertisement from the career of Benjamin Harrison! Such cases shows that our colleges may send men into the wider social relations with larger power. What shall the college do for religious life? The answer to this question will necessarily depend upon the personal viewpoint. If we believe that religion is one of the essential forces and influences of human life, we are surely driven to affirm that the college should in some way minister to the religious faculty. This claim is receiving increasing recognition. The school that utterly banishes God will in the end banish itself.”

DR. EDWIN H. HUGHES.

Whew! How are we going to pull a legislature through when It loads us down in this way?