Part 13

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 college education, 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 only have 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 better instruction, 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 their competitors 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 educated men 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?

VIII.

OUR INDEBTEDNESS TO COLLEGES.

The American colleges hold the most intimate relation to the whole community, for which they have done a vast work. They rightly enjoy the confidence and esteem of the American people, since they have infused into society some of the most purifying and life-giving influences. Many of the first settlers were among the best educated men of England, and they recognized that education was the corner-stone of civil and religious liberty. Pembroke, Delaware, William Penn, Roger Williams, the Winthrops, and a large number of worthy men who settled in the early colonies came from the classical shades of Oxford and Cambridge, and retained the educational predilections which were so firmly established in their mother country. The spirit and principles of our wise and godly ancestry were early introduced into the colleges, which have conserved and perpetuated them down to the present day.

The American people owe much to the colleges for training capable and worthy men to fill the posts of honor and power in the nation. The men who have given shape and character to the early political organizations and spirit have been mostly collegians.

These institutions for higher education have trained men in history, philosophy, and the principles of government, who have become the right hand of strength to the nation. Their extensive knowledge and thoroughly disciplined and comprehensive minds have been largely instrumental in perfecting our system of government, and in elevating the nation to the rank of one of the greatest political powers.

The colleges have trained the intellect and conscience of the majority of students so that they have gone forth as leaders, and have exerted a prodigious influence among the people for right thinking and right acting. They have not only disciplined the powers of the masterly statesmen, but have fostered among them a sense of fraternity concerning our civil destinies. The students that have been gathered into the colleges from the different portions of the nation have become imbued with one sentiment, and entered upon public life linked together by the bonds of a common intellectual life and strong friendships, which have resulted favorably for the republic.

Some of the colonial colleges have richly repaid the nation for all the effort and sacrifice it cost to found them. William and Mary College has sent out twenty or more members of Congress, fifteen United States Senators, seventeen Governors, thirty-seven Judges, a Lieutenant General and other high officers of the Army, two Commodores to the Navy, twelve professors, seven Cabinet officers; the chief draughtsman and author of the Constitution, Edmund Randolph; the most eminent of the Chief Justices, John Marshall, and three Presidents of the United States.

Harvard has furnished two Presidents, one Vice President, fifteen Cabinet officers, twenty Foreign Ministers, twenty-nine United States Senators, one hundred and four Congressmen, and nineteen Governors.

Princeton has beaten the Harvard record in everything except the first and fourth items. It has given to the country one President, two Vice Presidents, nineteen Cabinet officers, nineteen Foreign Ministers, fifty-five United States Senators, one hundred and forty-two Congressmen, and thirty-five Governors.

The collegians have ranked among the principal leaders in the political life of the nation. Fifty-eight per cent. of the chief national offices have been filled by them. Thomas Jefferson, author of the "Declaration of Independence," was a college man. Hamilton, Madison, and Jay, who took such a prominent part in the framing of the Constitution of the United States, were college-trained men. Three-fourths of the signers of the Declaration of Independence were college graduates. These and other superior men in public life, at this period, were educated and possessed a scholarship that was in compass and variety more than abreast with the learning of the time. George Washington was a self-made man, but he had recourse to America's greatest statesman, Alexander Hamilton, a graduate of Columbia College, in preparing his state papers.

The counsellors of Abraham Lincoln, during the stormy days of the Rebellion, were men of trained minds. "All the leaders," says Professor S. N. Fellow, "in that Cabinet were college-trained men. William H. Seward, the shrewdest diplomatist, who held other nations at bay until the Rebellion was throttled; Salmon P. Chase, whose fertile brain developed a financial system by which our nation was saved from national bankruptcy, and made national bonds as good as the gold in foreign markets; Edwin M. Stanton, that man of iron, who organized a million of raw recruits into an army equal to any in the world; Gideon Welles, who, almost from nothing, created a navy sufficient for our needs,--each of these, and every other member of Lincoln's Cabinet, save one, was a college graduate. So, also, in the army. It was not until thoroughly trained and disciplined men filled the chief places in command that the Federal forces overwhelmed and destroyed the Rebellion. We repeat, the law is, and it is believed to be universal, that the higher the rank or position, the larger per cent. of college graduates are found in it."

Education was an important factor in deciding the issues of our Civil War. Thoroughly trained and disciplined men filled the chief places in command in the Federal Army. The Northern soldiers were better educated than those of the South. It has been said that "in the German Army that fought the battles of the Franco-Prussian war, those who could neither read nor write amounted to only 3.8 per cent., while in the French Army the number amounted to 30.4 per cent." According to the admission of the defeated, the universities conquered at Sedan. Perhaps it is not too much to say that the great number of colleges in the Northern States conquered at Appomattox.

A large per cent. of the leaders in the American Congress, during the trying period of our country's history from 1860 to 1870, were either college graduates or had taken a partial course in college and gained its inspiration.

The college graduates have furnished 33 per cent. of the Congressmen, 46 per cent. of the Senators, 50 per cent. of the Vice Presidents, 65 per cent. of the Presidents, 73 per cent. of the Associate Judges, and 83 per cent. of the Chief Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States.

Again, we are especially indebted to the colleges for encouraging private and public schools, through which we have become an enlightened people. It is impossible to estimate the indebtedness of popular to collegiate education. There is an intimate and vital relation between the college and the public schools, which differ not in kind, but only in the degree of instruction. "The success and usefulness of common schools," says Professor W. S. Tyler, "is exactly proportioned to the popularity and prosperity of the colleges, and whatever is done for or against the one is sure to react, with equal force and similar results, upon the other."

The colleges have been foremost in advocating that the education of the youth should not be left to those of meager attainments and narrow sympathies. They have maintained that, in order to reap the best advantages of our public schools, it is important to have wise, competent, Christian men and women to give instruction, as well as to prepare text-books, and to increase the appliances employed in teaching.

It has been a difficult task to bring our public school system to the present condition of progress. The work has proceeded slowly and steadily under the example and inspiration of great educational centers. The excellence and usefulness of our school system has advanced just in proportion to the culture and ability of the teachers. A collegiate education has always tended to foster and encourage higher standards of scholarship among teachers, and this influence has been diffused into the public school system. President Charles W. Super truthfully says: "That which leads up to the highest must always be supervised and directed by that which is at the top. A system of elementary and secondary education which does not culminate in the university, and make that the goal towards which its efforts are directed, is an absurdity. There must be good teachers before there can be good schools, and good teachers can only be formed in institutions that are chiefly concerned with knowledge at first hand. This has been a recognized principle in Germany for half a century, or longer; is now almost universally admitted in France, and is the goal toward which the whole civilized world is rapidly moving."

The efficiency of our public schools has been felt in every department of our social organization. They have been a strong bulwark against the influences of a raw and uninstructed foreign population, who, like a tidal wave, have flooded our shores. Some of these have not only been ignorant and infidel, but filled with monarchical ideas and un-American sentiment. The public schools have brought their children into accord with our American institutions, and developed intelligent patriotism. They have taught the youth common rights and privileges, and helped to generate a union of sympathy and sentiment which leads to the consolidation of our society into a homogeneous body.

The colleges, working through the public school teachers, have likewise helped to educate the millions of the manumitted and enfranchised colored people, and to break up sectionalism, allay party strife, and make for the peace, prosperity, and unity of the nation. Our political safety has called for a wise and vigorous effort to educate the masses and to assimilate the heterogeneous elements into our body politic. The public schools and colleges, with their interdependence, have in a great measure met the demand, and given us a legacy of peace, prosperity, and intelligence enjoyed by all the people.

Likewise, the colleges have contributed largely to the general prosperity and material progress of society. They are the real centers of power of this enterprising and progressive age. "The revival of learning and the epoch of discovery ushered in the epoch of natural science, which has made possible the epoch of useful inventions."