In action’s dizzying eddy whirled,
The something that infects the world.
The student leads his life noisily and hurriedly. He scarcely takes time to see it all plainly without dust and confusion. There is all about him a blurred sense of motion and duties. His culture lies upon him in lumps. He does not allow it time to impress him. College is a bewildering episode rather than a place of clear vision.
THE NEED OF LEADERS RATHER THAN MONEY-MAKERS
It is far easier to turn out of our colleges mechanical experts than it is to create men who are thoughtful, men who know themselves and the world. The value of the modern man to society does not depend upon his ability to do always the same thing that everybody else is doing. College men should be fitted to make public sentiment as well as to follow it. The educated leader should be in advance of his period. Independence born of thoughtfulness and self-control should mark his thought and decision. The world looks to him for assistance in vigorously resisting those deteriorating influences which would commercialize intellect, coarsen ideas, and dilute true culture. His hours of insight and vision in the world of art, ideas, letters, and moral discipline should assist him to will aright when high vision is blurred by the duties of the common day. His clearer conception of highest truth should lead him to hope when other men despair. Our colleges should train men who will be “trumpets that sing to battle” against all complacency, indifference, and social wrong.
When a student, however, puts his profession of medicine or engineering before that of responsible leadership in social, political, moral, and industrial life, he ceases to be a real factor in the modern world. We already have a thousand men who can make money to one man who can think and make other men think. We have a thousand followers to one genuine leader who incorporates in his own mind and heart a high point of view and the ability to present it in an attractive way. It is one thing for an undergraduate to go out from his institution expert in electrical science; it is quite another thing for him to so truly discover the spirit of life itself, as to be able to harmonize his expert ability with the broader and deeper life of the age in which he lives.
The present undergraduate often fails lamentably at this very point. He frequently reminds one of the remark of an old gentleman to an old lady whom I saw at a backwoods railway-station in Oregon watching a small white dog chasing with great zeal an express-train which had surged past the station. The old lady, turning to her companion, said eagerly, “Do you think he will catch it?” The old man answered, “I am wondering what he will do with the blamed thing if he does catch it.” The college undergraduate likewise is often uncertain about what he is to do with his profession beyond making a living with it. Our colleges, with their technical training, should give the conviction that a physician in a community is more than a medical practitioner. His success as a physician brings with it an obligation of interest and leadership in all of the social, civic, and philanthropic movements of the town or city in which he works. He should discover in college that he is to be more than a doctor; that he is to be also a man and a citizen. In the last analysis, for real success it is not a question whether a man is a great engineer or a great electrician or a great surgeon; it is the question of individual character.
The pressing inquiry, then, for all undergraduate training is, Are we giving to our boys the kind of education which will fill their future life with meaning? A man must live with himself. He must be a good companion for himself. A college graduate, whatever his specialty, should be able to spend an evening apart from the crowd. The theater, the automobile, the lobster-palace, were never intended to be the chief end of collegiate education. A college course should give the undergraduate tastes, temperament, and habits of reading. A graduate who studies to be a specialist in any line needs also the education which will give him depth, background, and the historical significance of civilization and life in general.
A lady at a dinner-party was making desperate attempts to interest in her conversation a certain business man who had been introduced to her as a graduate of a prominent university. She talked to him of books, education, theater, races, pictures, society, and out-of-door life. All of her efforts were futile. Finally he said, “Try me on leather; that’s my line.” This college graduate lost something important in his incompetency for general and intelligent conversation. His loss was more tragic, however, as a representative of the so-called college-educated classes, exponents of specialistic training, who have become materially successful, but who are without those personal resources necessary for their own enjoyment and profit, and who find themselves utterly inadequate for guidance or incentive to their fellowmen.