Colleges in America

by John Marshall Barker

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.