MEN OR THINGS?

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jul 2, 1902

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 28, No. 27.

The Awful Influence of Some Features in the Present-day Education.

In an article in the Independent of June 12 by Charles M. Sheldon, author of “In His Steps,” etc., is set forth some present tendencies of education in a most striking manner, yet true to the very letter. A weary minister needs a vacation, and he takes six weeks in visiting his old academy, college, and theological seminary, where he studied and graduated from thirty to twenty-five years before, spending two weeks in each place. After careful observation at each place, he talks with the principal of the academy, the president of the college or university, and the dean of the seminary. From an old vantage-point he looked upon the academy grounds, and this is what he saw:—

He stood for some time in silent amazement. In his day there had been one main building and a few dormitory buildings for the boys. But he now saw, spread out before him, at least a dozen prominent structures of brick and stone, built in modern fashion, and speaking imposingly of fine equipment and luxurious interiors. The old campus, which had been a free expanse of meadow, was now surrounded with a high board fence, and he could see on either side an immense grand stand to accommodate the crowds that evidently thronged in to see the foot-ball and base-ball matches. The minister shook his head. “The outside is altogether different. Wonder how it is inside. Does all this change mean progress, or is it simply a case of more things?”

After a two weeks’ visit, during which he attended classes and chapel exercises, and talked with teachers, he dined with the principal, when ensued the following conversation:—

“How many students have you now?” he asked the principal.

“Three hundred and sixty-five.”

“And there were only one hundred and eighty in my time. How do you account for the increase in numbers?”

“More people want their boys to have an education, and more are able to pay for it than in your time.”

The minister was thoughtfully silent a moment; then he said,—

“You will not be hurt if I ask you some very plain questions? I am honestly puzzled over some things, and I want honest enlightenment.”

“Go on,” replied the principal. “I shall be glad to be of service to you.”

“I must be very old-fashioned, or something——” the minister began with a little hesitation, “but I have been wondering how much of the outward growth of the academy represented real progress. Take, for example, your beautiful dormitories. I notice the boys have every possible modern physical luxury in the buildings, and very few, if any of them, do anything in the way of work. Their rooms are cared for entirely by servants. Now in my time nearly every boy in the academy took care of his own room, did chores for his board, and worked with his hands. I remember one winter I paid for my tuition, clothes, fuel, books, and board by sweeping out the academy building, making two furnace fires in professors’ houses, mending broken glass in the dormitories, and shoveling out paths. As I say, nearly every other boy in school was doing similar work to pay his way. Now my question is this: Do you consider the luxurious physical surroundings of your academy boys are a mark of progress and power in the development of useful men? Will the type of educated man that grows out of an atmosphere like that which pervades the physical life of these boys be stronger or weaker for the absence of that physical struggle which so many of us had to know? Please do not count me as the representative type of academy product thirty years ago,” the minister added with a smile; “that would be great egotism on my part. But, as I have followed the careers of the boys who worked through the academy in my day, I find that as a rule they have all developed into good, sturdy, useful men, with a knowledge of and sympathy for honest labor. Will the boys who are going through the school now make any better manhood because of all these modern luxuries and the fact that they do not add physical labor to their mental exercises? In other words, is it a case of more power, or only a case of more things?”

The principal looked at the minister in some astonishment.

“Then do you think it is an advantage to a boy to be poor and obliged to work his way through school?”

“Not necessarily, but in what particulars do the luxurious surroundings of your boys surpass the plainer, simpler equipment in my time, so far as turning out useful product is concerned?”

“The boys in your time turned out well in spite of their surroundings, not because of them,” said the principal a little sharply.

“Are you sure of that? Perhaps we had better not argue it. Will your boys in their turn become useful, strong men, in spite of their luxurious surroundings and not because of them, or will the tendency be to develop a type of educated man who has grown accustomed to have too much done for him?”

The principal did not answer, and after a moment the minister said,—

“There is another very marked difference between the academy in my time and now, and that is along the line of athletic development. I am not finding fault with it, any more than I am finding fault with your luxurious dormitories. You have a great gymnasium, two athletic training fields maintained at great expense, a campus that has been transformed into a regular exhibition ground in the season of foot-ball and base-ball. I learn that last year the Athletic Association handled $15,000, $13,000 of which was paid out for the services of professional trainers, traveling expenses for the ball teams, uniforms, equipments, etc. Now I am not criticizing or finding fault or condemning, only raising a question about a feature of modern education for boys. In what particulars will the athletic features of the academy life help to turn out better product than the methods employed in my time? Of course, I found all the physical exercise I needed during my academy life in working my way through. So did nearly every other boy. We had our ball games besides; but there was no grand stand, no paid admissions, no betting on games, no expenses to speak of, connected with the athletic life. Were we worse off than the boys to-day? Have your boys a real advantage over us, and what is it? Does the modern athletic atmosphere of school life turn out better product, or does it emphasize muscle at the expense of brain?”

The principal looked at the minister thoughtfully. “I will be frank with you, Mr. Dudley. I am personally in some doubt over the modern athletic development as it has grown up in our schools. To tell the truth, I am not at present prepared to express a decided opinion. I see both the advantages and the disadvantages of the present tendency. The type of product that will grow out of it is yet to be determined. Meanwhile we go on encouraging what we feel to be honest, healthy physical development, and try to hold the students to a strict account for mental achievement. I am, however, I am frank to state, much in doubt myself concerning some features of the athletic side of the school which are not altogether satisfactory.”

“That is plain and honest, I am sure,” said the minister after a thoughtful silence. “There is one other question I want to ask and I hope you will not consider it impertinent or unnecessary.”

“I hope not,” replied the principal in some curiosity. “What is it?”

“It is this: I understand that six of the new buildings that have been erected during the last five years were given to the academy by Gordon Roscoe?”

“Yes,” replied the principal.

“These buildings represent a gift of several thousand dollars to the school. Do you regard Mr. Roscoe as a benefactor to the school?”

“We certainly do!” said the principal in astonishment. “How else should we regard him?”

“Yet Mr. Roscoe, by the consent of all Christian people who know the facts in the case, has made his money by the most unchristian business methods. He has not hesitated to kill other men commercially. He has resorted to the methods of the highwayman to get rid of troublesome competitors. His company has had proved against it time and again conspiracy with railroads whereby competing firms were compelled to pay such high freights on their goods that in the end they were obliged to sell out to Mr. Roscoe’s company. Other serious charges have been made and proved against the company of which Mr. Roscoe is the head. It is monstrous to suppose for one minute that this company through which Mr. Roscoe has made his millions is a Christian business, conducted in ways that Christ would at all approve. Now my point is this: If you accept Mr. Roscoe’s money, do you thereby accept or indorse the methods by which he makes it? If so, what will be the result on the academy in course of time? Will it not tend inevitably to destroy the ethical standard in business? If you praise Mr. Roscoe as a great Christian philanthropist because he gives your academy money, what becomes of the standard of Christ’s rule in business? In other words, will not the result be disastrous to the boys in the academy? There will, as a matter of course, be no ethical teaching in the school against Mr. Roscoe’s business methods. There can not be, since you take his money and set him before the school as a type of benevolent Christian business man. So my question amounts to this: What will be the moral effect on the academy in the next quarter of a century? Will you not lose in moral power more than you gain in physical equipment?”

The principal of the academy had been looking at the minister in astonishment. There had also grown a look of anger on his face as the minister proceeded. When the minister stopped, the principal exclaimed,—

“Mr. Roscoe is a Christian gentleman without reproach. His money is being spent to assist needy educational institutions. Your attack on him is entirely without excuse!”

“I have not attacked Mr. Roscoe except as he is the head of a most unchristian system of money-making. Do you claim that he makes his money in Christian ways?”

“Large interests like those in which Mr. Roscoe is engaged can not be judged altogether by the simple rules of ethical conduct that govern individuals. The immense field of his operations demands what may seem at times to us to be harsh methods or even unchristian practices. But the end he has in view is the public good, and there is no question as to his own Christian sincerity. What would the academy be without such gifts as he is able to make? What would your own college be, Mr. Dudley, without Mr. Roscoe’s endowment?”

“You have answered my question about the result on the moral tone of the academy,” said the minister sadly. “The result is already seen in your own acceptance of Mr. Roscoe’s money and the acceptance of a sophistry which you stated when you said that the large interests in which Mr. Roscoe was engaged could not be judged by the simple ethical rules that govern individuals. Is it, then, wrong to make one dollar by resorting to conspiracy and greed and selfishness, and right to make one million dollars by resorting to the same unchristian practices? No man who knows anything of Mr. Roscoe’s company dare say that its methods are Christian. That he himself lives a quiet, unostentatious, outwardly Christian life does not redeem the methods by which his millions are made. The size of the pile is what makes his gifts acceptable to academies, colleges, and seminaries. And to my mind there is no more dangerous prospect before the institutions that have accepted Mr. Roscoe’s money than this very fact, that in accepting the money they virtually close their lips forever concerning the business methods by which the money is made. What the effect of such silence will be on the character of our boys you ought to be able to reckon as well as I or any one. I have no hesitation in saying that I regard the present situation in many of our great educational institutions as exceedingly critical.”

“It is a matter of difference of opinion, Mr. Dudley,” said the principal stiffly. “I question the expediency of debating the matter. We should never agree on the main fact.”

“I am sure we should not,” answered the minister quietly.

The subject was dropped, and early in the evening the minister took his leave. As he went down the hill past the academy building, which loomed up grandly by the side of the main street, he was unable to drive out of his heart a feeling of foreboding for the future of the old school. Were the buildings, the equipment, the things, of so much value that the principal should value them at the expense of that high, sensitive moral life that once characterized the place? The buildings made a fine showing; the trustees at their annual meeting had exultantly brought in their report showing the academy to be out of debt, thanks to Mr. Roscoe’s gift that year of fifty thousand dollars. Mr. Roscoe had been present at the alumni banquet, and after rounds of cheering and handkerchief waving, he had risen and modestly made a little speech, hinting at the possibility of larger gifts to enlarge the scientific department, which was in need of a new chemistry building; the local paper had mentioned all this, and referred with a glow of pride to the growth of the school, contrasting the present with the past, and so forth.

But the minister went away the next day to visit his old college, and as he caught his last glimpse of the academy building from the train as he looked up the hill, he was only confirmed in his judgment of the matter and could not help asking himself, “Is it only progress in things? Is it really a loss in moral forces?”

(Continued next week.)