14
THE BATTALION.
was limited and their graduates all found places in their chosen
professions, they were regarded as manual training schools far
below the intellectual plane of the universities, but since their
graduates have begun to forge to the front in the affairs of
the nation and to enter the lists with the alumni of the leading
colleges as broad-minded men of culture, these technical in
stitutions have gained such strength and popularity that even
the authorities of the older institutions are wiping the dust
from their spectacles and observing the change. We occa
sionally read essays, elegant in diction and replete with quo
tations in languages long since dead, in which the claim is
made that in this practical age our boys are being educated
within the narrow lines of specialism, and that we are losing
sight of the true objects of an education. If this is true, it
is sad, but is it? I think not.
The objects of a higher education are to develop and
strengthen the mind, to train it to think and to adapt it for re
search and study. Upon this broad foundation there is almost
sure to be erected, by subsequent development, true culture
and citizenship. It seems reasonable to say that a course in a
technical university, for instance our own Alma Mater, as fully
equips a man for this development as in any of the older in
stitutions. It is not what is actually learned at college, for
much of this is forgotten in the struggle that follows, but the
creation of habits of thought, and capacity of properly acquir
ing knowledge, that constitute the true value of collegiate edu
cation. It is easier to cultivate on the young mind a fondness
for study when the practical application of what he learns fol
lows the text book. I would not underestimate the classics
for all knowledge is good, but I contend that too much time
has been heretofore devoted to the study of Latin and Greek
and pure mathematics. That it is as healthy a mental exercise,
as broadening to the mind to understand and discuss the de
tails of a great engineering work, as it is to translate Horace
or Homer, and far more useful. That the student of Sanskrit
poring over the pages of the dim past is as much a specialist
as the man who devotes his life to the improvement of methods
of using steam, and is not a more useful or more cultured
citizen. A mind properly trained ever thirsts for more knowl-