Image provided by: Texas A&M University
About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 1, 1902)
t“ U /« '“hives raM '■ ‘ M COUEot The Battalion. v °l. x. College Station, Texas, October, 1902. No. 1. THE DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS. BY C. S. The students and friends of the A. and M. College will doubtless be glad to learn that a start has been made toward the es tablishment of a department of economics. Heretofore the students of this institution have had no opportunity to study or re ceive instruction in political economy, in dustrial history and government, or, in fact, in any of that allied group of subjects which are so necessary to broad scholar ship and an intelligent participation in the affairs of the state and nation. That this condition should have remained unchang ed during thirty years of the life of the in stitution is somewhat strange, a fact to be explained no doubt by the general lack of funds at the disposal of the school. But this deficiency is now to be remedied, for one of the first steps of the new adminis tration was the creation of an instructor- ship in economics and history and the se lection of a man to fill the position. At present the work in economics is a part of the school of history, but a separate depart ment is to be created for it as soon as the work can be organized and places found for it in the regular courses. It should be remembered of course that this is a technical school, charged with the duty of turning out trained experts, spec- POTTS. ialists in the field of engineering, of agri culture, of horticulure, etc. And it is true that this is an age of specialists. The world demands of every man that he shall know at least one thing well, and it is in clined to overlook in him a certain amount of ignorance of other lines of work. The architect, for instance, must know how to build houses, whether he knows how to run steam engines or not. And in this very fact lies the greatest danger in tech nical education. In their laudable desire to master their special line of work, technical students are apt to overlook completely other lines of work and finally to leave school with narrow and contracted views of life and with but poor preparation for the du ties and obligations that society may de mand of them. That man is very unfor tunate whose education is so partial in its character that he is left with the same old local prejudices, the same narrow outlook, shut in,, so to epeak, by the same narrow walls of his childhood. True education is essentially broadening and liberalizing in its effects upon the mind. The study of other lands, of other people and of other ages should enable one to form a juster es timate of his own time and surroundings, and to rid himself of those local views and
