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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