Kansas University Weekly.
85
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want to be congressmen, to make public speeches, to see your names in the papers; some of you have come to fit yourselves for teachers, or ministers, or doctors or lawyers; but for the most part you have come here as you go to dinner-at the unconscious bidding of a natural appetite. By instinct, you desire to know, to enlarge, to become strong and useful men and women.
Some of you have more ambition than Alexander. You feel that you are to become great and distinguished and renowned. There is no one in the state of Kansas that begins to fill the measure of your aspirations. There are only a few living in the world, and there have not been so very many in all history. If you knew you were never to be a congressman or governor, if you knew you were never to be a celebrated lawyer, more celebrated than any in Kansas; if you knew you were never to be a noted engineer, or eloquent preacher; if you knew you were never to write a great book, or at least a very good book, could you endure it for a moment? Confess that you could not. At thirty you expect to be vastly more learned than any of your professors here; and at forty you expect to have a European reputation. And it's all right to feel so. I say let your ambition soar, but incidentally don't neglect your lessons for today. You are going to do and be all these wonderful things, but there is a tremendous amount of work and training to be done first. And if you do not become in the end a general, you can at least come to understand the glory of being a faithful, courageous private. If you do not become an Hypatia or Harriet Beecher Stowe, you may at least learn the glory of being a good, true, useful, beloved American woman, distinguished by the sweetness of your home, the perfection of your children, the steadfastness and contentment of your husband,
You gather here at this University to begin a year, or another year, of study, and your Chancellor has asked me-not to make a speech to you on such a topic as I may happen to be specially interested in, but if possible, to talk to you on some theme which you will be interested in—to say something, if possible, which will be of use to you in your work
here. And I have chosen as such a theme: "What the Business World Thinks About Liberal Education" It is certain that while a very few of you may give your liyes wholly to art or science or religion; that while more of you but still few—may give your lives to that art of arts that science of sciences, that religion of religions, the work of education; still, nearly all of you will spend your years and your strength in the great bread-winning world, in the world which produces, transports and exchanges commodities; in other words, in business, or in the working professions which business requires and supports
This is your doom or your fortune, as it is mine, and if I can be of any service to you at all, it is likely to be in the discussion of some such subject
You are hard at work here in college, and you are making a success of it. But you look beyond. You are full of dreams and ambitions—you are looking to your life away off there in the dim, beautiful. terrible future; and you overflow with an uncertain kind of ecstacy as you look, until, perhaps, the thought that your future may after all turn out to be a miserable failure, comes along and sends the cold shivers down your back like a dash of ice water. You think perhaps you had better make the plunge right away. You have heard some people say that a liberal education is a waste of time and that it unfits a man for the practical world. Your professors, indeed, tell you otherwise, but you say, "It is their business to say that; they may not know." The rest of the world may not care very much about it, but your future and your success and your happiness interest you. You want to feel that you are on the right road—that you are arriving; and you would attach some importance to the opinions of the business world if you knew how to get at them truly.
What does the business world think of liberal education? As I have indicated, I mean by the business world, the great bread-winning world, or money-getting world, as distinguished from the world of trainers that is, the world of teachers preachers, and writers, artists and poets I need not try to define liberal education.
What you are getting here in this institution—I mean your laboring men and women who don't know whether eight hours, or sixteen, constitute a working day—what you are getting here is what I mean by liberal education, and so we understand each other. What does the business world, then, think of liberal education?
A certain Jones and a certain Higinbotham were the two merchants of a little town in Georgia. Their rivalry was bitter and all engrossing. Jones went to New York to buy goods and was returning by ship. A terrible storm arose. The wind blew a hurricane. The sea was all mountains, the waves dashed across the deck, and the day was turned to darkness. The spectacle was magnificent and awful. Finally the captain gave up hope and the passengers said prayers and made ready for the worst. In the midst of all this, when the minds of others were turned to the dear ones at home and to thought of impending destruction, Jones was heard to exclaim, in the bitterness of despair, "This is a great day for Higinbotham." The one thing that he saw in the situation was that Higinbotham was about to triumph—Higinbotham was about to monopolize the trade.
I shall have to confess at the outset that the Jones part of the business world and it is a considerable part—does not think the one thing or the other about liberal education. It is entirely engrossed with Higinbotham.
The most constant thought of another part of the business world regarding liberal education is its cost. And looking at it in one way it is expensive. I suppose, in the first place, the state of Kansas spends about $200 a year on each of you-counting annual appropriations and interest on investments. That is rather flattering to you You must be an important person indeed to be given a gratuity or pension of two hundred dollars a year by the state of Kansas That is more than a member of the legislature gets. Well, then, besides that expense, there is the cost of your living and books and clothing for four years. And in addition to that, there is all the money that you might, but do not, earn in these four years.
Liberal education is rather expensive,