Often their productivity can be greatly aided by being released from teaching and administrative demands, and endowed in research positions. Much can also he done by providing them with instruments, skilled assistants, measurers, computers, and stenographers. and all the aid that the nature of their researches and the most economical use of their time may demand. T o attempt t o herd them into great laboratories even for pure research is often their least useful service. To alter their mode of life and thought would merely result in the exhaustion a t the source of the vital essence of their success. Moreover. the very researches which they prosecute and the discoveries they achieve demand just such concentration of attention and originality of perception as their freedom tends to foster.
We quote in conclusion the final paragraph of an article by Edwin A. Lee.B Most important of all, when all is said and done, is the necessity lor imbuing those whom we have trained with the spirit of research. We may investigate and study and make reports without end if the &d-point is only t o turn out an individual well-trained far a given task but with no ability or urge t o continue independent investigation. The significant evaluation we must make of our vocational teacher-training program, which we must make of aIL teacher-training programs, is whether or not those whom we train leave us with an irresistible urge to know the t ~ t h . Given that, our schools will advance, our profession will increase in power and dignity, the civilization we serve will grow in wisdom and joy. Lacking that, we shall worship the God of Things as They Are, f o r it is only from him who is on fire that another can light the torch.
W. R. W.
SUCCESS? Quite frequently we hear the college graduate criticized on the score of deriving little or no monetary gain as the direct result of his fouryear habitation a t a recognized institution of learning. It has been suggested that the individual has been successful in the light of what he had sought in education, which was a knowledge not of how to make money but of how t o make something of himself. "Education," writes Raphael Demos,' "should be the process of forming a personality which may function in the world of work and yet be out of it, of cultivating those intellectual and spiritual interests by reference t o which only has work or life any importance." He further says: The function of education is not t o stuff the mind with facts, but t o teach one how to handle them; not to make one into an expert, but t o show one haw t o choose an expert; not to give one a ready-made solution far specific problems, hut t o make one so resourceful that one may be ready for any contingency. Not memory but intelligence, not knowledge but power-this is the objective in college. Clearly, the means by which education seeks t o achieve its end are roundabout; while taking this or that "Research Problems in Training Vocational Teachers," Sch., and Soc., 24, 31-7 (1926). "Education and Business." Yale Ra.. 15,725-34 (1926).
course, one is not just trying to learn all about a given field; one is rather acquiring a method of thinking, a conception of cause and effect, and a feeling of law and the systematic character of things; one is cultivating an intellectual imagination that sees beyond the immediate. But mere training of the mind is cleverness, and this is not enough. The student must develop an appreciation of ideals and learn to distinguish the genuine from the counterfeit in the fields of ideas and of art, among persons and causes. Far more important than knowledge of the technic of life is wisdom, which is knowledge of the ends of life. How is this quality of wisdom to he imparted ta the student? Certainly not by word of mouth or by any intellectual instruction. Contagion is the only way, that is to say, the influence of example in history, biography, art, in personal contacts with great minds and great men. We must admit that our colleges have not attached to this phase of education the importance which it merits.
Success i n business is n o t comparable w i t h success in education, for w h a t makes for efficiency in business makes f o r inefficiency in education. We cannot ask for immediate results i n education. Mr. Demos tells us t h a t : You cannot draw any sound analogy between the production of knowledge and the production of goods; education deals with persons while industry deals with things. As soon as you standardize the educational procedure, you losewhat is so absolutely essential-individuality in the product. Knowledge is not a piece of merchandise to he transmitted across the counter to the student consumer; it is an achievement for oneself, as personal as the color of the eyes. The success of modem industry comes from its state of perfect organization, and the public is apt to draw the conclusion that learning, too, consists of s systematic arrangement of information. So we get the type of mind in which thought has been nicely arranged into a pattern, with each idea referred to its proper place. For such a mind to think is to classify, to fit inta an outline. Now, this is neat, but it is not thought; it is rather a mechanical moving of counters into their squares. Instead of dwelling on the substance of the question, one settles it by simply relating it to predetermined categories. Thought becomes formalshutAing of symbols. In reality, thought is a dynamic impulse which may never be tamed inta submission to formulas;it is a movement, a transition, and therefore essentially unfinished and ovenlowing all outlines. To organize thought too perfectly is to kill this impulse and this movement.. . . . . . . . We should guard against applying the test of success to education too narrowly. It may for example, that a t a given period intellectual or artistic production . happen, .. receives no appreciation from the world; nt such a period it mny well be that academic instruction is a definite hindrance to success. I h r s it follow that education under those circumstances is a failure? No, because such a world would be not worth succeeding in; the state of affairs would be an indictment of life itself, not of the school. The reader will say that this is too utopian, and not practical. In reply, I would point out that the view of education as a preparation for life is only half true. Education not only prepares for life, it makes life; it is life. The world is not something fixed and immutable, to take or to leave. Education is always molding the world by molding those who live in it; it is the workshop of life, in which humanity thinks and works out new standards and ideals for itself. If life happens to be below the reauisite intellectual and cultural level, then, rather than compromise with the world and seek to turn out poteatial business successes, education should endeavor to lift the level of life. Education must be adequate to life, and life must be adequate to education.
VOL. 3, NO. 9
SUCCESS?
1079
Has our college work been worthwhile? According to Mr. Demos: College education may not provide actual knowledge, but it provides a map of knowledge to guide the mind in its maturer studies. College education is a useful preliminary for the maturer education of life; without i t we would find it very difficult to direct and organize our intellectual life in the years of middle age and after. But it is also evident that, unless we do continue it in our years of maturity, college education remains of very little value. Here life must help; the world of affairs must be so organized as to permit the mind to continue its education. Business must never be so engrossing that one has no time to reread the classics or pursue one's intellectual interests. But it is not merelv a matter of havim the time for such musuits, outside of one's work; what is needful is that work itself &uld be mentally &ivating, (hat t artistic interests, so that the individual may participate life should include t b o u ~ hand in these activities naturally as part of the process of living, without having to say to himself: now I must cultivate my mind. Clearly, life bas its part to play in the task of education, and to be adequate to this part, it must sustain itself a t a certain spiritual level.
Thought m u s t n o t remain a p a r t from action. W e again q u o t e Mr. Demos: Work is nothing but systematic productive activity, in which the personality .The energies of civil'zation finds an opportunity for concrete self-expression.. should he marshalled to the task of humanizing work, that is, of connecting work with the springs of personality, and making it more imaginative. When thought and action are divorced, we get tbe pedant on the one hand and the intellectually tired five vitality to thought and vision to business man on the other:. to .ioin the two is to. work. Hence the importance of incorporating business schools into the university. If business is not a profession here is an opportunity for oureducatioual institutions - to help it become one, by welcoming it into the fellowship of the arts and sciences and exposing . - it to the winds of academic tradition. Our universities are being invited to assist this process and to help business become a mare scientific and a more humane enterprise. But i t would be almost criminal were they to accept the current conception of business as a means of private profit and to engage in teaching their students how to make money as quickly as possible. What the universities should do is to present .the conception of business a s an instrument of sacid service, and by thus presenting it to help translate the conception into areality.
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W. R. W. World's Record Chrome Ore Deposit Found in Montana. A chrome ore deposit, said to be the largest known in the world, hss been discovered near Columbus, Mout., on the edge of Yellowstone National Park. Prof. James F. Kemp of Columbia Universitv. New York, after a close scrutiny in company with representatives of the U. S. Geological Survey, announced that the find is of importance to the metal industry of the world not alone because of the well-known rust-resisting propertiesof chromiumsteel alloys, but also because chromium is rapidly supplanting nickel in the electroplating industry, its only disadvantage having heretofore been its higher cost. Practically all of the chrome ore used in this country previously has been mined in Rhodesia, South Africa, selling in this country a t about 40 dollars per ton. The Montana ore, after being refined a t smelters and chemical plants now being erected, can be sold at about 20 dollars per ton.-Science Service
