When a student, however, puts his profession of medicine or
engineering before that of responsible leadership in social,
political, moral, and industrial life, he ceases to be a real
factor in the modern world. We already have a thousand men who can
make money to one man who can think and make other men think. We
have a thousand followers to one genuine leader who incorporates
in his own mind and heart a high point of view and the ability
to present it in an attractive way. It is one thing for an
undergraduate to go out from his institution expert in electrical
science; it is quite another thing for him to so truly discover
the spirit of life itself, as to be able to harmonize his expert
ability with the broader and deeper life of the age in which he
lives.
The present undergraduate often fails lamentably at this very
point. He frequently reminds one of the remark of an old gentleman
to an old lady whom I saw at a backwoods railway-station in Oregon
watching a small white dog chasing with great zeal an express-train
which had surged past the station. The old lady, turning to her
companion, said eagerly, “Do you think he will catch it?” The old
man answered, “I am wondering what he will do with the blamed thing
if he _does_ catch it.” The college undergraduate likewise is often
uncertain about what he is to do with his profession beyond making
a living with it. Our colleges, with their technical training,
should give the conviction that a physician in a community is more
than a medical practitioner. His success as a physician brings with
it an obligation of interest and leadership in all of the social,
civic, and philanthropic movements of the town or city in which he
works. He should discover in college that he is to be more than
a doctor; that he is to be also a man and a citizen. In the last
analysis, for real success it is not a question whether a man is a
great engineer or a great electrician or a great surgeon; it is the
question of individual character.
The pressing inquiry, then, for all undergraduate training is,
Are we giving to our boys the kind of education which will fill
their future life with meaning? A man must live with himself. He
must be a good companion for himself. A college graduate, whatever
his specialty, should be able to spend an evening apart from the
crowd. The theater, the automobile, the lobster-palace, were
never intended to be the chief end of collegiate education. A
college course should give the undergraduate tastes, temperament,
and habits of reading. A graduate who studies to be a specialist
in any line needs also the education which will give him depth,
background, and the historical significance of civilization and
life in general.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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