THE VALUE OF A COLLEGE TRAINING.

A readable and interesting discussion of the time-honored subject of the practical value of a college training appeared in a recent number of the London Spectator. Its arguments and illustrations are forcible, convincing and temperate in tone, and, although written more especially for the English public, apply quite as well in America as across the water.

Men do not now argue whether culture is good, the writer says, but argue harder than ever whether it pays. On the general value of wide education opinion is, we think, much more nearly unanimous than it was forty years ago. Time was, and not so long ago, when even the cultivated doubted whether "scholars" were ever quite fitted for the practical work of life, just as time was, and not so long ago, when generals and admirals held that educated soldiers and sailors were sure to run away. All this has passed away, as has the idea that the universities are "nests" of this or the other baleful opinion and its corollary that they are so much more full of "temptation" than any other place in which grown lads are congregated together. Those who think culture important have, we think, come to the conclusion that to those to whom it can be given - who are only a proportion of our youth, gilded or otherwise - the universities give it most easily and in fullest measure. They do not give very much, but, as we said, men are recognizing limitations more clearly than of old, and are satisfied that they give more than any other easily attainable instrumentalities. Those who place culture above all things are, however, by no means a majority. A much larger number of those who contemplate "college" as one alternative for their boys regard efficiency in life as quite as valuable as culture, and are inclined to doubt whether all the advantages of university training are not counterbalanced by the necessary loss of experience gained at a time when the mind can be made to take a definite "ply." They like the universities, but they recognize success in life, or, it may be, the actual getting of bread, as far preferable to any amount of mental cultivation, or, indeed, as absolutely indispensable.

They say that the universities produce dislike for hard life, and in this dislike is an ultimate and incurable cause of illsuccess. Others, though less hostile, consider the university career "no good," except to give manners, and hold that the money and time, though not exactly wasted, are expended to secure a problematical gain, in the way not so much of success or of happiness, as of grade. These men are seldom thoroughly cultivated, but greatly exaggerate the effect of university culture upon grade, perhaps of all errors about the system the one most generally prevalent. Still others maintain strongly and definitely that the higher education always "pays;" that no matter what a man's occupation may be he will always, if willing, pursue it more successfully as a man with a degree. He may not be willing, but if he is willing, he will always, as they say, be more efficient, better able to give and take, more persistent, more sensible of duty to the work itself, and, above all, better able to manage men, that first secret of fortune in almost all departments of life. The graduates, they declare, even if they keep shops or supervise building yards or manage ranches in Colorado, always try for the biggest things, and see far better than merely experienced men to what their work may lead, and what is the most reasonably probable road to success. Moreover, argue these men, descending into slang, the graduates afloat in the hard work of life "do not go muckers" in anything like the same proportion; do not, when they fail, go under so hopelessly, or take to drink or disreputable courses so often. They are supposed to do so, because when they do they are marked men, and their friends tell stories of them and lament over them, whereas their rivals sink under the waters silently; but as a matter of fact, they are ruined past hope in much smaller proportion. Granting other things equal, the chances of great success, these maintain, are greater for the graduates, while the chances of great failure are less; and those two facts - which we may remark en passant we believe to he real, especially as regards the second - ought of themselves to outweigh the heavy claims put in for experience in practical life.

We have no intention of deciding dogmatically which of the three sets of arguers are right, though our sympathies go with the last, and a good deal of respect with the first; but we want to point out a fact or two. One is that the people who, of all others, seek efficiency most, and that often at the direct cost of culture, the Scotch, have long since made up their minds upon the subject. They do not want to be soft-mannered men, or refined men, or refined men, or reflective men, but to be efficient men; yet they hold university training a help, and not a drawback, and except when defeated by want of means or other special circumstances, never fail to get it for their sons. All Scotchmen are not graduates, but in theory the Scotchman - who, be it remembered, is not led away on the subject either by flunkyism or sentiment, or any strong wish that his sons should have an easy time - holds decidedly that they ought to be, that it would be well if they could be, and that if they were the work would be better and not worse done. And he quotes with some energy the fact that the richest Scotchman who ever lived began life in New York as a shop assistant, with a university degree. The most efficient of continental mankind, the Prussian, agrees with the Scotchman, and so in theory does the hardest of earthly workers, the Chinese, though his notion of what education is partly puts him out of court. So in our own day and country do all manner of governing men, who say deliberately, and greatly to their own disadvantage, that you get out of the thoroughly educated more efficient tools for all manner of work, including some very rough work - such as military engineering - than you can out of the merely experienced.

That is a large body of evidence, and it is supported by almost all a priori reasoning. Why should a certain width of mind, which is what the universities really give, be injurious to efficiency? Graduates are as healthy as the most ignorant, and rather more given to activity. They are just as brave and just as industrious, and ought to be much better protected - though we admit this to be doubtful as matter of fact - against that weariness with the monotony of toiling life which is one of the most frequent causes of failure. The loss of time is not in reality very great, being taken out of a comparatively idle period, and as to the acquisition of enervating tastes, it is extremely doubtful if they are acquired.

The university, so far as it is good in itself, and omitting the question whether it might not be much better, is good for all conditions of men whose work can be learned well when the mind has lost its first pliability. That a certain stiffness of mind, an inability to accommodate itself to new work of any kind, is the result, and the single result, of university training which acts as a drawback to success in practical life.