TRAINED MINDS MEET PROBLEMS

"Reconstruction," said Judge Elbert H. Gary, A.B., LL.B., the head of the United States Steel Corporation, in a recent interview with a CRIMSON reporter, "is the problem that faces the country today. It is particularly a problem for the college man, who is wondering how he can best fit himself for the important part that he is expected to play in the new work of the world. No matter what he plans to be--business man, statesman, professional man, or anything else--he realizes that his generation will have to face tremendous new problems in every field. This knowledge very naturally brings up in his mind the question: 'Is the college education of today going to help me to meet the problems of tomorrow? Should there not be reconstruction here, too, for shall I not have to relearn much of what I am being taught today, if I am to keep pace with the movement of the world?'

"It is true that in the history books, and perhaps even in our own lives, the present will mark the beginning of a new chapter. But the type of mind that will overcome the problems of mankind in this new chapter, will be the same type that has done so in the past--the trained mind. And by that I mean particularly the broad, cultivated mind that is peculiarly the product of the college of today. This is the 'lesson' that is learned at universities such as Harvard, and it need never be re-learned!

"Furthermore, in my opinion, however paradoxical it may seem, the broader or less 'specialized' the college education, the better is the man fitted for his great specialization--his life work., I firmly believe that the chief part of the educational reconstruction will be that the college graduate of twenty-one or two will come to realize that he is not too old to pursue his studies further (in the law school, for instance, or the graduate school of business, or the technical school,) because he will understand that the longest way around is, in this case, the shortest way home."