EDUCATION AS A LUXURY

A great many college men feel that they want a "liberal education", but there are probably few of them who pause to think that they are indulging in an economic luxury which they may not always be able to afford. Mr. Gerald Crittenden, an able advocate of the worth of the liberal college, states this most emphatically in an article which he contributes to the November number of Scribner's. According to him the liberal college will speak to its prospective students in some such terms as this: "What we teach you here will not assure you of a job when you leave us, or even add one dollar to your income. In lieu of material advantage we offer you the chance to make your mind hospitable to new ideas and tenacious of the good in human nature."

Mr. Crittenden perhaps overstates the inefficacy of a liberal education as an aid in the struggle for a livelihood. It is doubtless true that it will not, like the technical education, assure anyone of an immediate and fairly lucrative place in the production machine of the nation. Engineers, draughts men, and accountants and their ilk are in constant demand. But the very fact that they have been trained in one sole field usually keeps them engineers, drafts men and accountants. For the positions at the top, it is the knowledge of human nature and human relations and the hospitality to new ideas which a liberal education is supposed to give that are necessary. Such an education naturally does not guarantee such success, but it far outbids the technical school in that respect. And therefore one can scarcely agree with Mr. Crittenden when, in speaking for the liberal institution, he says "(We will never) add one dollar to your income."

Nevertheless, investment is undoubtedly far more risky in a liberal than in a technical education. As long as this is so, the liberal schooling must ever remain a luxury for the privileged few, while the majority of men must be content with the knowledge of the technician. The very fact that a liberal education is possible to only a few should make those few all the more desirous of taking advantage of their unusual opportunities. For, where pearls are scarce, it is unthinkable that they should be cast before swine. It is the duty of the liberal college to see that no one who does not want a liberal education be allowed to prevent those who do from enjoying that privilege.