EDUCATION AND SPORT.

Auckland Star, Volume XL, Issue 271, 13 November 1909, Page 18

EDUCATION AN D SPORT.

AN AMERICAN PROBLEM. What Is the matter with the American University? This query has been railed in New Tort lately by attacks declaring that the students are giving too much attention to sport and not enough to serious study, and that American dollars, wblle nseful In founding universities, have become in some instances a menace to education. I pas* by that barbarian millionaire who <l*sired "to put a torch to American colleges," on the ground that "they taught as much vice as virtue," and I cite Dr. Woodrow Wilson, president of Princeton, whose speech regarding the necessfty of reform. Is attracting much attention. Dr. Wilson Is a dletinguleheU historian, and Princeton ranks next to Harvard and Yale as a seat of learning. It Is just possible that the speech, as summarised, does not fully represent Dr. Wilson's views, but, as reported by the "New York World" to-day, he said: "Universities like Princeton must pass out of existence unless they adopt themselves to modern life. I believe in athletics, I believe in nil those things which, relax energy that the faculties may be at their best -when the energies are not relaxed, but only so far do I believe In these directions. When a lad leaves scLool he should cease to be an athlete. The modern world is an exacting one, and the things It exacts are mostly intellectual. The danger surrounding our modern education is the danger of wealth. I am sorry for the Lad who Is going to inherit money. I fear that the kind of men who are to share In shaping the future are not largely exemplified in the schoole and colleges. So far as the colleges go, the side-shows have swallowed up the circus, and we In the main tent do not know what Is going on, and I do not know that I want to continue under these conditions as a ringmaster. There are more honest occupations than teaching if you cannot teach. When once we have the gracious assistance of American fathers and mothers, we shall educate their sons. Given that assistance, In a generation we will change the entite character of American education, and It must be changed." Finally we have the eminent Dr. Lowell, In New rork, president of Harvard, who laments to-day that competition for scholarship In the American universities has almost vanished. In England, Dr. Lowell argues, there Iβ none of the American contempt for scholarship. In England at least there seems to be visible a tangible relation between the ptlzes of scholarship and those of life. "Oxford and Cambridge men," says Dr. Lowell, "are firmly persuaded that success at the Bar, in public life, and In other fields. Is closely connected with high honours at graduation, and the contest for them Is correspondingly keen. The prizes and honours are made widely known and remembered throughout a man's life, and referred to even in brief notices of him much as his athletic feate are here, and they certainly do help him powerfully to get a start in his career. The result Is that by the lels and the Cam there is probably more hard study done In subjects not of a. professional character than in any other universities In world." And that is Important, because Dr. Lowell ranks with Dr. Eliot, his eminent predecessor In the presidency of Harvard, as the greatest authority on this side of the Atlantic on universities. One consolation remains. It la not disputed that young Americans, If they desplee pure scholarship, which many dispute, ere devoted to buslaess studies, and none value more highly "he degrees of "Bachelors of Business Science and Masters of Business .'clence." Special attention Is given Sere to "business science." It is taught, and the fact thnt It Is regarded as a science accounts largely for America's amazing material prosoerlty.