"MACHINE-MADE MEN."

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 171, 21 July 1928, Page 16 (Supplement)

"MACHINE-MADE MEN."

U.S. EDUCATIONAL METHODS.

MEDIOCRITY THE RESULT

CANADIAN'S LKITILISiW.

'•America deals in the mass *in everything," said Professor W. IT. Osborne, of Manitoba University, lecturing on "American Penetration" in Wellington. "It means, in the case of the common mass of the people, a wonderful unauimity of ideas and conduct, and this noisy, self-assertive kind of American \vc do not like. I was sitting in front of a great seminary in Massachusetts 1 when a man came along 1 had never seen iu my life, yet he spoke iirst, and told me everything about himself and his family, down to his grandmother. He spoke for ten minutes. I did not speak at all, and then he said good-by© and went away, and I do not suppose he thought he would ever see me again. Now, in the Midland Hotel, I sit opposit© people who do not speak to me at all, nor do I speak to them, and yet I feel that if something happened, and I wanted something, they would do it, but I am not at all so sure of the talkative, noisy kind of American I mean. His type is the result of masß-made mentality. Universities of 15,000 Students. "The United States has assimilated a large mass of -dissimilar people, with the result that it has had to adopt mass methods, and you have a machine-made man. Take the universities. There are 15 universities in th© UfiJi. that have 15,000 students each. Columbia University has 20,000. Take the 3000 freshmen who come to one of these big universities in a year. They will not stand classes of more than 30, and so that means that in teachers of freshman English alone, they require 100 instructors. No nation rises higher than its educational system. If it has distinction nothing can keep that country from greatness. If the educational system is condemned to mediocrity and banality, mediocrity and banality will b© th© highest points to which that nation can rise. The university I have mentioned is only one of a hundred State universities. Where are they to go to find for each a hundred distinguished instructors for first-year English? The position as regards following years is more serious. They cannot, and do not, find them. The distinguishing hall-mark of American character is mediocrity. If that continues to be the type of American, then they can have all the money they like, they may build miles and miles of cars end to end, but they will never 6trike a really high national level. Canadians Different. "I have no doubt that some of you have been saying, 'but bow like an | American be is himself.'" said Professor Osborne. "I am cross with that, because I do not wunt to be an American. When T go to England I try to cultivate an Oxford accent, yet the stodgy Britons always rub me the wrong way by asking. 'Are you an American T I. can feel it in my <bone« that I am 'like an "American, but. I do not want to be like that. People visiting Canada and America see a. difference. What makes it? 1 think the climate, has an influence; it puts more iron into the blood. Then we are not quote so sophisticated as the people of the big American cities, vet we succeed wonderfully will when we go there. We have less of the influx from Southern Europe- and '{lie Mediterranean, and I think that stiffens us a bit, too, in comparison with America. Thien, though I do not like taking my hat off to the Scotch race, liecause they have a high enough opinion of themselves already, a great deal of the pivotal activities of Canada is In the hands of Scotch people. Then there is the fact that one-third of our people are French-Canadians, wedded alike to tliejr country, religion and customs, and determined that thev will not let theiT rights be dissipated by the interposition of American ideals. "The English-speaking citizen prefers British stuff to' American, and he prefers the British type to the American type. The American type, the mass production type of man, we are not fond of. I know it is hackneyed, but the British tvpe of man signifies a freedom of individual thought and action, a crispness of expression that is sadly lacking from the mass production type of American citizen."