Over-education of Youth

Manawatu Times, Volume LVI, Issue 7107, 16 March 1933, Page 2

Over-education of Youth

The cry of over-education in now being raised, but is not not that what has been, called education has been but memory training, not a training to think practically and clearly?- In Germany (writes Rose Jones, who has just returned from, a course of study at Munich University to Melbourne), the over-education of youth is a gral 1 ® problem to-day. Every parent who can possibly afford to do so is sending his sons, and often his daughters also, to the university, to prepare them for a profession, since the trades are overcrowded, the Civil Service has practically closed its doors to newcomers, and the progress of labour-saving machinery makes it impossible that 'the tot o. l number of unemployed will be reabsorbed in the near future. - The 23 universities of Germany contain at present more than SO,OOO students, whilo the “technical high schools” of university standard, where architects, engineers, chemists and others .are trained, contain another 30,000. Berlin and Munich, the largest universities in Germany, boast between them some 20,000 students. The University of Berlin, in fact, is st> crowded that the lecture theatres contain not nearly enough seating accommodation, and many students are-obliged to take their places on tho steps’. ’ Even that is, in &om® rooms, a coveted and-zealously guarded position, and a student will often tack a card bearing his name to the step he has selected to warn others offTho sad side of tho picture presents itself when the student has graduate with his doctorate (usually at the ago of 25), only to find that even the professions are overcrowded, ana e is often obliged either to swell the Tanks of the unemployed or to accept an honorary position as a volunteer. Per aps, if he is verv fortunate, he may obtain a minor clerkship in a commercial office or a Government department at a salary often not exceeding £1 a week.