but it will not help us, if we lack knowledge, to get our goodness across to the other fellow and a needy world. And all the knowledge in the world will only swell our conceit to the bursting point and render us a menace to society if we lack the steadying and directing influence of a moral goal. These patent truths should be self-evident, but are they recognized by those who are responsible for the fact that modern education lays increasingly less emphasis on character while it stresses more and more the practical and utilitarian as its goal? A pertinent question at once arises in our minds at this point. If character is to be our educational goal, what methods must our institutions adopt to achieve their purpose? And the question is admittedly a difficult one to answer. But of this we may be sure-character is the product of an atmosphere rather than of teaching. It will never become the chief product of any school or college that fails to recognize it as the main goal sought. Let the aim be first accepted and frankly admitted, and many of the seeming difficulties that stand in the way of its achievement will disappear. Obstructive influences will vanish, and influences, intangible, subtle, but uplifting, will take their place. One gain at least we may count on; teachers will be selected for something more than pure intellectual brilliancy. We shall bid a welcome adieu to that class so prominent and so noisy in our colleges today whose quick and active minds have been accepted as evidences of ability, but whose diminutive calibre is attested, as it has always been in mankind, by purely destructive criticism, by cynical indifference to the spiritual values in life, by open contempt for those things that the human race for ages has held most sacred, and who, puffed with conceit and self-complacency, have been permitted to spread their deadly poison freely in the minds and hearts of those plastic and impressionable youth who have had the misfortune to come under their baneful influence. When these parasites have been swept from the teachers' desks, we shall have a chance to make a new and a wholesome start. Our next step is not quite so clear. One thing, however, is sure. Higher education must recognize more clearly the spiritual elements in human life. This cannot be done without emphasizing religion, not the religion of sect and creed but religion that is broad and comprehensive and that answers the longing in every human heart. One of the greatest of English schoolmasters, writing in some heat to a friend, exclaimed "And worst of all, the practice which separates brain work from religion and morality, and calls it education, is simply the devil let loose." That is a fair and honest statement, and we can well afford to heed its warning. Dr. L. P. Jacks, the brilliant English scholar, in one of his recent Hibbert Lectures says: "Education is commonly classified under three heads-primary, secondary and higher. To these three I should like to add a fourth, highest-primary, secondary, higher and highest. The highest education is religion." Again he says: "On the one hand, a religious spirit must enter into education; on the other, an educational spirit must enter into religion." Dr. Jacks is not thinking of dogmatic religion, narrowed and compressed by man-made bounds, but rather of that relationship, common to all mankind, of the individual to the Infinite, the very basis of all true religion. Let the creeds and the ritual come later, if they are needed for the fuller expression of the individual soul; but let the starting point be one where all can gather. This at least is the implication. And this will offer us too a starting point in the education world. What we need in our American institutions is more of that religious spirit of humility, reverence, and wonder so clearly revealed by this English scholar in discussing the wonders of the nebula of Andromeda-" "The stars above us and the graves beneath us,' Great God, what a universe! And yet we discuss it over our teacups as though it were a thing we carried in our waistcoat pockets." Reverence has always marked the great mind, irreverence the little. Give us more humility and reverence among our teachers today, and true religion will find its suitable forms for expression. The result will be the development of character, for character will find a healthful and stimulating atmosphere for normal growth. If our educational institutions are worthy their name and their rich heritage, they will once more recognize their responsibility to assume, in the life and thought of the nation, that position of leadership, intellectual and spiritual, for which they were created and which they long held. That is their business and their privilege. Today they are largely yielding to the demands and the clamor of a materialistic world. Your Part Stem each contending tide; Look! in the blackest night, Weather your doubts and fears; Think not of pain! Smile when the noon seems dark Over life's broadening mart; It's not in vain! Strength e'en shall come to you, With that which is wise! Cherish kind hearts you know; MINNIE E. HAYS. Canajoharie, N. Y. · An Unusual Experiment in Vocational Guidance CHESTER W. HOLMES, CAMBRIDGE, MASS. FORMERLY SPECIAL AGENT, CARNEGIE HERO FUND COMMISSION __❖XPERIMENTS have been the foundation of real E progress in Education since the days when Education ceased to be a field for speculation alone and became a science as well as an art. Especially has this been true in the field of Vocational Guidance, one of the newer divisions of Education which scientific study and research have set apart for further investigation and report. One of the pioneers in the Vocational Guidance movement, and yet one about which the educational world has indeed heard very little because of the quietness and detachment with which it has pursued its work, is the Carnegie Hero Fund Commission, of Pittsburgh. A knowledge of its methods and the results it has secured may not only be of real interest to vocational counsellors, teachers, school superintendents, and deans of colleges, but may also contribute hints or suggestions applicable to their own problems and ideas. The uniqueness of the organization itself is not the least interesting feature of its splendid work. In 1904, the late Andrew Carnegie gave into the keeping of twenty-one men, personally selected, to be known as the Carnegie Hero Fund Commission, the sum of five million dollars in bonds, the income to be used, among other things: First: To place those following peaceful vocations, who have been injured in heroic efforts to save human life, in somewhat better positions pecuniarily than before, until they are again able to work. In case of death, the widow and children, or other dependents, are to be provided for until she remarries, and the children until they reach a self-supporting age; Second: To provide for the exceptional education of exceptional children; Third: to grant to the hero, or widow, or next of kin, a medal which recites the heroic act it commemorates, that descendants may know and be proud of their descent. The medal is given for the heroic act even though the doer is uninjured, and also a sum of money if the Commission deem such gift desirable.1 Mr. Carnegie added that he did not expect to stimulate or create heroism by the Fund, well knowing that heroic action is impulsive; but he did believe that if the hero were injured in his bold attempt to serve or save his fellows, he and those dependent upon him should not suffer pecuniarily thereby. The Carnegie Hero Fund Commission meets three times annually to consider alleged acts of heroism; and after carefully examining those cases, all of which are very carefully investigated by its corps of trained special agents and reported upon in minute detail by them, it makes its grants of gold, silver and bronze medals and sums of money to be used only for broadly specified purposes. Since its establishment, the Commission has examined over twenty-three thousand cases and has acted favorably upon only about 1850. Barring those cases now pending, this represents a mortality, so to speak, of over ninety per cent. Thus it will be noted that the students mentioned hereinafter are those who have distinguished themselves by the performance of extraordinary acts of heroism. Up to January 1, 1924, the Commission had made provision for the education of 356 persons-262 young men and 94 young women-ranging in ages from 12 to 28 years, and living in all parts of the United States, Canada, and the Colony of Newfoundland; for the field of the Fund includes not only those countries but also the waters thereof within seven miles of their shores. It is only natural that young men and young women chosen 1 First Report of the Carnegie Hero Fund Commission, January 31, 1914, pp. 9-10-Deed of Trust; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. |