Page:Jesuit Education.djvu/323

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THE INTELLECTUAL SCOPE.
303

The youth thus trained will start life in far better circumstances than those who have learned only the details of their craft, which are best learned in offices, stores and factories, and will commonly outstrip them in the rivalries of life. He will be able to advance when others are obliged to stop."[1]

Professor Münsterberg of Harvard University, in his article on School Reform,[2] speaks admirably on the same subject. He points out the various fallacies underlying the system that advocates the earliest possible beginning of specialization. He ably proves that the pretensions of this system are wrong, and its calculations superficial, even from the merely utilitarian and mercenary standpoint. But above all, this system is to be condemned from the standpoint of liberal education. The Harvard Professor writes: "The higher the level on which the professional specializing begins, the more effective it is. I have said that we German boys did not think of any specialization and individual variation before we reached a level corresponding to a college graduation here. In this country, the college must still go on for a while playing the double rôle of the place for the general education of the one, and the workshop for the professional training of the other; but at least the high school ought to be faithful to its only goal of general education without professional anticipations. Moreover, we are not only professional wage earners; we live for our friends and our nation; we face social and political, moral and religious problems; we are in

  1. The Life of James McCosh, edited by W. M. Sloane, p. 204.
  2. Atlantic Monthly, May 1900, p. 662 foll.