Educational Preparedness

Educational Preparedness

By Dr. Joseph M. Tanner

All thoughtful people are practically unanimous in the belief thatthe great World War has brought to us new world problems. Just what these problems will end in, we are not by any means agreed. Some changes are reasonably certain, and changes that are coming over the world will require new methods and new aims in education. In the first place, there will come great problems of readjustment, social and economic. It will not be easy to change the great onward movements of humanity. They will have to be halted by their own misfortunes and calamities. We have, for example, built up an enormous middle-class, standing today between the producer and the consumer. This class is becoming an enormous burden upon both, and must meet readjustment. To meet this question a new change is involved, and the schools should prepare the way for retreat when it is called. Of this great superstructure, the middle-class is in danger of being toppled over. What means are we taking to bring those who have rushed into it back into an industrial life, without endangering our whole structure? Shall we wait until the calamity overtakes us and then wonder what shall be done, or shall we begin an educational system to prepare hundreds of thousands of men and women to take hold of new industrial and economical lives from the standpoint of the new conditions that shall arise? There is no mistaking the fact that we have been needing industrial life, especially the farm. Our agricultural colleges have accomplished a great work. Their experiments have been helpful to millions, but it must be confessed that its graduates have too frequently sought the office, and have actually shunned the work for which they were primarily educated. Schools must grapple with the ambitions of life, not only encouraging century worn ambitions, but they must create new ones, ambitions to work, ambitions to produce, ambitions to fulfil God's sacred law to earn bread by the sweat of the brow. Training schools are imperative, but manual labor has been too narrow. It should be found more universal in the night

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schooi, as well as they day school; it should include men from twenty to forty years, as well as youths from twelve to eighteen. We are sure to have a practically new political economy. The old will not answer the purpose of the new age, and something should be done to connect the theory of our educational system with the practice of life. Labor and capital must reach some new adjustment, even though it come through some sort of a smash-up. We need, therefore, men of vision who realize that "coming events cast their shadows before." This is a commercial age, commercialism is everywhere rampant. A dollar has grown too much to be a universal standard of measure. The world today needs, more than anything else, some system of ethics. Those who believe in the Bible will find its teachings in the school most helpful. Our magazines today are filled with articles that encourage the socalled "success." They point to successful men and successful undertakings, but they measure in terms of a dollar. We must cease to make a mad rush for money, or we shall land in social, industrial or religious cataclysm. Weare practically all agreed that something serious is going to happen. If it does, we shall need leadership to bring us back into a better

organized life. The great educators of the day may ask themselves whether their systems of education have not failed, in a large measure, from the fact that they have been Godless. In the 80's a great philosopher, Herbert Spencer, visited this country. He pointed out the dangers to our republic, and in turn was asked whether he did not believe that these dangers would be overcome by education. His immediate reply was that it was not a matter of education, but a matter of morals. In the new educational systems the foremost leaders will be those who discover, or bring into use, the best methods of religious instruction to our youths. Every teacher may well put on a mantle of religion. His calling is holy, and he should feel that the redeeming power of an over-ruling Providence is necessary for our recovery. It is very doubtful if we shall be able to avert the dangers which threaten us. Revolutions, anarchy, and confusion, may hold the stage for a time. The great question before us is whether anyone shall be able to begin, intelligently or efficiently, the work of reconstruction. Our faces should be turned to the future, and we should be hopeful, but we should not deceive ourselves.