2 5 o TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



A CIVIC INVESTMENT 



By President P. R. KOLBE 



MUNICIPAL UNIVERSITY OF AKRON 



IN these modern days of municipal extravagance, of crowded city 

 budgets, and of frantic legislative attempts to control undue rates 

 of taxation in our centers of population, any new source of expendi- 

 ture is almost pre-fated to encounter the shrug of suspicion — the stony 

 stare of hostility. Even the propagandists of municipal ownership de- 

 mand their pound of flesh — the new venture must pay for itself in 

 hard cash. 



What claim then has higher education upon the purse strings of 

 the city taxpayer ? " Support a college with city money ? " grunts the 

 rich manufacturer, "Not by a long shot; what this town needs is more 

 paved streets, not Greek and Latin students." Did it ever occur to you 

 that to the average business man all college graduates are " Greek and 

 Latin students"? Many expressions have become so formalized that 

 they are inevitable — they slip from the lips as naturally as "the sunny 

 south" or "the great metropolis" or any other of the thousand and 

 one substitutes which our jaded minds employ in the place of real 

 ideas. So it is with education. All students learn " Greek and 

 Latin," all education is "impractical." Ten to one the man who uses 

 these terms has not been inside an institution of higher learning for 

 years — probably never. If salvation itself were at stake he could not 

 name half a dozen subjects taught in the modern college — "Latin and 

 Greek" he would tell you "Ah, er — yes, Latin and Greek and — well — 

 I really can't say, but anyhow it's all quite impractical ! " He doubt- 

 less has inherited this idea as he did his politics and religion, but in 

 both of the latter, he has kept more or less abreast of the times. In 

 the case of higher education, though, he has never given the matter 

 sufficient independent thought nor investigation to modify his grand- 

 father's viewpoint, and even the most partisan supporters of education 

 must confess that that old gentleman would perhaps have been right, 

 had he called the education of his day " impractical." In the course of 

 the next few years, I believe, the leaven of the "new education," the 

 actual preparation for life, will have worked itself in to the very center 

 of the lump — will have educated not only its students directly, but 

 working through them, will have inspired a wholesome respect in all 

 the people for the practical efficiency which many of our best colleges 

 are imparting to their charges — all of which brings me back to my real 

 subject, the municipal university. 



The municipal university represents one of the newest, the most 



