22 JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY [Vol. 9 



mind iias been trained and developed by close, accurate, rigorous 

 thinking in several fields of knowledge. 



But I hear some say that these are old, trite arguments. I admit 

 it and agree that they are out of fashion; Ijut I believe that these 

 truths need to be resuscitated, revivified, and rehabilitated in the 

 minds of the younger generation. I almost wish it were possible for 

 a young man to go to college without having the thought foremost in 

 his mind that he must fit himself to earn a living. 



The modern cult of efficiency is misleading many young men into 

 thinking that they must study only those things that make toward 

 practical success in their chosen profession. We see Europe bathed 

 in the blood of a mighty war because nations have as their highest 

 ideals, apparently, the efficiency of their peoples in trade, in manu- 

 factures, in spreading over the earth and holding more land, in short, 

 in performing greater material feats. Bailey has touched upon this 

 question in a fine way when he speaks of the use of the land. He 

 says, "It is urged that lands can be most economically administered 

 in very large units and under corporate management; but the economic 

 results are not the most important results to be secured, although at 

 present they are the most stressed. The ultimate good in the use of 

 the land is the development of the people. It may be better that 

 more persons have contact with it than that it shall be executively 

 more effectively administered." In other words, efficiency of adminis- 

 tration, the securing of economic results may not be the most important 

 objects in life. The development of men should be the highest aim 

 of a system of education or of a government. 



I plead for a broad, hberal training because I firmly beheve that a 

 course of study which demands logical, orderly rigorous thinking, con- 

 sistently carried out over a period of several years during the grow- 

 ing and formative period of a young mind will contribute more toward 

 making a faithful, honest, accurate observer and interpreter than any 

 other form of intellectual training yet devised. I believe that a mental 

 training of this character is one of the surest means of freeing the mind 

 from prejudice, misconception and dogmatism. 



I plead for a hberal intellectual training because it will widen one's 

 perspective of life. The man who, especially during his younger, 

 undergraduate days, is engrossed in one thing, who thinks of but 

 one realm of nature, who deals with but one science, and who studies 

 only one phase of the animate world is apt to become narrow and to 

 lose understanding and appreciation of other lines of endeavor. More 

 than that, he is liable to lose touch with the vital problems of life and 

 humanit}'- and fail to judge his problems in a large and adaptable 

 manner. His very nearness to his work and his limited field of vision 

 precludes the accomplishment of really vital things. 



