The University as Intellectual Leader

EVERYONE is impressed to-day with the need of vocational training .In an active society like our own thereshould be no strictly leisure-class educa-tion . Everyone is trying to do something;everyone is trying to fit into the socialorganization around him ; and, of neces-sity, every person trust get some remuner-ation for what he does .Even the people who take the so-called

"cultural" subjects have to find a placeto use them . The tendency toward vo-cational education among students is tobe expected and not to be condemned.The intellectual leadership of the Univer-sity must have a definite relation to prac-tical life, in other words, must have itspoint of application .

But vocational education must not beinterpreted too narrowly . Many thinkof "vocations" as being mere routine jobsthat require nothing but rules of thumbfor successful accomplishment . In thatsense, vocational education is not muchdifferent from training a monkey to passa cup for pennies or a dog to retrieve aball at his master's command.

Vocational training is broader than that .In the first place there is a wide rangeof vocations. A mature society has di-versified enjoyments and many ways ofattaining them . The vocations neededwill center around these numerous valuesand methods.There will be a place for many kinds of

artists . The Jooss Ballet will dance thefutility of ordinary diplomacy and thehorror of the consequences of war.Thomas Hart Benton will paint with ner-vous lines on statehouse walls the life ofthe people of the state from pioneer daysthrough banditry to commercial and in-dustrial achievements and political cor-ruption. Stephen Benet will write theepic of the Civil War.

THERE will be a need also for varioustypes of thinkers . The philosophy of Dew-ey and Whitehead will from different an-gles help satisfy the craving for a unifiedview of the world . The relativity of Ein-stein and the quantum theory of Bohrand his followers will break the ancientdogmatism of elementary physics and so-called common-sense . These activitiesand many others will come in as manpasses beyond the earlier stages . The in-tellectual service of the University willhelp to create and maintain these moretheoretical vocations .

Furthermore, within each vocationthere is the need of supplying adequatetheory to carry on with success . Sixty

FEBRUARY, 1939

By Charles M. Perry

years ago Hertz discovered certain elec-trical waves in what was supposed to bethe ether. Today that highly theoreticalresult is the basis of wireless and radio.],"very radio expert in the local town,every high school boy who is experiment-ing with simply contrived radio sets isusing those waves, and the more he knowsabout them the better . It long has beenknown that a certain metal becomes aconductor of electricity under the influ-ence of light . A number of years ago Iwas in a large laboratory where that prin-ciple was being used to construct a ma-chine to sort out automatically the de-fective balls from among those that wereto be used for ball bearings . The manwho was constructing the machine andanyone who had to repair it later had greatneed of the underlying theory .

IN the field of medicine the same thingis true . A beloved dean at the Univer-sity of Oklahoma died in 1925 of per-nicious anaemia. At the time of his deaththe laboratories of certain universitieswere working hard to find a remedy forthat particular malady. Inside of a yearthey came out with a preparation madefrom liver which was effective in coun-teracting that disease . Now every gen-eral practitioner has those specific rem-edies either at hand or in the corner drugstore . To take up a kindred subject,nearly every university has, during thelast few years, been discovering vitaminsor experimenting with their effects . Wehear so much about them that the wagshave been cracking jokes at their expense.But when the local physician faces cer-tain diseases he prescribes vitamin B, orsome of the five or six other vitamins,and gets results. A young chemist work-ing with a similar purpose in the labora-tories of a Canadian university discover-ed insulin . In almost every communityone now finds diabetic patients whoselives and usefulness have been saved andpreserved by this remedy . Incidentally,"insulin shock," discovered by accidentin Vienna, has already restored scores ofdementia praecox patients in our ownState to mental health .

Finally it may be said that if ever achemist wants to realize the alchemists'dream of changing baser metals into goldhe will have to resort to the electronictheory of the chemical elements . It canbe asserted with truth that every discoverymade by a university in so-called "purescience," be it relativity, quantum theory,the Mendelian laws of heredity, or the

theory of symbols, has its practical appli-cation in the course of time .Granted that the university must make

its instruction useful, be it in natural sci-ence, philosophy, or the arts, what changesare taking place in society that may mod-ify the method used? Since the war thedecline in birth rate has been startling.At the same time better conditions of liv-ing, preventive medicine, and remedialmethods are enabling the population tolive longer . The average age will conse-quently be greater. This means that, inaddition to undergraduates, who may befewer, there will be a lot of older peopleto whom education should be addressed .This requires adult education with a ven-geance .

First, can the adults take it? Second,do they need it?

William James wrote in a moment ofdepression that most people stop think-ing by the time they are twenty-five . Thatis too smart a statement to be entirelytrue . Thorndike has shown in his studiesof adult education that men and womencan go on actively learning without defi-nite limit. It depends on whether theyare expected by the society around themto meet new situations with intelligence orare expected to grow fixed and stupidwith age, and on whether they have theopportunity and incentive for improve-ment placed before them .

W E hear of authentic cases of womenlearning Greek at eighty ; WashingtonGladden when he had a stroke in his oldage which paralyzed his right side beganto learn to write with his left hand so asto carry on his work; most of the com-manders in chief in the Great War weremen over seventy. The capacity of peo-ple over college age to learn is beyonddoubt. Furthermore, experience of prac-tical life has made many of them keenfor the information that they can use.Do they need education? It cannot be

denied that as we get older we tend tolive by our old habits and to resent anyone's trying to pry us loose from them .Old ways of doing business, old meth-ods of practicing a profession, old pat-terns of running the community's or thenation's affairs seem to take on a divineright. There is a hardening of the mentalarteries that prevents the circulation ofnew ideas. It is the function of adulteducation to keep the minds of the popu-lation supple and youthful by presentingnew occasions, new materials, and newenthusiasms .

(PLEASE 'TURN TO PAGE ZS)

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history of the Choctaws . Holding partof his Indian lineage through that family,he gathered considerable material con-cerning the Folsoms from reference books,old letters and personal stories handeddown by tongue, and wove it into shape.It never has been published, althoughpart of the material has been turned overto the Oklahoma Historical society .Mr . Impson's interest in Oklahoma In-

dian affairs manifested itself while he stillwas a student at the University . He wasone of a group of youths who visionedthe need of a campus organization to per-petuate Indian customs and sponsor tribalculture .So he helped organize the Indian Club,

which still is active, and became its firstchief .

Captain Impson is a life member of theUniversity of Oklahoma Association(since 1935), and has been an ExecutiveBoard member . At present he is a mem-ber of the Pittsburg County AdvisoryCouncil of the association .

The University as

Intellectual Leader(CONTINEDFROM

Aside from the need of keeping themind active there is another need whichsprings more from the present-day en-vironment. With more and more inven-tions, social conditions and informationabout things in general change so fastthat the knowledge acquired in collegegets largely out of (late in five or tenyears. To prove this one needs only tomention such things as the quick suc-cession of the railroad, automobile, air-plane, the telephone, wireless and televis-ion, with all their financial entanglementsand social consequences . The change oftwo thousand years is jammed into onegeneration . Adult education must meetthis crisis if our civilization is not to de-stroy itself . Here the university has avast function to perform.But how to accomplish it? The ex-

tension work of the universities is muchof it devoted to such a purpose. Witha growing sense of the peculiar demandthat is being placed upon them the officersof such divisions and departments will domore and more in this line as time goeson . The short courses and institutes thatare being conducted in our own univer-sity are serving this undertaking well .The extension of summer school offeringsso that they satisfy not only the students'need of credit but also vocational andspiritual needs of the population at largewill help .Improving the facilities for broadcast-

ing, and developing the radio programscontinually with the adult population inmind will further promote the cause.Keeping in touch with the public schoolteachers in their professional work and

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supplying them specialized service willmove in the same direction . An obliga-tion must also be felt to bring in businessand labor groups that may never have beenon a campus before to acquaint themwith new developments in method and inadjustment to society that concern theirdaily work .

Calling back such professional groupsas lawyers, physicians, and engineers, toacquaint them with the new demandswhich social change has made upon theirvocations and to familiarize them withthe growing technique and philosophy oftheir fields is a measure to be consideredseriously.Another device which should not be

ignored in this relation is the "alumniuniversity" carried on at the Universityof Michigan and a few other institutions .Near commencement time lectures ofspecial interest to the alumni are arrangedand publicized . The old grads come backnot merely to shed reminiscent tears butto find out something new that was notdreamed of in the days of their ancientpast . In this undertaking the universitycontinues to function for them as an ed-ucational institution .To serve the people, an institution of

higher education should make its teach-ing intelligible and applicable . If the"Ideas" of Plato or the "monads" ofLeibnitz are being set forth they shouldbe presented honestly and truly in theirown nature but also with inspired insightinto their application to present individualand social needs and with shrewd under-standing of the psychological capacitiesand limitations of the persons to whomthey are addressed. In a word the uni-versity should aim to bring the wholeworld of science, philosophy, and art insome measure to every member of thepopulation that it professes to serve. Agood university, taken in this sense, is astate's safest investment for the future .

Dinner honors Young

Nearly four hundred persons attendeda dinner given by the Ponca City Chamberof Commerce in December in honor ofRoland (Waddy) Young, the Sooner foot-ball team's All-American end.

Felix Duvall, of Ponca City, was toast-master, and Dr. John Abernathy, popularOklahoma after-dinner speaker, gave theprincipal address. O. U. alumni and for-mer students made up a large proportionof the crowd.

It was announced at the dinner thatfootball fans in Ponca City were sendingthe father and mother of Waddy Youngand the mother of Ralph Stevenson, alsoa Ponca City boy and an All Big Sixguard, to the Orange Bowl game at Mi-ami, Florida.High school athletes from many towns

in northern Oklahoma were present forthe dinner . Tom Stidham, Sooner foot-ball coach, presented Young to the crowd.

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