NO SHORT CUT

Just at the time when many critics of the country's educational system are demanding reorganization with increased emphasis on the study of the liberal arts, Dr. Carl Franzen of the University of Indiana heralds an age of further specialization in the schools. If the proposal made to the American Association of University Professors indicates the trend to be followed, the questionable soundness of the proposition becomes of more than theoretical interest. To cut the collegiate side of University training to a two year general pre-professional course would seem to be heading the university back towards the state in which Francis Bacon found it in the sixteenth century.

University education, if it is to be more than a training ground for skilled workers, can not afford to dedicate itself to the professions at the expense of the arts and pure sciences. One of the main-stays of man's cultural existence, the ground on which the professions are built, the liberal education will give way to the competitive demands for specialized training only with a serious loss to everyone concerned.

A cultural training is not for the rich alone. It would seem a necessary balancing factor in the life of the specialist who makes the wheels of the modern day go 'round. The competition of this age may demand a reorganization of our schools. But the direction of that revision as Professor Rand has recently suggested, might better be back to the old fundamentals brought up to date with a philosophy of modern science. Some such move as this might by raising the standards, take care of the excessive competition, and at the same time insure the intellectual stability of university graduates.