Competition in Education: The Facts and a Prophecy

I

WITHIN the past few years since the war there has been developed a new form of competition which concerns vitally the education of the rising generation now in school. This competition has developed so noiselessly that it has escaped the attention of many parents who are not yet aware of the change affecting the chances of their children to secure a higher education in the college of their choice.

Competition in the business world has long been familiar in America, but now there has come into existence a form of intellectual competition which has long been felt in Europe, but which in this country has until recently been unknown. The fact is undeniable that little by little positions in this country have been filling up; in many cities there are more college graduates than there are enviable positions to be occupied. It is no longer a mark of great distinction to hold a bachelor’s degree or indeed certain professional degrees involving a total of seven or eight years devoted to so-called higher education. The difficulty of finding positions to which they think their training entitles them is something of a disillusion to the thousands of young men and women who sally forth each commencement to look for a congenial job.

This situation was bound to arise sooner or later even in a country with such a capacity for absorption as ours. It arises sooner when business is depressed, when economy is practised, and when mergers in the business world are forcing even middle-aged men of large experience out into the cold. Let us see how the hard but irresistible law which dictates ‘the survival of the fittest’ is working in the field of education.

Only a few years ago, it was the colleges which were competing to secure certain desirable students, those who had outstanding scholastic records, who had attractive personalities, or who held promise of athletic prowess. Such students arc of course still sought for, since they form desirable groups for specific purposes dear to the administrators of our colleges. But, except in the case of some football prodigy, there is not much strife among the colleges to secure any prominent schoolboy. Not much money is being offered, except in the form of open scholarships, to secure the attendance and services of the eighteen-year-old youth, male or female. Every reputable college and university knows that there will be no lack of applicants, no lack of grist for the mill, when the new year’s work begins. No. The competition is now on the other foot. It is the applicants who are so numerous that the element of competition is playing an important and hitherto unrecognized part.

II

The trouble begins at the top of our educational system and works downward, with increasing, but more insidious, effect. The medical, law, and business schools connected with our best universities are all besieged by many more applicants than they can receive. The expense involved in offering certain types of professional education and the limited facilities available have compelled the establishment of a limit. Some of these professional schools receive from twice to ten times as many applications for the first-year course as can be accepted. Under the requirement of strict limitation, the scholastic record of the undergraduate course is carefully scanned, the character, ethical standards, and serious purpose of the applicant are diligently inquired into, and a personal interview is, if possible, arranged. Such scrutiny weeds out the unfit and also, unquestionably, a considerable number who are moderately fit and who would subsequently be a credit to the profession of their choice. But this is where the competition enters, and it is evident that an applicant should leave no stone unturned either at the last moment or for years previously to establish himself in a preferred class.

The next stage downward in the educational system affects the undergraduate colleges. To a large extent, sometimes to the extent of 50 per cent, these colleges send on their graduates to professional schools; they are the chief feeders of the professional schools; they naturally wish to see their graduates successful in entering the school of their choice; they wish ‘to make their calling and election sure.’ Where so much depends upon giving an unqualified recommendation for scholarship, character, and future promise, colleges again naturally seek students who measure up to the new and exacting requirements. So they in turn begin to pick their candidates from high and preparatory schools with far more care than ever before. They ask, ‘What is the use of having a dull, unambitious youth or a clever dodger of hard work around the campus for four years, only to see him rejected by the professional school for which his parents have announced that they wish him prepared?’ And so some thousands of boys who have not awakened to the effects which this new competition will have upon their careers are refused admission each September by the college of their choice. They have not made a sufficiently favorable impression in competition to prove a good risk; someone better will have the vacant place.

Those old colleges with a fixed clientele from generation to generation, which may be compared to family hotels or clubs, will continue to find place under a ‘favored-nation clause’ for the sons and daughters of their graduates, and thus ensure them of the degrees to which their birth and fortune entitle them. But the fact remains that an increasing number of youths who have the best intentions in the world to enjoy college and trade upon the degree are being turned away, while their place is awarded to someone who has shown more convincing evidence of ambition, capacity, and diligence. It is going to be in the future not so much a question of descent as of ascent which will be the deciding factor in admission to college. Some families are quite evidently running downhill, while others are mounting the grade, and it is candidates from the latter category who will be favored.

Below the colleges are the high and preparatory schools. Most of these are not yet in a position to be affected by the competition of which we are speaking. The public high schools are part of our democratic system of universal education and by definition have to carry on heavy loads of mediocre students to the age of eighteen years. The preparatory schools have a financial interest in even stupid pupils, and in return for high fees will usually undertake to make a silk purse out of even a sow’s ear. However, one could mention a considerable number of private schools which have so many applicants that they are able to select with a view to maintaining the scholastic reputation of the school.

III

Now what we must come to in our educational system is a better method of selecting early in the school course, perhaps in the grades, the boys and girls who give promise of profiting later by the expensive education offered in our best colleges and universities. There has been some effort made toward guidance of individual students by competent advisers, but much better methods and much wider application of them remain to be devised. There is too much disappointment at the eleventh hour, and too much wasted effort. Too many young people get into college who have no serious intention of working there, and too many fail to get in who might succeed very well. The whole question of selection is still settled in a comparatively hitor-miss fashion at the last moment. A programme which in each individual case is going to cost from four to eight years and from five to ten thousand dollars is worthy of a more intelligent study on the part of the individual and a more complete understanding of the competition in which he will become involved as he rises higher in the educational scale.

This study can be fostered in several ways: intelligent parents can keep a careful watch upon the development of tastes and aptitudes in their children; they will confer with teachers regarding their children’s capacity and insist upon their receiving the stern preparatory discipline which is the prelude to successful later work; they will make use of any skilled analyst available who will help them in a rational manner to diagnose the educational problem presented by each individual case. But, most important of all, they will seek by every means to make their child realize that his future rewards will be according to his deserts and that anyone seeking distinction in these days must start early to improve his opportunities.

Public education has been so watered in this country to suit the digestion of all our young citizens that this truth about the severity of competition will not be palatable in all quarters. It has so long been possible for anyone with two legs and a pair of arms to find work and a living that any discovery to the contrary is unwelcome. Our education for many years has been for decent mediocrity; social, physical, and intellectual development has all been blended into an innocuous whole by our schools and colleges; it has not been the fashion to work anywhere near to one’s capacity for fear of being a ‘grind’ or of missing the team or the fraternity; some have thought it clever to ‘get by’ without work. But it is perfectly evident that under the exigency of competition, if for no other reason, our colleges are soon going to become institutions of learning in fact as well as in name. Those who are too clever to study and those who are too dull to learn will be excluded. A minimum of sincere interest in intellectual things will be expected and demanded of all students in reputable institutions. Self-development through study will be put first, and the physical and social activities will take their normal places in a well-rounded education, instead of the exaggerated roles which they occupy in the minds of many young people.

IV

As has been seen, this article deals partly with present fact and partly with prophecy. The latter is warranted by the former, and is based upon the whole treatment of gainful occupations in a country that is filling up as fast as ours. The experience of societies much older than our own has been in the same direction. There will be more attention given to the best students and less to the worst. We cannot afford the sentimental heresy of salvaging the incompetent. Happily, in our democracy a man can be master of his fate, and his fate will be dependent upon his native capacity and his application to work. In our educational system the poor boy has as good a chance as the rich boy, and that is something to be thankful for. Our business and professional world will continue to be built up constantly from beneath.

But what will become of the dull rich boy and the languid youth who do not think it is worth while to make an effort? The rich will undoubtedly be endowed by indulgent parents in a state either of innocuous desuetude or of constant menace to a long-suffering society; they will continue to run about at high speed, to patronize the golf courses, and to try to sell bonds. Except as they may become a nuisance, their existence will be a matter of complete indifference. People of moderate means who have aspired to see their children rich and highly educated must be satisfied with such rewards as their children can gain in open competition. Some of them will enter second-class or third-class institutions which will continue in the future, as in the past, to admit students whose capacity is mediocre or worse. The really poor who have no capacity for advancement will continue to do the manual work of society and to receive for it pay which is sometimes higher than the salary of the Doctor of Philosophy.

What has been said is not meant to be of a deterministic character as applied to any particular individual. Any individual may raise himself by a variety of happy circumstances, and each of us will continue to think of himself as that particular individual. But there is plenty of evidence that, after a very easy period of the first three centuries, when anyone could make a living in a continent with virgin opportunities, we have now arrived at a period when competition is being felt even in such an uncompetitive department of life as individual education. The biological doctrine of the ‘survival of the fittest’ is going to be felt in the social, economic, and intellectual prizes for which the next generation will strive. It is some satisfaction to suppose that the ruthless application of this law of survival will result in a far better equipped personnel in our liberal professions. There will always be plenty of room at the top, but it is going to be harder, as time goes on, to reach the top.