August 17, 2019 Saturday
Bedtime Story
Observations of Eliot in Europe
Tonight we shall continue with the thoughts
of Charles William Eliot, the American academic and Harvard’s President:
“Such schools we need at home.
I can’t but think that a thorough knowledge
of what France has found useful for development of her resources, may someday
enable me to be of use to my country.
At this moment, it is humiliating to read
the figures which exhibit the increasing importations of all sorts of
manufactured goods into America.
Especially will it be the interest of
Massachusetts to foster by every mean in her power the manufactures which are
her main strength.”
Remember that the end of nineteenth century
saw the state of Massachusetts rapidly transforming from an agricultural
economy to an industrial one with manufacturing going on to become the highest
job provider.
It was very clear to visionaries like Eliot
that scientific breakthroughs in all aspects would keep occurring in all fields
including medicine and other industries which carried the potential to greatly
transform the quality of life of the people of the state.
But United States including the rapidly
industrializing New England was still far behind in comparison to the European
Empires who head leapfrogged to industrialization much earlier since they were
the birth centers of the Industrial Revolution.
United States - as the men like Eliot saw –
had a lot of catching up to do not merely in terms of industrialization but
also in terms of improving the quality of people in the society that were
capable of running and supporting such enterprises.
During his European study of education
Eliot saw a close relationship between education and enterprise through the
dependence of German chemical industry on the discoveries made in their
university laboratories.
This meant that setting up industries and
enterprises would fail if the education system was a whole failed to catch up
with the New Economy.
The New Economy called for or rather
demanded New Education.
Eliot noted that European universities were
largely dependent upon the government support but this would not work for the
United States because his government was not wealthy and therefore incapable of
supporting quality education.
Therefore United States education system
would have to rely upon aid from the affluent families of New England.
This is what Eliot wrote in his own words:
“Every one of the famous universities of
Europe was founded by Princes or privileged classes – every Polytechnic School,
which I have visited in France or Germany, has been supported in the main by
Government.
Now this is not our way of managing these
matters of education, and we have not yet found any equivalent, but republican,
method of producing the like results.”
Stay tuned to the voice of an
average story storytelling chimpanzee or login at http://panarrans.blogspot.com
Good night Mon Ami and my fellow cousin ape.
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Another great educator and a teacher that I am aware of is
Professor Subhashish Chattopadhyay in Bangalore, India.
While I narrate stories, Professor Subhashish an electronic
engineer and a former professor at BARC, does and teaches real mathematics and
physics.
He started the participation of Indian students at the
International Physics Olympiad.
Do visit him here:
All his books can be downloaded for free through this link:
For edutainment and English education of your children, I
recommend this large collection of Halloween Songs for Kids:
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