Excerpt:
February 23, 1927
Mr. Walter F. Downey
Boston Public Schools
Boston, Mass.
Dear Mr. Downey:
I have your letter of February 15th.
What always mystifies me is “Why are our Colleges and College men constantly trying to demonstrate the money value of higher education? Is it not about time to conclude that education is worth the while of the individual and the effort of the community for the values in cultivation of mind and strengthening of character, for the creation and training of leadership and for the lifting on national ideals? If it is not worth this, entirely aside from the annual cash gains to its product, it is an unjustifiable waste.
If money is the object, we might better strip our institutions of all their humanities and turn them to mass production of efficiency automatons, high powered salesmen, trick lawyers and some other lines designed to “get ‘em and get ‘em quick”. Or better still, we ought to abolish all these institutions and establish a high speed system of training by way of apprenticeship to those already successful in these lines, and thereby save the cost and effort of the community which we now make.
Cannot someone suggest that cultivation of mind, understanding of human life, the strengthening of character and the extension of knowledge are the primary objects of our educational institutions and that the impregnation of these ideals into profession training is the real contribution of High education?
Yours faithfully,
Herbert Hoover
Source Citation:
Hoover, Herbert. 1928. Herbert Hoover to Mr. Walter F. Downey, February 23, 1927 (On the value of higher education). Letter. Herbert Hoover Papers: Commerce Period-Official and Personal, 1921-1928. https://catalog.archives.gov/id/187098