THE COLLEGE 



BY M. CAREY THOMAS 



[M. Carey Thomas, President of Bryn Mawr College since 1894. b. Baltimore, 

 January 2, 1857. A.B. Cornell University, 1877; Ph.D. University of Zurich, 

 1882; Johns Hopkins University, 1877-78; University of Leipzig, 1879-82; 

 Sorbonne and College de France, 1883: LL.D. Western University of Penn- 

 sylvania, 1896. Dean of the Faculty of Bryn Mawr College and Professor of 

 English, 1885-94; Alumni Trustee of Cornell University, 1895-99; Trustee of 

 Bryn Mawr College, 1903 to present date. Author of The Association of 

 Collegiate Alumnce in its Relation to Women's Education; College Entrance 

 Requirements; The Future of Women in Independent Study and Research; 

 Should the Higher Education of Women Differ from that of Men? Education of 

 Women.] 



No one of the other subjects selected for discussion in the seven 

 divisions, twenty-four departments, and one hundred and twenty- 

 seven sections of the Congress of Arts and Science seems to me so 

 vitally connected with the future well-being of the American people 

 as the American college which we are to discuss to-day. 



The college does indeed need eloquent defenders, such as the 

 speaker who has preceded me, for the executioner's ax is at its throat. 

 The school, however badly planned, taught, and administered, has an 

 assured existence; the university, however amorphous and inchoate, 

 is to be fostered and extended; but the college, the centre of all our 

 culture for the past century, is sore beset, and has more to fear from 

 the Judas-like kisses of its friends in high places than from the mob 

 of the illiterate and sordid, who always cry " Loose us Barabbas ' 

 when the powers of evil are in the ascendant and any mighty influence 

 for good is brought to the judgment seat. Let us this afternoon 

 mount the tribunal and try the case. As the accused is on trial for 

 his life, plain speaking will be in order. 



We are told first of all that the prisoner cannot be identified, that 

 his personality is all abroad, that his very age is not certain, and that 

 even his name is not his own, but that he is often caught masquerad- 

 ing under the name of " university " or " high school." 



It is true that his adversaries have striven mightily to destroy the 

 character and moral stamina of the college course through the foolish 

 dissipations of unrestricted electives, but, thanks be to the powers 

 that make for righteousness, they have striven in vain. Everything 

 now indicates a return to the old educational standards of strenuous 

 intellectual discipline, and to better than the old standards. It 

 cannot be denied that other enemies of the college, working in dark- 

 ness, have insidiously set out to hew off one year of his age, the very 

 flower of his maturity, in order to enrich the professional school; and 

 that still other enemies, working openly in the eye of day, have 



