THE COLLEGE 123 



he is able to take part in government surveys, or lead in exploration. 

 If an economist, he is able to contribute something to the settlement of 

 labor troubles. If an historian or professor of government, he must 

 be able to bring ancient precedent and remote experience to bear on 

 current complications. If a professor of the classics, he must love 

 the masters of English prose and verse all the better for his familiarity 

 with the ancient models; and show how much more the modern 

 things mean when thrown on the ancient background. College 

 students despise a professor who is so lost in his subject that he 

 cannot get out of it, prove its worth by some concrete application, 

 and make life as a whole the larger and richer by the contribution he 

 makes from his special department. He must be human; intensely 

 interested in individuals; eager to see his favorite authors, his 

 beloved pursuits, kindle into enthusiasm the minds he introduces 

 to them. The college professor must know his subject; he must 

 be a competent investigator in it, and a thorough master of it. If as 

 a badge of such mastery and aptitude for investigation he has the 

 degree of Ph.D., all the better. But this is not essential. He must 

 know men and the large movements and interests of the world out- 

 side. He must present his subject, lit up with the enthusiasm of 

 a great personality; an enthusiasm so contagious that the students 

 cannot help catching it from him, and regarding his subject for the 

 time being as the most compelling interest in life. He must be 

 genial, meeting students in informal, friendly ways outside of lecture 

 rooms, either in general social intercourse or in little clubs for the 

 prosecution of interests related to his subject. He must have high 

 standards of personal character and conduct, and broad charity for 

 those who fall below them. In short, he must be first of all a man 

 whom young men would respect, admire, and imitate, and love, and 

 then in addition he must know the subject he professes in the broad, 

 vital, practical, contagious way described above. 



The course of study in a college covers in a bread way the main 

 departments of language and literature, science and art, history, 

 economics, and philosophy. At least four languages besides English : 

 Latin, Greek, French, and German; mathematics; at least four 

 sciences: physics, chemistry, biology, and geology or astronomy; 

 history, both ancient and modern, both American and European; 

 both orthodox economic theory and current economic heresy, to- 

 gether with special study of such subjects as banking, taxation, trans- 

 portation, trust and labor problems; the principles and problems of 

 government, both national and municipal; literature studied as 

 literature and not merely the corpse of it, in the shroud of grammar 

 and coffin of philology; philosophy as the attempted answer to the 

 perpetual problems of ontology, cosmology, conduct, and human 

 aspiration; enough of fine art to make one at home in the great 



