7 o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



man of social prominence as a far more promising personality than the 

 high scholar, but that rank itself is in their minds little or no indica- 

 tion whatever of the qualities that make for success in life. This feel- 

 ing seems to have been progressive, as is shown by the very words used 

 to indicate the student who works hard. A generation ago he was called 

 a ' grind,' but now he is often referred to as a e greasy grind,' the ad- 

 jective, of course, being used to denote contempt. In fact, it may be 

 doubted whether the respect for scholarship has ever been so low in any 

 institution of learning as it is in American colleges at the present day." 

 We may listen also to the breezy catalogue of our neighbor, Professor 

 Gayley. Speaking of the college student, he says : " What with so- 

 called ' college activities,' by which he must prove his allegiance to the 

 university, and social functions by which he must recreate his jaded 

 soul, no margin is left for the one and only college activity — which is 

 study. Class meetings, business meetings, committee meetings, edi- 

 torial meetings, football rallies, vicarious athletics on the bleachers, 

 garrulous athletics in dining room and parlor and on the porch, re- 

 hearsals of the glee club, rehearsals of the mandolin club and of the 

 banjo, rehearsals for dramatics, college dances and class banquets, fra- 

 ternity dances and suppers, preparations for the dances and banquets, 

 more committees for the preparations; a running up and down the 

 campus for ephemeral items for ephemeral articles in ephemeral papers, 

 a soliciting of advertisements, a running up and down for subscriptions 

 to the dances and the dinners and the papers and the clubs; a running 

 up and down in college politics, making tickets, pulling wires, adjust- 

 ing combinations, canvassing for votes — canvassing the girls for votes, 

 spending hours at sorority houses for votes — spending hours at sorority 

 houses for sentiment; talking rubbish unceasingly, thinking rubbish, 

 revamping rubbish — rubbish about high junks, rubbish about low, rub- 

 bish about rallies, rubbish about pseudo-civic honor, rubbish about 

 girls; — what margin of leisure is left for the one activity of the col- 

 lege, which is study?" 



According to the Briggs report of 190-1 Harvard students averaged 

 twelve hours of class-room work and thirteen hours of outside work per 

 week, or four hours per day only, devoted to the business of the under- 

 graduate. Four years later the dean could still say : " That the present 

 standard of work ' to pass ' is low, the investigations of the Committee 

 on Improving Instruction showed; undergraduates of to-day almost 

 without exception frankly admit it. To obtain the necessary number of 

 'grades above D' ('the requisite number of C's,' is the common 

 phrase) requires almost no steady, and only briefly concentrated, labor; 

 nowhere except in a college would the work which produces ' the requi- 

 site number of C's,' the so-called satisfactory record, be tolerated from 

 youths of equal age and endowment — nowhere else where young men 



