UNIVERSITY STANDARDS 7 5 



there has grown up a rival institution, with antagonistic aims and 

 ideals, to which the student body gives first allegiance. 



If the college faces this new situation rather helplessly, as Mr. 

 Flexner affirms, it is because analogy has here played its old trick. As 

 a matter of fact, absolute election of studies by the student has nowhere 

 existed. But in the wider matters of conduct and in the question 

 whether to study or not to study the college has drifted without any 

 clear principle of action. College students were treated as men and 

 women, with good results. Therefore they are men and wo- 

 men. Therefore whatever the results, they must be treated as men 

 and women with the privileges and responsibilities of men and women. 

 Whatever happens, the college can do nothing except in the sphere of 

 moral influence. As Mr. Birdseye sees it, " substantially all direct con- 

 trol of the personal freedom of the students has been given up except 

 in cases where their action becomes scandalous or they break the public 

 law. . . . The absolute personal freedom, which in many instances is 

 but another name for laxity, undoubtedly tends strongly and constantly 

 to personal shiftlessness and laziness as well as to bad mental and moral 

 habits. . . . With the freedom of their fraternity and club life and the 

 absence of faculty and parental restraint, have come constant distrac- 

 tions from study in connection with a succession throughout the year 

 of class, fraternity, and intercollegiate games of football, baseball, bas- 

 ketball, tennis, golf, chess ; of rowing, track and athletic meets ; of glee, 

 mandolin and banjo and other musical and dramatic clubs or associa- 

 tions; of receptions and other social functions, of literary dailies, week- 

 lies, monthlies and annuals; and even of intercollegiate debates. . . . 

 In most colleges there has grown up a decidedly false atmosphere, which 

 affects adversely the personal lives of a greater or less proportion of the 

 students." " I know of no place," wrote the dean of a western uni- 

 versity to Mr. Birdseye, " where so much fine material coming from the 

 country and small towns has been ruined by a single half-year of idle- 

 ness and extravagance. The worst elements of city, social and fra- 

 ternity life seem to be those most eagerly grasped after and most in- 

 cessantly followed." 



Suppose we follow the course of an imaginary freshman at the 

 composite college of our critics ; one who is well prepared, with a sense 

 of the importance of his undertaking, and unsophisticated. What he 

 seeks the college has to offer: facilities, scholarly standards, inspiring 

 teachers. It is not at all certain that he will reach his goal. In the first 

 place the scholarly atmosphere is not very evident — to a freshman. 

 For days, weeks even, before the opening old students have drifted in. 

 They have not done this in order to consult the authorities the better 

 to plan and prepare for the studies of the year. They have plans of 

 their own. They are at starting the wheel within the wheel. 



