THE SOCIALIZATION OF THE COLLEGE 77 



ferentiation of colleges the adoption of the old curriculum would seem 

 unwise, for the preparation needed for professional study to-day is quite 

 other than it was in the seventeenth century. 



One change entailed in the college curriculum by the growing com- 

 plexity of modern social conditions is some recognition in the courses 

 of instruction of those conditions themselves. In a democratic country 

 we should all know how the other half lives. Social problems and needs 

 must be learned. I wish to emphasize the truth that if they are to be 

 known they must be taught. People who appear callous and cruel, 

 indifferent to private needs and public welfare, are often merely unin- 

 formed. That the undergraduate years offer the opportunity for the 

 presentation of such matter there is sufficient evidence. 



During the last few years my department has taken up with the 

 students in pedagogy the educational aspects of the university settle- 

 ment, child-labor legislation, juvenile crime, the home, defectives, 

 primitive peoples, eugenics, morals and hygiene, the immigrant, the 

 new schools, open-air schools, etc. The work is conducted in seminar 

 style, each student choosing a topic for intensive treatment. The 

 response to these subjects from juniors, seniors and graduates is very 

 cordial and very immediate. They cover, if you like, the romantic and 

 sentimental phases of social activity, and the appeal is no less powerful 

 on that account. On the other hand, there is no attempt on my part 

 to suppress a discussion of the futility of some forms of philanthropy. 

 I think the ultimate effect of such a course is to give content to the idea 

 of good citizenship, to check latent snobbishness, and to increase a sense 

 of the sanity and worth of the ordinary daily activities, especially the 

 activities of the teaching profession. 



There are other approaches to this same end, of which our professors 

 are availing themselves. Courses in ethics are being given in many of 

 the American colleges with excellent effects, and in these courses par- 

 ticular pains are taken to study the relation of the college to the com- 

 plex social conditions in which we live. The teacher of ethics has the 

 advantage that he can treat with authority the question of moral stand- 

 ards, such as the relative claims of benevolence and justice, trained, 

 hard-headed thinking on which is one of the present needs of the 

 democracy. But from what particular department the advocacy of the 

 social claim comes, is a matter of indifference so long as it comes with 

 conviction and force. History, sociology, economics, ethics, pedagogy, 

 English, other modern languages, Latin and Greek in a marked degree, 

 as I have implied, offer the mature mind an opportunity of broadening 

 the social sympathy and deepening the moral consciousness of the stu- 

 dents. It is impossible, without going into the details of class work, to 

 indicate fully the intimate, subjective value to character of the quiet 

 presentation of social facts. We are enlisting the interest, the thought, 



