COLLEGE CONDITIONS 397 



SOME RANDOM THOUGHTS CONCERNING COLLEGE 



CONDITIONS 



By Peofbssok JOHN J. STEVENSON 



NEW YORK UNIVERSITY 



AN ever-increasing proportion of the community seems to be con- 

 vinced that every youth, male or female, on American soil, has 

 a natural right to collegiate and even to professional education at nom- 

 inal or no cost. That so many have been deprived of the opportunity 

 to acquire a college degree is one of the saddest of the world's many 

 tragedies; good men and women, having exhausted the joy of conscious 

 usefulness in the ordinary philanthropic operations, find new zest in 

 contriving methods whereby those excluded from college attendance 

 may secure the coveted parchment with a minimum of expense and in- 

 convenience. Their efforts to increase the roll of "American nobility" 

 find ready support on the part of college authorities, who are always 

 prompt to aid any good work which promises to increase the enrollment. 

 This popular conviction surprises no one who is familiar with the 

 history of American colleges. In the early days of this country, when 

 schools of any kind were few, clergymen were compelled to educate 

 their successors or to have none. Those devoted men extolled the honor 

 of their profession, they cultivated respect for knowledge, they awak- 

 ened ambition in young men as well as in their parents; and they 

 undertook the labor of instruction when candidates for the ministry 

 presented themselves — many times taking them to their homes and 

 sharing with them their scanty fare. No one imagined that any credit 

 was due for this self-denial and added labor. The work had been, so to 

 say, thrown in; it had cost the teacher nothing; he had parted with 

 nothing material and the teaching had produced nothing tangible; at 

 most, he had utilized only spare hours, which, in any event, belonged 

 to the people who paid him a small stipend. In fact, the parents of the 

 young men thought that the loss sustained by deprivation of their sons' 

 services entitled them to credit equally with the pastor; and they were 

 not far wrong, for the education was to fit the son not to gain a liveli- 

 hood, not to gain higher social position, but to enter a profession which 

 at that time meant little more than poverty and an opportunity for 

 service. When population became denser, pastors opened academies to 

 increase their incomes, but the shrewd people succeeded in turning this 

 to their advantage; the writer has seen a "call" offered more than a 

 century ago, in which the right to have an " academy " was noted as an 



