COLLEGE CONDITIONS 401 



ing during the last twenty-five years. Constantly increasing enroll- 

 ment is, for most college presidents and most college trustees, the only 

 proof of success. Canvassing for pupils is as much part of the college 

 plan in some portions of the country as drumming for customers is in 

 a wholesale business house. Of course, no such vulgar conduct is coun- 

 tenanced by the older institutions, which never send their presidents or 

 special agents on such errands. They utilize students as wandering 

 minstrels, who appear as the blank college or university glee club ; they 

 have trained bands of student gladiators to contend in intercollegiate 

 contests and they do not discourage the custom of impressing a great 

 part of the student body as " rooters " for the team. Even the great 

 universities do not think it undignified to advertise the attractions 

 which they offer in college or professional schools. In small colleges, 

 the president often announces his annual or semi-annual canvassing 

 tour as systematically and unblushingly as did the commission salesman 

 of 40 years ago. In larger colleges, the annual tour of the president, 

 during which he makes the round of alumni clubs, is a fixed part of 

 the program. He is not scouring for students, but in his addresses he 

 dwells lovingly on athletic successes, on the pecuniary gains during the 

 year, on the remarkably democratic life of the students; he extols the 

 great advantages offered by his college and urges the alumni to prove 

 their loyalty by spreading the facts broadcast and by giving some 

 money to make matters "more so." 



The ingenuity of the canvasser and the exigencies of his concern 

 lead some perilously near to something more than mere inaccuracy of 

 statement. The latest achievement is calculation of the proportion of 

 college men recorded, in "Who's Who." The statistics are correct, but 

 the deductions are imperfect. No note is made of the fact that the 

 plan of the American "Who's Who" leads the editor to select chiefly 

 men whose occupation presupposes college or university work. A search 

 for truth would have led not to " Who's Who " but to biographical cata- 

 logues of college alumni. That study might have led to discovery of 

 conditions on which the canvasser would have been more than unwill- 

 ing to enlarge. Certainly, he would have come to wonder why it is 

 that "Who's Who" is so small a volume, as there are so many thou- 

 sands in this country who own college diplomas. 



The presentation is uncandid, for it is intended to convince young 

 men and women that some magic force insuring success resides in the 

 college course — which is not the fact. The college professor is no al- 

 chemist to change dross into fine metal ; a gymnasium can not give legs 

 to the man born without them; no more can the college professor give 

 mental power to the one who has it not. Men are born as unequal men- 

 tally as physically and not all can gain material advantage from college 

 work, though there are few who can not obtain a diploma somewhere. 



