COLLEGE CONDITIONS 4" 



themselves to their proper duties and left management of the railroad 

 to those wild understand the business. 



There musl lie a return to the proper conception of a college, a 

 place for study, where men and women may lie so trained as to be fit 

 to undertake great things. A college should be exactly such a place as 

 described by President Hyde in the address already cited. But that 

 ideal college will remain ideal until the community has been led to 

 recognize that for a third of a century the whole method has been 

 wrong; that the glory of a university does not consist in the beauty of 

 its buildings, the broad expanse of its campus, the extent of its athletic 

 fields or in the marvelous equipment of its gymnasia, but in the char- 

 acter of its professors and in its equipment for legitimate work: that 

 the greatness of a university does not consist in the number of its 

 students, in the number and variety of its schools, but in the quality of 

 the work done and in the character of the schools. The ideal condition 

 will be impossible until those controlling the affairs of colleges have 

 learned that they are not owners, hut trustees, and have to come to recog- 

 nize their responsibility as honest and honorable men; until they have 

 become convinced that it is less important for a president to be making 

 addresses on public affairs than it is for him to attend to college affairs 

 — for which he should lie held to strict accountability. 



There must be changes in many directions. The mad chase for 

 students should cease, requirements for entrance should be made more 

 severe and students should be accepted, not entreated. Men unfitted 

 by native defect or by environment should be discouraged : the fees 

 should be increased so as to defray the cost ; there should lie many 

 scholarships, but they should he granted not as gifts but only upon 

 severe examination ; they should be earned — the examination should be 

 conducted by a central board of examiners. Intercollegiate contests of 

 all sorts should be abolished: the great stadia should lie abandoned or 

 converted to some useful purpose; courses in gymnasia should be com- 

 pulsory for all students; athletic fields should he opened for use of all 

 and exercise should be encouraged. But c\cvy student should know 

 that the aim in all athletic work is to fit him to do better work in the 

 classroom — not, as now. that incidental work in the classroom is required 

 to qualify him for membership on a team. Then, the heroes of a col- 

 lege will not be those who have won their "letters" by muscular 

 prowess, but those who have made high rank in study. It will no 

 longer be a disgrace in " halls of learning" to be a " dig," and one will 

 not be stung by frequent repetition of the assertion that the output of 

 colleges is not equal to that of former days. 



