COLLEGE OE UNIVERSITY 197 



present system of educational ideals is seen in the urgent desire of many 

 college graduates to lead a double sort of existence, one half of the day 

 with, and the other without, their professional interests. The attitude 

 of so many college graduates to their profession is of such a nature that 

 " hobbies " and " outside interests " are essential for the restoration of 

 the mental balance which has been destroyed by the daily occupation. 

 This " double life " necessitating a daily shift in ideals and ideas may 

 become a prolific source of nervous disorders, varying in degree from 

 boredom, even at the mention of intellectual topics, to pronounced 

 mental derangements. The failure of our present collegiate-university 

 to show that the real pleasure of life depends upon the association and 

 not upon the divorce of intellectual interests from the daily occupation 

 of the individual is one of the most serious defects in a system that 

 sets a man adrift in his profession without any intelligent interest in it. 

 The American student is so thoroughly imbued with the idea that "to 

 be educated " is a condition or state of mind induced by teachers that 

 he seldom realizes any of the pleasures associated with learning; and 

 so in later years the practise of his profession becomes for him merely 

 a method of making a living instead of being at the same time a source 

 of enjoyment. 



By exhortation, backed up by a vigorous policing, the American 

 collegiate university has endeavored to drive students to the choice of 

 high ideals, which are emphasized merely in order to satisfy conven- 

 tional requirements. This is one of the most serious defects in our 

 entire educational system, as it frequently becomes necessary in after 

 life for the individual at a critical period to readjust fundamental 

 mental mechanisms in order to meet the real issues of life. On the 

 other hand, the cultivation of the spirit of intelligent and candid scep- 

 ticism has been sadly neglected in our American universities. Students 

 are taught to think only in accordance with the " cast iron rules " given 

 them as guides to thought and conduct, while the more important les- 

 sons of searching diligently for the truth, and of being continually on 

 the guard lest the rising mists of authority completely blind their 

 vision, are seldom emphasized. The ideals of the alma mater more 

 often suggest submission to a corporal than to the admonitions of a 

 parent. In many of our universities to-day the doubts of the weak are 

 crushed out of existence, while the resistance of the strong to a system 

 of passive intellectual oppression breeds a spirit of rebellion. High 

 ideals can not be maintained in an atmosphere where the value of intel- 

 lectual honesty is not appreciated, or where the advice is not infre- 

 quently given, " Do not express your doubts in public." 



Pater's affirmation, "What we have to do is to be forever curiously 

 testing new opinions and courting new impressions, never acquiescing 

 in a facile orthodoxy of Compte, or of Hegel, or of our own," expresses 

 a well-known law of physiology seldom referred to in our universities. 



