146 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



tempts advanced work and work in many lines. It takes its oppor- 

 tunity, and an opportunity which the small college can not grasp. 

 Advanced work costs money. A wide range of subjects, taught with 

 men, libraries and laboratories, is a costly matter, but by a variety of 

 supply the demand is formed. The large college has many students, 

 because it offers many opportunities. Because large opportunities 

 bring influence and students and gifts, there is a tendency to exagger- 

 ate them. We are all prone to pretend that the facilities we offer are 

 greater than is really the case. We are led to shout, because people 

 are indifferent to us. 



The peril of the small college is the peril of all colleges, the temp- 

 tation of advertising. All boasting is self-cheapening. The peril of 

 the small college is that in its effort to become large it shall cease to 

 be sound. The small college can do good elementary work in several 

 lines. It can do good advanced work in a very few. If it keeps its 

 perspective, if it does only what it can do well, and does not pretend 

 that bad work is good work, or that the work beyond its reach is not 

 worth doing, it is in no danger. The small college may become either 

 a junior college or high-grade preparatory school, sending its men else- 

 where for the flower of their college education, or else it must become 

 a small university running narrowly on a few lines, but attending to 

 these with devotion and persistence. Either of these are honorable 

 conditions. For the first of these the small college has a great ad- 

 vantage. It can come close to its students; it can 'know its men by 

 name.' The value of a teacher decreases with the square of his dis- 

 tance from the pupil. The work of the freshman and sophomore years 

 in many of our great colleges is sadly inadequate, because its means 

 are not fitted to its ends. In very few of our large colleges does the 

 elementary work receive the care its importance deserves. 



The great college can draw the best teachers away from the small 

 colleges. In this regard the great college has an immense advantage. 

 It has the best teachers, the best trained, the best fitted for the work 

 of training. But in most cases the freshman never discovers this. 

 There is no worse teaching done under the sun than in the lower 

 classes of some of our most famous colleges. Cheap tutors, unprac- 

 tised and unpaid boys are set to lecture to classes far beyond their 

 power to interest. We are saving our money for original research, 

 careless of the fact that we fail to give the elementary training which 

 makes research possible. Too often, indeed, research itself, the noblest 

 of all university functions, is made an advertising fad. The demands 

 of the university press have swollen the literature of science, but they 

 have proved a doubtful aid to its quality. Get something ready. Send 

 it out. Show that we are doing something. All this never advanced 



