FUNCTION OF THE AMERICAN COLLEGE 579 



standard which the college is called upon to maintain. The motive is a 

 good one, though one may suspect that intermixed with it one less de- 

 fensible also plays a part. Interpreted by the professorial mind, it too 

 often takes the form of an illiberal prejudice against admitting to the 

 benefits of learning any one who has not gone through with a particular 

 sort of officially recognized initiation, and thus complied with all the 

 regulations of the guild. The need for some sifting out process is, how- 

 ever, very real, and it has seemed the easiest way to erect a strongly 

 picketed fence, and take great pains to see that no objectionable person 

 gets inside. This has advantages, but at least it is unfortunate that it 

 seems to place the emphasis on exclusion rather than on the offering of 

 opportunity — a result which will show itself in pretty nearly any col- 

 lege faculty, where a question of the stricter interpretation of entrance 

 conditions can be counted on to arouse more enthusiasm than is ever 

 called forth by the case of the ambitious and possibly quite capable stu- 

 dent who can not meet the academic tests. 



It is scarcely to be expected, perhaps, that the college will turn back 

 from a policy so apparently settled. But it may at least be noted that 

 there is an alternative program. The only condition that is really es- 

 sential for permitting a student to take a given piece of work, is his 

 ability to do it with profit, and without detriment to the proper work- 

 ings of class-room efficiency. And to substitute for this the record of 

 past attainment, often merely nominal, is not only to erect a fetich 

 which may become obstructive, but it is largely to fail of the end in 

 view ; for every teacher knows that the possession of " credits " is almost 

 no indication that a boy is ready to go on with a new task. If instead 

 of making a test which precedes actual trial, the college were to make 

 this trial itself the test, were to let every one have his chance who 

 wished to take it, and then expeditiously and firmly exclude him so 

 soon as it became apparent that he was a misfit, not waiting until the 

 end of the year or of a term, but acting the moment there was no rea- 

 sonable question, not only might the real end be attained much better 

 than it now is attained, but it would be secured without danger of turn- 

 ing the college into a thing of mechanism and red tape, and without 

 restricting the advantages of education beyond absolute necessity. The 

 reason why this would not work can only be in terms of the instructor 

 himself. If he will not take the responsibility of using his judgment, 

 but will allow things to drag along without remedy, he will soon be in 

 trouble. But whereas there are institutions doubtless in which it is ad- 

 visable to discount as much as possible the defects of the human factor 

 by machinery, education is emphatically not one of these ; and the 

 tendency to make it such is one of its greatest present dangers. As a 

 matter of fact there seems nothing so far beyond the powers of the 

 average man who is competent enough to deserve a job on a college 



