PRESIDENT’S ADDRESS. 
E. B. WILLIAMSON. 
HOW SHOULD THE STUDENT BODY BE RECRUITED? 
Some time after the English blockade went into effect, a public official 
learned to his surprise that there was some relation between fats and 
explosives. The relation was not clear in his mind, but he said he 
understood it was a recent discovery. Since then there has been a more 
or less insistent demand in England that more science should be included 
in the university curricula offered those who were to become the public 
men of the British Empire. 
Prior to the war these curricula have been much debated in all coun- 
tries. During the past twenty-five years high school courses have gone 
to the maximum of subjects and the minimum of thoroughness. The 
requirements generally in the science course in universities specify that 
the student must study French ov German, overlooking the obvious fact 
that a student who progresses to a point where either foreign language 
is essential requires both. To a dispassionate observer, therefore, it 
seems that the making over of curricula has resulted in small if any 
improvement. Certainly the present curricula are giving us no products 
of a more gigantic stature than the Huxleys, Kelvins and Haeckels of 
a past generation, themselves often critics of these very curricula. 
Is it not possible that some other more important factor is involved 
here? May it not be the composition of the student body which is at 
fault? Through elective courses and studies students dictate the cur- 
ricula to a considerable extent. For on their selection depends largely 
the relative strength of the various departments in every university. 
It seems, therefore, that the composition of the student body is of more 
immediate concern than the subject-matter studied. Professors cannot 
select or make students. Students can determine their professors; and 
it was an old Scotch professor who said: “The university is a fine place 
if it were not for the students.” 
Universities, their faculties and students are an economic burden to 
be borne only as society receives a commensurate return for their activi- 
ties. There is every reason to believe that following the war such insti- 
tutions will be scrutinized as possibly they have never been in the past. 
The composition of the student body will, I believe, largely determine 
the verdict under which such institutions must prosper or decline. 
(45) 
