How Should the Student Body Be Recruited? AT 
located. By taxation a fund shall be created and held by each county 
treasurer. Each beneficiary shall be paid by a draft drawn by him 
through the bursar of the college where said beneficiary is pursuing his 
work, and such draft shall be an order on the treasurer of the county 
in which the beneficiary resides to pay the amount of such draft. 
The purpose of this plan, as thus tentatively outlined, is to give a 
stimulus to better high school work, resulting in a sharper differentia- 
tion of those capable of more advanced education from those less capable. 
It aims to make capacity and ambition rather than the accident of birth 
the criterion for higher education. It is believed that it will result in 
a serious and purposeful student body-and, in a few years, in a more 
enlightened, moral and capable citizenship. To the exceptional few who 
are capable of educating themselves under present existing conditions 
this plan gives an added stimulus, permitting them to go farther than 
would otherwise be possible. Finally, it may be remarked that the 
economic burden of the student body on society would be less under this 
plan than under conditions now existing. Education of individuals 
selected after the usual four-year college course should be provided for 
by scholarships, which should be available only for post-graduate work. 
This subject of financial aid to students may not appeal to you at 
first glance as a matter of fundamental importance. But I wish to 
insist that it is. Other things being equal, that family or tribe or 
nation which gets for the family, tribe or nation the benefit of what it 
breeds will succeed over its neighbors or competitors. Biology has con- 
tributed one fundamental idea or concept to human thought—the idea 
of evolution. And legislation can be in harmony with or conform to 
evolutionary trends. Education of the most fit at public expense is, I 
believe, such legislation. Such legislation would tend to give the nation 
the benefit of what it breeds, a condition now imperfectly realized be- 
cause our college students are largely recruited from a numerically 
inferior portion of our population. 
“Heredity may confer some advantage; but genius generally mocks 
at heredity, and the frequent rise by sheer ability of men from the 
ranks of manual workers seems to prove that brain power in the case 
of a fairly homogeneous race exists in due proportion in all classes. 
The object of national education must be to provide, so far as possible, 
equal chances for natural talent wherever it is to be found. Otherwise 
there must be loss of national efficiency. At the same time, it must be 
remembered that marked intellectual power will always be the posses- 
sion of a minority, that real leadership will always be rare, and that 
training in all classes may be wasted if carried beyond the inherent 
capacity of the individual boy or girl. * * * Of about 600,000 chil- 
dren (in England) who now leave the elementary schools annually, only 
