52 Proceedings of Indiana Academy of Science 



The natural result, in this hypothetical institution, is a general 

 leaning toward the kind of work administered in the department or 

 the division which is dominated by the spirit and enthusiasm and ability 

 of these hypothetical professors. At least this should be the natural 

 result and it will be if the general oversight of the institution and of 

 its curricula is in the hands of men of broad vision and purpose, whose 

 planning goes beyond the ideas of credits, hours and standard courses, 

 to ultimate effects upon the training of students for useful and happy 

 lives in the scientific industries and research laboratories. Unfortunately 

 this is not always the case. The crime of visiting petty annoyances upon 

 this or that too successful teacher and of undermining his work in 

 order to attain the impossible result of magnifying the work of another 

 by comparison, or of withholding support from this or that too success- 

 ful department, is still being perpetrated, to a greater or less extent, in 

 most of our colleges. And what a tragedy of wasted years and means, 

 and of baffled and disappointed youthful ambition it is, that so many of 

 our young men, through no fault of their own (unless igTiorance of 

 the fate that awaits them may be considered a fault) find themselves 

 in colleges and courses and classes where the best that they are likely 

 ever to acquire is a precocious cynicism, a pessimistic philosophy whose 

 cardinal principle is to "get by" the professor, the college and the world. 



Is it any wonder that a student, thus disillusioned, turns with relief 

 to the hectic pleasures of the jazz parlors or to the gladiatorial combat 

 of the football field, or that he sometimes applies this same cynical 

 philosophy to the latter enterprise? Here, at least, energy and en- 

 thusiasm find an outlet in endeavor that has a chance to win some sort 

 of reward and approval. Perspiration and mental struggle may even 

 earn the satisfaction of public applause, whereas in such classrooms 

 as these there is no satisfaction or sense of accomplishment, othei- than 

 that represented by certain marks in the ijrofessor's class book and on 

 the cards of the Registrar. 



If we should now go to another college we should find a similar 

 state of affairs, with the exception that the emphasis might here be 

 in some other direction, which would again depend upon the character- 

 istics of the individuals of the department faculties within that school. 

 All of these differences in emphasis would show very strikingly in a 

 chart of hours devoted to typical subjects within the curriculum. 



These are merely two illustrations, selected entirely at random 

 and of purely hypothetical character. Let us extend the list and we 

 shall have a situation, not merely common but almost universal, of 

 colleges in which the work of the various curricula and departments, and 

 of the various divisions within the departments, is not well balanced, 

 or does not appear to be well balanced, simply because of innate diff'er- 

 ences in the minds of men. Where this lack of balance is the result 

 of conditions such as I have outlined, it is a very grave mistake to 

 attempt to correct it by subtracting from the work or influence of ap- 

 parently ovei'-emphasized departments, or of successful individual teach- 

 ers within these departments. The inevitable result is a desti-uction of 

 whatever merit the curriculum might originally have possessed. Such 

 correction must begin with a real upbuilding of the deficient depart- 



