PAPERS PRESENTED AT GENERAL SESSIONS 75 



SELECTING AND EXCOUEAGIXG STUDENTS OF 

 SUPERIOE ABILITY 



Wm. a. Mabdox, President, Eockfokd Coixege 



It may be said that we have one common interest at 

 this conference, despite our highly specialized fields; 

 we are all in search of brains, of superior ability among 

 our undergraduates, and are at all times anxious to pro- 

 mote zeal for investigation, a deej) interest in and crav- 

 ing for original and creative work. I have, therefore, 

 determined as your official host to discuss briefly the one 

 topic that I hope will reach you all. 



The college as we see it is di^dded against itself. There 

 are two worlds — that of the students with its multiple 

 interests and increasing stimulations from society out- 

 side the college, and that world of scholarly attainments 

 and intellectual ideals to which we ask students to turn. 

 The college is, as President Meiklejohn has observed, 

 primarily, a place of the mind, not of the body, the feel- 

 ings, nor even of the will. It is a time for thinking, an op- 

 portunity for knowing. Against this intellectual inter- 

 pretation there are two sets of hostile forces constantly 

 at work, the practical demands of a busy commercial and 

 social life, and within the trivial, sentimental and irra- 

 tional misunderstandings of its o^vn professed friends. 



Students come to college for many reasons, they accum- 

 ulate ''credits" and talk of "cuts". They often ridi- 

 cule Phi Beta Kappa and Sigma Xi as a grind's para- 

 dise. 90^r average and a little more, which, to the eager- 

 minded and especially the creative-minded, does not rep-- 

 resent real intellectual attainment at all. Even the fac- 

 ulty encourages students to think that "student activi- 

 ties" must of necessity be extracurricula and non-intel- 

 lectual — foot-ball, fraternities, etc. If education comes 

 only through activity, then our ver\- vocabulary tells us 

 its own story; class-room, even laboratoiy work, is never 

 referred to as "student activity". 



These activities are certainly educative when made 

 part of the scheme of things, but to summarize the ad- 

 vantages of the modem college in tenns of a country 



