268 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



daily actions. Even the community in which he lives is prone to scorn 

 his efforts to play a part in the settlement of the questions that inti- 

 mately concern him. 



A few years ago internal troubles in one of our universities led to a 

 rumor that the president had asked for the resignation of every member 

 of the faculty. In consequence of this a mass meeting of the students 

 was called, but before the students assembled a message was sent them 

 by the president saying that no meeting would be permitted unless the 

 students agreed to act in accordance with his wishes. 



A few days later one of the city papers in discussing the situation 

 said editorially, 



First of all a ■warning should be given to the students. They should be 

 politely, but firmly, ordered off the stage. They are not in the remotest degree 

 a factor in the present affair. The factors are the president, the directors and 

 the taxpayers as a body. The students, who contribute next to nothing to the 

 finances of the university, represent only 400 or 500 taxpayers. The student 

 body of the university represents an insignificant fraction of one of the three 

 factors of the present issue, and, therefore, should have so small a voice in the 

 affair that it is not worth considering. And they should remember that what 

 voice they have is as taxpayers, not as students. 



Nevertheless, tradition does not always remain impregnable and 

 there are signs of weakness in some of its strongholds. The college 

 student may have come from a school city where in a public high school 

 he has had some small share in educational legislation and administra- 

 tion. He may have entered from a private secondary school where self- 

 government has attained a vigorous growth. If in college his abilities 

 lead him into the field of science, the spirit of investigation he meets 

 there turns his questioning mind to the investigation of education; if 

 his interests lie in political science the organization of the state directs 

 his thoughts to the organization of education; if he is absorbed in 

 economics, the question of the mutual relations of capital and labor, of 

 employer and employee, of the individual and the state lead to questions 

 of the mutual relationship of all parties concerned in education; the 

 very process of education trains him in mental activity and he is quick 

 to apply this activity to the study of the conditions in which he is placed. 



Again, he can not escape the discussion of all phases of the question 

 as it is presented in the daily press and in current periodicals. The 

 spirit of research, of investigation and of inquiry in every form is 

 abroad in every land, and it has its influence on the college student. 

 Democracy in the state, in society, in industry, is taking on new mean- 

 ings and is making new applications. Experiments in self-government 

 are being tried in reformatory, corrective and penal institutions, and 

 even hospitals for the feeble-minded and for the insane are turning to 

 the same plan as part of their remedial treatment. 



