Culture and the State 55 



if they do not raise the tone of society, or refine the 

 public taste, if they do not contribute all the time to the 

 right direction of our democratic power, it is either that 

 they have departed from their own high purpose, or that 

 youth have ceased to recognize the excellency of that 

 beauty and power which the ages have approved. It 

 may be, as some would show, that a college graduate is 

 sometimes absolutely illiterate. If so, he has never been 

 a student ; he entered college a boor or street-gamin, and 

 has proudly held his own. The college is, however, re- 

 sponsible if such students continue to cast discredit upon 

 its own significance and its solemn high emprise. In the 

 Century of a year ago, you may read : ' ' We all slip too 

 easily into the feeling that the presence of these [idle] 

 students in the college community, while not beneficial, 

 to be sure, is at least not positively harmful. A more 

 fatal blunder could not be committed. . . The first 

 and crying need of the American college to-day is the 

 ejection, the ruthless ejection, of the man with the idle 

 mind. ' ' x The author means, of course, the incorrigibly 

 idle. At a certain age youth is naturally otiose. Our 

 author, I suppose, has not this idea in view. He means 

 the boys who are on the campus for social purpose, to 

 pass the time ; boys who have no intention to scholarship, 

 who, did they live to the age of the patriarchs, would 

 still be innocent, entirely innocent, of the slightest intel- 

 lectual enthusiasm or endeavor. 



Finally, to go back once more to botany, the culture 

 of our most perfected plants must be maintained ; it can 



i "What is Wrong with the College/' Professor Harold C. God- 

 dard; Century, May, 1914. 



