October 15, 1909] 



SCIENCE 



503 



have no necessary connection with creative 

 imagination, but they are more common 

 among men who have achieved some meas- 

 ure of success ; and what is not less to the 

 point, the students ascribe them more read- 

 ily to a man whose position is recognized, 

 than to a young instructor who has not yet 

 won his spurs. "Wherever possible, there- 

 fore, the general course ought to be under 

 the charge of one of the leading men in the 

 department, and his teaching ought to be 

 supplemented by instruction, discussion 

 and constant examination in smaller 

 groups, conducted by younger men well 

 equipped for their work. Such a policy 

 brings the student, at the gateway of a 

 subject, into contact with strong and ripe 

 minds, while it saves the professor from 

 needless drudgery. It has been pursued at 

 Harv'ard for a number of years, but it can 

 be carried out even more completely. 



"We have considered the intellectual rela- 

 tion of the students to one another and its 

 bearing on the curriculmn, but that is not 

 the only side of college life. The social 

 relations of the undergraduates among 

 themselves are quite as important; and 

 here again we may observe forces at work 

 which tend to break iip the old college 

 solidarity. The boy comes here sometimes 

 from a large school, with many friends, 

 sometimes from a great distance almost 

 alone. He is plunged at once into a life 

 wholly strange to him, amid a crowd so 

 large that he can not claim acquaintance 

 with its members. Unless endowed with 

 an uncommon temperament, he is liable to 

 fall into a clique of associates with ante- 

 cedents and characteristics similar to his 

 own ; or perhaps, if shy and unlmown, he 

 fails to make friends at all; and in either 

 case he misses the broadening influence 

 of contact with a great variety of other 

 young men. Under such conditions the 

 college itself comes short of its national 

 mission of throwing together youths of 



promise of every kind from every part of 

 the countiy. It will, no doubt, be argued 

 that a university must reflect the state of 

 the world aboiit it; and that the tendency 

 of the time is toward specialization of func- 

 tions, and social segregation on the basis of 

 wealth. But this is not wholly true, be- 

 cause there is happily in the country a 

 tendency also toward social solidarity and 

 social service. A still more conclusive an- 

 swer is that one object of a university is to 

 counteract, rather than copy the defects in 

 the civilization of the day. Would a prev- 

 alence of spoils, favoritism or corruption 

 in the politics of the country be a reason 

 for their adoption by universities? 



A large college ought to give its students 

 a wide horizon, and it fails therein unless 

 it mixes them together so thoroughly that 

 the friendships they form are based on 

 natural affinities, rather than similarity of 

 origin. Now these ties are formed most 

 rapidly at the threshold of college life, and 

 the set in which a man shall move is mainly 

 determined in his freshman j^ear. It is 

 obviously desirable, therefore, that the 

 freshmen should be thrown together more 

 than they are now. 



Moreover, the change from the life of 

 school to that of college is too abrupt at the 

 present day. Taken gradually, liberty is a 

 powerful stimulant; but taken suddenly in 

 large doses, it is liable to act as an intoxi- 

 cant or an opiate. No doubt every boy 

 ought to learn to paddle his own canoe; 

 but we do not begin the process by tOssing 

 him into a canoe, and setting him adrift in 

 deep water, with a caution that he would 

 do well to look for the paddle. Many a 

 well-intentioned youth comes to college, en- 

 joys innocently enough the pleasures of 

 freedom for a season, but released from the 

 discipline to which he has been accustomed, 

 and looking on the examinations as remote, 

 falls into indolent habits. Presentlj^ he 

 finds himself on probation for neglect of 



