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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXIX. No. 741 



persons financially able to enjoy the best 

 opportunities available. And whatever 

 the attraction which literature or science 

 may have for some of these intrinsically, 

 or whatever the value a college degree may 

 assume as a mark of social distinction, the 

 real standard of value generated by this 

 whole process, as Professor Sumner has 

 pointed out, is that of "success." The 

 studies of the college course seem to bear 

 little relation to this ideal. 



And this leads us to a broader state- 

 ment. The fixed ideals and standards of 

 the older society, which kept men in their 

 place and held them to their work, have 

 broken down. The churches are feeling 

 the same difficulty. Men are largely ab- 

 sent from the pews. They, or at least 

 many of them, are not taking the churches 

 seriously. Many in former days were 

 kept in the church by the general ideals of 

 the community, and so in college many 

 who had no absorbing interest in the work 

 for its own sake nevertheless yielded to 

 the spirit of college and society, and 

 worked under the general idea that the 

 discipline of the college course was vali- 

 dated in a superior law. Such students 

 no longer feel any external pressure. 

 Serious-minded men are groping for new 

 conceptions in religion, economics, politics 

 and law. But these have not been thor- 

 oughly enough worked out as yet to re- 

 place the old fixed control. Not only the 

 flippant, but the earnest are more or less at 

 sea as to standards and values. As Mr. 

 Crothers puts it, even "the way of the 

 benefactor is hard." 



Some, indeed, seem to feel fairly well 

 satisfied with the situation. President 

 Eliot in his recent work on University Ad- 

 ministration has a good deal of faith in the 

 present system if there is a proper intrin- 

 sic relation maintained between courses, 

 supplemented by a judicious arrangement 

 of the time schedtde. Some colleges have 



changed their schedules so as to require 

 residence at the week end from those stu- 

 dents who had fallen into the habit of 

 spending their leisure half week in neigh- 

 boring cities. But such considerations, as 

 well as reports like that of the Harvard 

 Committee, and the frank statements of 

 students themselves, point to a real defect. 

 Some would attribute the difficulty en- 

 tirely to the presence of a frivolous clasa. 

 But this is evasive. Many, if not most, 

 even of this class, settle down to hard work 

 the moment they enter business or a pro- 

 fessional school. And even those who are 

 not on principle averse to anything like 

 strenuous effort feel a certain unreality 

 in the whole situation. There seems to be 

 not only the attitude of "detachment" 

 belonging to the older conception of 

 "liberal" education, but also an attitude 

 which the sestheticians call "make-be- 

 lieve." Now detachment, or even make- 

 believe, may be valuable as a factor in de- 

 veloping a broader, deeper interest, and a 

 more significant, richer purpose. But four 

 years of make-believe seems to be over- 

 working this factor. The young men 

 themselves are coming to think so, and the 

 public at large, while taught to respect the 

 wisdom of its educational experts, is be- 

 ginning to ask questions. 



in. SUGGESTIONS TOWARD READJUSTMENT 



The general line along which remedy 

 is to be sought for the present lack of 

 seriousness and lack of connection seems 

 to be a reconstruction of the college ideal 

 of liberal culture. This promises to be 

 brought about by a greater introduction 

 of the vocational element and spirit into 

 college work. And this introduction of 

 the vocational into the liberal is being 

 made possible and desirable because the 

 vocational is being itself permeated and 

 transformed by the liberal. 



The reason for the old-time sharp oppo- 



