Mat 19, 1922] 



SCIENCE 



525 



ties play a large part in the development of 

 character and in the making of men who can 

 deal with men. I am not denying this. Rather, 

 I assent to it and give it emphasis. But I add, 

 also, that the undue multiplication of student 

 activities and campus side-shows plays an ever 

 increasing part in the pulling down of the edu- 

 cational system with which we have labored 

 so carefully and so painfully, and in the dis- 

 sipation of the scientifie efforts of those who 

 should be our best students. Superficial train- 

 ing is the inevitable result and superficial 

 training and narrowness of viewpoint are the 

 blight of our system of scientific education 

 to-day. 



Many of our American colleges make an 

 advertising point of the large numbers of stu- 

 dents who flock to their doors, but I believe 

 that it is no exaggeration to say that if we 

 could exchange our annual crowds of gi'aduates 

 in chemistry, immature in intellect, unsettled 

 in purpose and under-done in real scientific 

 education as too many of them are, for a small 

 fraction of this number of young men and 

 women of good minds, well grounded in funda- 

 mentals, possessing a broader culture and 

 accustomed to profound thinking on seriovis 

 matters, the world at large and the science of 

 chemistry would be immeasurably benefited. 

 That we are, even now, occasionally finding 

 some of these minds and doing something 

 toward their proper development is cause for 

 real rejoicing. That we might find and de- 

 velop more of them if conditions were changed 

 is a proposition that will bear examination. 



What, then, is to be done about this ques- 

 tion of the dissipation of the youthful fire of 

 our students among the hundreds of non- 

 essentials of college life? Change it, of course, 

 say our critics. Exactly. And if our Amer- 

 ican colleges were now, in the truest and most 

 complete sense of the word, "educational insti- 

 tutions" this would not, I verily believe, be a 

 particularly difficult or perplexing undertak- 

 ing. But, fellow scientists, our American col- 

 leges are to-day waking into the realization that 

 they have somehow developed a liason with an 

 organization that not only is not educational 

 in its purpose, — it is actually one of the most 

 insidious destroyers of educational standards 



that we have to combat to-day. This organiza- 

 tion is no other than the modern highly com- 

 mercialized intercollegiate athletic system, 

 financed by forces that care nothing for edu- 

 cation and fostered by extravagantly paid 

 coaches who trample all of the ideals of educa- 

 tion under foot in their desire for personal 

 glory and personal profit. 



There is a perfectly legitimate and desirable 

 field for college athletics. We desire that our 

 students shall have systematic physical exercise 

 because this makes for health and contentment 

 and thus, indirectly, for scholastic success. We 

 know also that the spirit of competition is an 

 all-powerful incentive for excellence in any line 

 of activity and the athletic game is the logical 

 expression of this. But this idea has become 

 almost entirely overshadowed through the de- 

 velopment of a system that places the vast 

 majority of our students upon the bleachers 

 and concerns itself with an excessive degree of 

 specialization with an almost negligible minor- 

 ity. A friend of ours has tritely stated that 

 the American people have become afflicted with 

 a disease which he calls "bleacheritis." They 

 find their highest enjoyment in lounging on the 

 side lines, entertained by mediocre "movies," 

 bad vaudeville, athletic contests or any other 

 novel spectacle, and they take too little inter- 

 est in wholesome activity on their own part or 

 in play for the sake of its effect upon their 

 minds and bodies. Even the hysteria of the 

 college "pep session" accomplishes only a tem- 

 porary rousing from this apathy. The result, 

 in college life, is the almost absolute failure of 

 physical education to accomplish any important 

 part of its mission to keep the bodies of our 

 students healthy and their minds alert, and to 

 turn them back into the class room and labora- 

 tory full of vim and enthusiasm for the most 

 important work of their education. This can 

 not fail to work harm to the scholastic success 

 of the student. That it goes even farther than 

 this and that it seriously affects the educa- 

 tional standards of our colleges is a fact which 

 we can not safely ignore. 



Within the past few months there has been 

 an unusual amount of discussion of the matter 

 of professionalism in college athletics. The 

 colleges have come in for a great deal of criti- 



