852 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XLI. No. 1053 



sizes to an excessive degree the importance 

 of a single institution and fails to bring 

 home to students the desirability of devel- 

 oping emotional reactions in connection 

 with permanent motives. At an impres- 

 sionable age the emotional life of college 

 students is sharply focused upon the inter- 

 ests of a single institution and the general 

 drift of the affective undercurrents is so 

 rigidly determined as to make it exceed- 

 ingly difficult for the individual later in 

 life to cultivate a just sense of discrimina- 

 tion. The dynamic power of constructive 

 imagination depends upon the organization 

 of an individual's activities, so that there 

 should be coordination of feeling, sentiment 

 and volitional response; and it is just this 

 principle upon which so much of the 

 effectiveness of our intellectual efforts de- 

 pends that is practically not represented in 

 the organization of our universities; and 

 the failure to make this provision often de- 

 prives this country of the fruits of the 

 highest forms of intellectual activity. 



Mental habits once established, and mo- 

 tives called into play can not as a rule be 

 shifted later in life without seriously re- 

 stricting the intellectual horizon by the 

 forcible readjustment of the emotional 

 balance; an adaptation which is none the 

 less serious because the individual is not 

 aware of the process. As long as univer- 

 sities are controlled largely by their own 

 alumni and by boards of trustees repre- 

 senting the traditions, beliefs and paro- 

 chialisms of a single institution it is hardly 

 possible that these institutions will become 

 centers in which the type of personality 

 essential for creative effort in science, art, 

 or literature will receive a hearty welcome 

 or attain full citizenship. The influence of 

 the continental university is often unfor- 

 tunately restricted by racial prejudice and 

 national boundaries, but the American uni- 

 versity is pretty generally hemmed in by 



the much narrower parochialism of its own 

 alumni. 



May we not begin to let a little more 

 oxygen into the university atmosphere so 

 that the energy, enthusiasm and idealism of 

 American life which is already being put to a 

 world test may be wisely directed and not 

 repressed or stifled. Harvard's Back Bay 

 traditions, Yale's fixed belief in the value 

 of New Haven's ideals, Columbia's com- 

 placent metropolitanism, Princeton's faith 

 in imported culture, and Pennsylvania's 

 homing instincts all mark commendable 

 mental traits that have served a useful pur- 

 pose; and probably these qualities would 

 once again become active ferments if they 

 were transferred to new media. 



The following plan if carried into execu- 

 tion would probably tend to bring about 

 conditions more favorable than those now 

 existing for the liberation of the energy 

 stored up within our universities, and which 

 is so often wasted without any effort made 

 to convert it into a creative force. 



If each university tried the simple ex- 

 periment of appointing a small number of 

 consulting trustees, members of the faculty 

 of rival institutions, to meet once or twice 

 a year with the home-board they would 

 bring into the discussion of academic prob- 

 lems that sense of perspective and of values 

 which is now so feebly represented; and 

 definite progress would also be made in 

 preparing intelligently both to maintain 

 peace and deserve respect. This change 

 would be the equivalent of a public declara^ 

 tion of intentions to the effect that the 

 universities were prepared to abandon 

 their local traditions and prejudices, to 

 substitute for particularism a sense of na- 

 tionalism or even a broad world-spirit, and 

 thus they would become more intimately 

 identified with the intellectual life and 

 spirit of our civilization ; and then in good 

 time, following the growth of these broader 



