STUDY IN THE COLLEGE CURRICULUM 567 



THE PLACE OF STUDY IN THE COLLEGE CURRICULUM 



By Dr. P. H. CHURCHMAN 



CLARK COLLEGE 



TF some acute and unconventional enquirer should raise the question 

 -L whether the governing ideal of the American college is and ought 

 to he severely intellectual, the man who takes things at their face 

 value would experience a shock. He has never supposed that any other 

 sort of ideal was conceivable. Look at the catalogues ; do they not give 

 sufficient evidence of a passionate interest in things intellectual by their 

 whole-hearted devotion to courses and honors, to admission and gradu- 

 ation, to fellows and faculties? Such a theory may perhaps be par- 

 doned in one who is on the outside, but a bowing acquaintance with the 

 realities would suffice to show that this opinion held by our trustful 

 friend simply proves that he has not investigated the facts; 1 for, if he 

 cared to take up such an investigation, scores of college teachers could 

 provide him with interesting evidence indicating what many students, 

 alumni and parents, and even some faculty members, really think about 

 this matter. As the first exhibit in their case against the great aca- 

 demic illusion, critics might present a vigorous article on the subject of 

 college "cutting," recently published in the Harvard Graduates' Maga- 

 zine 2 by Dean Hurlburt, for therein the writer incidentally pays his re- 

 spects to the intellectual ambitions of some students and parents whom 

 it has been his rare good fortune to know. He cites one especially in- 

 teresting case — that of a father whose son, in spite of notable success 

 in athletics, had been dropped from college. This father was a college 

 graduate, but the educational conception of the college does not seem 

 to have troubled him greatly, and he appears to have been perfectly 



1 If any reader should feel that the position of this article is extreme, he is 

 invited to read President William T. Foster 's able book on ' ' The Administra- 

 tion of the College Curriculum" (Houghton, Mifflin, 1911), Part II., passim. 

 There he will find views no less radical — to say the least — than those defended 

 in these pages, and he will also be supplied with a detail of argument and some 

 scientifically marshalled evidence that are impossible in a brief article. Presi- 

 dent Foster's conclusions frequently agree strikingly with those of the present 

 writer, but the fact that his book was not read until after this article was 

 practically completed is sufficient proof that most of these coincidences are 

 undesigned. Some of my contentions, however, have been considerably revised 

 after reading his book, which, for this reason, and for the purpose of presenting 

 the other accidental confirmations of my arguments, has been freely quoted in 

 the notes. 



2 March, 1911, pp. 400 sq. 



