STUDY IN TEE COLLEGE CURRICULUM 571 



None the less discreditable is a sympathy with idle students arising 

 from a similar spirit of idleness in the professor — and yet one is 

 tempted to believe that the real cause of such sympathy is often a kind 

 of unconscious fellow feeling. In few other professions is it easier for 

 the strenuous man to be overworked or for the opposite kind of man to 

 appear to fill his post ; so much of the teacher's labor is elusive and im- 

 possible to fit into an exact schedule of hours that practically nothing 

 but conscience or ambition can call him to account for loafing, and 

 nothing but his nerves warn him when to rest. Hence arises the fatal 

 risk that — given fallible humanity — this liberty may be abused, and 

 that bridge, golf or literary browsing may take the place of real work; 

 hence, too, the danger that the instructor who is living this delightful 

 life of ease in Zion may not hold before his student the ideal of tireless 

 effort, particularly when he finds that the only sure road to the goal lies 

 through the horrid drudgery of frequent conferences or written papers. 



Some of the causes of unwise leniency toward inefficient students 

 which we have been discussing are administrative rather than peda- 

 gogical; such are not always conspicuously operative in the creation of 

 "snap" courses. But ignorance of bad conditions — be it perverse or 

 innocent — is harmful in both directions at once; it militates against 

 the toning up of weak courses as well as against honest dealing with 

 obviously worthless students. Take for instance the amiable or un- 

 courageous pedagogue who conducts a "popular" course year after 

 year without making the slightest effort to discover why it is so pop- 

 ular — to determine, that is to say, whether he is exacting a decent 

 amount of collateral work week by week, or whether he is simply de- 

 livering an innocuous series of lectures followed by an examination 

 which practically any student can pass after four or five hours over a 

 printed syllabus; and who, if some base traitor hints at inefficiency, is 

 eloquent with denials in regard to conditions which he has never taken 

 the trouble to investigate. And yet it would seem a quite easy matter 

 to discover why our courses appeal to the student body. For instance, 

 we might enquire of graduates (for they are beyond fear or favor) 



pursue the courses offered, and, second, whether there has been a corresponding 

 increase in the number and efficiency of the faculty. Of late the only institutions 

 that exhibit much loss in registration are Princeton and Harvard, yet some 

 believe that few institutions have made greater gains in efficiency. This is not 

 a mere coincidence. The dropping of 680 incompetents in six years at Princeton, 

 and the loss of 50 'specials' at Harvard in 1910, has a meaning in progress 

 precisely opposite to the so-called great gains of some colleges. We must rid 

 ourselves of the notion that there is any credit per se in enrolment gains. Any 

 college — without exception — can increase its numbers if it is willing to pay the 

 price; just as, on the same terms, jailbirds can be elected to political office in 

 some American cities. Conversely, any college, without exception, can increase 

 its efficiency if it is willing to pay the price, which under present conditions is 

 likely to be a falling off in numbers. " W. T. Poster, op. cit., 320-321. 



