578 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



all, why should there not be a real pleasure, even for a normal American 

 boy, in the growth of the mental powers and in the acquisition of inter- 

 esting and useful knowledge? Is it preposterous to assume that a 

 healthy-minded undergraduate should be interested in the great 

 thoughts of the ancients and of the moderns, in the mysteries of biology 

 and of physics, in the great creations of art and of literature ? If your 

 college student be wholly unresponsive to these stimuli, is it not more 

 or less questionable whether he deserves a place in an educational insti- 

 tution, no matter how delightful he may be as a club mate? To be 

 sure, real attainment of any kind — even in athletics — involves drudgery 

 and discipline; but this condition does not preclude the possibility of a 

 large amount of enthusiasm in the class-room as well as on the field, 

 when once the business of the former shall be taken seriously. And 

 when we remember the microscopic amount of work that now meets 

 requirements in some of our most distinguished colleges, it would not 

 seem to indicate abnormal cruelty on the part of the faculties if they 

 should take a stand for a distinctly more strenuous working day and 

 the benefits to be derived therefrom. 



There are, of course, two obvious ways of keeping up our standard 

 — inspiration and compulsion. A few students will respond to the 

 former alone, but for far too many it is — at present, at least — a mere 

 question of " the amount of neglect of his studies permitted an under- 

 graduate without interruption of the privilege of residence." As Dean 

 Fine said to the Princeton alumni a short time ago: 



The typical boy entering a college like Princeton in these days is much 

 more vitally interested in other boys and in sports than in books. To him the 

 lure of college is not in its studies but in its life. By aid of the preceptorial 

 system and other means we are having a good deal of success in transforming 

 these careless young fellows into fair students. But a considerable proportion 

 of them find the undergraduate life and activities so absorbing that in respect 

 to study they will respond to no other impulse than compulsion. 7 



Like the preceptorial inspiration, this compulsion — to be genuinely 

 valuable — should be exerted continuously and not semi-annually. For 

 the ordinary college course no sort of examination has yet been invented 

 which an intelligent crammer can not circumvent by midnight diligence 

 at the end of the term. The reward of this diligence is not always a 

 mere pass; frequently it is an honor mark. Classmates of a brainy 

 Princeton man will recall his " first group " in psychology after a two- 

 hours' session with some printed notes; others will point to the Har- 

 vard tutor who secured an idler a B in zoology as a result of five hours' 

 coaching. 8 To be sure, examinations and even the right sort of cram- 



T ' ' Innumerable devices to coax boys to work have failed in cases where the 

 one thing needful was to convince them, by the evidence of enforced discipline, 

 that they must work or leave college." W. T. Foster, op. cit., 321. 



8 Both of these statements have been verified by the principals. The first is 

 literally true as it stands; the following letter gives the exact details of the 



