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 interesting 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 institution, 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 undergraduate without interruption of the privilege of residence." As Dean Pine 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.[1]
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 team. 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 Harvard tutor who secured an idler a B in zoology as a result of five hours' coaching.[2] To be sure, examinations and even the right sort of cram-
- ↑ "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.
- ↑ 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
