1903-04 Volume 28 No 1–5 - Phi Delta Theta Scroll Archive

438 THE SCROLL.change was made at Harvard several years ago. Speakingbefore the Yale alumni association of central and westernMassachusetts, February 28, President A. T. Hadley said:Harvard would have the student spend three or four years in generalstudy, and then begin his life work as something new and wholly different.Yale would so order those three or four years that the man should havefound out by experiment what he wants to do and what he can do best, andthus should have made some serious progress in laying the foundation forhis work in life. Harvard would defer all professional study until after theman has graduated. Yale would allow as much professional study to comeinto the college course as is compatible with the wide social attachments andbroad moral horizon of the undergraduate world; glad if the student cantrain his professional powers at a time when he is also being trained to subordinatethose powers to the public welfare.The effect of the Harvard system is to lengthen the course in the professionalschools and indirectly, I believe, to shorten the college course andweaken its intensity. The effect of the Yale system is to put as much aspossible into the college course—to retain that old combination of educationaland social and (in the best sense of the words) sentimental and religiousimpulses we all remember and all so highly cherish.Speaking at the first annual banquet at the NorthwesternUniversity club of New York, held in that city, March 11,President E. J. James said:President Butler of Columbia University has followed President Harperof the University of Chicago in foretelling the early end of the Americancollege in its present shape, and both of them have done what they could tohasten this end by propositions looking toward shortening the course fromfour years to three and two years respectively. Whatever may be true oftwo centuries from now, or of the colleges in the great cities, there is noindication at present of any such decline in the better colleges or those favorablylocated for college work.It cannot be denied that there are many students in college who oughtnot to be there and who would much better be at work. Northwestern Universityproposes to sift the student body and select from among those whoapply the best and most promising material. We have just established inthe college department 100 scholarships which are to be assigned upon aunique basis, paying no attention to merely academic standing, which is thestandard ordinarily accepted by American colleges, rejecting in toto themethod of competitive examination which is all but universal in England.Northwestern University proposes to apply tests which will select as far' aspossible those individuals who give promise of high achievement in theirfuture career.Whatever fun practical men may poke at the college graduate they showtheir appreciation of him and his services by running after him so hard thathe can hardly be kept in college until the completion of the course. Thefalling off in attendance complained of in some quarters is not due to thedissatisfaction of the students, but to the urgent demands of business menwho offer them strong inducements to leave college and go into their employ.At the annual dinner of the Lafayette College alumni associationof New York, held in that city, March 11, President