After reading with careful attention

the first instalment of views of college education expressed .by a writer in "The Freeman", who signs himself (or herself) not inappropriately "Somnia Vana", one gathers only that colleges of today are different from what they were a hundred years ago chiefly because the need to be served by them, has-changed. It is quite true that they are different. It is also quite obvious why they are different. And all the time they are at bottom essentially not different at all, but quite the same, in that they are seeking to fit themselves to do the work which the occasion demands of them.

The college of a century ago was primarily engaged in the training of scholarly young men to become preachers, or teachers. The curriculum of that day was the sort adapted, as far as men could well judge, to the end in view. The college of the present, seeking to spread as much enlightment as circumstances permit among great numbers of young men who will probably become either professional or business men, adopts a curriculum which appears to those now in charge best suited to the case. "Somnia Vana" appears to argue against this, or at least to regret it. But how otherwise, if the colleges are to function as their environment requires?

Of course theories are constantly changing as to the features of education which do, in fact, best fit students to assume the tasks of professional or business life. There has been a decided swing from the old notions of instruction, which fed the soul of man on the Bible and the Greek and Latin classics, to other courses more directly concerned with scientific progress; but this change has not been fortuitous, nor has it been the result of mere varying whim, or instability in the educators themselves. It represents an honest search for the thing that will serve. "Teach me what may be of service," once remarked President Eliot, "that I may serve mankind."

The perplexities besetting the determination of '"what will be of service" are manifold. The old standards have failed. That which was admirably adapted to the needs of colleges down to half a century ago, because it promoted the kind of service for which the college of that day offered its training, would certainly not serve well now. Many teachers and a few—too few-preachers are still produced by the higher institutions of learning in the United States ; but a host of other activities now clamor for equal consideration. A thousand now seek college education where formerly such education was sought by one. The college is not fitting a chosen few aspiring intellectuals for the ministry, or for the teaching profession. It is not dealing with a meagre fraction of leisured persons whose desire is for polite culture. It is training a vast army of young men and women for modern life—teaching them in part how to be efficient members of the community and in part how best to enjoy the goodly heritage of the ages. If the old theories have failed, there was abundant reason. But as of old the quest of the colleges is for the appropriate means to serve their day and to do the Work required of them.

Is it matter for vain regrets that the new conditions demand new methods? For many hundreds of years the task had been easy. The work lay in a restricted field and the methods which best served that field's cultivation were well crystallized into set forms. The changes have been very recent. They have resulted almost entirely from the abrupt broadening of the field itself.

"Somnia Vana" also appears to deplore the fact that this change has brought with it the necessity of elaborate financing. Time was when a few amiable sages sufficed to impart instruction to the few at an inconsiderable expense. The expenses have become colossal. But since it cannot be helped, and since it is evidently necessary if the colleges are to be of broader service to mankind, why wring the hands and weep over it? To be sure there has passed away a certain glory from the earth. Certain tender graces of a day that is dead seem quite unlikely to return. But the work is at hand, and the work must be done. It seems better to face it and assail it with fortitude than to indite serial diatribes bewailing the changes from what used to be.

That the business of such institutions has come to be highly complex is a necessary evil—if it be an evil. It is vain to dream of changing it. The investment is prodigious and to some extent it may prevent the unfettered expression of academic seekers after truth. The universities of today are interests , to borrow a cant political phrase, and radical seekers tor new and startling truths resent the fact without being capable of changing it. The comfortable feeling is that truth has been truth from the beginning, however often it has been misconceived; and that neither the conservative nor the progressive can alter it by one jot or one title. The main thing is to find it, be it what you please to imagine. And the continuing function of the colleges is to serve the truth, according as light is given to perceive it.

No one seems to have any clear ideas of what the new requirements demand, objects this writer in "Hie Freeman. That seems true also to many another - but on the whole it is quite natural. To adopt the attitude that what used to be sufficient must always be sufficient, or to take up the cudgels for an ancient faith and seek to maintain it against all. the world, as this critic implies would be creditable to our older educators, would seem to us more valiant than wise. We are in a period of. groping, a period of experiment, seeking the appropriate tools with which to do a definite job. The job differs materially from the old one, and the old tools will no longer serve. But, as always, the main thing is to get the job done, whatever it may be, in ways which fit the time.

It is entirely possible, and our opinion is that it is also wholly probable, that in the anxiety to amplify the mechanism to meet the new emergency we tend to overlook much that is still useful in the old. Because the so-called "classical" courses will no longer suffice by themselves alone, there is a tendency to cast them out altogether in favor of studies glibly assumed to be more "practical and better adapted to fit young people for the world in which they must soon bear a part; yet it is quite certain this attitude both overestimates the worth of the "practical" and underestimates the value of the "classical" training. The classics are not so lacking in practical usefulness as is commonly assumed. The sciences are far from being so practical as modern educators claim. To that extent, "Somnia Vana" is on tenable ground.

Apostles of the conflicting faiths in education, as in religion, are seldom tolerant. Devotees of the new and devotees of the old never make allowances for each other. T here is seldom a voluntary winnowing out of the chaff in either radicalism or conservatism. One is all for the new because it is new, or all for the old because it is old; and one is not sufficiently concerned for the virtues of either, qua virtues in their own right. Most men are born bigots, and for the moment, so far as education goes, the bigots of liberalism are having their fling to what may later seem an unwarrantable extent. Not all that is labelled "progress" is really progress.

But the groping for methods to meet a new and strange condition, by altering the college curriculum suitably thereto, should not be treated with contempt, or derided as blind whimsicality on the part of bewildered men driven hitber and yon by every wind of doctrine. It is not an unintelligent search. The establishment of new standards is not a rainbow-chase. It is a practical question. Here is a great task to be performed by the colleges, which differs very greatly from the tasks which even down to a score of years ago had remained fairly constant in their requirements. The change has been so sudden that it has entailed more or less of chaotic fumbling, beside which the old academic certainties may seem alluringly serene and assured. The orthodoxy which a man might tie to is no longer a matter of dogma—whether one speaks of education or of religion. The colleges, faithful for many years in a few things, have been called to be the rulers over many things. They have been much bothered and perplexed by this summons ; but we have every confidence that they will in due season arrive.

The newspaper press of this portion of the country has been discussing with more or less pertinence of late the question of censorship as applied in the colleges, either to the utterances of speakers on the colllege. property or to the student publications, apropos of two recent New England incidents, one in each line of repression. Opinions differ widely in this field, as in any other or non-academic field, where the question relates to forcible prevention of free expression; but the more reasonable view seems to be that when all is said and done the main issue is one of wise policy in choosing the course which will probably do the less harm.

The "right" of free speech, much lauded in oratory and in print, is notoriously subject to possible abuse; but it is contended with much plausibility that the abuses are really rare and are usually much less capable of working an injury than are most of the ill-advised efforts to check them. It is fatally easy to make martyrs out of unworthy material at times and generally speaking it does less harm to let an extremist cleanse his bosom of much perilous stuff than it does to choke his speech midvein and give him the chance to capitalize the incident. One sometimes suspects that the forceful repression of radical agitators, whether in the colleges or elsewhere, is a distinct favor to them rather than the reverse—more particularly if a satisfactory amount of publicity can be contrived. Checking a firebrand orator tends to advertise him; enhances interest in what he may have to say; often lends to a very foolish and inconsequential person more of prominence than he deserves by imputing to him an influence exceeding what he actually would exert if unmolested.

It is difficult to approve the course of any agitator who abuses collegiate hospitality by improving his chance to defame colleges in general. That is clearly not good manners, whatever else it be. The practical question, however, is whether it would not be better for the institution thus criticized to let the critic say his say, strut his little hour and reap all the human reaction which resentment of such an abuse infallibly would create, than it ever can be to step in, silence his tongue, or turn out the lights—and thus cause his original offense to be overlooked or condoned by the interposition of another and later one.

Speaking generally, the natural propensities of the American people, be their origins what you please, are all against the ready acceptance of any sort of censorship save in times of overmastering public peril. In other than war conditions, though making due allowance for the ultra-conservative element, we believe most people would rather not see either printed or spoken speech repressed, even when its guise be rather violent. If civilization is such a tender thing that the wild diatribes of every radical firebrand can menace its existence, it is hardly worth preserving by putting it under a bell-glass. One suspects that the real apprehensions of such menace are less often the reason for demanding forcible repression than a mere natural dislike of the spectacle itself. Within limits and on certain occasions not exactly of the every-day character, there is no doubt a positive peril in demagoguery; but in other conditions, much more likely to be of an every-day nature, it is possible there is even more peril in repression.

So far as the colleges go, these questions more often relate to what is called "academic freedom" than to general politics. How far should administrations in college offices overlook tendencies toward social or economic rebellion ? Which is the worse—to let the rebellious talk too freely, or try to apply too rigid discipline ? Is there any answer possible, save that the wise course varies with the particular case before one? The object of checking an unwelcome prophet involves the expectation that thereby his teachings may be nullified. If the effect is the reverse - that is, if to check an argument magnifies the delusion of its importance in the sight of many people who would otherwise ignore it—the project fails of fulfillment.

It may be that too often people omit to look at the question of academic freedom from both sides, preferring to treat the situation as purely unilateral. It is usually assumed that the apostle of every advanced revolt' against academic dogma is necessarily right, or justified, while the objectors are wrong, or unjustified; or vice versa. The one has all the rights, the other none at all. Assailants of an established order usually enjoy the advantage of a liberal handicap and the defenders of what has been accepted truth commonly suffer the adversities of starting far behind scratch. Proving an old doctrine to be orthodox by apostolic blows and knocks has usually the effect of intensifying the handicap in favor of the new and against the old.

He would be rash who arose to deny utterly the claims of academic freedom - perhaps more rash than he who arose to defend its wildest excesses. Destruction is usually more popular than construction. The world remembers Herostratus, but forgets just who was the architect of the Ephesian dome. It is unfortunate that men are by nature partisans, little disposed toward that sweet reasonableness which the middle course demands.

"Every little boy or gal Born into this world alive, Is either a little Liber-al, Or a little Conserva-tive.

We are so constituted that we take up cudgels for one or the other of two extremes—and the means have to establish themselves automatically as the resultant of conflicting stresses, commonly against the will of both, and at all events not completely satisfying either. Those who go in for academic freedom would abolish the conservative; those who detest change would abolish academic freedom. Out of the ferment, and due in just measure to whatever is true in both sides, comes progress. The intellectual ship seldom sails with a fair wind toward the haven of truth. It tacks toward it.

It is pleasant to be told by those who should know that the winter just past has been for Dartmouth one of unusual harmonious development, mingling intellectual with athletic and social entertainment in such proportions as to yield nearly the maximum of attainable efficiency. Such at all events is the impression derived from casual comment on the season's activities. It is no easy matter to adjust the balance between the work for which a college primarily exists and the diversions without which that work must suffer deterioration. That the results of the recent term have commended themselves in unusual measure to those best in position to observe and estimate is indicative of progress toward the desirable ideals.

A View of Hanover from the Air