The brief

summary published in the last ALUMNI MAGAZINE giving a brief outline of the report by Professor L. B. Richardson must be understood to be a brief outline only, although a very excellent one. It sketches the subject treated at more length by Mr. Richardson in his full report and represents a painstaking search through the leading educational institutions of this country and the British Isles in quest of ideas as to what the American college should wish to do, as well as a search for ideas of the best way of doing it. Naturally there is found a notable divergence of policies, especially between the American colleges and those in England.

It may be that this divergence affords us the best ground for entering upon a consideration of the general problem. According to Professor Richardson, the theory of the British universities differs most markedly from that in vogue in the American colleges in its exaltation of the better student as the man to put the real work upon—letting the mediocre student shift more or less for himself. The real students soon emerge from the ruck and are treated as affording the professors their serious concern. The task of developing them proceeds apace. In our country it is quite frequently a reverse process—the struggles of the faculty being to urge the laggards forward, while the more promising material, which will maintain its pace without any such urging, is left more or less to itself. Just what the result of balancing these different policies will be remains to be established by debate and experience. The initial question seems to us to be whether or not the present American theory of boosting the lame and the lazy is worthy of being discarded, in favor of a greater solicitude for the developing of such as reveal marked promise.

One should, as always, beware of easy answers to complex questions. The conditions in which American education takes place are candidly admitted by Mr. Richardson to be different from those obtaining abroad. It has come to pass in the last score of years that hundreds of young men aspire to college training who never would have dreamed of it a generation ago. The number of colleges worthy the name is tremendous. It is wholly natural, as we see it, that the tendency has grown up to lay stress on the laggard efad of the class, on the theory that it is the one which needs it, rather than encourage a tendency to neglect that end of the class as a pure waste of valuable time. The British theory is evidently the latter. If men who aren't disposed to make reasonable use of their privileges insist on coming to college, says the Oxford don, let them come and frivol away their time and their money—but do not allow them to waste the time of other and better disposed men. the due season they will either wake up, or drop out; probably the latter. Meantime let the men who came in order to learn, and who reveal an aptitude for learning, engage the very best efforts of the appreciative faculty. This idea has much to commend it. The question raised is only whether it fits well into the American scheme of things, or suits the aims which half consciously we have set for American college training. Of this we entertain some initial doubt.

Is the ' aim of a college to produce well-rounded scholars, taking the pick of the material submitted and devoting the major effort to its polish? Many insist that it is and they may be right. Others, however, have felt that the need of this comparatively new and rampantly prosperous country is for the slow and gradual raising of the general average of ordinary intelligence, by slight and often imperceptible increments, with intent to flood the land with a vast body of young men to whom a bare hint has been given concerning the things of the mind. For this 'theory there is also much to say. But it really does involve a wastage of effort in striving to drive forward the laggards, while the more promising men command less and less attention and naturally suffer much that others may benefit in a deplorably small degree. It may be that the time has come for a change, either in the general theory of all colleges, or in the particular pratice of some; and of course the major question for us is whether Dartmouth is one where some such alteration is feasible and desirable. The question is admirably presented by Mr. Richardson's report and will without question command the thoughful attention of all who have the matter at heart.

All education comes back to a matter of master and student—of ability in the former and of interest in the latter. The master is naturally most anxious to be of service to the student who shows an intelligent interest, and he has little stomach for the driving of the reluctant, who are doing what little work they do because it is required, rather than because it interests them, and because it forms the condition precedent to their remaining in college amidst pleasant associations which do interest them very much. The ideal instructor of youth is the one with a gift for making interest grow in spite of indifference—and it is a gift, rather than a faculty which admits of easy acquisition. Without intending invidious criticisms, it is commonly maintained that the gift is rare and that the bulk of any college's teaching force still has to rely on spontaneous combustion in the minds of the students to set them aflame with a holy zeal. The truth is that the problem is bipartite, and that it involves to an inevitably great degree a natural aptitude in the student to respond to invitation, rather than one factitiously created.

By dint of careful selection, it has been hoped at Hanover to insure a constantly greater percentage of interested students and a diminishing proportion of those who either cannot be, or will not be, aroused. It is, however, certain that there will be degrees of interest; and one great question raised by the Richardson report is whether the catering should hereafter be mainly to the promising end of the class, or should continue to neglect that end while prodding the less eager to assume at least a tolerable position.

Professor Richardson modestly disclaims to have done more than a bit of essential spadework in preparing the ground—but he has done it so admirably well and has cleared the issues with such success that the problem may be approached with the more address. This discussion is just beginning, rather than just ending. It will be well to remember that, and above all to avoid devising ways and means before we have established the desired ends to be served. At the risk of provoking opposition, we would respectfully suggest that in too many such discussions the propensity is to get on to the absorbing detail of curriculum-making before fully settling the main point of what the curriculum is meant to do. It seems that primarily we may have to decide between polishing the more promising scholars and prodding the less promising laggards. The College owes much to Professor Richardson for making that issue especially clear in his report contrasting the efforts of American and other institutions of learning.

It should not be understood that the point made by Professor Richardson with respect to more promising and less promising students indicates any rec- ommendation that the latter be neglected in order to enable more attention to. be paid to the former. If his idea is cor- rectly comprehended, it is to continue the present solicitude for the poorer scholars but to find means to enable a greater solicitude for developing the bet- ter ones—which is where we are said at present to fail. The necessities of the country and the circumstances of American society clearly dictate the wisdom of making the less eager students get forward as well they can; but it is insisted, and we believe with entire justice, that it is inadvisable to do this by letting the abler men shift so generally for themselves and by permitting the less able ones to slow down the whole machine to their own speed.

Generalizations are never very safe, but if one were to be attempted in this case it might be that we are doing only a part of our work as a college and that it is desirable to come closer than at present to doing it all. We are striving to prod all hands up to a passing mark; and the energy required to do this has militated against our having any to devote to the men who need no prodding.

Early in the winter the President of the College made a notable address at the Harvard Union in which he discussed rather frankly the relation of the colleges to life, making special reference to the question of specializing during the college course with a view to future professional activities. The address, which was remarkable for its sturdy common sense in the traditional Hopkins manner, has aroused more or less discussion and was no doubt intended to do so. The theses of our leading educators differ markedly in this particular of the function which it is desirable the colleges, qua colleges, should play; and the theory of President Hopkins is that their appropriate function may well be quite apart from that of anticipating the courses of the professional schools. "The college course," he reminded his hearers, "is the only open period of time that we have in adult life at the present day. I believe that the man will, be a better specialist who utilizes the college course for studying those things which are going to be farthest away and most inaccessible when he gets outside."

The bearing of this lies in the application on't. Is it wise and useful to make the professional studies reach their tentacles back into the undergraduate days—or is it unwise and harmful? Dr. Hopkins appears to have a feeling that the latter is true; and his remarks admit of that interpretation, plus a hint that universities would do well to beware of making their collegiate departments mere preparatory departments, feeding the various specialized ramifications which constitute them universities. The opportunity of the undergraduate to obtain a purely general cultivation should not be embarrassed by eagerness to get him into his apprenticeship as a lawyer, doctor, business expert, or what you will.

The danger exists to some extent in pure colleges—that is colleges which have not as yet sprouted university wings and probably will not do so. There is some tendency toward specialization even there, as is natural in an age where haste to get into the business of living is urgent and where, it may be, the broader culture still lacks a proper appreciation as the best of all preparations for obtaining the most that life offers. But the tendency is still more apparent in the larger institutions which maintain great and famous graduate schools of a professional sort; and if we comprehend the Harvard Union address aright, the President files a brief against this invasion of undergraduate days. The feeling is that not only may the embryo professional man be deprived unwittingly of his spiritual and intellectual birthright in exchange for a mess of professional pottage, but also may be precluded from the largest usefulness as a member of the profession which ultimately he is to pursue.

Whether there is in prospect a time when the various universities will frankly abandon their collegiate activities and leave that function entirely to the simonpure colleges of the country, is a more difficult question. That has actually been hinted at, even by eminent university heads. It has been rather confidently predicted by others and has received attention in past occasions from President Hopkins himself. It seems to the present editors to be a rather remote, but by no means improbable, contingency. Aside from that, the concrete argument against specializing too soon may easily stand alone, and it has so much of merit that we believe educators will find it increasingly profitable to ponder the idea with all seriousness. Let the youth from, say, 18 to 22 years of age have his day in the vestibule of the intellectual temple, unembarrassed by the thought that this subject seems to lead directly to the study of the law, or that to the study of engineering, or another to the learning of the physician. After all there is something in this world apart from technical proficiency, which has value—and if one does not seek it while it may be found it may never be sought at all.

It should be remembered that the revision of the procedure for the choice of Alumni Councilors, made desirable by the recent chainge in the method of choosing alumni trustees, was required by the technicalities of the situation to await further action by the alumni body at its meeting next June; so that, as an immediate result, there is' no great change in the aspect of this problem for the current year. The matter is engaging the attention of a special committee composed of Professor John King Lord, John Abbott and Lafayette R. Chamberlin, and the meeting of the Alumni Association in June will doubtless have something concrete to work upon.

The interim will probably be very well served by the old procedure, although it is liable to involve few district contests and therefore may seem to present to the alumni less than the desirable degree of options. The fact is that from now onward the recruiting of the Alumni Council is going to be an exceedingly important matter and the more interest the situation can be made to arouse, the better. Since the growth of the College makes it imperative to resort to a representative form of government, affording a small and workable cross-section of the Alumni throughout the country, a real eagerness to make the Council truly representative of all the districts and to insure the personal presence of the various delegates at the two usual meetings is of primary importance. As we see it, the Alumni Council is destined to become, with the very great assistance of the Secretaries' Association, the mouthpiece and the right arm of the entire alumni, acting with effect where the alumni body as a whole could not do so because of its unwieldy size and wide dispersion over a broad territory.

Time, however, must be allowed for inaugurating the new situation. The current ballots reveal some of that competition which affords an opportunity for selections out of a varied field—the necessary concomitant of a transition from one system to another. In future instances the broader democratization of council elections is confidently to be expected.

A notable gift to the College, recently announced by the President, is that of $100,000 from Mr. George F. Baker, the eminent New York banker, the income of which fund is to be unrestricted in its use by the College. Primarily this gift is intended as a memorial to Fisher Ames Baker '59, an uncle of the donor. The present Mr. Baker has not himself had any intimate relation with Dartmouth; but his interest in the promotion of education in the form of large benefactions to establish institutions has long been noteworthy, and his selection of Dartmouth for this particular gift in this extremely useful and unfettered form is highly gratifying.

One other donation, of which mention has been made in the news columns of this and other publications, is that of the new house for the President, to be constructed at once in the central location afforded by the area adjacent to Webster avenue and the Tuck Drive—a gift from the ever-generous and sagacious Mr. Edward Tuck, to whose liberality and interest Dartmouth already owed so much. The familiar house occupied during the past 25 years by the Presidents of the college has proved inadequate to the task of housing hospitably the chief executive of so large an institution as Dartmouth has become—entailing as the position must necessarily do the entertaining of many official guests in the course of a year. The plans already published indicate a tasteful and convenient presidential residence as one of the added attractions of the college community.

Not to enter into the controversial, it is to be noted that a lively interest in statecraft has taken root among the members of the College faculty, leading to the presence in the New Hampshire Legislature at the year's sessions of two Dartmouth professors—J. P. Richardson of the political science department, and C. A. Holden of the Thayer School, who are now members of the House. In addition the community is represented in the New Hampshire Senate by Mr. A. P. Fairfield, well known as the urbane and efficient manager of the Hanover Inn.

Professor Holden, by the way, is retiring from his position as. Director of the Thayer School, after an active and honorable career, with which he has mingled an efficient interest in the general affairs of the Hanover community as precinct commissioner, selectman and, as above stated, member of the Legislature. He graduated in the class of 1895 and subsequently received an engineering degree from the Thayer School. His activities as a teacher of mathematics and engineering have extended ever the period from 1901 to the present ; and in addition he did remarkable work in the special training of detachments at the College during the World War.