PRESIDENT'S HARVARD ADDRESS ATTRACTS WIDE COMMENT

On December 4 President Hopkins spoke before the Harvard Union under the auspices of the Committee on the Choice of Vocations. The subject of his address was "The Relation of College to Life." In his address the President urged the importance to the undergraduate of doing work which he may later have no opportunity to pursue rather than specialize in the narrow field of his future vocation. The address attracted wide attention and we quote from some of the editorial comment. The Harvard Alumni Bulletin comments as follows under the caption "President Hopkins Gives Us Sound Doctrine":

"There is nothing hackneyed or commonplace about the address on 'The Relation of College to Life' which we print in this issue. It proves that President Hopkins is not only abreast of the times, but in some respects a little ahead of them, which is where a successful educator ought to be. He has seized upon some of the most vital problems of the American college and illuminated; all of them in his own interesting way.

"In his plea for the avoidance of undergraduate specialization. Dr. Hopkins strikes a note that needs to be sounded with the loud pedal nowadays. There is too much of this specializing tendency among college students everywhere. Not a little of it is due to the advice which parents give to their sons, advice which is well meant but betrays a misty conception of what a college course is intended to be. The prime purpose of a college education is not that of preparing' a young man for the special profession which he has chosen. The undergraduate who takes all the scientific courses that he can cram into his program because he intends to be an engineer is not making the wisest use of his opportunities. Neither is the student who puts most of his time upon undergraduate courses in government and economics because he thinks that these things will help him in the law school. President Hopkins is right in advising young men to study in college the things 'which are going to be farthest away and most inaccessible when he gets outside.'

"Dr. Hopkins is of the opinion that the world of today is somewhat more tired and more lazy than usual. It has had too many thoughtprovoking problems thrust upon it during the past ten years. The result is that young men, and old men too, are pursuing more nonchalantly than ever the quest for the easy road to knowledge and truth. Hence it is that we have a recrudescence of fundamentalism, which is merely the easiest way of solving religious doubts, the one that requires the least amount of mental exertion. Hence it is also that we have a revival of paternalism as the easiest method of solving the problems which the individual ought to take in hand for himself; besides being the easiest, it happens also to be the crudest method. Hence, also, it might be added, the movement for eliminating from the curricula of schools and colleges everything that affords a real barrier to the progress of the intellectually torpid.

"Every paragraph of this Dartmouth educator's address contains sound, wholesome doctrine couched in clear, forceful English. We believe that our readers will enjoy it as much as a large audience of undergraduates did. It may not be amiss to mention, by the way, that although President Hopkins is not a Harvard graduate he is the son of one. His father was graduated from Harvard College fifty years ago last June and subsequently entered upon a long and fruitful service as a pastor, educator, and writer. So we are glad to claim President Hopkins as a grandson of Harvard and one whom we are always eager to welcome when he comes among us."

In discussing "What is an Educated Man" the New York Times also refers to this address. Quoting in part: "Here is the educated man according to the former Prime Minister (Ramsay MacDonald).

" 'The educated man is a man with certain subtle spiritual qualities which make him calm in adversity, happy when alone, just in his dealings, rational and sane in the fullest meaning of that word in all the affairs of his life.'

"Such a man may be as learned as Aristotle, or he may, as Mr. MacDonald said, have difficulty in signing his own name. He may be back in the country somewhere, singing the old folksongs, or talking about his sheep and his dogs, or quoting Burns. This is defining education not in terms of 'counts' and 'credit' courses, of 'majors' and 'minors,' nor in professional or other vocational achievements, but in simple spiritual and intellectual values. President Hopkins of Dartmouth, in an address on the relation of college and life before the Harvard students last month, said that the poorest definition ever given of higher education was that of an ancient Dean of Christ Church College, who, in enumerating what he considered its advantages to a student, said:

" 'First, that he may be able to read the Scriptures in the original text; second, that he may be entitled to a proper contempt for all who cannot; and third, that he may be able to earn a larger emolument than his neighbor.'

"If other subjects be substituted for the Scriptures, and a like contempt for those who are ignorant of such particular subjects, these advantages are, as President Hopkins hints, not so far away from what is in the minds of men today. His own definition of an educated man—who is qualified for leadership—might well be put beside Ramsay MacDonald's:

" 'Such a man must have been humble in the presence of great minds and great souls, must have been simple in contacts with his fellows, and must have been indefatigable in his desire to cultivate and to maintain the power of his mind and to accumulate that knowledge which makes up the data of accurate reasoning.'

"One is on the way to' bring an educated man and to the mastery of all things when in such attitude and industry he has, as MacDonald's 'Domsie' said, mastered one thing."