Editorial Comment

For opinions which appear in these columns the Editors alone are responsible

ANOTHER HARKNESS PLAN

THE apparently inexhaustible millions of Mr. Edward S. Harkness now begin to find their way into the field of the preparatory schools, the principal beneficiary to date being Phillips Academy, at Exeter, to which admirable institution the gift of something exceeding $7,000,000 has been offered. The idea, if one may judge by what has appeared in print, is to apply to the great preparatory schools something very like the attempt in the larger colleges to bring small groups of students into more intimate relationship with competent instructors. How far this is capable of development among the myriad big schools of the land seems open to debate, but the experiment will be interesting. Speaking generally, it is no doubt as true of the preparatory schools as of the colleges that a teacher attempting to deal with very large classes at a single sitting will be unable to get as good results as he would be likely to get if he had before him not more than eight or ten boys. But in order to make class units small to that degree there must obviously be a great increase in the teaching force, a considerable augmentation of the plant, and a consequent increase in the expense an increase so staggering as to put it beyond the pale of possibility save when some plethoric philanthropist comes to the rescue, as Mr. Harkness has done in the instance of Phillips Exeter.

AN ECHO

THE principal of St. Paul's school, Dr. Drury, not long ago voiced an opinion, which many will recall having heard before, that "too many boys are going to college." This dictum, first put forth by President Hopkins in a widely-quoted address to an incoming class at Dartmouth, promoted a general discussion but when understood met with little or no dissent. It has probably been reiterated since, but not with the amount of public notice accorded to Dr. Drury's statement; and as a matter of fact there can be no objection to the frequent repetition of an idea which is essentially valid, but which men commonly tend to ignore.

According to published reports of his restatement of Dr. Hopkins' dictum, Dr. Drury went on to estimate the number of preparatory school graduates who are reasonably likely to obtain benefit from a college course at 75 per cent. One might easily conceive this to be flattering. Much depends, however, on what one regards as the amount of benefit which it is reasonable for an ordinary man to derive from college education, as distinguished from what the exceptional man of Phi Beta Kappa standing will obtain. There are beyond doubt fully three-quarters of the graduating class in any good preparatory school who will at least derive no harm from four years in college, although probably not quite so many may be regarded as likely to get from those years what the ordinary run of boys, not as yet fully alive to intellectual opportunity, could be asked to do.

Whether or not it is a complete waste of time and money for boys to go to college who fall considerably short of the reasonable minimum of benefit may be doubtful. Most of them do get something, even if not the fair worth of their money and effort, and by so much are improved. The price paid is excessive, but something of positive value is received, even if it be reluctantly and in measure below what might have been taken. The great objection remains that the presence of many indifferent students raises an obstacle against the admission of others more alert, who would make a better use of the chance afforded them.

COLLEGE FINANCES

To most of us there is nothing much drearier in the realm of literature than a treasurer's report, with its acres of figures and a balance sheet that is apt to be double-Dutch to the ordinary intellect. Hence the surprise and relief when a document of that sort comes along which can be perused with understanding and genuine interest—such, for example, as that submitted recently by Mr. Edgerton, the Treasurer of the College. The careful study of such a report will be found enlightening to alumni on lines of special interest to them.

Summarized in the briefest form the most recent statement reveals that the College received an income of $1,796,925 and expended for the year $1,811,321 which means that it spent in round figures $14,000 more than it received.

It is also interesting to learn that this deficit—the first to be reported in nine years—represents almost exactly the sum by which the Alumni Fund fell short of attaining its quota. In other words, if the Fund had attained the full $135,000 which was set as its goal, there would have been no deficit at all. It has come to be the normal thing for the College to be able to balance its books—and sometimes to have a little left over to put into the general endowment. Last year was, of course, an abnormal one the world over and the prevalence of "hard times" tended to impair the usual efficiency of this collection as it impaired all other collections. That the result was no worse seems a cause for congratulation.

That it invites a sober consideration of the problems facing the Fund committee this year needs hardly to be stated. The quota will remain at $135,000 and the requirements for the College budget will naturally be no less than formerly. The hope is that with a clearer view of what the case demands we shall be able in the current fiscal year to balance the budget—that is, produce income equivalent to outgo, if no more.

It is notorious that in all the colleges the tuition fees paid by students do not begin to meet the expense of their education, and in our Dartmouth case the $400 fee appears to figure about 50 per cent of what is required. Mr. Edgerton's summary indicates that the income per student—including what he pays in fees, plus the yield of investments and gifts—totals $803, whereas the outgo per student comes to $809; so that there is (or was in the the year just closed) a deficit per capita of $6.

Analysis of the figures may be interesting. The actual cash paid in by the students (after deducting scholarships) comes to $356 per capita, as against a directeducational expense (instruction and library costs) of $556. In addition to this direct expense, there must be charges to cover administration costs, plant operation and maintenance, sundries of various kinds and the various elements that go to make up what the statisticians call "overhead," which bring the total per capita expense up to the $BO9 above mentioned. To the $356 paid in fees by the student must be added what comes in as his $329 per capita proportion of yield from endowment funds, and from miscellaneous sources and forthright gifts of an income character, which latter means primarily the Alumni Fund.

This amounts to saying that with our tuition fee at $400 the student pays about half the cost of his year. The income from investments of the endowment yield less than enough to make up the other half, and the slack is regularly taken up by annual gifts from the alumni—representing in effect the interest that would be gathered if our endowments were large enough to meet the case. Last season the gift fell short, and a red ink item of $14,000 was the natural result.

It is possible that with the progress of years tuition fees in similar colleges will tend to rise somewhat above the present $400 level which obtains in the more considerable institutions. The question is not of boosting the figure until the individual student pays in fees the full cost of his year, because even in smaller colleges there is pretty sure to be an endowment yielding enough to reduce appreciably the discrepancy. As seen above, it amounts in our own case to a yield of only about $329 per man, so that it and the tuition fee together take care of nearly 85 per cent of the actual cost. The question then comes whether or not the fees should be advanced farther to deal with the 15 per cent of deficiency. That the time is not ripe for adding another $100 to the present fees seems clear enough, whatever may come to be true in future years.

The upshot of it all is that in order to balance the budget next June the usual process must be gone through, which will hopefully yield us over and above the costs of collection a net sum of nearly $130,000 to take care of what, in homely rural phrase, used to be called "the gap between the vest and the pants" to wit, the deficit remaining after tuition fees and endowment income have been combined. These will still fall some 15 per cent short of the total requirement. Taking care of this must still be the alumni's job and probably will be for some years to come. To our credit, we generally get away with the task in good style. Last year was the first in nearly a decade in which we fell downbut there was a reason far beyond alumni control. Knowing that to some degree it will also be operating in 1930-31, presumably an extra effort to counteract it is in order, of which it is not too early to be thinking.

MASS PRODUCTION IN COLLEGE

IT WAS inevitable that an outcry against mass production in education would be raised—in fact it was raised long ago by those who deplore the fact that in dealing with so many students the colleges cannot well devote their time to the development of special geniuses -—but of late the protest has been assuming a more definite form. On both sides of the Atlantic the objection has been heard that because of the attempt to educate such multitudes there is a probability, if not the certainty, of a deficit in the ranks of eminent scientists. One British critic even seems to imply a hankering for the good old days when the great masses of mankind were distinctly uneducated and when outstanding scholars and noteworthy writers were apparently more numerous than they are now.

Is this quite fair, though, to modern education? Does the fact that we are devoting our energies to raising the intellectual level of mankind in the mass really retard the development of genius? Or is the seeming decline in the number of men of excessive brilliancy due mainly to the fact that there is less difference between such and the average of man's intellectual attainment? It has been said that the ordinary servant girl of today knows more about many things than did Queen Elizabeth.

Like every other thing, mass production unquestionably has its defects. If it had none it would be unearthly. As applied to industry it has given us serviceable wares at low cost, but has caused a distinct loss in artisanship and a decline in the numbers of really skilled artificers. One does not become a good all-round mechanic if one spends one's days in tightening Nut 361 in every Ford chassis that comes along the ways. For what advantages inhere in mass production a price has to be paid, and in some ways it is a heavy one. Things are cheaper, and in some ways less good than they were when loving individual labor went to their elaboration. It is perhaps even more true of mass education; but even so we cannot see that the attempt to educate great numbers of men who have not the faintest spark of special genius necessarily discourages the few who are born with that spark. Is there discernible anywhere a real lack of scientists, such as we are told will ensue if we go on trying to make scholars of young men who never can be scholars? Has there been any slowing up of the world's scientific advancement? It would be difficult to maintain that there has been.

Presumably the eminent scientist, like the poet, is born and not made. The greatest have educated themselves. It is doubtful that we should be better off as a modern people if only those went to our colleges and universities who had it in them to be Edisons, or Sir Isaac Newtons. As a practical matter we should probably be much worse off. In fine, this outburst against the whole theory of higher education for the masses, on the ground that it retards the development of conspicuous genius, is probably arrant nonsense arising out of the misconception of obvious facts. No amount of college education is going to augment very much the number of stupendous scholars—that is, we aren't going to reap a bumper crop of them just because we sow such an incredible amount of seed. But it does not necessarily follow that we shall get fewer than we otherwise might if we educated only the selected few who look as if they might be prodigies of research and invention. If we taught every boy drawing and painting we should get no more Raphaels and Michelangelos than before—but is it so certain we should develop fewer?

There are times when one is forced to suspect that not all the muddled thinking is done by the Man in the Street.

AMERICAN EDUCATION

MORE or less acerbity might be expected in the retorts of irritated university men to the recent outgivings of Dr. Abraham Flexner in his book, "Universities; American, English, German," because the criticisms of educational ideas as exemplified in the greater American institutions were peculiarly caustic, more especially as applied to Columbia, Chicago and Wisconsin. The Flexner complaint appears to be chiefly that, with the multitude of minor technical courses, correspondence schools, schemes for university extension and home study, American universities tend to retail education as a matter of the bargain counter, or chain store, and that in the. process it is inevitable that they harbor educational quacks and charlatans. The initial reaction of the heads of the institutions most caustically criticized has been to say nothing in reply until the lapse of cooling time; but there has been a prompt rallying of their subordinates in defense of the American theory—which confessedly differs from the British and German, but may still have something to be said for it despite this fact.

One may as well admit, however, that in his criticism Dr. Flexner has come dangerously close to twitting on facts, whether or not his conclusions based on those facts are valid. The net result is likely to be that there will be a lessened avidity to sneeze every time anybody named Flexner takes snuff. There is bound to be a demand that the ideas expressed be canvassed and estimated with reference to the peculiar need of a country which differs markedly from both Great Britain and Germany. It is quite evident that the plan followed at Oxford, Cambridge, Bonn, Gottingen and other famous universities of the Old World would hardly suit our requirements, although few would dispute the assertion that such institutions are better fitted to turn out picked specimens of ripe scholarship. Yet it is very true, as we see it, that the inclusive curricula of the bigger universities do remind one rather too forcibly of the modern drug-store, in which the multitude of other merchandise offered for the patron swamps the prescription department, or so far occults it that it is likely to be overlooked and forgotten.

THE WOMEN'S COLLEGES

THE DISPROPORTION between financial gifts to colleges for men and similar benefactions to colleges for women has been increasingly commented on of late by various executives in charge of the latter—first in an article a year or more ago in the Atlantic Monthly sponsored by seven leading women's colleges in the Northeast, and more recently at formally arranged meetings in which these same colleges have played a leading part. One such was held in Boston in November, at which the presidents of all seven took part, the exact financial situation being presented by the only man among the group—President Neilson of Smith.

It is impossible to deny the assertion that thus far the financial favors extended to the women's colleges have fallen far behind those extended to the colleges for boys, and the reason is presumably in the main that women's colleges started as a none too promising experiment some two centuries after the idea of higher education for young men had become thoroughly established in the American continent. That the colleges for women are no longer experimental efforts in a doubtful field is of course clear, but it is going to take time to make the general giving of monetary gifts to such colleges as common as it has come to be among the men's colleges. The current endeavor of the seven colleges appears to be to awaken the idea that it is just as worthy and is probably far more needful to make the colleges for girls the objects of benefaction than it is to bestow lavish gifts exclusively on the colleges for boys. The hope is to set a new fashion, not necessarily to the depletion of the present flow of assistance to the men's colleges, but at all events to rectify the present disproportions.

How far the gifts of wealthy benefactors have been deterred by a few conspicuous instances of visionary radicalism in prominent women's colleges it might be rash to say, but at all events these outstanding instances have not helped the cause appreciably. It seems to have been easier for rich givers to overlook outbursts of excessive academic freedom in the boys' colleges than in the girls'—possibly on the theory that young men are less likely to be permanently affected by emotional teachings than are young women.

TROPHIES OF THE GRIDIRON

INASMUCH as the few bits of wood that go to make goal-posts for the football field are not very elaborately carved and possess a limited value in dollars and cents, it is probably a rather harmless past'me for the students and their friends who attend a successful football game to tear down the said goal-posts after the contest and carry them away in bits as trophies. At the same time it is perhaps in order to remark that it seems a distinctly childish fashion for young men approaching, if they have not already passed, the age at which the world considers the human being as sufficiently intelligent to vote.

Unless the defeated see fit, as they sometimes do, to dispute the right of the conquerors to make away with this bit of property, the demolition of goal-posts takes but a moment and engenders little beyond a momentary resentment born of the feeling that it savors faintly of muckerism. If the destruction is opposed, as happened once or twice during the recent season, the result is likely to be a small riot—but even then scarcely more menacing than an old-fashioned cane-rush. Probably the desire to destroy goal-posts is so harmless as to warrant winking at it. At all events it isn't worth a broken"nose or a torn shirt to prevent; and in the fulness of years a new race of college boys will probably come along so sophisticated and world-weary as to look upon such antics as relegated to the limbo things that simply "aren't done." If one entertains any wonder at present, it is due to a feeling that young men, often so prone to tell their elders how stupid and unenlightened those elders are, should be so insistent on a prank that seems to have no sufficient satisfaction underlying it to sort well with this persistent claim of intellectual superiority.

The passion for trophies is firmly rooted in the human breast and has good classical precedent, we should remember. The word itself, as those know who do not altogether despise the intricate language of the Hellenes, originally signified a sort of monument marking the point where the enemy were turned back (Tpeneiv). It has since come to mean any sort of relic identified with a contest as a memorial of victory. It is a poor gymnasium that has not its Trophy Room, and in most homes will be found cherished bits of loot that serve as souvenirs. In fine, it is not an exclusively youthful folly, although as applied to pieces of wood from goalposts it seems to lack the dignity that is supposed to in- here in bits of wood from the frigate Constitution, or the Charter Oak, or pressed violets from the grave of John Keats.

THE TRIP WEST

DARTMOUTH'S-trans-continental expedition to Stanford was not, from the athletic point of view, a financial success. The scanty attendance at Palo Alto just about paid the expenses of the trip and wholly negated the charity aspect of the game. The reasons for the small ticket sale are many: Stanford had been defeated by U. S. C. and Californians will support only a winning team; in spite of publicity concentration by the Alumni and the Athletic Council the Coast newspapers were slow to "push" the game; the Stanford student body was away on Thanksgiving vacation.

Dartmouth came to California 'ust another Eastern college. The West Coast generally knew vaguely of Dartmouth as the team that had once defeated Washington and the school where undergraduates go to classes on skis.

An enthusiastic reception committee of alumni met the team at the Ferry landing in San Francisco. From that time on, through the game and beyond, Dartmouth to the majority of Westerners became more than a name. The Coast newspapers during the next few days were most cordial to the visitors who seemed of a different species from Eastern teams who had previously invaded their territory. Column after column appeared describing in detail everything on the Hanover plain from the weathervane to the selective process. Information about Dartmouth was not confined solely to the sporting page. The radio announcers, all Westerners, were much more courteou i and impartial with the team than are most stations nearer home. They told the world in general that here was a hard-fighting football team most of whom did other things as well as they played footba1!. The fact that these men were versatile undergraduates, representative members of the liberal college community, caught the public fancy.

Relations with Stanford were wonderful. The two teams exchanged jerseys in the locker room after the game. Coach Warner called it the hardest game on his schedule.

The trip was highly successful because it brought out alumni solidarity and loyalty; dramatized Dartmouth colorfully but not sensationally; and showed the West that real football teams can come out of the "effete east."

Its success was due wholly to the good manners and gentlemanly behavior of the men on the squad. They showed themselves excellent exponents of the Dartmouth spirit.