ALTERNATIVES

To THOSE who have had dealings with college students or with men out of college but a short time there is a paragraph in President Hopkins' opening address which will have much meaning. The criticism of the college man from the business world has always been the same, namely that the student comes to the business in question with preconceived ideas concerning the operation of that business, and an overconfidence in his ability to apply those ideas. Here is the quotation:

"Thus it has come about quite understandably that thedisposition natural to modern youth except as modifiedby education and self-discipline, is to be self-centeredand acquisitive, to be overconfident in regard to opinionsfounded on data insufficient to substantiate these, to beoblivious to the indispensability of a sense of relative proportions, and to generalize concerning matters where particularization is requisite for knowledge. Causes are appraised to be all good or all bad; leaders of publicthought are adjudged to be wholly admirable or entirelylacking in qualities entitled to respect. These naturalcharacteristics are not to be ignored among those whichof necessity must undergo modification in the collegecourse, if men are to graduate with a developed and disciplined sense of responsibility for the general welfare ofthe human society into which they go. Without suchsense, the college relationship will certainly prove to havebeen vain and may prove to have been harmful."

There is something curiously contradictory in the nature of students, in a general way. Just as a person who has been working with them on a special project is prepared sometimes to give the whole matter up as a bad job, they will suddenly come to life and rise to unexpected heights; they will give a superb performance, do some unexpected thing in a way that is little short of genius or show some qualities of tact, ability, or understanding, which are amazing to those in business or any other walk of life.

The shades of difference between poor performance and excellence, between ignorance and wisdom, between lethargy and speed, and as the President points out between good and bad, are perceptible only to those who have lived much. It is curious, as well, that Lincoln Steffens who starts out his career, as he describes it in his Autobiography, with good and bad as the only alternates of character in political action, runs a gamut of experience and seems to come out with an alternative of only strong and weak. Curious, that at the beginning of his career and also after years of experience the case for politics seems, for him, to be open or shut Somehow it seems as if the door is usually ajar.