INTELLECTUAL STRATA.

That "in a college community there are different strata of intellectual ability and that academic work is a standard for measuring the differences" are the conclusions drawn from the statistics compiled by the Student Council in its investigations as to how all classes of students make use of their time. It has been found that B men and C men on an average spend but little less time each day upon their studies than A men, and therefore it can not be urged that most men do not achieve academic distinction because they do not choose to devote the necessary amount of time to study. Of course there are exceptions; many men indulge in extensive intellectual work outside of their courses. But considering men whose interests are normally distributed, and measuring their efficiency by the amount of work they accomplish in an allotted time, the superiority of the best scholars is evidently due in most cases to superior inherent, intellectual ability.

Granted that to a large extent intellectual ability is dependent upon natural alertness and sensitiveness to intellectual stimuli, we believe that this superiority in any individual is to be explained in his attitude toward such work. A college man with a good mind may turn his energy to other things; he may become efficient and productive in other ways, yet remain intellectually sterile. One of the greatest dangers of American college life is the undue importance attached to honors to be won apart from studies. In concentration lies the secret of success and for concentration genuine intellectual interest amounting to enthusiasm is requisite. The versatile man who is attracted by everything, in an American college, runs a perilous risk of becoming a social dilletante, a high-grade inefficient. It has been the constant endeavor of President Lowell to restore to things intellectual their proper importance in undergraduate opinion and to prevent the dissipation of inherent intellectual ability.