PERTINENT CRITICISM.

President William T. Foster '01, of Reed College, pertinently criticizes American college education under the title "Vicarious Thinking" in the New York Nation. He charges the undergraduate with intellectual sloth and the educational system with failure to awaken in him enthusiasm for ideas. This is not an occasion in which the college man should jump into the breech and unqualifiedly defend himself and the system under which he works. It is doubtful if any undergraduate can be found who, if complacent in regard to his own spiritual and intellectual condition, is satisfied with that of his fellows. Many students are not only inefficient in their studying, but lack any vital interest in the subjects which are intrinsically the most interesting in life.

It is not that college education is a failure. On the contrary it is the greatest force for progress in modern civilization. The question is simply, How can the great investment in intellectual pursuits be made to pay the maximum dividend, not in money, but in ideas and in improvement of the capacity of men.

President Foster thinks there should be fewer lectures, less memorizing, and more reasoning. The CRIMSON has suggested that the lecture system is a dulling waste of time which should be given to a keen inter-play of professional and student minds; that in theoretical courses especially it is of little value. Says President Foster: "You can lead a man to lectures, but you cannot make him think--at least not often by this, the easiest of all methods of instruction."

This critic has stimulating criticisms to make in regard to the danger of an "academic mind" among professors, and concerning the system of intercollegiate athletics. Most imperative, however, is the need pointed out for an awakening of intellectual enthusiasm. And this cannot be adequately done by our present lecture-ridden system.