GOVERNOR ALLEN'S PROPOSAL.

In urging the establishment of a course in Industrial Relations, at the University, the Governor of Kansas has voiced the feelings of many students of present-day problems. One often hears the cry that the colleges are too much wrapped up in their own affairs to give heed to the questions of the moment. Such a complaint, it is true, has far less justification at the present than it had ten years ago; but there is still ground for criticism.

In this matter, the curriculum is not altogether to blame. In every university throughout the country, (though in varying degree) the undergraduates give too little time to matters of immediate importance in the outside world. In the field of industrial relations, this is especially true. The average student, (especially if, he is under no immediate necessity to earn his own livelihood) is only too apt to forget how his fellow citizen lives. If the problems of industrial relations and living conditions were presented to him as part of his regular study, he would consider them more reasonably when he was outside the class-room.

Industrial relations, it is true, can be studied in some more advanced courses but to the vast majority of undergraduates the question is never put. There is need for a more practical side in the teaching of elementary economics courses which will place the facts of industrial unrest in the hands of the ordinary college student, and which will encourage him not only to listen to what others may have to say, but also to think for himself.