"GOING TO COLLEGE"

Just now there seems to be a feeling among some of the older generation that the college man deserves criticism for the training he receives. It is the self-made man who knows things and the college man who deludes himself, and wastes his time becoming an ignoramus. That the young are not the only ones laboring under this delusion is one of the conclusions to be drawn from statistics recently published concerning the correspondence courses in thirteen universities. Of the forty-thousand "going to college by mail", a large majority were far past youth. They ranged from young clerks to aged clergymen, from laborers in Chicago to successful engineers on the Arctic Circle; they-were studying dozens of widely different courses. When we consider that the University of Wisconsin alone enrolled over twenty thousand students in its mail courses, and the thirteen universities mentioned are only a few of the institutions offering such training, we can see readily enough that our so-called college man is by no means alone in seeking a higher education.

There is to be sure a vast difference between correspondence and lecture courses; and perhaps it would be fair to question whether one really "goes to college" if he goes by mail. But this would be quibbling. There does not seem to be a lack of customers who seek knowledge, either among the young who are fortunate enough to be able to go and get it, or among the old who have it sent to them. The self-made man who would criticise college training must wonder if there is not a good reason for the existence of such a great student body in this country.