"WHAT THEY HAVE NOT"

In Mr. Gavit's fourth article on colleges there is a significant paragraph, which says: "President Lowell of Harvard University was most eloquent and most intense when he talked to me a little while ago about the absurdity of judging the education of a college graduate by the number of credits he had--certificates of buttons pushed. The test of a college product is not 'what has he done?' but what has he become?"

If the true test is whether a man has developed or not while in college; if the college product "is in the tangible form of human character and service," as Chancellor Brown of New York University recently said; then it is possible to draw some conclusions concerning the much-discussed 'extra-curriculum' activities. Someone remarked not long ago that a "grad" returns to see classmates, not to refresh his memory (if any) of Horace. Mr. Gavit says that "the student's becoming depends on the kind of men he comes in contact with . . . ."

It is possible then to see some justification of such activities. In them one is constantly thrown in touch with men of similar interests; contact is easy. Not so easy is it to develop abiding friendships when the highest pitch of emotion must come out of books; that may be a better way, but it is more difficult: most have not sufficient appreciation. So they seek contact elsewhere; the unfortunate part is that often--usually--they do not know what they have not.