PRESIDENTS ELIOT AND MORGAN TALK ON ANTIOCH PLAN

"To perfect a curriculum which makes for a well rounded personality" is the object of Antioch College and the new Antioch educational plan, according to President Eliot and Mr. A. E. Morgan, president of the institution, who spoke yesterday afternoon in the Green Room of the Hotel Somerset. President Eliot was the first speaker, presenting five points which make this new educational enterprise distinctive.

"The first original phase of this highly original plan," said President Eliot, "is a complete reorganization of the board of trustees. Whereas Antioch College formerly had trustees who were mostly clergymen of two ecclesiastical sects, the new board is made up of successful business men and manufacturers known also to have been interested in education for many years." The second distinctive element, the organization of a new kind of faculty was next discussed by the speaker. Instructors are sought who will instill in pupils interest in activity and in the problems they have to face, not by driving at them but by leading them.

Perhaps the best known characteristic of Antioch College was next discussed by President Eliot: its division into two distinct parts, the students spending half their time in study and half in paid employment. The element of half time work has wide scope and would affect very much the life and education in both our own and other countries especially as regards endowment and support of schools by tax.

Meets Question of Admission

Antioch, declared President Eliot, runs up against the question which perplexes every college, the method of sifting candidates for admission. After pointing out that Harvard had tried to find something better than the examination method and had failed, President Eliot discussed the Antioch plan--"of personal interviews with the candidates, supplemented by a composition and a long questionnaire". "This intensely interesting system", said President Eliot in conclusion, "will undoubtedly last a long time, with a man of Mr. Morgan's faculties at the head of it, and will be followed closely by those who desire a better mode of testing whether a candidate will be an asset to a college or not".

President Morgan then dealt with the theoretical element especially involving the make up of personality. He accepted the generally conceded fact that a man's character is moulded largely by his surroundings, but stressed the point that the remaining part must be developed by special conditions. "This is what we endeavor to do at Antioch", concluded Mr. Morgan, "by elements in the curriculum differing widely from those of other colleges. Liberalists make for training of intelligence almost exclusively, while technical institutions seek to develop the technical side, but what we wish to do is to devise a complete combination of personality without collecting a superfluity of any one branch of development".