THE DEEPER PROBLEM

The announcement of the scholarship trophy to be awarded to preparatory schools by Phi Beta Kappa starts a novel train of speculation. It has been customary to regard scholarship as of too individual a nature to make organized competition either possible or interesting. A man studies for his own good. If there is any thought at all of a benefit to be conferred on his school through his personal excellence in scholarship, it is an afterthought. Just because studying is purely personal--one might almost call it a development of one's egoism--it has been necessary in both schools and colleges to seek in extra-curriculum activities the means for creating an esprit de corps. As a general rule, a man is a good student because of the peculiar warp of his mind. The trophy is a group award, and will probably be won because the group that gets it is composed of boys who are naturally good students, rather than that the prospect of winning it will stimulate them to become good students. How this fundamental obstacle is to be overcome is not clear.

The same objection holds good in regard to the schools themselves. Where standards are already high, nothing need be done. It is the school whose standards are low that is the concern of the donors of the award, and it is precisely at this point that the second fundamental obstacle arises. If the morale of a school has fallen to such a point that its directors are no longer disturbed by the necessarily poor showing of its graduates in college examinations, it is hardly probable that they will be aroused to reformatory efforts by the possibility of winning an appropriately designed metal shield. The prestige accompanying the award will of course be great, but no greater than it has been in past years with or without the physical emblem of high scholarship.

The problem deals not primarily with students, but with instructors and principals. It is they who are responsible for the high or low standards of the institutions over which they preside; and since they are men, and not children, some more compelling means of reawakening their enthusiasm in their work must be discovered than engraved silverware and artificially focussed applause.