GOATS OR SHEEP?

According to Doctor Frank P. Graves, Commissioner of Education for the State of New York, college entrance requirements are not complex enough. To the bewildered applicant the appalling program of examinations and the mass of official documents which must be signed and sworn to before one is formally approved, seem sufficient for the most exacting bureaucrat. But not for Doctor Graves!

In short, he would make "service" as well as "brains" the basis of admission. As a supplement to existing examinations, he would test a student's capacity to "make the most of his opportunities" in the service of society. These phrases sound well, but it is significant that the practical details of such a test have not yet been given out by Doctor Graves.

It seems safe to predict that they will never be formulated. At least, they should never be. The mobile and plastic character of youth defy all weighing and balancing with an eye to future usefulness. How often have contemporary judgments of youth shown the futility of the attempt! Many a young firebrand, after showing great promise, has drifted out of sight and has never been heard of more; many an obscure thinker and plodder has surprised an indifferent world with bursts of unsuspected power.

Emerson, scarcely in the upper half of his class at graduation, a queer follow with few warm friends, and a natural rebel against his college assignments, could hardly have been expected by contemporaries to achieve great prominence. Yet, of the Harvard class of 1921, his name is today the most illustrious.

So it has often been. Doubtless many men go to college today who do not profit by their opportunities. But the task of judging them must be left to posterity. One Emerson will atone for legions of nobodies.