COLLEGES AND COLLEGES

No one would think of taking Stephen Leacock seriously, that is, outside the field-of political economy. Yet, in his latest contribution to Vanity Fair a new seriousness peeps through his levity. He is concerned for the colleges. He wonders why they are being literally overrun with hungry-eyed students wanting to know how to make a living.

The question is often discussed nowadays, and though the fact is generally accepted, there seems to be common agreement to overlook one of the principal causes for it. It is really no wonder that many people have come to think a college is nothing but a training school for safety-pin kings and toothpick magnates. Millions of broadsides are sent through the mails every year by dispensers of capsule libraries and vest-pocket universities filling people's heads with deadly statistics. One lure to success by the read-five-minutes-a-day method has this convincing argument:

"If you have a liberal education your life is worth 9 1-3 times as much as if you had only a high school education, 215 times as much as if you had only a common school education, and 817 times as much as if you had no education. Of the notables in 'Who's Who', but of 10,000 men considered successful 7,700 have had a college training."

After such an imposing array of figures, the ambitious father begins to realize what a tremendous help the colleges can be to young hopeful. All they need is a little adaptation; and when thousands of young men, answering the call of material success, become inmates and potential alumni of the colleges, many faculties become every so obliging. Already they try to outdo each other by adding courses, in swine husbandry, scientific laundering, and analytical plumbing.

"As yet, the best universities still refuse to each Hair-cutting, Fishing and Undertaking," says Mr. Leacock. To be sure, this is a great lack, but one must not expect too much at once. Certain institutions which call themselves colleges are doing all they can to fill the void. Perhaps the problem of the colleges would be clarified by answering the conundrum: "When is a college not a college?"