STOP, LOOK, AND LISTEN!

The perennial agitation for state colleges has reappeared. At present hearings are being conducted by a commission appointed by the governor of Massachusetts to investigate the extension of higher education by the state. A number of ingenious plans have been suggested, and the ultimate adoption by this legislature or some later one of a state-supported system of collegiate education is reasonably expected.

Throughout the greater part of the country, states provide at public expense university training for young men and women qualified. But in the East, and especially in Massachusetts, the establishment of a state university or of a series of state colleges would undoubtedly set in motion a series of unique social and educational reactions. For one thing, it is certain that the more prosperous classes would continue to send their sons and daughters to the privately endowed colleges, while the less favored sections in the economic scale would gravitate toward the less expensive schools. A traditional separation might arise between wealth and poverty; and the gap, at present passed with not too great difficulty, might be widened into a gulf.

With this possible severance, might arise a difference in atmosphere. The wealthy classes, in whom there adheres a certain standard of culture and travel, would be, in effect, segregated; and the comparisons and adjustment of standards which goes on all through college would be restricted. College life of a state university, situated in a large city, would be essentially different from the intra-mural associations of a private college.

It is impossible to generalize about possible results under hypothetical conditions; yet one thing is certain: before establishing in Massachusetts such public universities, similar experiments and possible consequences must be studied. The western universities are alone in their field, and, in general, do not face the big-city question. Perhaps a comparative study of Oxford and the University of London would provide as parallel an example as can be found. At all events, so comprehensive an action must wait upon a thorough investigation of the changes it may effect in the social and educational structure.