AMATEUR SCHOLASTICISM

In the opinion of Dr. van Dyke the American college student studies too much and thinks too little; he should be allowed more time from his studies to do a little thinking. The New York Times replies in an editorial on June First that "judging from various rumors floating about, it seems all too likely that the undergraduate, as usual, would use all his liberty to have a good time and that the cause of thought would not be advanced at all".

The sad part of it all is that the Times is very near the truth. Even Harvard, which prides itself as being an intellectual institution does very little thinking. All the coarse frivolities of the small college are omitted to be sure, but in their place there is a vast grey void. Harvard has no fence, no skull caps, and no Freshman riots and for that it may be justly thankful, but in abolishing these petty nuisances, it has introduced no corresponding good. Harvard would have a better right to criticize the childishness of other colleges if it had more to its own credit. At present a certain conventional stupidity is its main attribute.

Dr. van Dyke is correct in his assertion that there is too little thought in the American college of today, but the blame for that deficiency should be placed squarely on the shoulders of the undergraduate himself. There is time for thought, plenty of it, but the student dawdles and fritters away the precious hours in idleness, or pumps his head full of extra-curriculum affairs. Even Harvard, self-styled college of the thinker, is an intellectual trifler.

College authorities are only too ready to give the serious scholar time to reason. Dartmouth takes up a plan where by the students who show steadfast purpose and definite promise during their first two years are placed under a system that embodies the leniency of the English tutorial system with none of its restrictions. Harvard has long allowed men on the Dean's List exemption from classes. These are surely definite steps towards the fostering of voluntary thought.

Beyond this the college office cannot go, for the average undergraduate, both here and elsewhere, is an intellectual coward. Were it not for marks and cuts and classes, youth would flame unchecked and college men would live up to the novels written about them. The student's nose must be held to the grindstone, whether he likes it or not. He can scarcely hope for a freedom which he would only misuse.