EVIL CURES

The sick man does strenuous thinking before he decides to undergo a serious operation. The "sick" American colleges, too, will be chary of the decision made by H. (1. Wells and also by a corespondent of the "Nation" that the only cure for a prevalent lack of real interest in learning among college students is a generous wielding of the knife and saw. Wells, in fact, considers that to kill is to cure, and advises that, since college is a "palpable waste of time", all general education should give place to small specialized groups in close relation with their professors. The "Nation" proves comparatively humane; to keep all "undesirables" from college it would simply lop off intercollegiate athletics.

Undoubtedly many see in college merely a pleasant round of social and sporting events to the exclusion of learning but the suggested cures themselves show taints of evil. Now that the cry is against undergraduate tendency to specialization, Mr. Wells will not find unanimous applause for the graduate school system he would build in its stead. To end intercollegiate athletics would certainly keep the serious as well as the light-minded from college. A school can suffer from an overdose of learning just as surely as from too highly emphasized athletics. There is more than one way to kill either a man or a college.

What the suggested "cures" ignore is that college is not just a nursery of learning or an athletic playground or a social center. It is all of these, as many presidents try to prove, yearly, in their freshman addresses. The successes of college life are achieved by those who have grasped the fact had balanced their lives accordingly. school can force its men to coordinate the phases entirely; there is an ultimate cure, dependent on college and student alike, which will consist in an even balance and a healthy attitude.