A PRIORI

Embroidering a now time-worn thesis, and making no attempt to reveal his personal views on the truth of its hypothesis, President Angell of Yale, in the current Harpers, suggests ways and means by which the over-population which according to many now threatens the colleges, might be avoided. It would have been more satisfactory to the majority of his readers if Mr. Angell had first made a decision as to the legitimacy of the argument and had then gone on to defend his claims: instead he has nicely side stepped any discussion of whether or not too many people are seeking higher education and has taken a slightly hazy attitude which, summarized, appears to say that he either does not choose to air his opinion or he is, for the sake of a foundation, jumping at a conclusion which he is not at all sure to be justified.

When one has once accepted this extremely politic stand the remainder of his ruminations follow in a much more logical and scientific manner. The root of this presumed evil lies, obviously, in too inclusive entrance methods; therefore Mr. Angell advances various aids to the enforcement of a selective process. Most of those listed by him have been tried with a greater or less degree of success. One thing is certain--Mr. Angell endorses such a pruning of registration lists but while doing so he also realizes that there can be no wholesale method. Each institution must adjust its own mechanics and find its own means of curtailment; successful methods in a certain college by no means provides for similar success in another. Speaking of that with which he is best acquainted, Mr. Angell says that the selective system has proved "distinctly gratifying" at Yale.

It is possible that there can be no definite assumption as to over population in the college. The optimistic and benevolently humanitarian view is that such is not the case and that opportunities for further education, no matter how general or wasteful, are never to be closed to any class or type of mind. The other view is more depressing and, at present, more popular with educational leaders. It would have been interesting and even informative to have secured. President Angell's attitude What he has offered is to the point in so far as the ornaments of his theme are concerned; and if he has omitted the discussion of the most vital portion of the matter it is possibly because he believes that no individual, not even one well versed in the facts, can answer the question entirely satisfactorily and fairly.