BACK TO THE COUNTRY

With the growth of the American city as the preponderant intellectual as well as economic center of this country, the drift of outstanding educators to universities adjacent to large communities has become very marked.

The reason for this deflection from the country to the city, according to Dr. Bell, head of a typical small country college, in the "academic and intellectual isolation of the teaching staff." And because of this isolation Dr. Bell is of the opinion that the day of the small college, independent of the university, is definitely over. He suggests in place of undergraduate college within the great university, a plan which seems very much akin to the Oxford system.

It will be difficult, in fact it will be next to impossible, to convince the officials, the alumni, and the adherents of the small colleges that they are pursuing a course entirely divergent from the trend of progressive and modern education--that they cannot hope to compete on an equal footing with the larger universities in teaching. Sentiment, tradition, and college loyalty are factors against which even the most logical arguments can hardly hope to prevail. These intangible feelings alone are a guarantee of the continuance of the small college, and their disbanding may be considered a thing of the dim and distant future.

Yet there is a great degree of truth in Dr. Bell's statement as to the incompetency of the small college in getting adequate teachers. It it is not possible to uproot their physical plants and transfer them to the larger universities, it still remains possible to form a closer connection between the two types by exchanging professors and giving the larger institutions a guiding influence in the administration of the smaller colleges.

The absence from metropolitan diversions and advantages forces the members of the smaller community to develop their own resources. Besides preserving these opportunities, a plan for knitting the small college more closely into the educational fabric by exchanging professors with larger institutions would give the men from the more central institutions a chance to view their own educational problems free from the distracting activities of the higher pressure university.