MEDIOCRITY IN COLLEGE

In the years before the war college was the training ground of the gentleman and the scholar; it has become today the stamping ground for the masses. In an attempt to stem this deluge of mediocrity universities have stiffened their entrance requirements and bolstered up the standard of their curriculums. As a system of restriction this has been relatively successful and it has also lent weight and respect to a diploma, but it has rendered the task of the secondary school infinitely more difficult. As Frederick Winsor pointed out in the recently published minutes of the Harvard Alumni Association all boys must have, at least, a high school education. Many of these boys go to a private preparatory school burdened with a heritage of allegiance to Harvard or some other institution. It is the school's duty to get the boy into college and frequently the pupil is not mentally capable of passing the difficult requirements which are now the qualifications of a college education.

The school has a choice of becoming a tutoring institution pure and simple, or of disposing of the inadequate students, or of advising the parent of his son's deficiencies. Most academics unfortunately adopt the first two courses open to them for their reputation depends largely on the success of their produce at the universities. There are objections to these methods. The first stultifies original thinking and turns out boys cast in a conventional college board mould: the second takes no account of the boys who are weeded out which is grossly unfair and unnecessary.

The third choice is the desirable one, but it requires both fact and courage. There are many boys at fine private schools who would be poor college material, but who are well fitted for some other calling. If the authorities of these schools could tell the parents this without endangering their scholastic position all would be well. The Hill School has carried the system out very successfully, some of their students prepare for college and others obviously unfitted for it learn trades in a special department provided for them. It is the only sensible method of education for it provides sound instruction for the able and makes the inferior student a useful and valuable citizen. It helps the standard of the universities and it develops teachers who are students of the minds of boys rather than masters in the part of guessing college board examination questions.