Teaching the Old Dog

The Alumni College at Lafayette was founded on the theory that the college is not fulfilling its true function unless it at least offers the opportunity to its alumni of coming back to the campus at stated times to drink again from the fountain of learning and of youth, and to receive a little intellectual stimulation with which to offset some of the stress of our modern world. As President William Mather Lewis has said, the "camel theory" of education, whereby colleges expect their students to drink deeply in their undergraduate days, and then not to need refreshment again the rest of their lives, is completely fallacious. The college must offer a "recharging service" to its alumni whose batteries have run down. It must at least give them the chance to become once more familiar with "books and things," and with "the best that has been thought and said in the world." It is this which the Alumni College has tried to do, and from the response accorded it, has done.

What can reasonably be expected to be the result of this new trend in education, this alumni college idea of adult education? Is it simply a fad, or has it that within itself which will warrant its continuation? Those in charge at Lafayette College are firmly convinced that it is not just a new style, but a completely new wardrobe in the field of adult education. The results observable so far are, in the first place, an exhilaration, both mental and physical, in those alumni who have participated. The complete change, the pleasant surroundings, the congenial company, all combine to work something of a metamorphosis. In the second place, there is a large practical gain in simply having an increased knowledge of one's own field. The main divisions of the world's work in their present manifestations are reviewed in a week's time and the alumni are able to obtain a new perspective, a new realization of the entirety of the world and of their own places in it. In the third place, there is procured some of that which is most necessary in this age, the wherewithal to make profitable use of leisure time. Acquaintances with books and the library are renewed, and the result has been a better ordered life than formerly. The strain and pressure of the business world is to some extent counterbalanced. Finally, the benefit to the college itself, to its morale, its purpose, can not be minimized. Too often have those who wail against hilarious alumni and the general problem which they create failed to realize that in most cases the colleges have offered them nothing but athletic events as the connecting link with alma mater. This being the case, the college as well as the alumni has suffered. With alumni colleges coming into being, however, a new interest in the college, a more intelligent and appreciative interest, will grow up among the alumni. It will be an interest which will weld the alumni body more closely together than any football game, an interest which will redound to the credit of the college along the lines for which, after all, colleges have their being.