HOOVERISM AND ANACHRONISM

The small college has become an integral part of American educational life. There are some six hundred of them scattered over the United States which every year graduate ten or eleven thousand men. Last Saturday night President Hoover personally asked that the people come to the aid of these institutions which are the source of the country's "finest traditions."

Undoubtedly much of what Mr. Hover said is true. There are many fine small colleges which were founded upon and have maintained the soundest educational beliefs and traditions. Few institutions are loved as small colleges are loved by their alumni. There is a dignity, a personality, an intimacy which pervades such schools as Williams, Amherst or Bowdoin that is conductive to sincere affection.

But, while one cannot deny the influence of the small college in American life, one cannot also remain blind to their failing. There are many such institutions throughout the country which do not, and cannot, give the education which a college owes its students. Their curricula are too small; their equipments are not adequate; their professors are with a few exceptions mediocre. Those faults do not lie in poor management, but are due to the very nature of the colleges themselves.

Their smallness does not permit them to operate effectively at the stage to which college education has now advanced. More money will do little good. The only way in which they can regain their usefulness is by combining until they reach the large scale which education now requires.