The Development of Common Sense
COMMON sense appears oftentimes to be a very uncommon thing. There are many well-educated persons who seem at a loss to know how rightly to apply their knowledge or adapt themselves wisely to the varying conditions of life's experience. It is not strange, therefore, that Amherst College should propose to establish a professorship which has for its aim the development of practical academic common sense. Says the United Presbyterian of June 18, 1914:— The president has been impressed with the fact that when freshmen come into college, they commonly don't even guess what they are there for. They do not know how to study. Their minds are vagrant and untrained. Of what is worth aiming at in life they have vague, even distorted notions. They therefore miss a large part of the value of their college course before they get the genuine meaning of what a college opportunity signifies. A professor will give a course to the freshmen in common sense as applied to life. The department will reach into the higher years of the course, with advice about the way that educated men ought to fit themselves into the world. It is an important work, and will require a rare man if the plan is adequately filled. Some of the smaller schools have been and are blessed with counselors of the kind contemplated. There is much need of the practice of common sense in Christian work. We need to cultivate it, to pray for it, to exercise it. Read Heb. 5: 12-14.