Note and Comment

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Tacoma Park Station, Washington, D.C. · Aug 8, 1907

The Independent of July 18 has an editorial in reference to the work of the American universities, which forcibly presents some of the evils of present-day education. Among other questions at the opening of the article it asks, “Is a real man hindered more than he is benefited by his four years of undergraduate study?” He continues:—

The first significant fact to be observed in certain large universities is that outside interests are primary, and university work proper is secondary—from the standpoint of the student. Athletics and social affairs of different kinds demand so much time, and the students keep such late hours, that they are unable to do good work, even when they

have a desire to do so. One instance will illustrate: A professor of national reputation gives a course during the year to seniors. A large number of the class have been absent as much as one third of the time. A much larger number have failed to do the assigned reading and to take the work at all seriously. A student who shows his interest either by asking questions or by answering them is laughed at. The student prominent in university life is not often the one doing good class work from day to day, but is a member of one of the many athletic teams, debating teams, or is prominent in fraternity circles for some reason entirely apart from good scholarship. The professor mentioned above remarks that he does not object to play as such, but does object to making play the primary object of college life.

He then shows up the evils of college fraternities in this manner:—

Not a few fraternities are an evil. They foster idleness, false and abnormal attitudes toward work and life. They breed all sorts of immoral life and practise. They are reputed to foster college spirit, but it is not a spirit that will do a college any good. In some cases the spirit manifests itself chiefly in noise, drunken carousal, fighting policemen, and breaking out car windows. During the past year many drunken, disorderly students have been arrested and fined in the city courts. The final banquet of one of the upper classes was a drunken brawl. Pandemonium reigned; dishes and articles of food were thrown about. They are not all drunkards, of course. But certain fraternities are largely responsible for the attitude that sanctions such actions.

As to the responsibility for this sad condition of affairs, the article says:—

Too many of the students are sent there. They do not know what manual labor means. If they were sent to the farm and workshop and compelled to work, and in their places were put serious, hard-working boys from the farms, the university and society would certainly be benefited by the exchange.

This is a well-deserved tribute paid to wholesome work. It is further stated that—

a large number of the students at the university have no business there. They will derive no benefit from a college education. The only thing that can save them is good, hard work, preferably manual labor—something many of the students have never known. The trouble is our system is wrong. Few people should be sent to college. Young men who are ambitious, have a serious purpose, know what they want, know why they are going to college, should perhaps have financial help from their parents or from society, for it is in the interest of society for such people to be educated.

Earning one's way in a scholarship or otherwise will prove beneficial to many a young person. If we substitute the word “church” for “society” in the above quotation, it will sound very much like instruction long since given to this people.

While these things are said of the universities, many of these evils are prevalent, though perhaps to a lesser degree, in the smaller colleges and high schools of the country. Do we properly appreciate the instruction that has been given this people with reference to the manner of educating our youth? Surely the time has come when we should be a separate and peculiar people in matters of education as well as in other practises of life.