AN AWAKENING

In an interesting contribution to a recent issue of the Boston Herald Professor Arthur Gordon Webster, of Worcester, tells the following story. One Commencement Day he met an undergraduate whom he asked to pick out their fellow-townsmen on the Honor List. With a laugh of contempt his friend replied: "We don't go in much for that." Professor Webster and a great many critics of American higher education would take this instance as typical of the proverbial Harvard indifference. There is still considerable justification for their opinion. Yet during the last two years Americans, and American students in particular, have undoubtedly tended to face more seriously the intellectual and social problems which they encounter. This sudden Renaissance is part of the backwash of war. It is witnessed at Harvard by the increased interest that students are beginning to take in national and international questions. The preparedness agitation, the International Polity Club movement, the excitement occasioned by the elections, are all signs of it.

Americans are deeply concerned in the struggle being waged across the ocean. They see old civilizations crumble, ideals in which they trusted vanish. In the work of restoration this nation will have a great part. College students in particular are beginning to realize that the responsibility will rest upon their generation, and that the task of reconstruction must enlist the knowledge and experience of educated men.