A "BACHELOR OF ARTS."

A director of the Associated Press said recently, "I got two things out of Harvard, first, certain associations that have since been both profitable and pleasant; and second, mental discipline." Why should this man, practiced in the use of words, have said mental discipline rather than knowledge, or learning, or some other such term?

All of experience contributes to knowledge, but experience is not knowledge unless properly classified and put under control. At college the classics used to be the instruments of mental disciplining. Since they have been abandoned, to all intent and purpose, with the advent of the elective system, students are apt to make the mistake of thinking that all the secrets of the world are to be stored in their minds in four brief years (a task that ages of men have not accomplished), and with this wild hope they neglect to search themselves, see wherein they are weak where a course in mathematics would conduce to accuracy, a course in philosophy to a power of detachment, a course on Shakespeare to an understanding of human nature--in short, where study would strengthen them to meet the facts of life as they will have to be met day after day until death. A mind well disciplined and stripped of useless lumber should be the goal of a college education, and not an untrained intelligence staggering under a load or information never to be needed.

It is a part of a university not only to educate, but also, and more, to radiate that culture which academic association alone can produce. It would require one hundred and six years to attend all the courses at Harvard, and we can hardly hope to get an education from sixteen. Most of us are circling like a host of flies about one of the world's greatest centers of learning, barely touching here and there on the surface. Here at College we can gain a background through association and, if we search can find the culture which will mean so much in after life. As we rush madly from Sever to the bulletin at Leavitt's, let us sometimes recall that the diploma which we are striving one day to win will bear the inscription, Bachellor of Arts.