COLLEGES AND PIGS

"The more a man knows, if he knows it usably, the better chance he has in life; but the man who knows a little and who knows how, to use what he does know has a better chance than the man who knows much and does not know how to make use of it. A man has only two legs and a mule has four, but you seldom see a mule driving a man."

These are the setiments of Ellis Parker Butler, as expressed in the current issue of "The Outlook", upon the question of the uses of an education. Ordinarily Mr. Butler's name is associated with guines-pigs and light humour, but on this occasion it is better to take him with a grain of the serious; it does not become the recipient of an expensive education to laugh when that education is under fire. Not that the article attacks the "higher knowledge" in any virulent manner; indeed, it is lenient, almost favorable. What it does criticise-which is far more important-is the ability of each individual to turn his education to the best possible account.

"Sweet are the uses of adversity"; but the uses of knowledge, though more difficult of fruition, are sweeter. It is a sad truth that for many men a college degree means no more than a certificate of work gone through with-a certain number of years spent in such and such a way. "Grind" as he will, the student who, parrot-like, fills his blue-books full of his professor's own phrases, is, in the final analsis, little more benefited than the one who attends classes with the same sang-forld with which he pays the Bursar. And by the same token, the great majority of "bluffers" are simply those who have the ability to use a few facts cleverly. Naturally the man who knows more has "a better chance"-but only if he develops his power of getting the most out of that knowledge.

Clearly it is an individual problem, this query of "Why the Who's Are Who"; and one which can be worked out mpore easily in college, perhaps, than elsewhere. Once let the assumption that a scrap of fame be forgotten, and the theory that marks are of themselves the be-all and the end-all be allowed to accumulate cob-webs, and we shall be able to show Mr. Butler that so long as "Pigs is Pigs," colleges is colleges.