MORE WIRELESS

"College Senior" writing in the New York "Evening Post" concerning the "unwilling and the eager student" points out, and properly, that the man who is really eager to learn may, often is, discouraged by the work in the course which is planned for the man with the schoolboy attitude. "This method," he says, "of treating both sections as though they were unwilling has the great disadvantage of failing to educate either." In this statement there is a large measure of truth, although some of the "eager" probably surmount the difficulty; yet if they do, it is because they started college with some qualifications worthy of the name education. As a remedy it is suggested that the eager and the unwilling be separated; that the methods used in one, be quite different from those in the other, section; and the further possibility of treating all as of the "eager" class, is pointed out.

In the same paper we find Mr. Gavit's first article on Harvard; wherein he indicates the present problem of the University is to take "the unit of education, the Boy," and "make out of him all that it is possible to make." Purpose such as this implies that the students must not be classified in any such manner as to label them in fact or in effect, the "eager" and the "unwilling"; but the suggestion that all be treated as of the "eager" class is, or ought to be, a fundamental principle of the college. Cortainly that great freedom given the individual, here implies confidence in the good intentions, it implies intelligence to profit by the freedom, which is often enough unjustified; yet where justified the profit is so great that it is of little import what happens to those blinded by various manias.

There are many professors who conduct their courses on the assumption that all are eager; and curiously enough these are usually the teachers; their assumption is not only of inestimable value to the eager, but it is in many cases appreciated by the unwilling. The latter is mollifled when he finds that no one cares whether he is unwilling or not; he feels that he is the listener to intercourse between people who are really interested in their subject. So he becomes an outsider, unless he studies sufficiently to talk in the same language as the interested; this is the most effective stimulation, and the best from all points of view. It is characteristic of such a course, that the members either get a great deal out of it, or nothing at all. It is a course given by a teacher; a man who makes his contact, not "by iron wires, of great resistance and little net current, copper wires that transmit well;" but, "by wireless contact of souls."

And, it will be remembered, the assumption is that all are eager.