AND AFTER COLLEGE

Lord Bryce points out in "The American Commonwealth" that the people of the United States distrust the man of special education and choose as their representative and leader the average man--the man who can appeal to his constituents as one of the people, with ordinary feelings and instincts and mentality. And this attitude extends beyond the borders of politics into almost every field of American life. Its effects on education are important and serve perhaps to explain the lesser value attributed to studies in America as compared with Europe.

Whatever charts may be compiled to show that the successful student in school is successful in college, and he in turn successful in the professional school and life, the average American undergraduate is not convinced that success in studies is going, to be of value to him in life. Athletics, extra-curriculum activities, social success -- all these, so he thinks, are of more value than the curriculum in preparing a man for a business or professional career.

Such a condition implies an indictment of American politics and business life. The country needs to be educated up to the educated man. There are some signs that such an education is already under way and that the enlarged horizon of the United States both in politics and business will more and more demand men of broader education.

But there is a second element in the situation. The undergraduate is often making ill-considered choices in selecting his future work; or worse, he is drifting into the first business that comes along, only to drift out again into something else. There is too much wasted effort, too little information about the character of various kinds of business or profession. Many an undergraduate takes his most important step in the dark.

What is needed, of course, is some kind of Hason between men in College and men in life some means of information particularly for those men who are undecided as to what their future vocation will be. The lectures and conferences carried on last year under the auspices of the Committee on Choice of Vocations were a good beginning. Harvard has recognized the existence of a real need and has created a Committee to act as Hason agent. But the work of the Committee must be continued and extended if its end is to be attained.