President MacCracken of Vassar Sees Much Good in Student Move

Dr. Henry Noble MacCracken, G. '05, President of Vassar College, has written for the New York Times his views on the present student movement toward greater self-government and self-expression in American colleges. His article, reprinted from the Times, follows:

The student movement, long deferred, is beginning to make headway in America, but powerful influences have delayed its appearance.

The original American college was patterned rather after Eton College than Oxford University. It was a superior school with a few masters, by whom morals and manners could be carefully watched. It was under the strict control of the Church and subject to visitation. Until the middle of the last century library and laboratory facilities were almost non-existent. Text books were few and poor. The student gained a passing acquaintance with twenty standard texts, scarcely more. Standards inevitably suffered from the poverty and remoteness from cultural centres. The college of 1850 had developed scarcely higher than the best boarding schools of today.

These handicaps proved blessings in disguise. Had America taken over the fully developed European forms there would not have been the originality that our system displays today. The American college, because of its very poverty, turnel its gaze to the instant need of things. It struck deep root in American soil and found the fertile springs of action.

More than one hundred years ago Stephen Van Rensselaer founded at Troy the first undergraduate engineering college. In 1841 the University of Michigan set up its Utopian heaven of a university in a democracy. Nearly one hundred years ago the college for women first saw light in the South. At the same time coeducation became the practice of the majority of American institutions. By the Morrill act of 1863 the agricultural and preferred positions in the university curriculum. These innovations were peculiar to America in the system of higher education.

Collegiatism Not European

Most striking of all was the incorporation in the university scheme of the undergraduate college with courses of a broad informational character filling out the scanty background in the American student's home training. This purely collegiate living, in the midst of university environment has been the cause of much shaking of heads by educational leaders whose eyes are fixed upon European models. They ignore the fact that without these undergraduate bodies the moral and financial strength of the university would not exist, and even the tremendous pressure that great educational foundations can bring to bear will never uproot this truly American feature.

The introduction of these elements into American higher education has occupied nearly a century. The increase in the number and the power of colleges, the immense sums raised for their maintenance, the overwhelming tide of students, the rapid turn in Faculty personnel, the incessantly expanding campus, the extending of the idea of going, to college to all classes of the commonwealth these and other improvements have made education a rather perplexing thing. Standards have been built up with enormous difficulty Weathering financial and other perils, the college has made its President a captain at the helm with complete power over his ship's crew. In the midst of this adjustment the student's life outside of his classroom appointments, his leisure day, has perforce been excluded from the scheme of things. This has been most fortunate, for he has been permitted to turn it to his own account. He has devised a life of his own.

Most of the American colleges were originally situated in the smaller villages. As the body of students grew they were forced to provide their own housing accommodations and thus the fraternity--in form stimulated by the Free Mason movement; in substance, the substitute for the college hall of residence--came into being. The women's colleges, however, having always provided halls of residence for practically all of the students, have escaped the fraternity.

Societies Gain Loyalty

These societies, like the "nations" of the medieval university, still preserved at Upsala in Sweden and elsewhere, were in form a college within a college. Many American students are more loyal to them than to their college. The attitude taken by the fraternity on moral and social questions determines its members' attitude with more finality than chapel addresses or Sunday sermons. In recent years university authorities have wisely recognized this fact, and by stimulating a sense of responsibility in fraternities for the academic standing of their members, have secured the most helpful cooperation in improving the general habits of study among the fraternity members. The national officers of the great American college fraternities frequently exercise a stricter control and demand a severer conformity to accepted social behavior form their undergraduate brothers than the college authorities themselves feel able to enforce.

Next to the development of the fraternity the student movement in the United States has occupied itself with the development of collegiate and intercollegiate athletics. Various games have been developed and standardized sports and training have been brought under systematic development, and immense sums of money expended. As far as the students themselves are concerned, the movement has been almost wholly beneficial. Many an unwilling student has studied hard in order to make his team, many a law-breaking student has conformed to social custom in order to make good on the field, many an injurious habit has been given up for the Spartan regimen of the training table. Moral qualities of leadership and teamwork, the tough muscle and the steady eve are the reward of American athletes. And as in the case of the fraternity, the faculty which ignored the existence of this great institution has come to realize that unless it makes of athletics its friend and aid in the scheme of American education, athletics like the fraternity, may put an end on the college itself.

Faculty at Fault

It is the fault of the Faculty. If the professor had really concerned themselves with the students' leisure day they would not be in the predicament so eloquently described by the recent report of university professors condemning intercollegiate football as now conducted. That report reads like the expressions of dismay of the "wets" on the morning after prohibition. The professor engaged in his Addison walk of contemplation has bumped into the stadium and cannot imagine how it came into existence. Fear, which is the child of ignorance, cries. "Down with it," but second thought suggests that the institution is here and that the sooner it is brought into line with the general purpose of the college the better it will be.

The fraternity and the stadium are expensive necessities. Neither could have come into existence without the aid of in third party to the college contract, the graduate. He has furnished the funds, he has taken title to the property, he has controlled the details of the organization. Having no responsibility to the college administration and even openly contemptuous of its half-understood aims, the graduate has often worked completely at odds with the college with the sublime disregard of truth and has told the students that what they learned in the classroom was of no importance to them. It was the habits they formed outside the classroom which would be of value to young graduates. He has then shown his own worst side, half sentimental, half debauched, as a guide to their future course. He has professionalized the boy's idealistic love of sport; he has encouraged the student in wanton extravagance in the organization and maintenance of fraternity houses.

Again the Faculty, and more frequently the President, have been astounded at this turn of affairs, and have In a turn at denouncing the alumnus to his baleful influence. "It is the inmates who make all the trouble; They are to blame for such standards in the American college. Thus the professor and the college President declaim, the which standing cap in hand in various appeal to the alumni for endowment Such hypocrisy is treated by the as it deserves.

The organized associations of alumni must now be accepted as an integral part of the college. The Vassar Associate for example, is a separate educational body, holding a charter for educational purposes granted them by the grants of the University of the State of New York. They maintain a hall of abidance with rooms for study and commence entirely managed by them, although the building is on the property and on the campus of Vassar College. bring to their sessions leaders of who add greatly to the academic . The graduate, particularly in his day, must be recognized at something to contribute to the American college; and the Faculty has appeal. Indeed, the graduate movement is a more powerful movement will modify academic tradition more then will any of the as yet plans among the undergraduate themselves.

The Vassar Alumnae Association has made its chief executive of its Associate an educational director, whose section is primarily adult education, and not the raising of funds. Princeton and Amherst and other colleges have developed various intellectual channels for teaching their alumni, and the results have been most promising.

Just as the fraternity and athletic team are instruments of enormous potentially ready to the Faculty's hand the furtherance of academic efficiency, to the graduate organization awaits the professor's tardy recognition. It is entirely possible, without too much organization continue the education of the alumni group inculcating respect for adjustment, securing .

in business professional and opportunity for the students, are the alumni group as a recruiting agents for securing a more earnest and more intelligent student body, and most of all by developing a system of an education to raise the whole cultural of American social life in their community.

If the college graduate is the figure that the comic papers make him out to be, and the some professors scold about, it is the fault of the Faculty. If he returns to the college and interferes unintelligently in the academic administration, if he demands reforms of which he knows nothing, it is because the Faculty persists in handing the undergraduate student his diploma in the attitude of now be off with you," while at the same time it seeks from the graduate the very means of its own existence.

No Longer "College"

In a word, the American college is no longer a college in the old sense of the word. It is a great social organization operating most powerfully in a democracy, where class lines are not yet strictly drawn, and where vast numbers of the people possess leisure. The professor may grumble about it, he may actively oppose it, but he will accommodate himself to the situation as the facts become clear: and he will be all the better for the change.

In particular, the sooner the professor realizes that the graduate's influence over the undergraduate is even more powerful than his own the sooner he realizes that the student's leisure day is the one with which the professor should be most concerned, the better for the intellectual integrity of the college. And the professor is beginning to realize this. The department of music has discovered the glee club, the department of physical education has discovered the crew, the department of political science has discovered the debating society, and the department of English has discovered the college paper.

The result has been the Introduction of courses paralleling everywhere in the curriculum the structural elements in the undergraduate leisure. Even the hobbledehoy dramatic pretensions of fraternity night have been capitalized to develop dramatic production by Faculty teachers who seek to extend their away over histrionic impulse of the undergraduate. In this new recognition of the values evolving from student life itself, there is coming about an understanding and cooperation between professors and students; cut of this cooperation and out of this increase of contact is coming the modern student movement.

Left to themselves the students would probably have continued happily concerned with the enjoyment of their leisure time; brought face to face by their professors with world currents in polities, economics and religion, they have discovered that their own playthings were somewhat immature. It was much more fun playing with the tools of grown-up men. They responded with avidity. Free speech in the classroom and on the campus, for which the professors had been fighting in their university association, became in turn the rallying cry of the student. The right of a radical professor to retain his collegiate chair became in turn the right of the radical college organization to university toleration. The casting off of the narrower forces denominational theology by the professor became in turn a movement for the abolition of compulsory religious ritual at the college.

The college professors who organized the league to enforce peace have consciously or unconsciously fostered in every American college definite political organizations whose aim is similar to their own. Professors with strong proclivities toward social sympathy with the downtrodden have, by close association, fostered the development of strike leaders. Thus the professors themselves, so far as they have recognized their own trend in the student's leisure day, so far as they have applied their own knowledge to current problems, have produced the student movement of our time. This is recognized by the supporters of the unchanged order or things, who in denouncing the youth movement very seldom denounce the student leaders of it, but bitterly attack the professors for saying what they believe. The very extravagance of imprecation that fills the clubs and luncheon rooms is evidence of the ignorance of what is going on.

Not Like Europeans

Even student concern with the curriculum, the late development in the student movement, is largely a following of academic leadership. President Aydelotte denounces the classroom, Professor Meiklejohn shouts, "Away with all lectures." President Frank says that the college is sick and proposes an isolation ward where it can be taken apart and examined and experimented on; Secretary Flexner wants to abolish the college altogether at university centres. Profesor Johnston Ross denounces compulsory chapel. Professor William B. Otis denounces compulsory drills. Professor J. E. Kirpatrick would abolish the college Presidency. But it students propose any reforms in these fields, we call it a student movement!

What, then, does the student movement in the United States amount to? It is in no sense parallel to the student movement in Europe. The European student has been face to face with crushing economic burdens, with political disqualifications, with the bitterness of religious feuds. He is exploited by Fascismo and swastika, by trade union and international, by militarist and pacifist. As a result he is either enlisted in these camps and immediately formed into the flying squadron as an active participant in the movement, or by violent reaction against such exploitation he has withdrawn either into quasi-Oriental mysticism or the idealistic medieval romance of the wandering student of old. Such movements have practically no counter-part in the United States. In spite of capitalist and Communist the American college student is still remote from current world movements. In his leisure day he is chiefly concerned with his own affairs.

Student Autonomy Demand

The student movement in American is taken up with the demand for student autonomy in student matters. Undergraduates are quarreling with alumni over the management of teams. They are refusing the sentimental code of college sport handed down to them. They are defending the leisure day against the inroads made upon it by competing Faculty departments. They are going further just now in demanding some share in the control of the working day at the college. They are questioning not only the requirements of subjects, but the methods of teaching. The time is soon coming when innovations in the curriculum will not be imposed upon them without conferences, when they will retort with "tu quoque" to the professor, "if we study badly it is because we are taught badly," "If we have no intellectual enthusiasm it is because your teaching is mechanized," "If we despise research it because of your own attitude toward it," "If some of you gentlemen with Ph.D.'s showed any real enthusiasm for research we might ourselves respect it more." "We know what an interesting lecture is as well as you do," "we know when a course is well taught as well as you do," "if we soldier on our job it is because you soldier on yours."

Evidences of Thinking

These and other equally irreverent rejoinders are now being heard on the college campus. They constitute the real student movement in America today. To the present writer the movement seems wholly good if the professor recognizes the situation in time. The student's questioning of the value of religion in daily life is equally to the good if church leaders recognize the situation in time. All these revolts and objections are evidences of keen intellectual enthusiasm, of the discovery that participation in the real life of the world is much more fun than playing with the ephemeral ideals of the campus.

The student may go further; he has already gained control of his own membership through self-government, he may go further and organize student banks and subsidies in the form of loan funds and other aids to enable students of all classes to attend college. If the students will do this they will postpone for another generation the sharp class distinctions into which America

The organized associations of alumni must now be accepted as an integral part of the college. The Vassar Associate for example, is a separate educational body, holding a charter for educational purposes granted them by the grants of the University of the State of New York. They maintain a hall of abidance with rooms for study and commence entirely managed by them, although the building is on the property and on the campus of Vassar College. bring to their sessions leaders of who add greatly to the academic . The graduate, particularly in his day, must be recognized at something to contribute to the American college; and the Faculty has appeal. Indeed, the graduate movement is a more powerful movement will modify academic tradition more then will any of the as yet plans among the undergraduate themselves.

The Vassar Alumnae Association has made its chief executive of its Associate an educational director, whose section is primarily adult education, and not the raising of funds. Princeton and Amherst and other colleges have developed various intellectual channels for teaching their alumni, and the results have been most promising.

Just as the fraternity and athletic team are instruments of enormous potentially ready to the Faculty's hand the furtherance of academic efficiency, to the graduate organization awaits the professor's tardy recognition. It is entirely possible, without too much organization continue the education of the alumni group inculcating respect for adjustment, securing .

in business professional and opportunity for the students, are the alumni group as a recruiting agents for securing a more earnest and more intelligent student body, and most of all by developing a system of an education to raise the whole cultural of American social life in their community.

If the college graduate is the figure that the comic papers make him out to be, and the some professors scold about, it is the fault of the Faculty. If he returns to the college and interferes unintelligently in the academic administration, if he demands reforms of which he knows nothing, it is because the Faculty persists in handing the undergraduate student his diploma in the attitude of now be off with you," while at the same time it seeks from the graduate the very means of its own existence.

No Longer "College"

In a word, the American college is no longer a college in the old sense of the word. It is a great social organization operating most powerfully in a democracy, where class lines are not yet strictly drawn, and where vast numbers of the people possess leisure. The professor may grumble about it, he may actively oppose it, but he will accommodate himself to the situation as the facts become clear: and he will be all the better for the change.

In particular, the sooner the professor realizes that the graduate's influence over the undergraduate is even more powerful than his own the sooner he realizes that the student's leisure day is the one with which the professor should be most concerned, the better for the intellectual integrity of the college. And the professor is beginning to realize this. The department of music has discovered the glee club, the department of physical education has discovered the crew, the department of political science has discovered the debating society, and the department of English has discovered the college paper.

The result has been the Introduction of courses paralleling everywhere in the curriculum the structural elements in the undergraduate leisure. Even the hobbledehoy dramatic pretensions of fraternity night have been capitalized to develop dramatic production by Faculty teachers who seek to extend their away over histrionic impulse of the undergraduate. In this new recognition of the values evolving from student life itself, there is coming about an understanding and cooperation between professors and students; cut of this cooperation and out of this increase of contact is coming the modern student movement.

Left to themselves the students would probably have continued happily concerned with the enjoyment of their leisure time; brought face to face by their professors with world currents in polities, economics and religion, they have discovered that their own playthings were somewhat immature. It was much more fun playing with the tools of grown-up men. They responded with avidity. Free speech in the classroom and on the campus, for which the professors had been fighting in their university association, became in turn the rallying cry of the student. The right of a radical professor to retain his collegiate chair became in turn the right of the radical college organization to university toleration. The casting off of the narrower forces denominational theology by the professor became in turn a movement for the abolition of compulsory religious ritual at the college.

The college professors who organized the league to enforce peace have consciously or unconsciously fostered in every American college definite political organizations whose aim is similar to their own. Professors with strong proclivities toward social sympathy with the downtrodden have, by close association, fostered the development of strike leaders. Thus the professors themselves, so far as they have recognized their own trend in the student's leisure day, so far as they have applied their own knowledge to current problems, have produced the student movement of our time. This is recognized by the supporters of the unchanged order or things, who in denouncing the youth movement very seldom denounce the student leaders of it, but bitterly attack the professors for saying what they believe. The very extravagance of imprecation that fills the clubs and luncheon rooms is evidence of the ignorance of what is going on.

Not Like Europeans

Even student concern with the curriculum, the late development in the student movement, is largely a following of academic leadership. President Aydelotte denounces the classroom, Professor Meiklejohn shouts, "Away with all lectures." President Frank says that the college is sick and proposes an isolation ward where it can be taken apart and examined and experimented on; Secretary Flexner wants to abolish the college altogether at university centres. Profesor Johnston Ross denounces compulsory chapel. Professor William B. Otis denounces compulsory drills. Professor J. E. Kirpatrick would abolish the college Presidency. But it students propose any reforms in these fields, we call it a student movement!

What, then, does the student movement in the United States amount to? It is in no sense parallel to the student movement in Europe. The European student has been face to face with crushing economic burdens, with political disqualifications, with the bitterness of religious feuds. He is exploited by Fascismo and swastika, by trade union and international, by militarist and pacifist. As a result he is either enlisted in these camps and immediately formed into the flying squadron as an active participant in the movement, or by violent reaction against such exploitation he has withdrawn either into quasi-Oriental mysticism or the idealistic medieval romance of the wandering student of old. Such movements have practically no counter-part in the United States. In spite of capitalist and Communist the American college student is still remote from current world movements. In his leisure day he is chiefly concerned with his own affairs.

Student Autonomy Demand

The student movement in American is taken up with the demand for student autonomy in student matters. Undergraduates are quarreling with alumni over the management of teams. They are refusing the sentimental code of college sport handed down to them. They are defending the leisure day against the inroads made upon it by competing Faculty departments. They are going further just now in demanding some share in the control of the working day at the college. They are questioning not only the requirements of subjects, but the methods of teaching. The time is soon coming when innovations in the curriculum will not be imposed upon them without conferences, when they will retort with "tu quoque" to the professor, "if we study badly it is because we are taught badly," "If we have no intellectual enthusiasm it is because your teaching is mechanized," "If we despise research it because of your own attitude toward it," "If some of you gentlemen with Ph.D.'s showed any real enthusiasm for research we might ourselves respect it more." "We know what an interesting lecture is as well as you do," "we know when a course is well taught as well as you do," "if we soldier on our job it is because you soldier on yours."

Evidences of Thinking

These and other equally irreverent rejoinders are now being heard on the college campus. They constitute the real student movement in America today. To the present writer the movement seems wholly good if the professor recognizes the situation in time. The student's questioning of the value of religion in daily life is equally to the good if church leaders recognize the situation in time. All these revolts and objections are evidences of keen intellectual enthusiasm, of the discovery that participation in the real life of the world is much more fun than playing with the ephemeral ideals of the campus.

The student may go further; he has already gained control of his own membership through self-government, he may go further and organize student banks and subsidies in the form of loan funds and other aids to enable students of all classes to attend college. If the students will do this they will postpone for another generation the sharp class distinctions into which America

The Vassar Alumnae Association has made its chief executive of its Associate an educational director, whose section is primarily adult education, and not the raising of funds. Princeton and Amherst and other colleges have developed various intellectual channels for teaching their alumni, and the results have been most promising.

Just as the fraternity and athletic team are instruments of enormous potentially ready to the Faculty's hand the furtherance of academic efficiency, to the graduate organization awaits the professor's tardy recognition. It is entirely possible, without too much organization continue the education of the alumni group inculcating respect for adjustment, securing .

in business professional and opportunity for the students, are the alumni group as a recruiting agents for securing a more earnest and more intelligent student body, and most of all by developing a system of an education to raise the whole cultural of American social life in their community.

If the college graduate is the figure that the comic papers make him out to be, and the some professors scold about, it is the fault of the Faculty. If he returns to the college and interferes unintelligently in the academic administration, if he demands reforms of which he knows nothing, it is because the Faculty persists in handing the undergraduate student his diploma in the attitude of now be off with you," while at the same time it seeks from the graduate the very means of its own existence.

No Longer "College"

In a word, the American college is no longer a college in the old sense of the word. It is a great social organization operating most powerfully in a democracy, where class lines are not yet strictly drawn, and where vast numbers of the people possess leisure. The professor may grumble about it, he may actively oppose it, but he will accommodate himself to the situation as the facts become clear: and he will be all the better for the change.

In particular, the sooner the professor realizes that the graduate's influence over the undergraduate is even more powerful than his own the sooner he realizes that the student's leisure day is the one with which the professor should be most concerned, the better for the intellectual integrity of the college. And the professor is beginning to realize this. The department of music has discovered the glee club, the department of physical education has discovered the crew, the department of political science has discovered the debating society, and the department of English has discovered the college paper.

The result has been the Introduction of courses paralleling everywhere in the curriculum the structural elements in the undergraduate leisure. Even the hobbledehoy dramatic pretensions of fraternity night have been capitalized to develop dramatic production by Faculty teachers who seek to extend their away over histrionic impulse of the undergraduate. In this new recognition of the values evolving from student life itself, there is coming about an understanding and cooperation between professors and students; cut of this cooperation and out of this increase of contact is coming the modern student movement.

Left to themselves the students would probably have continued happily concerned with the enjoyment of their leisure time; brought face to face by their professors with world currents in polities, economics and religion, they have discovered that their own playthings were somewhat immature. It was much more fun playing with the tools of grown-up men. They responded with avidity. Free speech in the classroom and on the campus, for which the professors had been fighting in their university association, became in turn the rallying cry of the student. The right of a radical professor to retain his collegiate chair became in turn the right of the radical college organization to university toleration. The casting off of the narrower forces denominational theology by the professor became in turn a movement for the abolition of compulsory religious ritual at the college.

The college professors who organized the league to enforce peace have consciously or unconsciously fostered in every American college definite political organizations whose aim is similar to their own. Professors with strong proclivities toward social sympathy with the downtrodden have, by close association, fostered the development of strike leaders. Thus the professors themselves, so far as they have recognized their own trend in the student's leisure day, so far as they have applied their own knowledge to current problems, have produced the student movement of our time. This is recognized by the supporters of the unchanged order or things, who in denouncing the youth movement very seldom denounce the student leaders of it, but bitterly attack the professors for saying what they believe. The very extravagance of imprecation that fills the clubs and luncheon rooms is evidence of the ignorance of what is going on.

Not Like Europeans

Even student concern with the curriculum, the late development in the student movement, is largely a following of academic leadership. President Aydelotte denounces the classroom, Professor Meiklejohn shouts, "Away with all lectures." President Frank says that the college is sick and proposes an isolation ward where it can be taken apart and examined and experimented on; Secretary Flexner wants to abolish the college altogether at university centres. Profesor Johnston Ross denounces compulsory chapel. Professor William B. Otis denounces compulsory drills. Professor J. E. Kirpatrick would abolish the college Presidency. But it students propose any reforms in these fields, we call it a student movement!

What, then, does the student movement in the United States amount to? It is in no sense parallel to the student movement in Europe. The European student has been face to face with crushing economic burdens, with political disqualifications, with the bitterness of religious feuds. He is exploited by Fascismo and swastika, by trade union and international, by militarist and pacifist. As a result he is either enlisted in these camps and immediately formed into the flying squadron as an active participant in the movement, or by violent reaction against such exploitation he has withdrawn either into quasi-Oriental mysticism or the idealistic medieval romance of the wandering student of old. Such movements have practically no counter-part in the United States. In spite of capitalist and Communist the American college student is still remote from current world movements. In his leisure day he is chiefly concerned with his own affairs.

Student Autonomy Demand

The student movement in American is taken up with the demand for student autonomy in student matters. Undergraduates are quarreling with alumni over the management of teams. They are refusing the sentimental code of college sport handed down to them. They are defending the leisure day against the inroads made upon it by competing Faculty departments. They are going further just now in demanding some share in the control of the working day at the college. They are questioning not only the requirements of subjects, but the methods of teaching. The time is soon coming when innovations in the curriculum will not be imposed upon them without conferences, when they will retort with "tu quoque" to the professor, "if we study badly it is because we are taught badly," "If we have no intellectual enthusiasm it is because your teaching is mechanized," "If we despise research it because of your own attitude toward it," "If some of you gentlemen with Ph.D.'s showed any real enthusiasm for research we might ourselves respect it more." "We know what an interesting lecture is as well as you do," "we know when a course is well taught as well as you do," "if we soldier on our job it is because you soldier on yours."

Evidences of Thinking

These and other equally irreverent rejoinders are now being heard on the college campus. They constitute the real student movement in America today. To the present writer the movement seems wholly good if the professor recognizes the situation in time. The student's questioning of the value of religion in daily life is equally to the good if church leaders recognize the situation in time. All these revolts and objections are evidences of keen intellectual enthusiasm, of the discovery that participation in the real life of the world is much more fun than playing with the ephemeral ideals of the campus.

The student may go further; he has already gained control of his own membership through self-government, he may go further and organize student banks and subsidies in the form of loan funds and other aids to enable students of all classes to attend college. If the students will do this they will postpone for another generation the sharp class distinctions into which America

Just as the fraternity and athletic team are instruments of enormous potentially ready to the Faculty's hand the furtherance of academic efficiency, to the graduate organization awaits the professor's tardy recognition. It is entirely possible, without too much organization continue the education of the alumni group inculcating respect for adjustment, securing .

in business professional and opportunity for the students, are the alumni group as a recruiting agents for securing a more earnest and more intelligent student body, and most of all by developing a system of an education to raise the whole cultural of American social life in their community.

If the college graduate is the figure that the comic papers make him out to be, and the some professors scold about, it is the fault of the Faculty. If he returns to the college and interferes unintelligently in the academic administration, if he demands reforms of which he knows nothing, it is because the Faculty persists in handing the undergraduate student his diploma in the attitude of now be off with you," while at the same time it seeks from the graduate the very means of its own existence.

No Longer "College"

In a word, the American college is no longer a college in the old sense of the word. It is a great social organization operating most powerfully in a democracy, where class lines are not yet strictly drawn, and where vast numbers of the people possess leisure. The professor may grumble about it, he may actively oppose it, but he will accommodate himself to the situation as the facts become clear: and he will be all the better for the change.

In particular, the sooner the professor realizes that the graduate's influence over the undergraduate is even more powerful than his own the sooner he realizes that the student's leisure day is the one with which the professor should be most concerned, the better for the intellectual integrity of the college. And the professor is beginning to realize this. The department of music has discovered the glee club, the department of physical education has discovered the crew, the department of political science has discovered the debating society, and the department of English has discovered the college paper.

The result has been the Introduction of courses paralleling everywhere in the curriculum the structural elements in the undergraduate leisure. Even the hobbledehoy dramatic pretensions of fraternity night have been capitalized to develop dramatic production by Faculty teachers who seek to extend their away over histrionic impulse of the undergraduate. In this new recognition of the values evolving from student life itself, there is coming about an understanding and cooperation between professors and students; cut of this cooperation and out of this increase of contact is coming the modern student movement.

Left to themselves the students would probably have continued happily concerned with the enjoyment of their leisure time; brought face to face by their professors with world currents in polities, economics and religion, they have discovered that their own playthings were somewhat immature. It was much more fun playing with the tools of grown-up men. They responded with avidity. Free speech in the classroom and on the campus, for which the professors had been fighting in their university association, became in turn the rallying cry of the student. The right of a radical professor to retain his collegiate chair became in turn the right of the radical college organization to university toleration. The casting off of the narrower forces denominational theology by the professor became in turn a movement for the abolition of compulsory religious ritual at the college.

The college professors who organized the league to enforce peace have consciously or unconsciously fostered in every American college definite political organizations whose aim is similar to their own. Professors with strong proclivities toward social sympathy with the downtrodden have, by close association, fostered the development of strike leaders. Thus the professors themselves, so far as they have recognized their own trend in the student's leisure day, so far as they have applied their own knowledge to current problems, have produced the student movement of our time. This is recognized by the supporters of the unchanged order or things, who in denouncing the youth movement very seldom denounce the student leaders of it, but bitterly attack the professors for saying what they believe. The very extravagance of imprecation that fills the clubs and luncheon rooms is evidence of the ignorance of what is going on.

Not Like Europeans

Even student concern with the curriculum, the late development in the student movement, is largely a following of academic leadership. President Aydelotte denounces the classroom, Professor Meiklejohn shouts, "Away with all lectures." President Frank says that the college is sick and proposes an isolation ward where it can be taken apart and examined and experimented on; Secretary Flexner wants to abolish the college altogether at university centres. Profesor Johnston Ross denounces compulsory chapel. Professor William B. Otis denounces compulsory drills. Professor J. E. Kirpatrick would abolish the college Presidency. But it students propose any reforms in these fields, we call it a student movement!

What, then, does the student movement in the United States amount to? It is in no sense parallel to the student movement in Europe. The European student has been face to face with crushing economic burdens, with political disqualifications, with the bitterness of religious feuds. He is exploited by Fascismo and swastika, by trade union and international, by militarist and pacifist. As a result he is either enlisted in these camps and immediately formed into the flying squadron as an active participant in the movement, or by violent reaction against such exploitation he has withdrawn either into quasi-Oriental mysticism or the idealistic medieval romance of the wandering student of old. Such movements have practically no counter-part in the United States. In spite of capitalist and Communist the American college student is still remote from current world movements. In his leisure day he is chiefly concerned with his own affairs.

Student Autonomy Demand

The student movement in American is taken up with the demand for student autonomy in student matters. Undergraduates are quarreling with alumni over the management of teams. They are refusing the sentimental code of college sport handed down to them. They are defending the leisure day against the inroads made upon it by competing Faculty departments. They are going further just now in demanding some share in the control of the working day at the college. They are questioning not only the requirements of subjects, but the methods of teaching. The time is soon coming when innovations in the curriculum will not be imposed upon them without conferences, when they will retort with "tu quoque" to the professor, "if we study badly it is because we are taught badly," "If we have no intellectual enthusiasm it is because your teaching is mechanized," "If we despise research it because of your own attitude toward it," "If some of you gentlemen with Ph.D.'s showed any real enthusiasm for research we might ourselves respect it more." "We know what an interesting lecture is as well as you do," "we know when a course is well taught as well as you do," "if we soldier on our job it is because you soldier on yours."

Evidences of Thinking

These and other equally irreverent rejoinders are now being heard on the college campus. They constitute the real student movement in America today. To the present writer the movement seems wholly good if the professor recognizes the situation in time. The student's questioning of the value of religion in daily life is equally to the good if church leaders recognize the situation in time. All these revolts and objections are evidences of keen intellectual enthusiasm, of the discovery that participation in the real life of the world is much more fun than playing with the ephemeral ideals of the campus.

The student may go further; he has already gained control of his own membership through self-government, he may go further and organize student banks and subsidies in the form of loan funds and other aids to enable students of all classes to attend college. If the students will do this they will postpone for another generation the sharp class distinctions into which America

in business professional and opportunity for the students, are the alumni group as a recruiting agents for securing a more earnest and more intelligent student body, and most of all by developing a system of an education to raise the whole cultural of American social life in their community.

If the college graduate is the figure that the comic papers make him out to be, and the some professors scold about, it is the fault of the Faculty. If he returns to the college and interferes unintelligently in the academic administration, if he demands reforms of which he knows nothing, it is because the Faculty persists in handing the undergraduate student his diploma in the attitude of now be off with you," while at the same time it seeks from the graduate the very means of its own existence.

No Longer "College"

In a word, the American college is no longer a college in the old sense of the word. It is a great social organization operating most powerfully in a democracy, where class lines are not yet strictly drawn, and where vast numbers of the people possess leisure. The professor may grumble about it, he may actively oppose it, but he will accommodate himself to the situation as the facts become clear: and he will be all the better for the change.

In particular, the sooner the professor realizes that the graduate's influence over the undergraduate is even more powerful than his own the sooner he realizes that the student's leisure day is the one with which the professor should be most concerned, the better for the intellectual integrity of the college. And the professor is beginning to realize this. The department of music has discovered the glee club, the department of physical education has discovered the crew, the department of political science has discovered the debating society, and the department of English has discovered the college paper.

The result has been the Introduction of courses paralleling everywhere in the curriculum the structural elements in the undergraduate leisure. Even the hobbledehoy dramatic pretensions of fraternity night have been capitalized to develop dramatic production by Faculty teachers who seek to extend their away over histrionic impulse of the undergraduate. In this new recognition of the values evolving from student life itself, there is coming about an understanding and cooperation between professors and students; cut of this cooperation and out of this increase of contact is coming the modern student movement.

Left to themselves the students would probably have continued happily concerned with the enjoyment of their leisure time; brought face to face by their professors with world currents in polities, economics and religion, they have discovered that their own playthings were somewhat immature. It was much more fun playing with the tools of grown-up men. They responded with avidity. Free speech in the classroom and on the campus, for which the professors had been fighting in their university association, became in turn the rallying cry of the student. The right of a radical professor to retain his collegiate chair became in turn the right of the radical college organization to university toleration. The casting off of the narrower forces denominational theology by the professor became in turn a movement for the abolition of compulsory religious ritual at the college.

The college professors who organized the league to enforce peace have consciously or unconsciously fostered in every American college definite political organizations whose aim is similar to their own. Professors with strong proclivities toward social sympathy with the downtrodden have, by close association, fostered the development of strike leaders. Thus the professors themselves, so far as they have recognized their own trend in the student's leisure day, so far as they have applied their own knowledge to current problems, have produced the student movement of our time. This is recognized by the supporters of the unchanged order or things, who in denouncing the youth movement very seldom denounce the student leaders of it, but bitterly attack the professors for saying what they believe. The very extravagance of imprecation that fills the clubs and luncheon rooms is evidence of the ignorance of what is going on.

Not Like Europeans

Even student concern with the curriculum, the late development in the student movement, is largely a following of academic leadership. President Aydelotte denounces the classroom, Professor Meiklejohn shouts, "Away with all lectures." President Frank says that the college is sick and proposes an isolation ward where it can be taken apart and examined and experimented on; Secretary Flexner wants to abolish the college altogether at university centres. Profesor Johnston Ross denounces compulsory chapel. Professor William B. Otis denounces compulsory drills. Professor J. E. Kirpatrick would abolish the college Presidency. But it students propose any reforms in these fields, we call it a student movement!

What, then, does the student movement in the United States amount to? It is in no sense parallel to the student movement in Europe. The European student has been face to face with crushing economic burdens, with political disqualifications, with the bitterness of religious feuds. He is exploited by Fascismo and swastika, by trade union and international, by militarist and pacifist. As a result he is either enlisted in these camps and immediately formed into the flying squadron as an active participant in the movement, or by violent reaction against such exploitation he has withdrawn either into quasi-Oriental mysticism or the idealistic medieval romance of the wandering student of old. Such movements have practically no counter-part in the United States. In spite of capitalist and Communist the American college student is still remote from current world movements. In his leisure day he is chiefly concerned with his own affairs.

Student Autonomy Demand

The student movement in American is taken up with the demand for student autonomy in student matters. Undergraduates are quarreling with alumni over the management of teams. They are refusing the sentimental code of college sport handed down to them. They are defending the leisure day against the inroads made upon it by competing Faculty departments. They are going further just now in demanding some share in the control of the working day at the college. They are questioning not only the requirements of subjects, but the methods of teaching. The time is soon coming when innovations in the curriculum will not be imposed upon them without conferences, when they will retort with "tu quoque" to the professor, "if we study badly it is because we are taught badly," "If we have no intellectual enthusiasm it is because your teaching is mechanized," "If we despise research it because of your own attitude toward it," "If some of you gentlemen with Ph.D.'s showed any real enthusiasm for research we might ourselves respect it more." "We know what an interesting lecture is as well as you do," "we know when a course is well taught as well as you do," "if we soldier on our job it is because you soldier on yours."

Evidences of Thinking

These and other equally irreverent rejoinders are now being heard on the college campus. They constitute the real student movement in America today. To the present writer the movement seems wholly good if the professor recognizes the situation in time. The student's questioning of the value of religion in daily life is equally to the good if church leaders recognize the situation in time. All these revolts and objections are evidences of keen intellectual enthusiasm, of the discovery that participation in the real life of the world is much more fun than playing with the ephemeral ideals of the campus.

The student may go further; he has already gained control of his own membership through self-government, he may go further and organize student banks and subsidies in the form of loan funds and other aids to enable students of all classes to attend college. If the students will do this they will postpone for another generation the sharp class distinctions into which America

If the college graduate is the figure that the comic papers make him out to be, and the some professors scold about, it is the fault of the Faculty. If he returns to the college and interferes unintelligently in the academic administration, if he demands reforms of which he knows nothing, it is because the Faculty persists in handing the undergraduate student his diploma in the attitude of now be off with you," while at the same time it seeks from the graduate the very means of its own existence.

No Longer "College"

In a word, the American college is no longer a college in the old sense of the word. It is a great social organization operating most powerfully in a democracy, where class lines are not yet strictly drawn, and where vast numbers of the people possess leisure. The professor may grumble about it, he may actively oppose it, but he will accommodate himself to the situation as the facts become clear: and he will be all the better for the change.

In particular, the sooner the professor realizes that the graduate's influence over the undergraduate is even more powerful than his own the sooner he realizes that the student's leisure day is the one with which the professor should be most concerned, the better for the intellectual integrity of the college. And the professor is beginning to realize this. The department of music has discovered the glee club, the department of physical education has discovered the crew, the department of political science has discovered the debating society, and the department of English has discovered the college paper.

The result has been the Introduction of courses paralleling everywhere in the curriculum the structural elements in the undergraduate leisure. Even the hobbledehoy dramatic pretensions of fraternity night have been capitalized to develop dramatic production by Faculty teachers who seek to extend their away over histrionic impulse of the undergraduate. In this new recognition of the values evolving from student life itself, there is coming about an understanding and cooperation between professors and students; cut of this cooperation and out of this increase of contact is coming the modern student movement.

Left to themselves the students would probably have continued happily concerned with the enjoyment of their leisure time; brought face to face by their professors with world currents in polities, economics and religion, they have discovered that their own playthings were somewhat immature. It was much more fun playing with the tools of grown-up men. They responded with avidity. Free speech in the classroom and on the campus, for which the professors had been fighting in their university association, became in turn the rallying cry of the student. The right of a radical professor to retain his collegiate chair became in turn the right of the radical college organization to university toleration. The casting off of the narrower forces denominational theology by the professor became in turn a movement for the abolition of compulsory religious ritual at the college.

The college professors who organized the league to enforce peace have consciously or unconsciously fostered in every American college definite political organizations whose aim is similar to their own. Professors with strong proclivities toward social sympathy with the downtrodden have, by close association, fostered the development of strike leaders. Thus the professors themselves, so far as they have recognized their own trend in the student's leisure day, so far as they have applied their own knowledge to current problems, have produced the student movement of our time. This is recognized by the supporters of the unchanged order or things, who in denouncing the youth movement very seldom denounce the student leaders of it, but bitterly attack the professors for saying what they believe. The very extravagance of imprecation that fills the clubs and luncheon rooms is evidence of the ignorance of what is going on.

Not Like Europeans

Even student concern with the curriculum, the late development in the student movement, is largely a following of academic leadership. President Aydelotte denounces the classroom, Professor Meiklejohn shouts, "Away with all lectures." President Frank says that the college is sick and proposes an isolation ward where it can be taken apart and examined and experimented on; Secretary Flexner wants to abolish the college altogether at university centres. Profesor Johnston Ross denounces compulsory chapel. Professor William B. Otis denounces compulsory drills. Professor J. E. Kirpatrick would abolish the college Presidency. But it students propose any reforms in these fields, we call it a student movement!

What, then, does the student movement in the United States amount to? It is in no sense parallel to the student movement in Europe. The European student has been face to face with crushing economic burdens, with political disqualifications, with the bitterness of religious feuds. He is exploited by Fascismo and swastika, by trade union and international, by militarist and pacifist. As a result he is either enlisted in these camps and immediately formed into the flying squadron as an active participant in the movement, or by violent reaction against such exploitation he has withdrawn either into quasi-Oriental mysticism or the idealistic medieval romance of the wandering student of old. Such movements have practically no counter-part in the United States. In spite of capitalist and Communist the American college student is still remote from current world movements. In his leisure day he is chiefly concerned with his own affairs.

Student Autonomy Demand

The student movement in American is taken up with the demand for student autonomy in student matters. Undergraduates are quarreling with alumni over the management of teams. They are refusing the sentimental code of college sport handed down to them. They are defending the leisure day against the inroads made upon it by competing Faculty departments. They are going further just now in demanding some share in the control of the working day at the college. They are questioning not only the requirements of subjects, but the methods of teaching. The time is soon coming when innovations in the curriculum will not be imposed upon them without conferences, when they will retort with "tu quoque" to the professor, "if we study badly it is because we are taught badly," "If we have no intellectual enthusiasm it is because your teaching is mechanized," "If we despise research it because of your own attitude toward it," "If some of you gentlemen with Ph.D.'s showed any real enthusiasm for research we might ourselves respect it more." "We know what an interesting lecture is as well as you do," "we know when a course is well taught as well as you do," "if we soldier on our job it is because you soldier on yours."

Evidences of Thinking

These and other equally irreverent rejoinders are now being heard on the college campus. They constitute the real student movement in America today. To the present writer the movement seems wholly good if the professor recognizes the situation in time. The student's questioning of the value of religion in daily life is equally to the good if church leaders recognize the situation in time. All these revolts and objections are evidences of keen intellectual enthusiasm, of the discovery that participation in the real life of the world is much more fun than playing with the ephemeral ideals of the campus.

The student may go further; he has already gained control of his own membership through self-government, he may go further and organize student banks and subsidies in the form of loan funds and other aids to enable students of all classes to attend college. If the students will do this they will postpone for another generation the sharp class distinctions into which America