SELECTIVE EDUCATION

The question of who should go to college and who should not is one of recurring complexity, and any expert opinion on the matter is always welcome. The suggestions recently made in the American Magazine, by Dr. Faunce, president of Brown University, is that a candidate for higher education determine his fitness by answering a short list of questions intended to analyze his purpose in life, his interest in study and his capacity for mental effort. Dr. Faunce's questionnaire begins with the inquiries, "Do you like to study, (not merely read) about an interesting subject?" and "Do you like to deal with ideas as well as things?"; it goes on to find out whether the candidate has any genuine interest in any special field; it concludes with the general question "Is it your great desire and ambition to go out and do things, letting others search for the why and wherefore, or would you prefer for the next four years to try to understand the things that others are doing?" He sums up with the shrewd inquiry, "Do you want to make a living or a life?" His judgment is that the desire to "make a living" will find no satisfaction in a college education.

Dr. Faunce's suggestions are thoughtful and pertinent, and they doubtless would provide a satisfactory test of the candidate's capacity to profit by a college education if they were conscientiously answered. But the difficulty would seem to be that most prospective collegians are likely to consider that the matter of their personal fitness is not worth much thought, inasmuch as the question is neither pressing nor easy to solve. College is usually regarded as a matter of course,--to be taken or discarded on its objective merits. It is a rare thing when unsuitability and failure are judged in advance, and it would appear doubtful if any of those who have found themselves unsuited to a college education ever suspected that they would so find it until they had learned by experience. Obviously Dr. Faunce seeks to awaken saving suspicions in the minds of such as have at the outset little chance of finding value in higher education, but it is a question whether, even if awakened, the suspicions would be taken seriously. Only a few of pre-college age, or older for that matter, are able to speak freely and with assurity about their tastes and latent possibilities, where even an observer passing judgement cannot be too sure of "latent possibilities."

It seems, indeed, that of all people interested in a boy's fitness for college, he himself is the least capable of judgement. Except in the extreme cases where a predilection for business life or an equally inherent studiousness precludes the possibility of a change, it would seem a very difficult matter to decide whether or no a moderate interest in things intellectual might not be developed into a genuine appreciation, or, on the other hand, a seemingly scholarly bent may be only transient. If Dr. Faunce's test could ever be satisfactorily applied it would certainly go a long way toward solving a problem, but it would seem, at first sight, to be more useful as a recapitulatory for a college graduate than as an index for an entrant. Where the latter could profit by it, only the former can, well apply it.