SQUARE PEGS

The blame for the maladjustments that occur only too often in the case of students in any college of today has been laid on many and varied doorsteps. The colleges themselves have been criticized, both for not being liberal enough to the earnest scholar and at the same time not strict enough with the slacker. President Lowell last year arraigned the preparatory schools for sending their graduates on to the higher institutions improperly trained. Athletics, extra-curriculum, activities and social diversions have all come in for their share of the responsibility. In an article in the current Atlantic Monthly quoted elsewhere in this issue of the CRIMSON, W. I. Nichols '26 follows the source of the trouble back to the families of the student and holds them to account for forcing their sons to go to college without considering whether they may not have special talents best developed in another way.

Mr. Nichols' experience as Dean of Freshmen at Harvard for two years qualifies him to speak with authority, and undoubtedly many of the fatalities that reduce an average matriculating class of nearly 1000 to less than 600 at graduation may be laid to the fact that the college had nothing to offer the men in the four categories he mentions. It might be assumed that the eliminations are rather beneficial than tragic and that both students and university benefit from the severing of a connection that hinders both in attaining their real goals. But Mr. Nichols' explanation does not cover more than a fraction of the total number of casualties. Artists, artisans, adventurers and scholars do not form as large a percentage of any student body as the figures would indicate and there remains a substantial residue of those whose failure must be accounted for on other grounds.

The colleges are still far from their maximum efficiency, and many of the men who fail to get their degree might well be saved. Mr. Nichols' article explains the fundamental reason that underlies many failures, but there is no lack of opportunity for those seeking to perfect the educational organization.