FLEXNER VS. ROLLINS

Dr. Flexner also derides Rollins College for establishing a Professorship of Books. Such a course is part of the educational liberalism that the German educator is inclined to condemn. He has overlooked several aspects of such a chair which would make it really valuable, as President Holt points out in the accompanying press clipping.

Colleges have placed a great deal of quite natural and understandable emphasis upon the substance of volumes. But this emphasis has prevented any real appreciation of books as books. The pleasure gained from rare bindings and fine printing is only secondary, but it can well be a genuine source of satisfaction to the connoisseur. Both the modern trend toward mass production and the advance of education have made possible and profitable the publishing of books in great numbers. This large scale production has tended to reduce the beauty of volumes and to cheapen the workmanship. Students are apt to forget that binding, in years past, was as much an art as writing itself. A study of this kind can do much to create an understanding of artistic craftsmanship and to develop a very real appreciation of books in themselves.

At Harvard a course is given by Dr. Winship which brings to the students a feeling for the individuality and workmanship that are the hall marks of a fine volume. Rollins has carried the study into its more advanced stages. Besides a History of the Book, the college gives courses on Literary Personalities and Recrestion Reading. The first makes of a book a more personal thing, an expression of the author's individuality, something too often neglected in the study of text books. The second provides valuable knowledge for the selection of a personal library. Rollins is certainly not to be censured for attempting to further this branch of the arts by establishing a professorship for its study.