TEACHING AND THE PRESENT

The perennial demand for a current events course has been voiced more vehemently this year than at any time within the memory of students now in college. The events of the last year have been so arresting and student interest in politics has grown so rapidly that the bases of this demand are easily understood. But while a current events course is the most obvious way in which a college can satisfy this new undergraduate interest, it would never be adequate in itself to answer a demand which is much more fundamental than a passing fever of interest in the affairs of the nation and the world.

The sporadic enthusiasm of the average student for a current events course is a reflection of a feeling that his college education has little to do with the realities of a rapidly changing world. The academic community seems isolated from the real currents of contemporary life, and its preceptors oblivious to the arresting developments outside its bounds. Courses in economics, in government, in sociology, courses which ought to have a direct bearing on the problems of the day, founder in a multiplicity of fact and theory which too often seems to the student of little importance.

There is a real question in some subjects just how far the professor should link up his teaching with the problems of the present. Certainly there is much in a college which can best be taught in a spirit of detachment and an atmosphere of the past. But there is much more in which the failure to vitalize teaching by revealing its bearing on the problems of the present, robs it of the appeal which it would otherwise have for the average student. The motive which most often leads a teacher to neglect the contemporary implications of his teaching is not the desire to keep it free of exaggerated irrelevancies. It is the fear of being considered superficial and "popular." Or else it is the lack of ability to appreciate the vitality inherent in his subject, to say nothing of the ability to transmit a sense of this vitality to his students.

Academic interests compete with many others for the attention of the average student. A man whose enthusiasm for pure learning is too weak to call forth his best efforts may develop something approaching a real intellectual passion if the things he studies in from undergraduates. Festering in their cocoons of red tape, the magnifies of the Bursar's Office have managed to concoct a truly astounding college seem of real consequence and bearing on the problems of the day. Any college which fails to take advantage of this opportunity of arousing the interest of its students is doing less than society has a right to expect of it.