, 1897-12-07
THE STATE UNIVERSITY IDEAL.
president F. p. Graves, Phi. D., LII. d.

dent Frank Pierrepont Graves to the
current number of Education: Western
educators generally have ignored the
criticism passed by Mr.. Bicknell, in the
October number of Education. upon
western colleges. their faculties and
Graves felt that the unjust arrangement
should not go unchallenged. Being al
eastern man himself. he is perfectly
qualified from experience and envir.
Onment to state facts, and he has pre-
scented them in Il manner at once clear
and logical. His article has already re-
of the best charlottesville
The present writer expected to see
the structures on western university
ideals, which appeared in the October
number of Education. answered in the
next issue by some western educator.
This sort of article, however. is not at
all new. 1t appears every now and then
from the pen of some New England
grammar school teacher who is itch
ing for promotion. II is as popular a
theme with the average casterner, as a
libel on Great Britain is with many
Americans. The older educators of the
west have long since ceased to notice
such remarks, but it may be rational
for the writer. who is a graduate of one
If the largest eastern universities and
who was an instructor and professor for
seven years in his alma mater and in
Il New England college. to deny some
Of the grosser misstatements in the
article
Mr. Bicknell seems to show in many
instances "A lamentable ignorance OF
facts and in other cases a marked per,
version of data One would gather from
his article that the time of students in
western universities was given over
largely to athletics, while their eastern
brethren consumed all their spare hours
in preparing for debates and other in
tellectual pursuits.
AS a matter of fact, it is well known
that athletics is an epidemic through,
out the college world, and that the east
is more infected than the west. The at
torney-general of Mr.. Bicknell's own
state, for instance, has repeatedly" de,
clared that athletics is the most valu>
able part of a college course President
Andrews is reported by the newspapers
as saying that football is a more bene,
fetal exercise and a greater developer
of manhood than anything else with
which he is acquainted, and the writer
has himself seen Harvard professors
and instructors show the widest JOY
over a victory in the same "~barbarous"
game.*
Moreover, until 1890, very little at
tention was paid to athletics in western
universities Since thai time the con-
tagion has spread from the east and is
now at its height. During the last three
years a much greater interest has been
taken in athletics, but neither now nor
at II former time has it absorbed so
much of the students time, attention.
or money. as it always has in the east.
Athletics in the west has been and still
is only a pastime and has always been
under the control of the college facul-
ties. The athletic associations of west
ern universities do not have men in
their employ to watch at fitting schools
for available material and to offer
financial inducements to muscular
young men to come to certain institu-
tons. Can Harvard. Yale, Princeton.
or Brown say as much?
In some cases a coach" has been hir.
ed in the west, but his position CORE
spends neither in salary nor Importance
to that of the trainers in eastern col
The instance of a western college
1920 to an athletic instructor
and only $500 to an assistant professor
is simply a matter of supply and de-
mand. We happen to have more men
in the United States that can teach the
intellect properly than can rightly train
the body. But this disproportion in sal.
airy is not confined to the west. 1t is
currently reported, and may reasonably
be true, that the gymnasium instructor
of Wellesley receives not only more
than an assistant professor, but more
than the president. 1t is a fact, at any
that a certain man with a Ger
decorate, a splendid record for
scholarship and teaching. an assistant
at Johns Hopkins, and with no blemish
of character, failed to obtain an abso>
lutely ~unsalaried place in the teaching
force at Harvard, while. presumably.
DR. Sargent commands a larger income
there, and coaches" are paid as high
as 5000 a week during the football sea-
SON..
Until recently, the interest of stu
dents in the western institutions has
been centered on the Intercollegiate
contests in oratory. From the local
contest to the interstate the successful
speakers were followed by the popular
interest and student enthusiasm that in
eastern colleges at that time were
aroused only by athletics. The value
OF this training has been shown so
in the number and ability of the
public speakers of the west that these
intercollegiate contests in oratory are
now being introduced by the authorities
into eastern colleges but without secnr,