The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1905-02-07
Should College students study

Those who are alive to the short
comings of even our leading universities
will do well to read a short but just and
thought stirring article contributed to
the current number OF the North Ameri-
can RerieW by DR.. CHARLES II. THwISG,
president OF tho Western Reserve Uni
versity.
1t may seem at first sight surprising
that an eminent eXpounder and eXemplar
of the higher education should not forth
with answer in the affirmative such a
query as Should college students studyY
| 1t Is Characteristic however OF the
writer's fair-mindedness and. perhaps
we should add, of his forensic skill
for nothing is more insidious and dan
gerous than an orators predatory con-
cessions-that DR.. THwINo begins by
admitting that something may be said
by those who reply in the negative, He
is led to discuss the subject by recent
report Of the Faculty of Arts and Sci
ences of Harvard University, which ar
rived at the conclusion that the average
amount of study in that oldest OF Ameri-
can colleges is "discreditably small,
the fact being that the men who devote
from FIVE to six hours a week to n college
course are somewhat fewer than one
half as many as those who spend less than
two hours The comment of tho COM
mittee was that, evidently, great many
graduates do not study so much as is
necessary for the full benefit Of college
education Are we to draw from this
conclusion the deduction that the I'M
dergraduates who will not work volun-
tarily should be made to work, and that,
if they prove recalcitrant. even TO coer-
cion, they should be invited 70 leave the
university?
DR.. THwING shrinks from accepting
such a deduction, though he does not
make clear to us how or where we are
to find n via media or middle term be-
tween the two logical alternatives. He
even acknowledges that, if Harvard
should systematically strive TO force
each undergraduate to secure the fullest
possible benefits of college education,
it would renounce the wand OF the in
spirer for the ierule of the pcdagogue
and would swerve from the historical
ideal of the great European universities
Reminding us of the conditions that
obtain at the English Cambridge, at
Oxford. at Berlin at Bonn, he asks: Is
it not only opportunities that these uni
yersities afford? Do they oblige any
man to toll? Arc they not the embod-
mcnts of scholastic liberty? Do they
not give, or at least offer but confine
themselves to Offering, what each I'M
dcrgraduate wants2 Do not tho Eng
lish universities give freedom, at all
events, even if they do not give science;
and do not the German universities give
both freedom and science' II one wills
TO think, to think is the privilege they
offer II one wills to be stupid, "accumu-
lated Libraries leave men leisure to be
dull If oxford and Cambridge I'M
dcrgraduates choose to be young bar
barians all at play, they need not go far
for sport. Is Harvard. demands DR.,
THwING, or any other famous American
college, TO step aside from the great ira
ditions of the Cam the Isis and the
Rhine?
1t is evident that the writer Of the
article in tho North American does JUS
tee to the considerations which may
be urged in behalf Of the right of doing
the -discreditably small amount of
work which. according To a committee
of the faculty, is actually done at Har-
ward, DR.. 'THwGNG does not stop there
however, as those who know him might
have expected. He declares with the
utmost earnestness that a university is
established not to give boys Of eighteen
or twenty what they want, or what they
imagine that they want, but what they
ought TO want IL is established to satisfy !
right desires if they exist, and to create !