The copper era., 1909-09-30
Mhat a COIIege Course Should Mean.
By President Northrup.


 your friends when I say to you, as I now do, that of all gain at college, value least the knowledge which you will get from books and recitations. And ye. your main business here will be, and rightly, to get knowledge. Ia a certain sense knowledge is pow CT. Knowledge, therefore, got from books is not to be despised. But to you, at your age, the knowledge is not so valuable as the getting of it. Said a great philosopher, If God were to give me the choice between truth and search for truth, I would choose the latter It would be a wise choice. What man needs to get at college is not supply of know ledge that will last him during life for he really uses, in direct way, but very little of the knowledge that he gets at school-and quite likely ten years hence very few could pass the examinations which you master here. But in getting this knowledge your minds are being disciplined and you are becoming their masters-so that whether in the future you are to pursue your studies further or are merely to deal with the worlds prac- tical business, you will be equal to the occasion-will be cool, calm, reso- lute, judicious and invincible. The important question is not whether you inAate yourself with knowledge, but whether you grow by that which you feed upon. Of all things deliver me from the scholar dude, who is not a sufficiently vigorous scholar to have a creative mind, but who is so cram med and weighted with the fruits of other mems scholarship as to have no freedom of action in his own inde- pendent manhood. There is, for ex- ample, hardly any higher praise which a teacher can give a scholar than to say of him, He scorns to do d mean act He of whom that can be said is the one who is going to be in after years the kind of man whom you like to meet, whom you can trust, who, in Western phraseology, twill do to tie to- It is a glorious thing to be this sol of man, and there never was an age or country in which such men were so needed or had so blessed future before them, as now and here. They are needed as ex- amples to show that truly manly fellow can do his duty wherever God puts him, in the ranks as well as in command. x
 ''The body in its best development ought not to be the master but when we'll trained it is a most excellent servant. x The young man who can strike one blow straight from the shoulder and not need to strike a second blow, when it is nec- essary to knock down a bully or some other enemy of human peace or vir- tue, has had training that, as far as it goes, is not to be despised. With such a physical development the boy who is not manly fellow, who is either brutal in the use of his superior physical powers, or content to possess them alone, without cor responding mental and moral strength must have but puny soul as the oc- cupant of his splendid earthly taber nacle. No true man can ever exalt the physical above the intellectual and spiritual. But the mind and the soul, masters though they are, and ought to be, are yet so dependent upon the body for the free and effec- tive exercise of their functions that in their interest alone too much care can hardly be taken to secure health, symmetry and vigor of body. So long, then, as the athletic sports of our schools and colleges are kept within proper limits as efficient help CTS, in the harmonious development of our boys entire nature, they ought to be encouraged. It is only when they pass beyond these limits, and produce physical culture at the ex- pense of the intellectual, substituting large muscles for great thoughts, swift feet for quick wits, and hard grasping hands that can catch a ball for tender and capacious souls that can hold on to a conviction, that they become evil and ought to be brought within narrower limits. *'
 "The true outcome of all proper study at your age is growth, culture, character and not facts. If you are honest and faithful in your work, you will learn to think, to reason, to discriminate, to decide those acts which are the essentials of success in active life. The thoughtless man, the unreasonable man, the man without discrimination, the man unable to make up his mind with all the facts before him-nOne of these are very useful or very man. ly fellows. You will learn to trace effects back to causes, and from causes to anticipate effects. You will learn to understand, to some extent, nature, whether it be inani- mate nature or human nature. You will learn something of the forces