Middletown transcript., 1910-10-08
DRLAWARR COLLEGES ADVANTAGES

Our Delaware College has be-
gun its Fall term with a goodly
number of students and others
are yet entering. It is most
excellent institution with a fine
corps of professors, who under
the wise leadership Of its able
President George A. Harter are
in point Of culture, character and
good judgment every way fitted
to have the charge Of the youth
of the state. Our Delaware par
ents should send their sons
thither instead of elsewhere, not
only out of a proper state pride
in their own worthy college, but
because it possesses certain i'm
portant advantages not found in
larger institutions.
The writer having spent i've
years in his undergraduate days
in college, and about four years
since doing post graduate work
at one of the largest schools in
the country, with an enrolment
of over 1000 students, believes
himself in a position to pronounce
ex cathedra on the subject of
small colleges VS.. big ones. Had
he as many sons as Gideon, not
one of the 20 would he send to a
large college. And this for sew.
eral reasons. In the first place,
a single student is lost in the
multitudes that throng the larger
colleges; and because of the num-
bers that compose the classes, he
must Of necessity receive from
the professor less personal atten.
tion in his work during recitation
and at other times, than would
be. the case in a smaller class.
That careful oversight of the
student and his work that dis.
covers his peculiar needs, lacks
and difficulties, is not possible in
large classes to anything like the
degree it is in smaller ones,
where but a few are under the
teachers care. Consequently,
the young and inexperienced
scholar is too much thrown upon
his own resources in his studies.
In the second place, in the
minor schools several fads, whose
cultivation is proving a curse to
American colleges, viz, athleti-
cism, ,fraternities and club life,ar
not allowed, or in the nature of
things cannot have, the excessive
development that attends them in
the larger colleges. These three
things are seriously imperiling
the usefulness Of many institu-
tions by distracting the student
from his studies, and by breeding
habits of extravaganza, injurious
both to his purse-or his fathers
and his morals. From most of
this the smaller college is happi-
ly free.
Finally, in these enormous
numbers is lost that which after
all is the highest profit that
comes to the collegian-intimate
contact with superior minds in
spired by lofty ideals in morals
and in characterize purity and
greatness Of soul that made an
Arnold at Rugby a power for
good in all England. This noble
contagion of virtue and manli.
ness, can best be felt in schools
like Rugby limited in numbers.
The TRANSCRIPT is gratifed
to learn that the authorities of
Delaware College are joining
West Point, Annapolis and some
of the leading schools throughout
the country, in repressing that
imported European idiocy called
"hazing" whose follies and ex.
cesses had reached such q pitch
as to threaten all order and dis.
cipline. Indeed, in some colleges
these silly and often violent and
dangerous pranks, had come to
be looked upon as matters of
right, and a useful part of the
curriculum! It would be hard to
say which is the more discredit.
able, the servility Of the callow
freshman who tamely submits to
the senseless, even degrading
practices imposed by the sopho-
mores, or the cowardly tyrannies |
he himself in turn inficts upon
the later freshmen.
We repeat it as an opinion that
Delaware parents will do most
wisely if they patronize their own
fine institution.
hneFnNnTASd UTAanc