University Missourian. [volume] (Columbia, Mo.) 1908-1916, 1911-03-05

Few persons familiar with the con
lditiOns here and abroad" writes Presi
dent Lowell of Harvard in his annual
report, will deny that respect for
scholarship in American colleges is
lamentably small" The causes for
this development-and it is pre-emi
nently development of the past thir.
lty or forty years-are not regarded bv
educators as ut all obscure. When
"going to college" became fashionable
in the numerous class possessed of
wealth. for the most part newly ac-
quired. and hungry for social prestige
the general tone of college life and
the character of college ideals began
to undergo a transformation. Why
should young men who plan to sue
coed their fathers in the several CON-
merc;al callings in which the family
pile" has been made seek to distin-
guish themselves as scholars? 1t is
impossible to have a college crowded
with students whose primary purpose
is to gain social position and a set OF
swell acquaintances for use in later
| life without, at the same time, having
| its atmosphere profoundly affected
by the alien ideals they breathe into
| it. Respect for scholarship declines
of course. And the mania for STU
dent activities" of the widest possible
range outside of the classroom and
the study becomes inevitably what we
see today-a consuming passion ap-
parently, of college life, against which
college presidents and faculties strug-
gle until they are so dead tired that
they cannot tell whether they are in
the main tent or the side show.
The newspaper published at the Uni
versity of Chicago. the Daily Maroon,
attracts attention just now by declar-
ing its opposition to intercollegiate
athletics. as at present conducted. 1t
is against athletics, it says, for the
same reasons that it opposes the en-
tire system of student activities which
has made the academic side of col
lege education mere incident"
Athletics presents the extreme illus
tration of the tendency, so much de-
plored, toward that fatal loss of es-
TEEN for scholarship among the stu
dent body. The richer. more largely
attended and more celebrated insti-
tutions have set such a pace id the
major sports" that the expense has
become almost killing to those smaller
and weaker colleges which endeavor
to copy the methods of the leaders. A
recent article iu college publication |
it was, of course, dollar-mark ap-
peal to the loyal alumni-was really |
pathetic in its description of the har- |
rowing efforts of the athletics depart
ment to turn out winning teams" on |
nothing year. Consider the question |
of coaches. Nowadays, expensive
coaches are indispensable, and they
must be paid higher salaries than full
professors, flour college is TO keep
in the procession" 1t had become
serious question, evidently, whether
that institution should retire utterly
from the major sports" because the
alumni could not be depended upon
to furnish thousands of dollars a year
to pay itinerant young athletes eyor-
bitant fees for coaching the team a
lew months. OF course, the entire
performance is getting to be an impo-
sition upon the friends of those col
eges which are frantically trying to
conform to standard of living that
S unmistakably beyond their means.
1t is remarkable that some college
loes not perceive in this situation. to .
which athletics contributes merely its !
share, an opportunity to distinguish |,
tself by being as different as possible :
rom the run of colleges. 1t is by no /,
means improbable that the time has !
ome when enthusiastic support would =
'e given by people who have retained 9
Omewhat the Old-fashioned concep- /.
ion of the higher education to an in
tuition that would close its doors, if !,
ecessary, rather than surrender to
hat prevalent spirit which makes ;,
''the mere incident" of a ;,
ollege training. If such an institu-
ion would re-organize student ac-
ivities" as determinedly as Stein re-
rganized Prussia, if it would shoot =
streak of sanity through the ath.
'tics mania. if it would enforce re- >;
pect for scholarship or die in the at -
'mpt, we should have in America at r
lst college to be proud of. r
Since the special committee of the =,
ass of 'S5 made its highly interest L
e report to the trustees of Amherst
,llege regarding the wisdom of hav-
10 fhof institution e~aa;oI-- t.I |