Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1914-04-03
REVITA A COMMON
WEALTH

w EALIH.
An interesting experiment is in
progress in Vermont which is attract
ing considerable attention from educat-
ors and students of civic conditions. Its
center is Middlebury college, set among
the green hills that give the State its
name, and the oldest college within its
borders. This experiment is nothing
less than an effort to revitalize the State
through the spirit emanating from the
institution. The question is, Can
little leaven leaven so large a lump?
In common with other educational in
stitutions, Middebuly has been educat-
ing young people who have left it to
build up other States while their home
State has been retrograding, as shown
by abandoned farms and diapidated
school houses and churches A new
college president, in 1907, inaugurated
new policy. He undertook to educate
students to go back home, stay in their
own State, and wherever they located
through social service work help uplift
the community, give courage and hope
and inspire people to stay in the old
home or on the old farm, but to so alter
life and conditions that there would be
neither necessity nor desire to leave.
Heretofore Middebury had been train
ing students to go to the cities and COM
pete with world forces. DR.. John M.
Thomas has undertaken to train as
many as possible to go back home, and
lift
To the practical man, or the one to
whom business success and money are
the aim of life, all this sounds visionary.
ideaistic, impossible to put into execu-
ton. The complaint from farms and
villages has always been that education
sent the young people home dissatisfied
with its life and eager get away from
it. But taking students of both sexes
at the formative period of youth and
subjecting them for four years to diff
ferent influence and different atmos-
phere, an atmosphere that makes the
kind of life lived of more Importance
than material success, ought not diff
ferent sort of men and women be the
product?
This is what DIR. Thomas wishes to
discover. There has b. en- no haste
about trying out the plan. Conditions
had to be revolutionized first. This
done. DR.. Thomas began with a
freshman class which graduated last
June. Several of its members went
back into the mountain districts of Yer
mont to work out the doctrines they
had absorbed; a larger number expect
to follow their example the current
year. All great streams have small be-
ginnings; DR.. Thomas has both hope
and faith that this may be the nucleus
of an ever-increasing volume.
The trouble is that the success of
, such an undertaking depends so greatly
l on the personality behind it. Remove
the personality momentum carries for a
short time, then, unless the work falls
into another hand as strong and vigor-
Gus, it languishes. Remembering the
= far-reaching impetus given to the
I movement toward the higher education
b. of women through Mary Lyon and Mt.
Holyoke- practically the initial in
5 fiuence-none of US dares say an en-
deavor like that of Dr. Thomas is futile.
Il The city has too lorg absorbed the
> best blood of the country. The situa.
t ton has its alarming features; we are
e beginning to realize them. Country
e life must be brought up to a higher
1 standard, and this is impossible if its
{ best men and women continue to leave
t it. Moreover, what we do need, in this
e money grubbing and money grabbing
q age, is more training in and more
d respect for the real essentials of life -
d Detroit Free Press.