The daily star-mirror. (Moscow, Idaho) 1911-1939, 1915-02-25
NEW TYPE TODAY
OFC0LLEGE STUDENT
WRITER IN NEW YORK TIMES
DESCRIBES CHANGES IN
IDEALS
Literature Not Athletics of Paramount
Interest-Drama Chief Subject at
Harvard Writing Poetry Favor
ite Pastime at Columbia

A recent analysis of the present-day
undergraduates tastes reveals the
startling fact that the type has chang
ed entirely and that poetry rather than
football is of prime Importance Some
quotations from the survey of condi-
tions at Columbia contributed to the
New York Times will be interesting
to those concerned with the college
world.
Brown of Harvard is no more. The
play of that name may still be run
ming, but of Harvard life it is now
about as accurate picture as "Tre-
lawney of the Wells" is of modern
English life. At Harvard, and at all
the great American universities, the
dashing, picturesque young athlete is
no longer the prevailing type or the
undergraduate ideal.
Of course, undergraduate athletics
and undergraduate athletes persist
II WOulu UO d lidSCuJ IL IhOy uiu nv
but the type of youth that has been
rather effectively denominated the
"rah-rah boy" is increasingly difficult
to find. His place has been taken, not
by the grind" the plodding, prema-
turely old student, caring only for his
books and his scholastic record, but
by a normal young man, aware that
the campus is not the most important
place in the world; aware, in fact, that
the university is not the universe.
This young man knows about class
politics, but also about international
politics; about baseball, but also about
contemporary literature. He is much
more citizen than his predecessor of
ten years since, less provincial, less
And he not only enjoys
literature but actually desires to Gre
ate it.
The chief enthusiasm at Harvard
seems to be the drama; indeed, the
Brown of Harvard of today must be
represented not as crimson-sweater-
ed gladitor but as cross between
and George M. Cohan. At
Columbia there has lately developed
a genuine interest in poetry!
Undergraduate ideals have greatly
changed during the last few years.
College life reflects the ordinary life
If the world. more closely than is
Usually believed. This is a day of
general cultural and spiritual awaken
ng. The college student is waking,
ust as everybody else is waking; like
everybody else, he is becoming more
Interested in the great things of life.
There is no reason why the college
walls should shut him in from the
lopes, ambitions, and problems of the
est of humanity.
It isn't only the boys that have
parents have changed
90. Time was when the father and
mother wanted their son to go to col
ege so that he could join group of
leasant, nice-mannered boys of good
amily. Now they have a definite idea
f the practical value of a college edu-
alton, they send their son to college
ntelligently.
Also, the whole theory of teaching
as changed The purely Germanic !
ystem has been superseded by some |
hing more humane. The old idea of |
for it's own sake is no
,nger insisted upon. Instead, the sub
scts taught are treated in their rela
on to life, the only way in which they
an be of real interest to the students.
You will look in vain in the modern
for the old type of absent
linded, dry-as-dust professor. He has
cen superseded by the professor who
a man as we'll as a scholar. And
aturally he approaches his subject
nd his classes in a different spirit
ON that of his predecessor.
The extraordinary amount of writ
lg done by the students is one of the
manifestations of lit
'ary interest in the students.
1t is not at all unusual now for
olumbia student to sell his work to
Ie regular magazines The student
ho writes for the magazines and
ewspapers is no longer novelty. {
Bourne, who was recently
.aduated. contributed number of
says to The Atlantic Monthly dur |
e his Junior and senior years. t
Manu Of the students write for the ,