Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1919-02-25

| r N the February number of Scribner's
Magazine, Dean Frederick w. Roe, of
IA the University of Wisconsin, publishes
an article which the authorities of our insti-
| buttons of higher education will do we'll to
consider.
The caption under which Dean Roes article
appears is, ''The College: Yesterday and To-
morrow" He makes generous acknowledge
ment of the progress of our colleges and uni
versities in matters of material character
during the last twenty years; but he points
out some points of weakness which call for
correction. He declares most truly that "this
period of outward achievement has been also
period of unrest and uncertainty-nay, for
not few it has been a period of scepticism
and even of despair-without parallel in the
annals of the American college"
Dean Roe quotes President Wilson as say
ing, when he was president of Princeton uni
versity, ct have found everywhere note of
apology. Learning is on the defensive We
have fallen of late into a deep discomfort with
the college. The college has lost its def
initeness of aim. There is utter confusion
and hopeless dispersion of energy"
He quotes also President Nicholas Murray
Butler of Columbia university saying,
''The tendency of educational institutions to
drift with the tide rather than to formulate
definite policies and to labor constantly for
their execution is well illustrated by the way
in which the American college has, in so many
instances, permitted itself to be made the
ceeding educational whim. Without knowing
just whittier they were going, the colleges
have followed the trend of the time toward a
slackening of discipline, toward an unwilling
ness or inability for passing upon relative
| values, and toward the confusion between
general training and vocational preparation
| which for the college is painless but sure
form of suicide"
There is far too much truth in what these
| leaders in the educational world say The
colleges have been carried about by all sorts
| of currents and cross currents.
They have listened to educational ere
! formers and faddists too much. Education
| al conventions have been held without num-
ber and to make lively programs all sorts of
| takers have been asked to address these
| meetings, and their crude and ill-considered
| views have forthwith been embodied in reso-
lutions of reform" and pressed upon col
| 1ege authorities for adoption. We have too
many meetings anyway, and far too much
talking and far too little calm, clear think
| ing We formulate educational policies, and
| frame even religious movements, too fire.
quently on impulse born of preferred dec
laration rather than upon sound reason.
The clamor for what is called practical
education has been allowed also to deform
many colleges while proposing to reform
| them. Commerce has assumed in such cases
to dictate culture without knowing what it
was doing.
Worst of ALL school boys have been permit
ted to determine college policies. The ambi-
ton for large enrollments has induced col
lege authorities to yield to boyish demands
for all sorts of diversions and sideshows. The
boys have been accustomed to rule their
parents. Why should they not rule the au-
thorities of the colleges to which they choose
to go? If their demands are not acceded to
they threaten to go to schools that will yield
obedience to their demands, and they are
obeyed.
Between all these cross currents many COL
worthy
aims of educational institutions and carried
into all sorts of eccentric courses whitherso-
ever their ignorant governors have listed.
We of the south have been inexcusably
foolish to mimic the fads of the wealthy in
situations of the north to which the sons of
the opulent resort for amusement during the
days when their parents suppose it to be 'the
proper thing" to send their offspring off to