The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1916-1920, 1919-08-24
WAR LESSONS FOR COLLEGES



effected in the Individual under the
.restraint of a compelling idea.
So unlocked for an outcome of the
war must indeed dumfound the old
slime militarist and warm the hearts
.of those who believe with William
Flames that a God who can think In
particular terms is greater God than
God who thinks in abstract terms.
The millions in all the nations of
the globe have not been taught for
.six months by the newspapers to
think of four men around table
SETTLING the destinies of the world.
However imaginary the picture may
shave been, without thereby under
going a great revival of faith in the
Importance Of trained leadership and
rightly or wrongly imbibing a belief
that even In this day of Intelligent
slemocracies, of newspapers and wire
less, of open covenants openly arrived
mt, the destlnies Of peoples depend
quite as much Oh the strength or
,shrewdness Of their individual cham
pions as in the days of David and
Goliath. That for Democracy there
fore, quite as much as for autocracy
or oligarchy, 1t is important that 1t
secure able leaders, taking them from
.the cobbler's bench or wherever nat
.nral genius may have dropped them,
If 1t must, but better breeding and
training them for their special work.
-as man has found it possible to breed
and to train other plants and animals.
A part of this training obviously
belongs under our system to the
American College. How shall we de
fine it's particular task? Perhaps we
cannot do better than to define the
task of the College as the teaching of
self-direction, the training of the In
dividual In the appreciation and right
use Of freedom. AS the late President
Graham said to his students during
the war, "The faith for which the
world is now being tested is the faith
that with the right to live freely, men
will live rightly; that with a free
choice between the inferior and the
superior, free men will choose the
better way, and that knowledge and
power TO choose rightly in any &C
stIVity, and the continuous purpose to
.carry out the choice, come from with
in. True sovereignty ultimately Is
within the individual man, or no
I. swhere. The essential and ultimate
tight is for that method of living that
Twill produce the best life; and justin
cation by practice Of that declaration
.of democracy that the best way Is the
.self-dlrected way, and not the way Of
outside force, however enlightened, OF
slivine right of family, or caste, OF
might militaristic, or otherwise. That
is the ultimate fight, whether men can
discipline themselves, and that Is the
fight that is to test the vision Of free
dom that has led men through the
centuries"
We may define the task of the col.
lege, therefore, as primarily to teach
self-direction, to furnish a forum, OF
a battlefield in which the individual
may practice freedom with the leas,
danger to himself or to society. The
curriculum will depend somewhat on
the individual. Self-dlrection implies
adequate knowledge of the facts and
freedom from restraint. The re
stralnt may be physical, a mans &C
lions handicapped by poor physique
IN that case the man must be set fire.,
from physical weakness; the restraint
may be due to an undue reverence,
Tor authority, or too great regard fol
what the people of his time say: II
toat case the man must be taught un