Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1920-09-25
THE COLLEGE LIFE .

OPPORTUNITY to talk to IL 900
"a young men and women in a single audi
cnce called together by a desire to learn
doesn't come to many men. 1t ought to
mean a great deal to the few who can COM
mand it.
Acting Provost Penniman. of the Cniver-
sity of Pennsylvania. and Governor Sproul.
when they addressed the student body at
Penn yesterday, wisely dealt with the gen
eral truths of everyday life on and off the
campus. What the Governor said of the
power of simple virtues may have sounded
old. But is 1t the less true? And was there
ever a time when such things needed frmer
reiteration?' The provost said what other
provosts and college presidents have been
thinking and feeling for years and years
when he suggested very broadly that a uni
versity is place in which one should ac-
quire learning and not an institution estab-
lshed solely for the greater glorifcation of
athletic sports.
Such observations as this prompt a mo-
ment's study of the influences that have
combined to color popular notions Of college
life in the United States. Youthful imagina-
tion in the pre- college years seizes on the
things which custom has made conspicuous
football, fraternity uproars and the belief
that college is a place dedicated to class
fights, pretty girls, chrysanthemums and
the honor of the head coach. 1t is a fact
that there were times when the head coach
crowded even the higher members of the fac
ulty for campus honors. but that time has
passed. Then the undergraduates had al
most taken control Of the colleges out of the
hands of deans and professors and boards of
directors.
The undergraduates were not alone re.
sponsble They did nothing but turn in to
honor and support those institutions of the
universities that had received most applause
from the outside world. There were eager
and ambitious scholars in oil the colleges
but their pictures did not appear in the
papers every Saturday afternoon. In the
laboratories of the country great discov-
cries were made. But the discoverers were
not hailed as popular heroes. Not the un-
dergraduates but the fad makers of the coun-
try were responsible when the really great
schools in the United States. which have
been contributing so vastly to the cultural
life OF the nation and doing marvellous things
in the fields of science, were rated largely
for their achievements in intercollegiate
games.
1t happened that we borrowed some of the
less admirable traits of German colleges and
wholly ignored some excellent examples al
% n0.
The superstition that large part of the
college year should be given over to the
diversions of good fellowship with a beer
accompaniment is of purely German origin.
Class fights and fraternities are native to
our own soil. 80, too, was the habit of
glorfying football to the exclusion Of many
more important and more stirring things.
1t is no wonder that college authorities
objected to the system by which athletics
were organized after the manner of grand
opera. in which all the attention is concen :
trated on few stars while the rest of us
look and admire and forget the attendant
company without which a star is helpless
Under the system which prevailed too long
in America thousands of students received
little or no benefit from college games. Thev
took their exercise on the sidelines and il
was almost wholly vocal.
But the sweep of general education in the
last generation, the SOLDERING influences Of
the last five years and the natural ten :
dency of fads to be impermanent have had
a cumulative effect on the undergraduates
life and the undergraduate view. College
life ought not to be too serious. A univer.
sity full of grinds would be a dull place
But at the same time university is not
merely place in which ONE nav spend four
| happy years jazzing around. making friends
and having a good time The colleges arp
making their athletic systems more inclusive
| The British have few star players in their
universities and they see to it that the area,
majority OF their college men get the ful
benefit Of outdoor sports.
| |