The New York herald., 1922-01-28

COLLEGE HEAD Sees
DANGER NATHLETICS
DR.. Sills of BOwdOin Calls
Lack of ThOrOughness in
Study a Curse.
MIND MUST BE TRAINED
Columbia Professors Differ
With DR.. Fitch About
Students in Yale.
HARVARD MEN DEFENDED
Educational System Needs
Changes, Says DR.. Sihler at
New York University.

Lack of thoroughness is the curse Of
the American school and of the Amer
lean college, Kenneth C. M. Sills.
president of Bowdoin College, told the
Bowdoin alumni of New York and
vicinity at the f1fty-third annual din
ner in the Pennsylvania Hotel last
night With special reference to re-
cent criticism cf DIR. Lowell of Har-
ward and DIR. Butler of Columbia. he
said
"One of TIE chief purposes of COL
lese is to train men for leadership in
their communities, no matter how
small or how large those communities
may be. That training must be of
the mind as well as of the body. The
college is still fundamentally an edu-
cational institution and not country
club. nor an athletic club.
DIR. Butter of Columbia and DR..
lowell of Harvard are absolutely right
in calling to general attention the danger
OF forgetting what the real work of the
college is. Not only the alumni, but
also the general public are more in
terested in sport than in scholarship. and
1n spectacular sport at that. We can
hardly blame the undergraduate for
losing his sense of proportion. The
alumni often care more about the re-
tention of a successful football coach
than Of an inspiring teacher Athletics
are all very we'll when they are OF
secondary Importance; all very ill when
they dominate"
Gate Receipts a Menace.
Speaking strictly for Bowdoin from
the point Of view Of the small New Eng
land college, DR.. Sils diagnosed the
difficulties of organized athletics as over
emphasis upon gate receipts. The.proper
way. he believed Is to include the ex-
pense OF athletics and athletic coaches
in the college budget.
Lieut.-col. Thomas l.. Pierce, vice.
president Of the Liberty Securities Com
pany; Austin Fl. MacCormick, alumni
secretary Of the college. and Rolliston
G. Woodbury.. representing the under
graduates, also spoke. George r.
Walker, president of the association,
was toastmaster.
Henry 3. Quinby. formerly Governor
OF New Hampshire, was elected presi-
dent for the coming year. Frederick
w. Pickard. Emery Fl. Sykes II. II.
Pierce. Hoyt A. Moore and Frank A.
Munsey were chosen vice-presidents.
John w. Frost was reelected secretary.
Major George Haven Putnam and
Harvey ID. Gibson. president of the New
York Trust Company, were present at
the dinner.
Dean Herbert T.. Hawkes. and the Rev.
DIR. Kennedy of Columbia commented
yesterday on the address of the Rev. DR..
Albert Parker Fitch OF Amherst Col
leSe, made at Yale, and in which he
called the average undergraduate moth
ing more or less than a complicated ass"
They believed that DR.. Fitch's attack
could apply only in few cases.
Both Dean Hawkes. and the Rev. DR..
Kennedy. opposed DR.. Fitch's state
ment that undergraduates frivol their
tune in card playing. in football and
in going to motion picture houses Dean
Hawkes., Yale graduate. and for thir-
teen years member of the Yale fac
ulty said that in the Yale of his ex-
perience the conditions described by
DIR. Fitch did not exist
Says Students DO Not Loaf.
This story, said Dean Hawkes.. re-
minded him of time In his college
days when William Jennings Bryan ad-
dressed the undergraduates on the Yale
green. He poured his wrath out on
their heads. said the Dean, and de-
clared that the students were doing
their fathers money. Although the re-
port went all over the country, said
the Dean, 1t was no more true OF the
whole undergraduate body than DIR.
Fitch's statement
That students do not loaf at college
las been demonstrated recently said
Jiean Hawkes.. or PSI Columbia stu
dents whose low scholastic standing
needed observation, only three were
above their class average in mental in
telligence tests.
While praising DR.. Fitch as a man
of much popularity among college stu
dents, DR.. Kennedy said that such con-
ditions as DR.. Fitch described did not
exist at either Columbia or at Har-
ward.
DR.. Il. c. sihler, senior professor and
historian at New York University. who
recently had considerable to say about
the low trade of collegiate humor sale.
mat the chief aim and end of college
1.an should be to learn to Al intellectu-
Ally hard things, end not only to do
them successfully but alsp to get "a
positive piedilection ror doug intellec-
rraI things sue uccessfuly AMI persever-
irgIy.
Prof. Sihier u,ged that the first two
Years Of the American college course be
,n.:.:s obligatory, reserving elections
entirely to tho upper college. He con-
t.rued:
The mentality of the American COL
jcge graduate a generation ago was dis
tinctly of higher level than In our own
tine. The members Of the colleges and
!. GLASSES were. Il Is true. much smaller.
but the quality of their attendance and
the all around character were distinctly
higher"
EQUESTRIENNE, DYING,