San Antonio light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1911-1993, 1923-03-22
A SCHOOL FOR BOOK-WORMS

Even the highly educated, it seems,
are not proof against the powerful
human tendency to go from one eX-
IRENE to another This observation is
not the product of weeks and months
and years of profound thinking. 1t is
suggested by dispatch which reports
that radical changes in the entrance
requirements of the University of Chi
cago have been proposed by the faculty
of that institution.
According to the report, that school
would become the most "high-brow'
educational institution in the United
States if the changes alluded to should
be adopted. The primary if not the
sole object of the plan is to bar the
frivolous" and unfit" from enrolling in
the school; that would be accomplished
through the medium of extremely rigid
entrance requirements. Only students
OF exceptional ability and serious
purpose" would be permitted to matricu-
late.
1t is estimated that the adoption of
the changes proposed would result in
a decrease in the enrolment by at least
one-third. Athletics and social life"
says the dispatch, would be allowed to
dwindle into insignificance. Graduate
study and research would be made the
principal purpose"
The indications are that the faculty
of the University of Chicago has trav-
eled little too far on the right track.
1t is true-too true-that many present
day colleges and universities in this
country are performing functions that
belong to high schools and prep insti-
buttons of various descriptions. Mere
kids" are getting degrees from insti-
tutions at which the student under 90
years of age used TO be regarded as a
"phenom."
1t is also true that many college
and university students nowadays ought
to be planting corn, stacking lumber,
selling groceries, singing hash or jerk
ing soda. Serious purpose? Some of
them have no purpose at all-none in
school and almost less than none. APP
parently, in life What is to be done
with them? If their fathers and moth
ers have not brought them up" prop
erly, how can a university lecturer hope
to penetrate their skulls? There arc
some people upon whom vaccination will
not take" There arc some who seem
to be no less immune to learning.
But it is necessary, as means OF
solving this problem, to eliminate atls
'letics and social activities?
1t goes without saying that athletics
and social activities make up too great
a proportion of college life" in many
modern educational institutions. Why,
why rush to the opposite extreme, and
convert a great university into mag
net for book-wor1ns and theorists?
The problem could be solved with
out adopting the extreme measures
proposed at the University of Chicago.
Some time ago The LIGHT invited at
tention to, and commended. a new kind
of examination adopted by Harvard
University. Instead of asking the
students catch questions, or questions
testing their parrot-like qualities, the
Harvard instructors ascertain whether
the students can apply principles taught
in lectures and books. If student
can recite an entire lecture verbatim,
but IS unable to put to practical use
the information thus conveycd-in short,
If he can't think for himself-he is
wasting his time and his or his father
money by attending a university The
Harvard examinations are prepared with
this fact in mind, so that the unfit will
be eliminated and the fit will have a
better opportunity for growth.