Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1926-12-19

~ MOI long ago JdiIISS ID.
NV Duke gave $50, 900, 900 to
Duke University in North
Carolina. Harvard has re-
Gently raised $25,000.000 and is seek
ing several millions more. Prince
ton is in process of raising twenty
millions. Johns Hopkins is asking for
fifty millions, Pennsylvania for forty
five millions, New York University for
seventy-three millions and Yale for
twenty millions. Has America gone
college mad? What can the uniVer-
sites do with all that money? Presi-
dent James Rowland Angel has just
answered the question for Yale.
Yale needs SIC. 600, 000,' he said the
other day when the question was put
to him in his office at New Haven, Ito
make possible closer and more init
mate connection between the student
and the teacher. The student on the
ground is our one great obligation; he
is the important element in the situa-
ton. 1t is our task to make the life
here at Yale most helpful and most
significant for him.
Education" said President Angel,
as a personal process. The contact
of young minds with mature ones. of
questioning minds with those best MT
ted to supply. or at least to suggest,
the answers. is the one thing needful
III the process VI ouuCdLlOu.
Many Handsome Gifts.
The rare generosity of the friends
and admirers of Yale has given the
university. he explained, a magnifi-
cent outfit of buildings and material
equipment When the new Sterling
Library and other buildings now under
construction are completed, the Yale
plant will be unsurpassed. It's stu
I. -, A. @{ n nCf
of American youth The problem that
confronts Yale is to maintain and
steadily to improve the quality of the
teaching that is given to these picked
young men in this splendid plant.
we want" declared the Yale presi-
dent, "a finer. not a bigger. yale
Quality, not quantity, is what we are
after at New Haven. We do not be-
lieve in mass production in education
We are concerned with the individual
student We are convinced that the
best way to train him for life is to
offer him contact with the best minds
and the most inspiring personalities
that we can gather together. To Sc
cure and keep such men for our rae
ulty is an expensive process. The
high cost of living and the intense
competition among colleges and uni
Versities for the best men, to say
nothing of the attractions offered by
positions outside the educational field,
make it So"
Yale turned away 769 candidates for
the freshman class this year. These
men were in large part excellent ma
terial of which any university would
be proud. Eighty of them had passed
every examination and every test and
were of the type that few years ago
would have been welcomed with open
az
because the university will not yield
TO the lure of numbers. Each year
some 500 men apply for admission to
the Yale School of Medicine, but only
so are admitted. Consequently there
are only 200 students in the whole
school. which might have 1000 if all
the applicants We're admitted. In
dav when more and more men are
clamoring for university education.
Yale declares it's purpose TO give more
education. but not to more men.
Coaches and Professors.
What a great thing 1t would be-
said one Eli to another at the Yale
Club in New York the other day, ''if
the faculty could give as much per-
sonal attention to each student as
coaches and trainers give to each foot
ball player!" Something like that is
Just what Yale proposes to bring
about. With a definitely restricted
enrolment. some addition to the FAC
uIty and certain notifications and
improvements of the teaching ar
rangements already under way. it
will be possible to give the individual
student the same intimate personal
attention that was once the rule.
One innovation introduced at Yale,
for the first time at any American
university. is the orga niZation of the
Freshman Year as fulLf1edged school
in itself, through which every student
of the college or the Sheffield Scientific
School must pass on his way to the
sophomore year of his chosen school.
There are about $50 freshmen. They
live together in a group of freshman
dormitories: they eat together in
freshman restaurant in the univer-
sity dining halk they have their own
dean and their own faculty. The
student at Yale does not become a
college man or a Shelf man until he
becomes a sophomore. Until he
chooses between the college and Shelf
at the end of his first year, he is
freshman and nothing else.
THE most important end sought in
the creation of the Freshman Year"
says President Angel, was the i'm
provement OF teaching. We have Sc
faculty of the Freshman Year a large
number of able and experienced teach
-ers. Our effort is to secure for this
critical period in the life of the uni
versity student men who have the
magnetic qualities which appeal to
young men. but who at the same time
are scholars by training and by am
bition."
To get and keep such men costs
rla1k t. Nn1n So orly{ r1rp
million and a half, out Of the $780,
000, 900 of the new endowment sought,
as endowment for the freshman year.
Counselor System Praised.
The counselor" system established
In connection with the freshman year
is an indispensable part of the expert
ment. That, too, costs money. The
.'counselors" comprise 60 teachers of
every rank from instructor to full
professor. Fourteen or fifteen fresh
men are assigned at the begin
ming of the year to each counselor,
who acts as guide, philosopher
and friend to them The coun-
selor, if he is the type of man de-
scribed by DIR. Angel. takes his re-
tponsibility seriously, but does not put
too serious n note into his relations
with his charges. His group of
freshmen may contain men from
Maine and New Mexico, from New
York City and from Deer Run, from
Groton and the Hill School, as well
as from the high schools of Walla
Walla and Osl1aloosa. They may in
clude born athletes and natural stu
dents, good mixers and hermits, men
of the world and immature kids. The
counselor's task is to help them find
themselves in their new surroundings.
It is TO meet them informally outside
the classroom TO suggest POSSIBILITIES