Our passion for well-rounded education is such that we are in danger of manufacturing a nation of billiard balls.
The catalogue of any American college gives a fair idea of the final steps in the educational process as it is now applied. The student must first concentrate, or major, in one subject, and take several courses in that; then he must distribute, or minor, in other courses, taken from prescribed combinations of subjects. The first will make him profound; the second will make him broad. In most cases, however, he must have studied a certain amount of Latin or Greek, to make him classical, and modern languages in certain combinations to make him erudite.
His body, as well as his mind, must undergo certain treatments at the same time. He cannot matriculate until he has shown a certificate of vaccination. He cannot graduate until he has demonstrated his ability to swim. He must have fulfilled his physical-training requirements by taking part in an approved sport for at least three hours a week, by taking special corrective exercises if his posture is deficient, and by attending a series of lectures on hygiene.
Behold Greek Ideal
When he emerges from the stages of this process and receives the imprint of a college degree--behold, the Greek ideal, healthy mind in healthy body, and both as well rounded as can be.
On the whole it is a good thing that he should be well rounded; at least, he will now be able to roll smoothly and comfortably through life. If he was born into the world with normal interests and average abilities, if his main ambition is to obtain a good job, settle down, pay his bills, and in other ways become a respectable member of the community, college will have given him the proper equipment. His concentration will have given him sufficient knowledge and training to hold his job; his distribution will have endowed him with certain stimulating outside interests to serve as retreats from his job; his social and athletic training will have given him friends, and prepared him to spend his leisure time amiably.
Some Not Spherical
But occasionally there appear students with outstanding abilities and independent interests who ought not to be made spherical; who should be left as they are--elliptical, oblong, or triangular.
These are irregular and unusual students, and so it will be hard to speak of them in categories. But, on broad lines and with necessary qualifications, it can be said that there are four classes of college students who suffer most from the mass-production methods which American colleges have necessarily adopted to fit their students for their places in a mass-production world:--
1. The true scholars--those who have a passion to go exploring in the world of ideas, tracing down the lost, mislaid, and undiscovered facts pertaining to some particular subject.
2. The adventurers--those who long to be off to explore the material world, in airplanes, sailboats, and dog sleds, following the four winds, and sitting beside each of the seven seas.
3. The artisans-- those who are happiest when they are at work with their hands at tangible things, in farms, forests, laboratories, and workshops.
4. The artists--those who take joy in working with true colors, fragile harmonies, and graceful lines, striving after perfection in the creative arts.
These Are Injured
It is to these students that the institutional training furnished by our colleges may be particularly harmful. I would appeal to them, and direct my appeal to their parents, for it is generally as a result of parental influence that they find themselves in college. In practically every case of serious maladjustment which I have discovered among college students, I have come ultimately to the statement, 'I didn't really want to come to college; I just did it to please the family.' It develops that the student has been persuaded into college by his parents and his contemporaries (who have in turn been influenced by their parents), and then found himself in an environment which is totally unsympathetic to him.
