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.
"Time Out" Should Be Given
As long as any nonacademic interest occupies first place in a boy's scale of values he should be given 'time out' to investigate it before he is sent to college. It may be that the boy will find that he is totally mistaken. A little actual experience on a farm may convince him that his interest in agriculture is not so deep as it once seemed; some time in a studio may reveal that his talent is not so great as he fancied. In that case, he can always return to college. But, until he has cleared the way for himself, and convinced himself that he belongs in college he will never approach his college work with that singleness of purpose which brings success and satisfaction.
It is not a waste of time for a boy to spend a year after leaving preparatory school in such experiment. Either he finds that he likes his work and continues in it or he finds that he does not and comes to college without misgivings. In either case, he will have avoided the aimless and meaningless college years which are the real waste--a waste of mind and spirit, as well as time, for many students. There is much talk now of the desirability of sending boys to college earlier, but I have found that some of the best students are those who have spent some time 'knocking about' in the world after leaving preparatory school.
Scholar Out of Place
It may seem an anomalous thing to say that the true scholar is out of place in our institutions of higher learning, but such is very frequently the case. Ever since the word went out that a college diploma was the only possible pass-key to wealth, wisdom, and social success, the rush of students coming to college for irrelevant reasons has threatened to swamp the true scholar. In 1895, the enrollment in American colleges was 45,000. At present it is well over 500,000. Some of the new arrivals came to snatch the technical training which would enable them to get good jobs as quickly as possible; others to make those contacts which are believed to be profitable in certain forms of business; others to postpone for four years the period of going to work; others to take part in the hurly-burly of athletics, fraternities, and other undergraduate activities which constitute college life; others, without any motive save that everybody else was doing it.
Artisan is the Tortoise
The artisan is familiar enough in every school, and, alas, in every college. He is the tortoise of the class, who struggles wearily on before the proddings of his parents and his schoolmasters. In the discreet fastness of the faculty room, his masters will tell you that he is a complete moron. His mother, on the other hand, will assure you that he is really quite brilliant, only he is so shy and sensitive that his masters never know it, for he becomes tongue-tied in class and paralyzed in examinations. Often enough, both are wrong. If the boy can be found some afternoon (when he should be studying) engaged in conversation with a neighborhood farmer, or chauffeur or shopkeeper, it may be observed that he is neither stupid nor reticent. In fact, he may be very wise about certain things, such as farms, or gasoline engines, or boats, and he can talk to you almost with eloquence about what makes the bees swarm, or what causes that sputter in your motor car, or how to shoot the sun with a sextant. If you take the trouble to ask, he will perhaps reveal to you his shy ambition to become a ranger in the government forestry service, to join the merchant marine, to be a dairy farmer, or to set up in business with his printing press.
Aviators a Problem
The problem of the adventurer is very much akin to this problem of the artisan. One of the greatest questions confronting the deans of Harvard Yale, and Princeton is that of undergraduate-aviators. At Princeton, the students are no longer allowed to have airplanes. At Yale and Harvard, undergraduate flying clubs flourish under very lukewarm official approval. In both communities, the clubs have become exceedingly popular. Their members are adroit and expert aviators, but, for the most part, lamentable scholars. The academic mortality of members of the flying clubs far outruns that of the pedestrian students; and naturally enough, for the members spend so much of their time at the airports that they soon leave their studies far in arrears. It is a far more challenging thing to a boy of this temperament to obtain his pilot's license than to labor all year for three dull C's and a D in his college courses. That being the case, would he not, more logically, be a student at an aviation school that at Harvard or Yale? In the end, he might decide that a college diploma is even more desirable than the pilot's license. If he did, he could then dismiss aviation from his mind, enter college, and settle down to work without any of the conflicts which now disturb him.
Few Artists Produced
It is, I think, fair to say that the colleges have trained very few creative artists in any field of art, with the possible exception of literature. Even in that department it is interesting to recall Barrett Wendell's complaint that, during his twenty-five years as a teacher of English composition, he had produced not a single great writer.
The system now in vogue at most colleges trains average people to do useful and honorable work along standard lines. But it does not encourage individuality. It helps and encourages students to follow the broad cement roads to quick and apparent forms of success, but it does not guide them along the side roads and bypaths which often lead to great and unexpected discoveries.
Most Are On Main Road
Most of us belong on the main road. The scholars, the artists, the artisans, and the adventurers do not. They are a small minority, but they are a very important minority. I appeal for them because it is more important to our civilization that one potential artist like Shelley, one scholar like Gibbon, one artisan like Edison, one adventurer like Lindbergh, be kept out of college than that a thousand more incipient junior executives, Ph.D. candidates, and museum curators be let in
