Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

of the custom of holding this annual dance in the Union.

The report of the library committee shows that 695 volumes have been added during the past year, the present number of books in the library being over 8,750. Most of these have been bought with the regular funds of the library.

The Union occupies an increasingly large place in the college life, as a club and dining place, and on account of its reading rooms and library. Most of the musical clubs, scientific organizations, and other societies have the privilege of using its rooms. It is a satisfaction to the members of the university to know that its financial status is improving, and that its place in the university life is becoming each year more securely fixed.

* * *

The trustees of the George Washington University are making an unusual effort to increase the endowment of their

A National University.

institution. The plan for this university was laid down by the first President, who, at the close of his life and when the success of the government he helped to found was assured, devoted a great deal of his attention to it.

Washington's idea was to establish at the seat of government a great university in which "youths of talent from all parts of the empire," as he expressed it, could acquire "knowledge in the principles of politics and good government." The three chief functions of such a university he stated to be:

The creation of a spirit of unity. The increase of knowledge in the principles of politics and good government. The promotion of science in the interest of the advancement of agriculture, commerce and manufacture.

All excellent purposes. The developThe develop ment of the country since Washington's death indicates that education along the lines he proposed was just what "youths of talent" most needed. And they still need it. There is no place where they could better obtain it than at Washington, for the unrivalled scientific collections, libraries, apparatus and laboratories are all there and they cannot ever be

duplicated by any other institution in any other locality.

The opportunity also for the development of really great schools of the political sciences, jurisprudence, diplomacy and international law is better at the center of government than it can be anywhere else. In short, the idea of the first President in founding this university which bears his name seems inspired. He may easily have foreseen what the future of Washington was to be and in the furtherance of his great aim the interest, sympathy and co-operation of all patriotic men and women throughout the country should be enlisted. The university authorities are fortunate in having secured the active support and assistance of Dr. Richard D. Harlan in this work. His wide acquaintance, personal character, and enthusiasm will accomplish much, both in advancing the material interests of the university and in counsel on the proposed enlargement of the field of work.

Dr. Harlan, in his letter to President Needham accepting the invitation to join hands in the work, reviews the words of George Washington in his last will and testament relative to his cherished plan for a great university at the National Capital. An analysis of Washington's writings and speeches shows, according to Dr. Harlan, that according to his plan the three chief functions of the university should be: First, the creation of the spirit of unity and the deepening of the sense of nationality; second, the increase of knowledge of the principles of politics and good government, and, third, the promotion of science in the interest of the advancement of agriculture, commerce and manufactures. A century's experience has not improved upon this outline of the special mission of a university at the National Capital. Dr. Harlan thinks the only amendment to Washington's plan should be that the chief field of the university work should be in graduate or post-graduate work. He calls attention to the enormously valuable equipment of the National Capital in libraries, laboratories, scientific collections, etc., available to advanced students.

In referring to the educational institu

tions of Washington, such as the Smithsonian, the Carnegie Institution, the Carnegie Foundation, and the great government bureaus, Dr. Harlan declares that Washington is rapidly reaching the point when, in a large sense, it will be the educational as well as the political capital of the nation. He adds:

"The one thing lacking in this muchdesired direction is the development of a great university for graduate work along the lines in which the Capital of the nation offers such unique advantages."

The George Washington University is the beginning of such a great institution. The new movement to provide an adequate site for its home, to enlarge its scope, and to endow it with sufficient funds is a splendid work, which deserves the hearty support of patriotic men and women throughout the United States.

Dr. S. A. Mitchell, instructor of astronomy at Columbia University, has announced the discovery by him of a new

sun

Columbia Instructor Finds New Sun Spot. spot which he says is as large as the one discovered by Prof. Brashear of Allegheny on Feb. 13. According to Dr. Mitchell this sun spot is more remarkable because the period of frequency of sun spots has long past. As soon as he discovered the spot, Dr. Mitchell made several observations and concluded that its temperature was much lower than that of the other parts of the sun. This spot, which is one of the number with which the surface of the sun seems to be dotted, is near the meridian. It is much larger than any of the others and seems to be the center of unusual solar activity. With the aid of a piece of smoked glass the spot could be seen clearly.

*

Princeton is just now beginning to find out what are the real results of its Success of preceptorial system by which students rePrinceton Preceptoceive individual atrial System. tention from instructors. Dean H. B. Fine says that only fifty-eight men were dropped at the end

[blocks in formation]

Educational Progress in the South.

The University of Alabama has just received from the legislature an appropriation of half a million dollars for buildings alone. Of this amount something like $75,000 will be spent for medical buildings at Mobile.

There are two great State institutions in Alabama, the university, located at Tuscaloosa, and the Alabama Polytechnic Institute at Auburn. The latter is one of the finest agricultural and engineering schools in the south. Both of these institutions receive liberal support from the Legislature and work together for the upbuilding of the general education of the state. Under the direction of President Thatch the institution at Auburn is giving more liberal courses than any other similar institution in the south. The University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa, under the administration of President Abercrombie, is making rapid strides, and is destined, at no distant date, to rival Virginia as one of the best state universities in the country.

Alabama already has ten or twelve industrial schools. The next Legislature will be asked to establish about ten additional schools, so that Alabama will have about twenty great, state-supported industrial and high schools, offering

practical training to the large mass of her school children and at the same time affording excellent training for the university.

The State of Tennessee, which since the war has done so little for higher education, seems at this time to be following the leadership of Alabama. The Tennessee Legislature has just appropriated a quarter of a million dollars to the Peabody Normal School at Nashville. Dr. Brown Ayres, under whose leadership the University of Tennessee is growing rapidly, has just received from the Legislature $100,000, and he is asking that body for what will prove a permanent endowment of $10,000,000, or rather an annual income of $300,000.

Praises

* * *

Technical Schools of America.

"I wish that we could steal some of your buildings," said Dr. Joseph Larmor, Lucasian professor of mathematics at Cambridge, in speaking of the difference between American and English universities. "You are far ahead of us in equipment and method of instruction for all technical work. Over there we have old buildings which we must adapt for use and which are hardly to be adapted. Here you have modern, superbly equipped buildings erected to meet necessity. I wonder how the American universities find it so easy to secure new buildings. We have no wealthy men in England who are so free with their money.

"The English technical graduate is altogether different from the young American engineer. We teach only the theory there and I understand that here everything is given. The man in England is left to learn his practice in shops after leaving the university. Then in England the employers do not appreciate the university man. Here the young man is taken up just as soon as he graduates. In England a young engineer has a hard fight of it for a number of years unless he has strong engineering connections. But the American custom is slowly creeping in and the English technical graduate is finding employment more easily.

"As to your sports here, they are al

together different from ours, not only in character but in manner. You make it so much a matter of training and expertness. At an English university sports are almost purely spontaneous. Practically everybody goes out for some kind of exercise. Your inter-college contests somewhat approach our system."

* * *

Chancellor James Roscoe Day of Syracuse University attacked the general run Scores Neglect of college presidents in an address before of College the New York conMorals. ference of the Metho

dist Episcopal church for what he styled their failure to assume responsibility for the moral welfare as well as the scholastic progress of the student.

He urged that the college presidents of the country get together on some plan of excluding all students who are known to use intoxicating liquors or tobacco, or to indulge in vices. He said he would not mention names, but that they all knew of the depraved conditions and the scenes of debauchery in many of our universities. He, for one, believed that the first responsibility was not to fulfill the scholastic requirements, but was to attend to the morals of the students. He would have it so that no immoral student could matriculate, and that if he became immoral after entering college he should be dismissed. He told how in his own university students were made to feel that they signed their own dismissals when they entered a place of evil resort. He believes that one of the best ways of elevating the moral tone of college men is by introducing coeducation, and says that in practice the influence of women students, who refuse to associate with men known to be intemperate or immoral, is found to have the very best results.

"I need mention no names," said Chancellor Day, "but we all know of the depraved conditions and scenes of debauchery in many of our universities. While the heads of the colleges seem zealous in guiding the student along the lines of study, few there are who place morals first. I venture to say that if the college presidents would unite along the

common line of thought and action, this dissipation among the students could be wiped out in thirty days. At Syracuse, thank God, we place morals first. The student, prior to his entrance, must show he is morally equipped as well as intellectually, and once in the school he must maintain the strict standard required or get out. At the majority of the other universities, however, the student is allowed to come and go as he pleases, to spend his nights in riotous living, to drink, to enter poolrooms, and waste much energy that should be devoted to his studies. I could mention the names of college presidents who seem devoid of sincere interest for the morals of their charges, but I shall not do so. All of you know, I say emphatically, however, no man ought to seek to evade the responsibility of the moral welfare of young men."

In conclusion, he deplored the prevalence of cigarette smoking and spoke of the sinster influence of excessive tobacco upon young men, upon whom, he said, it had appreciable physical effect during their course of mental strain at a university.

[blocks in formation]

It is not a little curious to reflect, when one remembers the wording in which Mr. Cecil Rhodes couched his great bequest to his alma mater, that it is the introduction of the Rhodes scholars more than anything else which has led Oxford to realize the educational need of the hour. It has been brought home by Rhodes students to professors "living secluded from the world," and "as children in commercial matters," that Oxford lacks facilities for training in certain subjects which receive the utmost attention from every modern, and, indeed, nearly all other, universities.

At Oxford, for instance, the student who intends to make engineering his

profession cannot qualify himself for admission to the Institute of Civil Engineers. Many of the Rhodes scholars wish to be engineers, and Oxford feels that she must meet their case and that of the hundreds of others who require the training which at present they have to seek elsewhere than at Oxford. There are now about 200 Rhodes scholars at the university. They come from all the colonies, from the United States, and from Germany, and they have created a new atmosphere. Oxford realizes that while maintaining the old traditions of culture, she must also offer to these young men the advantages of up-to-date equipment.

A study which has grown, and which grows enormously, is that of English. Here again the demands of the Rhodes scholars, Anglo-Saxon and German, are a spur to action; but the whole empire is demanding teachers in this world-wide. language, and Oxford's poverty is a bar to the provision of adequate instruction in this as in other modern languages. The dream of a professorship of Japanese is another that only increased funds can realize.

By establishing a laboratory of hygiene Oxford hopes to rended service to the nation, as a knowledge of industrial hygiene is now regarded as of greatest importance for the safety of large classes, as, for instance, miners. Another subject to which the university wishes to devote greatly increased attention is scientific agriculture.

The Color Line at Oxford.

*

A letter received by the Columbia (S. C.) State from the mother of a "Rhodes scholar" now in Oxford, reveals the appearance there of a curious problem. It seems that among the scholars sent from Pennsylvania is a young Negro, and his appearance at Oxford has set those of the Americans who are from the South to wondering how they should treat him. Some of them have even gone so far as seriously to meditate withdrawal from the University, for fear that if they remain there their presence will be inter

preted as an acknowledgment by them of the black man's social equality.

The mother who writes the letter apparently thinks, or at least fears, that some such action may be necessary, and she wants advice, both for herself and for her son. The State gives it-extremely good advice, too. The question raised, it says is interesting, but not at all difficult. While believing in the maintenance of a sharply drawn color and race line in the South, the State declares that this is not due to any special antipathy of the Southerner to the Negro, but simply to the fact that the local conditions are such as to make failure thus to draw the line fatal to the superior race. The need of stern separation is less in Virginia or Maryland, still less in the North, and almost non-existent in a country like England, where there are not enough men with colored skins to be in any way dangerous. "The environment and conditions of the South are absent, and the attitude of the Southerner becomes automatically that of the Englishman, just as the Englishman or the New Englander, coming to abide in the South, is immediately influenced by the spirit that raises the barrier between the races."

Therefore the State concludes that "the Southerner at Oxford should regard the entrance of a Negro into the University as he would the coming of a South Sea Islander, a Malayan, or a Chinaman. His caste is unassailed, he has no battle to wage for race supremacy, no vexing problems to ponder, and the comings and goings of brown, red, black or yellow men are to him matters of absolute indifference. He may even journey into the countries of the Africans and be the guest of black potentates, voluntarily breaking bread with them on terms of equality, without surrendering one jot of Southern opposition to social equality in America. In Rome we do as the Romans, not through a spirit of imitativeness, but because we have the environments of the Romans, and what they do is the more natural." That, so far as we can see, is all right; at any rate, it is all right as advice to the Rhodesians in regard to the policy they should adopt toward their black companion.

[blocks in formation]

and the college-bred woman. She said: "Probably it would be fairer to consult the husbands on the subject of a college education for women. But I can't believe they would vote against it if it were ever pressed beyond the teasing stage, for they are extremely vulnerable on one point-they married us and why did they do it? By far the majority of college women do marry. A college course postpones a girl's marriage from two to four years-a recommendation in its favor, I am sure you will agree. Most certainly I do not think a college education should supersede the home education of a girl. Nothing should supersede that.

"From the time a little girl dresses her dolls, and cares for her baby sister, and irons the family handkerchiefs, the training of that child for wifehood and motherhood is paramount. Perhaps all of us wish colleges would offer courses in domestic science. Some day, I feel sure, Swarthmore will blush to a deeper garnet when she remembers that her older daughters had to take their cooking courses at Drexel-even in some sad cases after they were married.

"If the married college girl has to cook--I think I had better say, when she has to cook, for we all must cook in these days-she will cook scientifically, and she will find it the delight she used to find in chemistry and mathematics. The world-all but a few husbands-has outgrown the jokes on the subject of the college woman's housekeeping. Latin and Greek may not seem to help us much, though we like to impress our children by our learning, but the richness they have brought into our lives."

Our

In speaking on the same subject, "The Value of Higher Education in the Home," Miss Meeteer said that in contrast to the simple life of our grandmothers the woman of today was confronted with more complex problems which required more competency in their solution. Continuing, she said: "Con

« AnteriorContinuar »