the majority of cases where the parent aids the child in violating the compulsory education laws a fine or sentence of imprisonment will remove the difficulty. It is the exceptional cases that the educators seek to remove. Investigation has shown that truancy is sometimes a disease. There have been numerous cases where the child has bidden its parents good-by, left home with the intention of attending school, but failed to reach it. The irresponsible lad will visit a moving picture place or some other favorite haunt. The practice will continue for many weeks until the truant is caught in the trap that the school system has set. The boy will promise to return to school, but the promise is never fulfilled in spite of the punishments inflicted. The school authorities, finding that the little offender is a delinquent, become even more perplexed. The Juvenile Court system, they say, is totally inadequate. The delay before the case is heard involves a great loss of time and the school authorities find it necessary to spend hours in the courts that should be devoted to other duties. Mr. Gideon has suggested the erection of a school in the country, where the delinquents would be cared for until there are certain prospects of reformation. The teaching in the school would be of a special sort, designed to interest the boy and to create a more favorable mental attitude toward classroom work. tests in arithmetic in the course of his The Chair of Political Science at Vassar In commenting upon the founding of a Chair of Political Science at Vassar, President Taylor thus sets forth the objects to be accomplished. "The trustees voted to establish a chair," he says, "as soon as support for it could be secured, which should aim to ground women in the principles of Government, in its history, and in a study of comparative institutions. Its object would be to face principles rather than problems-education, in short, in political philosophy, in the theory of the State, as Bluntschli has developed it, for example. Suffrage is incidental, it need hardly be stated, in such a study. Our thought is indeed training for citizenship, whatever the outcome of current discussion. The American-born children of American parentage, with the most favorable con- "We are persuaded that the prevditions of home sur- alent lawlessness, and the unintelliParentage roundings, do not gent scramble for panaceas which and excel children Scholarship of marks our American political life, can foreign parentage in be checked only by education. school ability, according to the report Trustees' vote was passed without exof Stuart A. Courtis, of the New York pectation of immediate result, but Mrs. Committee on School Inquiry. Mr. Frederick F. Thompson, a member of Courtis put more than 3,000 school the board, at once promised the fund children of New York City to standard for the foundation of the chair." R AROUND THE CAMPUS EPRESENTATIVES of the German societies of seven colleges and universities met in New York at Columbia University last month, and organized the Intercollegiate Bund of German Clubs, to encourage good fellowship between universities of America and Germany. The bund also will take steps to encourage the study of the German language and German customs in America. Harvard, Columbia, Yale, Pennsylvania, Williams, Wesleyan, Brown, Johns Hopkins, Swarthmore, Valparaiso, Temple, Pennsylvania State, Syracuse, DePauw, Michigan, Minnesota and Middlebury, are the institutions which are charter members of the bund. Seventy four undergraduates were dropped from Princeton University because of failure in the recent mid-year examinations. This number is considerably higher than the average for midyear failures in recent years, which is slightly over sixty. The increase is due partly to the fact that the total number of undergraduates in the University this year is greater than ever before, and partly to the fact that an unusually large number of students who failed had accumulations of back conditions which counted against them. The total of seventy-four failures were divided as follows among the classes: Seniors 3, juniors 8, sophomores 22, freshmen 25, and students qualifying for regular standing 16. The rule under which students are dropped for failure in their studies is as follows: "A student who, at the end of a term, has conditions amounting to half a term's work, or more, is dropped from his class. In applying this rule, (1) not only conditions of that term are counted, but also conditions of a year's standing or more, and all entrance conditions, provided the student has been in Princeton more than a year; (2) unavoidable absence from an examination shall be counted as a condition one year after the date of the omitted examination, unless meanwhile the deficiency has been made good." The senior class at Brown has voted to break the custom of years and abolish the dress suit from the Class Day exercises in June, substituting ordinary dark coats and white flannel trousers. The decision was made by the class at its meeting, when plans for Class Day were made. The class also voted to hold its supper on the evening of Class Day. Caps and gowns will be donned on "Spring Day," the first day of college after the Easter respite, and will be worn regularly until Commencement. Arrangements have been made by the athletic board whereby the blanket tax-books covering baseball and swimming meets for the remainder of the year will also include admission to the gymnasium meets. It is hoped that this will materially increase interest in the gym team, which is very poorly supported at the present time. The members of the graduating class of the Tuck School at Dartmouth established a precedent, when complete organization was effected and the name of "The Tuck School Clearing House" adopted. This is the first time that such action has been attempted at the graduate school, and the movement to unite the members of the school and the alumni has met with marked approval from the faculty of the institution, although the move originated with the students themselves. The form of organization is along novel lines, showing the influence of business training and business management. University of Oregon students are now printing a revised constitution to govern their various activities. The principal change embodied in the new constitution is the application of the recall to the offices of the student body. By the petition of twenty-five per cent of the students, the president, graduate manager or any other officers can be brought before the electorate in a special election. The student body organization carries heavy responsibilities in the life of the university. All football, baseball and other athletic coaches, club directors and the graduate manager are paid from funds raised by the students through taxes or games. In all $12,000 or $13,000 is handled annually by the student offi cers. By a vote of 630 to 496 the students of Syracuse University rejected the proposal to put the "honor system" in operation for all examinations and "quizzes." Of the seven colleges, Fine Arts alone returned a majority in favor of the proposed system. In all the others the vote was close, but in each case the result was against the change. The College of Liberal Arts, where the largest vote was cast, showed a majority of fifty against it. Engineering and law colleges gave small majorities in opposition. For the purpose of encouraging the study of classical literature at Union College a Classical Club has been formed among the students. One of the novel features of the organization will be the singing in Latin of Lauriger Horatius. Several classical scholars will address the college from time to time during the year under the auspices of the club. Among the varied clubs recently organized at the University of Pennsylvania, which borders on the eccentric, is the new "Hardship Club," the object of which is to overcome pain, fatigue, cold and heat by a close association with these conditions. A schedule of hardships to be undertaken has been prepared, such as many miles of walks before breakfast, sleeping on hardwood floors without bedding, etc. A new college publication has made its appearance at the University of Minnesota. The new paper is called the "Beadle," and it is exclusively a senior paper. It contains notes and items of interest to the seniors and will be issued every third week. The senior joint council composed of the president of all the senior classes is behind the project. There are about 600 members in the senior class, but since they are in different departments their interests are so different that it is difficult to keep all of the seniors united. The "Beadle" will try to keep them all posted on the senior activities and get them moving together as well as possible. The first issue of the "Chicago Literary Monthly," published by the undergraduates of the University of Chicago, made its appearance on March 18. It is a magazine of twenty-eight pages and cairies six pages of advertising. The editorin-chief is Donald L. Breed, '13, who is president of the University Dramatic Club; and the associate editors are Myra Reynolds, '13, and Roderick Peattie, '14, the last-mentioned being president of the Pen Club. The editors announce that "it has long been felt that a certain type of writing is being done by the Chicago undergraduates, which should be sharply differentiated from the creative work done at other American colleges. There is less of the 'flowers, the birds, and the running brooks,' there is more of the 'stern realities of life,' and particularly of cosmopolitan city life." The contents of the first number include two short stories, a sketch, a poem, and critiques on recent art and the drama. To stimulate interest in the best type of dramatic performance, "The Play Book," a monthly magazine of the drama, has been started by members of the faculty of the University of Wisconsin and others interested in good dramatic amusement. The Wisconsin Dramatic Society, established at the university three years ago under the direction of Prof. Thomas H. Dickinson of the English department, is behind the new venture. Prof. Dickinson, who has charge of the work in playwriting and the contemporary drama at the university, is editor-in-chief, and Prof. Thomas Woods Stevens of the fine arts department, the author and successful producer of pageants, and Prof. William Ellery Leonard of the English department, poet and playwright, are associate editors. It now looks as if the proposed merger of the Monthly and the Advocate, Harvard's two literary magazines, is only a matter of time. Both boards have passed favorably on the proposition and the matter has been given over to a joint committee of ten editors for special consideration. The members of this committee have made a thorough investigation of the causes of of position and the conditions to be dealt with in bringing about the proposed union, and it is found that while the entire Advocate board and a majority of the Monthly board favor the proposition, there still remains strong opposition among some of the alumni, who were formerly editors of one paper or the other, and especially among four or five members of the Monthly board. The last attempt to merge these two papers was two years ago and at that time the movement failed because it lacked support. After several years of negotiations, Delta Kappa Chi, a local honorary commercial fraternity at the University of Illinois, has combined with similar organizations at the University of Wisconsin and the University of California to form a national society of the same nature, under the name of Beta Gamma Sigma. Beta Gamma Sigma will be strictly honorary in nature, picking only a limited percentage of the junior and senior class of the schools of commerce in which chapters are established. The basis of selection will be primarily scholarship in the business. courses, although any other evidence of marked business ability will be taken into consideration, A new course in telephone engineering is being offered in the department of electrical engineering at the University of Maine. The course is in charge of Mr. Nash, a graduate of the University of Illinois, and is intended to equip those students who elect it with of this branch of electrical engineering, a knowledge of the fundamental theory and to meet the demand for the men trained in this line of work. An organization meeting of non-fraternity men was recently held at Vermont with an attendance of about sixty, its purpose being to form a club, not anti-fraternity, but non-fraternity, possessing all the advantages which obviously accrue to such an organization. The club intends to enter the various college activities the same as a fraternity. A tentative constitution was read, and several committees appointed. President Benton spoke, telling some of his experiences with similar organizations elsewhere, and warning against certain dangers. Officers will be elected at the next meeting. After a week's trial on the a la carte plan, the college dining room at Brown. returned to the old weekly board system. The change from the old to the new scheme was made in an effort to provide a menu of greater variety than the boarding system would allow of, but the brief trial was sufficient to indicate that the a la carte plan was less satisfying to a large majority of the students than the previous scheme. After this year a new system is to go entrance to college, which has heretofore determined the order of assignment of all rooms, will be considered into effect in regard to the assigning of rooms in campus houses at Smith College. The order of application for only in assigning rooms to members of the first class. The order of assignment to members of the three upper classes will be determined by lot. For gave to the State Board of Education largely increased powers, including appointment of the State Superintendent and supervision over the secondary and elementary schools of the State and the union district superintendents. Harold W. Foght, of the United States Bureau of Education, is now in Denmark, studying rural schools with a view to adapting as much as possible of Danish experience to the American country-school problem. He is accompanied on the trip by William H. Smith, rural-school supervisor of Mississippi, and L. L. Friend, supervisor of high schools of West Virginia. souri is organizing an employment The engineering department of Misbureau for its graduates. There are now 850 alumni, and in order to help school to obtain a good position, the every man who graduates from the dean of the college is perfecting a system for keeping in touch with all of them. Dr. J. Ruthven, of the University of Michigan Museum, will lead a scientific expedition to be sent next summer to Colombia, South America, the purpose being to study the animals in oldest cities in the western hemisphere. the vicinity of Santa Marta, one of the W. A. Linklater, for nearly five years dean of the agricultural division and head of the animal husbandry department of the Oklahoma Agricultural and Mechanical College, has resigned, to return to a similar position in the Washington Agricultural and Mechanical School, with which he was connected before going to Oklahoma. Dr. Ernest Julius Berg, head of the department of electrical engineering of the University of Illinois, has resigned, and will assume the duties of consulting engineer of the General Electric Company and head of the electric engineering department of Union University at Schenectady, N. Y. |