Page:Essays on the Higher Education.djvu/107

 work in Harvard and in Yale shows, then, this remarkable fact: The irregularity of the average Harvard student is from a little less than three to about five times as great as that of the average Yale student. The former is off duty, either from choice or compulsion, rather more than sixteen per cent. of his time; the latter from less than three and a third to a trifle more than six per cent. Such discrepancy is remarkable. In my opinion, it is highly significant as respects the working of the two systems. Let the reader inquire of himself what its significance must be as regards preparation, both intellectual and ethical, for the work of life. Let any man in business or in professional life ask himself this question: What sort of work should I do, what success have, if I and my employees were absent sixteen per cent. of the entire time allotted for work? More particularly with reference to the life of education, let each one interested in the problem propose such questions as follow: What service would the public school or academy render which permitted an average non-attendance of its pupils amounting to sixteen per cent. of the entire time; or, in other words, reduced the school-days of the week to about four in number? Is there any adequate reason why a youth who is being trained to a life of faithful and patient work should, for a term of four years in the most critical period of his life, enjoy a freedom