Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 68.djvu/91

 Rh years is a barely sufficient period for a proper technical course. But what are the conditions? As has been said, the active members of organizations are required to maintain respectable standing as students; during football season, a member of the team can do very little studying, as he has no time; even if he should have time he could have no disposition. His attention is distracted too often by the necessity of nursing bruises, of repairing other damages or of seeking rest for a time in the hospital. Other organizations do not require similar physical racking but equal waste in energy and loss in time causing similar unfitness for study. In large institutions comparatively few individuals suffer in this way, as there is no duplication on teams, but in a small college the same men are on several lists, so that the football hero of November may be a brilliant star in the glee club during winter and a mainstay of baseball in spring. Yet with few exceptions these men make good all their losses and gain their degrees in technical schools quite as well as in colleges. Far be it from the writer to say that the course has been adjusted deliberately to meet the necessities of these champions; but the fact remains that these men to whom study, in the true sense of the word, is practically out of the question during a considerable part of the college year, do succeed in completing the course. It is certain that neither the college course nor that of the technical school requires four years of study for its completion—though it ought to. And it may be remarked parenthetically that this is equally true of the constantly lengthening period demanded by secondary schools for preparation, since in those schools also the advertising value of interscholastic contest is appreciated to its full extent. The requirements for entrance to college courses have been increased so little during the last forty years that a city lad of ordinary ability ought to be ready to enter college by the time he is sixteen years old.

If intercollegiate contests are to be continued as a part of college operations, simple honesty requires that a change be made in the arrangement of studies. Men who wish merely to learn, who have no ambition to shine in athletics, glee clubs or other organizations, should not be compelled to hang around college or technical school for four years. They should have the opportunity to finish their work in proper season and to avoid the loss of a year or of a year and a half at the critical period of life. The college circulars should be very clear in explaining the conditions, so that parents might be able at the outset to decide in which division to place their sons. Those who are willing to have their sons 'get through' as well as those who desire to have their sons receive a generous intellectual training would make their arrangements intelligently and there would be no longer room for complaint.