Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 83.djvu/371

Rh college which the high school affords would serve quite as useful a purpose to the entrance board as is now served by the examination or certificate; indeed, in most respects a much higher credential than the latter. But beyond this ordinary entrance tribunal there should be one of still deeper importance. If the earlier school life has been largely one of grounding and discipline the college should be distinctively one of discrimination and selection. There is no more expensive and important institution in human society than the college and university. It is obviously unfair to add to the constantly increasing burden for supporting these social institutions by adding to their obligations the thankless task of educating the uneducable; cultivating a defective soil; producing a superior fruit from degenerate seed. Yet such is the present program.

Let there be added to the entrance examination already in vogue an inquiry into the eugenic pedigree of every entering freshman. This will involve no additional machinery; simply a better type of medical inspection; one which will not stop short with a test of lungs or heart or musculature; but will inquire into antecedents touching mental and moral as well as physical traits. That such is not so radical a matter as might at first sight appear, note the following recommendation made to the board of trustees of a state university only a year ago.

"A Chair of Individual Attention."—This sounds a bit vague, or worse, and it is not quite clear as to just what was involved in such a chair, but the following will afford some clue:

Without attempting a discussion of this particular suggestion, or an inquiry as to just what might have been the aim, it seems fairly evident that one feature concerned was a more intimate personal relation with the student. The program herein proposed involves this and much in addition. That the personal concern is important is beyond all question; but that much more is imperative and fundamental is equally certain. It matters little just what name may be attached to such a chair. It might be designated the professorship of educational eugenics; or it might be called the chair of hygiene and physical culture; or any other of a dozen such. The point of real importance is that such a chair be created and placed on the same basis of dignity and independence as that of history or economics, and given opportunity and facilities essential to efficiency. To the writer no departure in educational progress is more imperative than that here proposed, and lie earnestly anticipates its early realization.