Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 83.djvu/571

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F some acute and unconventional enquirer should raise the question whether the governing ideal of the American college is and ought to be severely intellectual, the man who takes things at their face value would experience a shock. He has never supposed that any other sort of ideal was conceivable. Look at the catalogues; do they not give sufficient evidence of a passionate interest in things intellectual by their whole-hearted devotion to courses and honors, to admission and graduation, to fellows and faculties? Such a theory may perhaps be pardoned in one who is on the outside, but a bowing acquaintance with the realities would suffice to show that this opinion held by our trustful friend simply proves that he has not investigated the facts; for, if he cared to take up such an investigation, scores of college teachers could provide him with interesting evidence indicating what many students, alumni and parents, and even some faculty members, really think about this matter. As the first exhibit in their case against the great academic illusion, critics might present a vigorous article on the subject of college "cutting," recently published in the Harvard Graduates' Magazine by Dean Hurl hurt, for therein the writer incidentally pays his respects to the intellectual ambitions of some students and parents whom it has been his rare good fortune to know. He cites one especially interesting case—that of a father whose son, in spite of notable success in athletics, had been dropped from college. This father was a college graduate, but the educational conception of the college does not seem to have troubled him greatly, and he appears to have been perfectly