Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 83.djvu/574

570 be real students." This is the view which—possibly unjustly—we are apt to associate with the typical Oxonian frame of mind; and it is by no means wholly indefensible, especially when contrasted with its Continental opposite of young pedants who, in spite of much learning, may be arrant fools.

It is to be feared, however, that some of the commonest reasons for loose dealing with idle students are not particularly creditable. The least deplorable, perhaps, is an uncritical good nature, weakly consenting to allow the deficient student to continue his life of delightful indolence, and cheerfully indifferent to the effect of leniency upon the delinquent and his fellows. Perhaps, too, this attitude is not always easy to distinguish from lack of courage in those for whom popularity is the first great test of professional success. Now popularity, honestly won, is among the most precious things in the world. When coupled with just severity it is an ideal attribute in the college professor. But popularity in the man who is also notorious for "snap" courses, or who is always "on the side of the students" in matters disciplinary and scholastic—on the side of the undesirable students, that is to say—this sort of popularity will bear a deal of scrutiny.

Toleration of poor work is sometimes due, furthermore, to a desire to keep up numbers; we must retain enough students to pay our bills, and we must not let our "competitors" get ahead of us in size. Either of these motives is unworthy of gentlemen, and scholars. To be sure, financial habits of mind may be strong in boards of trustees, but the merest business sense should teach us that the last place to economize is in the quality of our finished product. If we can not save or otherwise secure enough money to make us independent of the tuition fees of those who ought to be dropped, then let us by all means redeem our credit (monetary and moral) by a small increase in the per capita charge: a very little arithmetic will prove that a ten per cent, addition to the fee charged each student will enable us to dispense (if need be) with nearly one tenth of the student body, without reduction of income. The "competition" argument is one that it is difficult to discuss politely. Upon what basis, forsooth, are we "competing" in this business of education—upon the number of men that we manage to keep enrolled, or upon the quality of the education acquired by those honestly entitled to attend our courses? Can a self-respecting college aspire to a "success" that is measured by an increase in numbers, which, in its turn, may be due chiefly to a low standard? Is there anything more honorable in educational "competition" than wholesome and courageous pruning?