Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 83.djvu/580

576 influences that have contributed to the formation of that most attractive and valuable type called the "college-bred man" should never be overlooked even by the most earnest advocate of scholarliness. The traditions of the English university and of more than one fine old college in this country, the atmosphere of ancient culture and public service, the social and even the athletic interests, are of inestimable worth. Hence it is a mistake to maintain that the activities of the man who does not study are always altogether futile. In his favor it is argued—and with great justice—that he may be learning to know life better than he would by close attention to books; and it does not take great faith to believe that some men are actually benefited by an almost wholly unintellectual college life. They play on the field, they manage the team and the fraternity, they sing with the glee club, they write editorials for the daily and stories for the monthly, they sit and chat with their smoking chums, perhaps they even read an occasional book that is not in the curriculum. Still the admission that all is not hopeless does not involve the belief that all is well; the meliorist still stands half way between the pessimist and the optimist. Some incorrigibly cheerful observers who have discovered likable traits in the American undergraduate treat with airy scorn the insinuation that he is unscholarly. This is the attitude of a contemporary magazine writer who, having learned that two mere college presidents (A. Lawrence Lowell and Woodrow "Wilson) deplore the low estate of scholarship in our college world, proceeds to show that he knows better. He finds that our undergraduates are enthusiastic (especially in sport), energetic (in non-scholastic activities), honorable, and bent upon reality—orgo everything is lovely. "We admit these qualities and rejoice in them; c'est magnifique—but it is not the point. Likable qualities doubtless abound in a tribe of American Indians or in a drove of blooded horses; possibly they are more plentiful there than among scholars or artists or successful business men. But it would be as reasonable to pretend that such children of nature could paint a Velázquez or finance a railroad as to imagine that merely likable qualities can take the place of intellectual education. The point is not the charm that groups of clean young men of cultured families are almost bound to possess, but whether these men are developing in college in that domain which is preeminently the business of the college. And this, in spite of all the charming avocations, is primarily intellectual, both by reason of its profession before the world and by its high duty toward these young men; even though it should sacrifice social and athletic activities it must be true to its profession and its calling. But there is no need that it should sacrifice them; it should retain them and vitalize them intellectually. Six hours a day for stud)' and classes is not a schedule likely to lead to nervous dyspepsia; but six hours a day for