attention, a limited curriculum, and a trial examination about the middle of the term. Some of the larger institutions emphasize personal interviews with deficient students and special watchfulness on the part of teachers, and others that a somewhat careful study was made of the preparation of the student, and still others have made provision for small sections with personal advisers. In one instance special private coaching of deficient students was provided for. One small college replied that no general provisions were made but that specific treatment was given to particular cases as they arose.

In reply to question six, concerning the advantages for freshmen in the smaller colleges as compared with the larger, the smaller colleges all united in the belief that there was an advantage due to more individual attention, while the larger colleges all agreed that there was no advantage in the smaller college of any importance, and that in many cases the advantage was with the larger college for the reason that the weak were more successfully weeded out and that in the smaller college there was a tendency to keep the weaker students on the rolls. In some instances the answers indicated that the larger colleges were making strenuous effort to meet the difficulties in the case.

Concerning question seven, which requested suggestions on the topic, “The Teaching of Freshmen," very few of the institutions made reply. One suggested that the key to a successful college course was in the freshman year. This, however, brought no suggestion as to help. One other institution called attention to the serious evil in connection with written work, especially with reference to the student's inability or unwillingness to make conscientious distinction between the honest results of his own work and the mere gleanings from books.

In addition to the replies to the formal questions presented above, I have secured considerable information from personal interviews with teachers in a number of institutions during the past year, from interviews with college students, from some personal correspondence on the subject, and from a printed article by Thomas Artle Clark, of the University of Illinois. From these sources I have gleaned the following facts which seem to enter into the problem:

1. Especially in the Middle West students are not well provided for in the matter of dormitories or places for rooming and boarding. This lack of facilities seems to have made it easy for boys to acquire the habit of being away from their rooms. It opens the door for a certain lack of systematic use of time in study. This lack of systematic use of time in my judgment is at the bottom of more trouble in the student's experience than any other one cause. I would be willing to put it up against lack of brains, lack of previous training, lack of good teachers, and lack of a good many other things. This is sometimes expressed in other terms, some people saying that social diversions, fraternity associations, devotion to athletics, interest in class organizations, too frequent attendance upon theaters, too much time in billiard-rooms, and an occasional complaint about the patronage of saloons, and a number of other items are listed as showing why freshmen do not succeed. The real

reason why these diversions hinder students will be found in the fact that most of them have never been trained to make systematic use of time. High-school teachers have met the complaint against the too crowded curriculum with the reply that more curriculum and fewer social evenings would be much better than less curriculum with the present tendency toward society functions. This is an evidence of my contention that in the earlier years of the student's life there is found the same lack emphasized in the freshman, and we may add that the average business man declares that the college man fails to appreciate the importance of an economic use of his time.

2. I offer the second remark, namely, that most of the replies secured from men overlooked the fact that teaching is not yet a perfect art. College men have complained about teachers of the high school, and teachers of the high school are just awakening to the fact that they could make a just complaint against the teachers in colleges. Both these people try to escape by affirming that the responsibility of every man's education rests with himself. This is manifestly true. At the same time responsibility for good teaching lies with the teacher and with the institution that employs him. For a variety of reasons the teachers of today are not equal to the demand. The pay has not yet reached the point where the profession is overcrowded. It is also to be observed that most of the teachers in our secondary schools and universities have had very little, if any, professional training. The experience of many colleges has been that their younger professors have come with a doctor's degree and intensity of method and a total lack of appreciation of the business of teaching. They have experimented upon the students and after a reasonable time have gained an experience that has often made them good instructors, but at the beginning the student received rather inferior opportunity. In spite of all that men will say I believe that a careful investigation of college instruction would develop the fact that a good deal of aimless teaching is done, and that the unsatisfactory results are due in large measure to the fact that the modern university teacher has overworked the theory that he is responsible only for his instruction. Too many of these men have failed to realize that the mere imparting of knowledge is not teaching. Successful teaching means not merely instruction in knowledge, but inspiration, uplift, and outlook. It is a mistake to presume that these results can be obtained simply from a knowledge of the subject. They come in large degree from association with an inspiring teacher.

3. I think it fair to remark that the unsatisfactory results complained of are in considerable measure due to the rapid development of both the secondary school and the college. The past twenty years have witnessed a remarkable stride in the attendance upon both these institutions. High schools and colleges alike have been pressed to provide classrooms and teachers to make any sort of provision for the increasing numbers. Incident to this rapid growth new problems have arisen. The encouraging feature about the situation is that everywhere in all sorts of institutions there is a sincere desire for the reasonable solution of these problems. I have failed to discover any insti

tution in which there were not some people awake and alert to the situation. The indifferent college professor is losing his standing. The last decade has recovered itself from the feeling of indifference as to results. Some of these men are adding to the spirit of the modern college the spirit of earnest interest in the student. I have found in many colleges that the most experienced men have chosen to teach freshmen in order to keep in touch with the situation and improve it. In some cases men have declined to allow their younger professors to teach freshmen; in other cases where there were sections and the classes large I have found the habit of moving the teachers from section to section in order to test the work from the standpoint of the more experienced instructor. So far as the intellectual results of college life are concerned I believe that they are in the process of solution. The scholarship of the modern college is not likely to suffer.

4. There remains, however, the large question involved in the social relations as involving in some degree the scholarship but in larger degree the character of the individual student. The much-debated question as to the value of a college education has had two phases: first, that the college man thru his instruction was not closely related to the activities of the world; and second, the college man was out of sympathy with the everyday world. Manifestly the modern college and especially the state universities have made a distinct effort to relate their instruction to the active, busy life of the world, and the most progressive college men of today have tried to bring themselves and their students in touch with the modern ideas of life. These things account in my judgment for the prosperity of all sorts of college organizations and activities. There can be no doubt that in these organizations and in the large numbers of students the world has had an influence in determining the standard of college life. The boy no longer comes to college to be instructed in all the little details of daily living. He brings to it pretty well-established habits and pretty well-defined views about life. In the larger schools these students coming from widely distributed areas are by no means a unit either in habits of thought or of living. The city-bred boy is in very sharp contrast with his country-bred cousin. The colleges of the Middle West bring together students of a greater variety than those of the East or than those of the college of a generation ago. The result is that the modern college is in some degree a miniature of modern life. When these men get together on the college campus they form the source of social and moral ideas. It is inevitable that some of these men will be improved and that a few of them will deteriorate. This should determine their liability to fail before their college career is closed or if by chance they succeed in passing the scholarship requirements, will either reform or realize their failure soon after entering upon their business or professional careers. It ought never to be forgotten that the college experience is quite a sifting process. The assumption so often made that the majority of students who enter our colleges should graduate would not seem to be well grounded. On the other hand a college education is not absolutely necessary,

and some men will probably do better by having tried and failed in college than they would have done if they had been nursed along and finally given a degree. The tendency to criticize the college for not having made a finished product out of all the material furnished needs little reply. When we recall that a very large percentage of all the business men fail sooner or later and that a very large percentage of them recover from these failures, we are prepared to take a more reasonable view of the failures in college life. Many of these failures will be stepping-stones to recovery.

5. In conclusion I offer a few remarks that may suggest a general discussion of this topic. The first is that within a few years the colleges of the country will have gotten away from the building era and a greater emphasis will be put upon educational work and more money will be devoted to the care of the students and less needed for the construction of a building in which to provide for it. In the next place these large aggregations of students will require and I hope receive consideration in the way of better provision for the community life as expressed in dormitories, better facilities for physical education, better facilities for social and religious instruction, better facilities for amusements and reasonable social life. I note with satisfaction and approval that a number of institutions are appointing special advisers for students for the purpose of helping the student in the selection of his work and in giving him counsel upon his own experiences. This will probably do as much for the faculty as for the student. It will develop the inefficiency of some men and provide among other things for such changes as ought to be made to secure a desirable supervision of both teachers and students. The tutorial system recently inaugurated at Princeton has been commended in the public prints, but the experience is yet too limited to warrant any permanent conclusions. The expense of the tutorial system is so great as to make it impracticable for general use. If, however, it succeeds in developing superior results in education, the money will be forthcoming to give it a much wider application. The problem of responsibility for the student is difficult of solution. It is well that we emphasize to ourselves the obligation resting upon the institution and upon the teacher, and it should not be forgotten, however, that the individual shall bear his own measure of this responsibility. The more exacting scholastic requirements of the college are a fruitful source of complaint, but on the whole a loyalty to these requirements will secure better results than is possible under any theory or practice of indifferentism.

RELIGIOUS EDUCATION IN THE STATE UNIVERSITIES WALLACE N. STEARNS, PROFESSOR OF BIBLICAL LANGUAGES AND LITERATURE, WESLEY COLLEGE-ASSOCIATED WITH THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH DAKOTA

The religious statistics of our state universities afford eloquent testimony to the character of the American people. Students and faculties manifest a lively interest in religious matters, a large majority of both, in many instances,

being actively engaged in definite religious work. The ranks of the ministry, the foreign field, the student volunteer bands, and local ministerial clubs made up of prospective clergymen all bear witness to the real spirit of these institutions. The year-book of the Young Men's Christian Association for 1905-6 reports for sixty state universities and colleges an aggregate enrollment of 9,189 with a total budget of $43,310. These figures are more remarkable from the fact that all such service is entirely voluntary, and in addition to the exacting duties prescribed by the university. Already notable buildings have been erected, as Cornell ($50,000), Missouri ($50,000), Virginia ($80,000), Illinois ($90,000), and Wisconsin ($100,000).

The state university is increasingly a fact. During the past decade the increase in the attendance on our universities and colleges amounts to 4 per cent., but within the same period state universities have doubled and even quadrupled. The position of the state university as the head of the publicschool system, its enormous prestige in technical and industrial lines, and its avowed purpose to train for vocation all point in one direction. We are face to face with an actual condition of things, with a vital, burning, rapidly growing problem.

With all its wealth of equipment, the state university lacks on three points, the religious adviser, the dormitory, and systematic religious instruction.

1. The religious need is deep-seated and no man can get away from its problems. There is needed the presence of a man who, by virtue of training, character, and experience, is qualified to serve as a spiritual specialist, one who knows the information to be imparted and who understands the candidate who is to receive it. Such a man would indeed be a prince among his kind, a peer of any on the university staff, and he would be made welcome in the university circle. To leave this all-important service to local pastors already overburdened and lacking in the special skill and discipline to minister to the particular needs of the college community is to court failure. In our great university centers there is need of several such men, every one of whom in a brief period would find abundant clinic. Pious exhortation alone is not sufficient. This spiritual adviser must be able to go with the growing thought thru the shadows where every thinking mind must pass.

2. Increasing disparity between appropriations and the growing demand for libraries and laboratories will for some time to come prevent anything like adequate dormitory facilities. Increasing registration permits local communities to boost prices until in some instances charges are becoming prohibitive. Further, it is to the dormitory and not to the lecture-room or library or gallery that memory turns back. It is here that the youth meet and know one another, in the common room, the reading-room, the little chapel, and it is in these unofficial places that the real battles of life are fought, disappointments conquered, and decisions reached that touch life and destiny. Here is the lodestone that binds the old "grad" to his Alma Mater.

3. What is rulable in a denominational institution and permissible in a