Self-Examination

For Boys. President Henry Louis Smith of Washington and Lee University was puzzled and depressed. He was contemplating the fact that, out of every 100 U. S. youngsters who start off in kindergarten, only four or five take high school diplomas; and the further fact that of these young hopefuls, theoretically a hand-picked lot, anywhere from 10 to 25 in 100 make a dismal botch of their freshman year at college.

"This is an age of gasoline and jazz, of the movie and the radio, of the new woman and her liberty. . . ." Dr. Smith decided that college matriculants simply are not fitted to live college life. They are, he could but conclude, just irresponsible, ill-licked cubs. They should examine themselves and try to exert their faculties, not primarily upon problems in algebra and Greek roots, but upon manhood and the wise conduct of their lives.

Last week Dr. Lewis addressed to U. S. boys who think of going to college a personal questionnaire, not to be answered in writing but in unspoken privacy. A few items that he felt should be on every sub-freshman's college entrance self-examination paper:

"Are you enough of a grownup, well-bred man to carry through a gentleman's daily personal routine without a word of advice or suggestion or command from anybody?

"Do you, with reasonable regularity, go to bed at some fixed hour and rise punctually at some fixed time?

"Have you formed the settled habit of personal cleanliness, with thoroughly washed hands and ears and head and body all the time, with clean linen and presentable clothes, with hair and shoes and nails properly cared for every day, with the habit of attending to your laundry and knowing where your various personal belongings are?

"Have you grown-up sense enough to take special care of your teeth?

"Have you learned that the human engine whose poisonous waste is not removed each day is on the road to an early breakdown?

"Have you," meant Dr. Smith, "yet got sense enough to come in out of the rain without a yank from your mamma's apronstrings?"

For Bowdoin. Bowdoin College has become introspective of its own accord. President Kenneth C. M. Sills and his faculty are not complacent about the present character of their institution. They are looking ahead. They have adopted a program of self-analysis for the institution to follow and evolved a ten-year plan of popular reforms. Alumni, faculty and undergraduate committees are in action. Last week the undergraduates made public some answers they had given to 88 questions of their own devising. Such performances, wherever conducted, seldom bring anything startling to light. They would never be held if there was any likelihood of a grave discovery. The undergraduate critic has had no working knowledge of any college other than his own (save in exceptional cases like the report of the student committee at Dartmouth [TIME, Aug. 4, 1924], which very intelligently visited other institutions), and even of his own college the undergraduate critic has but an imperfect, close-range conception.

The Bowdoin undergraduate questions and answers were of the following order:

"Do you think Bowdoin stresses her past too much?" Ans. "Yes--and no."

"Did Logic improve your reasoning?" Ans. "NO!"

"Should athletic coaches be on a parity with professors?" Ans. "Yes."

"Which is the higher honor--a 'B' [athletic insignia] or a, P. B. K. [scholastic honor]?" Ans. [Traditional at all colleges, doubtless honest.] "P. B. K."

"What new courses would you suggest?" Ans. "Journalism Biblical Literature, Ancient History, Modern Literature, Practical Business."