Floating University

Two winters have passed since Dean James E. Lough of New York University, first conceived and tried to organize a university of 450 students, with a faculty of 40, housed aboard a steamer which would circle the globe while a year's college work was done. Twice the registration of students lagged so discouragingly that the sailing was postponed (TIME, Sept. 28, 1925). There was also the difficulty of obtaining a suitable faculty.

Last week, at long last, all was in readiness aboard the S. S. Ryndam at her Hoboken pier. Trunks were swinging to the hold. Librarian Stevens (Williams College) was arranging her shelves (a complete college reference room). Henry J. Allen, onetime (1919-23) governor of Kansas, was winding up his arrangements to publish a daily newspaper on board, representative and facsimile of 48 U. S. dailies. At his home in Cleveland, Dr. Charles Thwing, president-emeritus of Western Reserve University and national president of Phi Beta Kappa, assembled his effects and, with Mrs. Thwing, went on from Cleveland to his post of intellectual commander. He could accompany the cruise only as far as Los Angeles, via the Panama Canal, but planned to rejoin it in February in the Mediterranean. Meantime his duties would be performed by one or several of other executives embarking--Deans Albert K. Heckel of the University of Missouri, and George E. Howes of Williams College; Dr. William Haigh of Switzerland; Daniel Chase of New York State University; Mr. Walter C. Harris; onetime-Governor Allen.

Whistles whistled; tugs tugged. The "university afloat" headed out of New York harbor for Havana. Western matriculants to the "university afloat" had been offered the privilege of meeting the ship at Los Angeles next month, at the cost of missing three weeks' work. To stay-at-home students, this "cost" sounded farcical. Who would do any studying, any work, on a joyride to 35 foreign countries with a lot of professors who had signed up for nice soft berths? But stay-at-homes knew not whereat they snorted. Some weeks ago the seagoers were obliged to file their choice of .studies and many a bundle handled by grumbling roustabouts on the Holland-American pier last week, was heavy with textbooks, dictionaries, notepaper, study-lamps. "Hard work" was the ship's first order.

The students were not all young men, as originally planned. Several young wives and not a few studious unmarried women had been accepted. About one-third of the passenger list was composed of this year's college freshmen whose parents had considered that their young would make more of a land university after literally seeing the world. Full credit for courses passed awaited the voyagers when they should return to stationary education. Instead of frivolous weekends in large U. S. cities, they would have spent their spare time in trips ashore, under watchful and instructive supervision, to foreign banks, temples, schools, playgrounds, parliaments. All along their course, ministries of education waited to show them courtesies.

In the faculty of 40 were: President Wallace W. Atwood of Clark University, geography; Dean Heckel of Missouri, citizenship; Dean Howes of Williams, Greek and Latin; Professors Piero Glacosa of the University of Turin, institutions and culture; Leslie J. Ayer of the University of Washington, international law; Ellwood Griscom Jr. of the University of Texas, public speaking; Dean Lough and Robert MacDougall of New York University, psychology; Eugen Oberhummer of the University of Vienna, geography; Will C. Rufus of the University of Michigan, astronomy.

Autumn

From time immemorial, farmers have planted their root crops in the dark of the moon, though scientists state it is mere superstition. Similarly, though summer schools now flourish, the real tubers of Education-are not set in until the days begin to shorten. Last week marked the world-wide beginning of mankind's annual effort to keep posterity abreast of the times.

Aside from the usual staggering statistics on entering classes, of which the annual increase is chronically hailed as a portent, without reference to the fact that the human species is steadily propagating, scattered events were of passing interest or sharp significance.

New Scholars. Scholars from England, scholars from France, German scholars and scholars from Italy, on scholarships, international funds or private initiative, swelled the ranks of young America. Holy Cross (Worcester, Mass.) centred some of its attention upon a swart, stocky freshman whose name had a familiar ring and reminded them of something. He was Anton Lang Jr., son of the famed Christus of the Oberammergau Passion Play in Bavaria. Sacrilegious smart-alecks were not long in coining his nickname.

From Warsaw, without announcing what college he would attend, came one John Tichy, brought over by a foundation in memory of Brigadier-General Tadeusz Andrzej Bonawentura Kosciuszko,* able Polish ally of the revolutionary U. S. colonists, George Washington's adjutant.

New Schools. Dean Everett W. Lord, for instance, of the business college at Boston University, was back at his desk after visiting Porto Rico to establish there the first of a chain of schools in business administration which Boston University proposes to extend to many a foreign land.

Columbia University was advertising, seemingly with record enterprise, the degrees it has to confer upon correspondence students. Newspaper displays made it appear as though famed Professors John Dewey (philosophy), Michael Idvorsky Pupin (science), Ashley H. Thorndike and John Erskine (literature), and peers would personally supervise the work of unseen disciples, send them their marks, write them advice, send pearls of erudition by rural free delivery. Shrewd customers; however, did not raise their hopes so high. They well knew that, like the Universities of Chicago, Wisconsin, California and other institutions conducting extension courses, Columbia must find mail-order pedagogy in such demand that an able corps of special assistant instructors is necessary to assist the faculty headliners.

The New School for Social Research (Manhattan), to which no college training is prerequisite and of which the aim is enlightened citizenship, entered its eighth year with the following, among other notables, scheduled to lecture: Dr. Harry Elmer Barnes of Smith College (history, sociology); Dr. John B. Watson, onetime psychology chief at Johns Hopkins, author of Behaviorism (psychology); Dr. S. Ferenczi of Hungary, colleag of Dr. Sigmund Freud (psychoanalysis).

The National Illiteracy Crusade proceeded. Mrs. Cora Wilson Stewart, its director, was active in Montana, establishing "moonlight schools" similar to those she introduced in Kentucky, on the Blackfoot Indian Reservation, near Browning. Classes were begun in the Owen Heavy Breast school and in the home of one John Bull Shoe. Commonwealth College, founded three years ago by Laborites in a virgin dip of the Ozarks, near Mena, Ark., swung into action with two characteristic announcements: 1) Tuition, food, books, lodging and laundry came to $100 for the year, not including soap, tooth paste and pencils; and, "the school body dresses plainly and simply." 2) The College needed, badly, a new dictionary. Meeting at Little Rock, the American Legion of Arkansas was aroused by a vigilant patriot, to whom Commonwealth's continued vigor could mean but one thing, with news that the College was heavily subsidized by the I. W. W. and even redder Reds. The patriot, however, was found ignorant of the fact that Commonwealth was founded, with the endorsement of leading Arkansas politicians and others, including Senator Lynn J. Frazier of North Dakota, as a cooperative, "intellectually aristocratic" institution open to all men but specially designed (in cost) for workers, regardless of creed, color, trade, politics, sex.

New Officers. The resignation of President John Henry MacCracken of Lafayette College (elder brother of President Henry Noble MacCracken of Vassal? College) was effective Oct. 1. No successor was in public sight. . . . Lincoln University (Chester Co., Pa.; for Negroes) entered its third successive year without any president at all, three candidates having been approached in-two years and found wanting some other post.

In Scotland, Dr. Fridtjof Nansen, famed Norwegian explorer of North Pole regions, onetime (1906-08) Norwegian Minister to the Court of St. James's, donned ermine and was ensconced as rector, for one year, of ancient St. Andrews University.

New Courses. Specialization continues. Some new subjects available: At New York University--Accident Prevention.

At City College of New York--The Human Significance of Mathematics (Numbers, Geometric Beauty, etc.).

At University of Michigan--Real Estate.

At Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute--Diesel Engines.

At Yale--Mental Hygiene (advice and examinations, as at Brown--TIME, May 17).

At Chicago Trade Union College--Charm (in dress, conversation, manners, health, friendship, pictures on the wall, etc.*).

* Vigorous and promising as a cadet at Warsaw, Kosciuszko was sent to Germany at Poland's expense to complete his military education. At 30, while tutoring some aristocratic young ladies, he fell in love with one of them and made to elope with her. Family retainers fell upon him, pinking him often and severely before they could eject him. He promptly came to the New World to heal his wounds of heart and body and to win his spurs in real action. With Washington and his colleagues he was at once popular and prominent. In 1783 Congress bestowed citizenship upon him, gave him lands, a pension, the rank of brigadier general, thanked him. * Not to be confused with Pelmanism, from the Pelman Institute, through which Power in such things is taught. Said a Manhattan newspaper of the Charm course: "How to eat peas without mashed potatoes."