Thwing's Review

Charles Franklin Thwing, famed President Emeritus of Western Reserve University, Cleveland, reviewed the year in higher education:

The selection of teachers. The demand for highly trained teachers exceeds the supply. Colleges now accept as instructors candidates having only the degree of Master of Arts. A decade ago, a candidate had to have a Doctor's degree.

The selection of students. The thirst for knowledge has become a commonplace. Hundreds of students are turned away (especially by the colleges for women) because of the inadequacy of the facilities. At Vassar, 298 Freshmen were admitted out of 539 candidates; at Wellesley 424 out of 1,337; at Mount Holyoke, 338 out of 680; at Smith, 600 out of 1,835. Selection having become necessary, the problem of whom to select has arisen. Admission on the basis of an aristocracy of brains is considered unsatisfactory.

The trend of opinion is that every test may properly be used to select candidates--intellectual tests, tests of health, strength, and endurance, personal tests based on evidence of former teachers and on conferences between members of the Admission Committees and candidates.

The failures. The "mortality" in the Freshmen classes is great. In spite of selection, students are admitted who cannot do the work.

In an effort to "save the Freshman," Maine University has instituted a "Pre-Freshman week." Dr. Little, Maine President, outlined this plan: "Pre-Freshman week has among its objects the providing of an opportunity, before the rush of the returning upperclassmen starts, to study carefully the individual problems of freshmen and to assist in estimating their ability to meet the responsibilities and difficulties of college life. It is our belief that in many institutions much time has been wasted by admitting to college a certain number of individuals who could have been warned in advance that the likelihood of their meeting satisfactorily the requirements of a college course would be insufficient to justify their making the effort."

Vocational training. The utilitarian side of education increases. A larger emphasis is being placed on post-graduate training for business. Because of a larger and more liberal interpretation of business, and because of purely scientific research into industrial processes, the bounds between a profession and a trade are narrowing.

The future. "The dare-devil spirit which for a time promoted indulgence in liquor is passing." College students are coming to the belief that alcoholism and venereal disease are the two curses of America and of the rest of the world, and must be stamped out.

Oust?

In March, 1922, geographer-President Wallace W. Atwood of Clark University, Worcester, Mass., won wide renown by ordering the lights turned out while Scott Nearing was delivering a lecture on Socialism to Clark students. Since then, he has been involved in various skirmishes with the student body, alumni and faculty. A year ago (TIME, June 11, 1923) a number of members of the faculty brought public charges against him, to the effect that he was purposely injuring and neglecting the famed graduate schools of the University in favor of his own Department of Geography and that he had weakened the morale of the faculty and destroyed that of the student body by "untruthfulness and shifty methods." He met the barrage by a volley of countercharges, that his critics were radicals, that [under him] Clark was just beginning to have a college spirit. Said he: "It's all bosh. . . . Clark's athletic life is just beginning. Hitherto Clark did not compete with other colleges in athletics. Now we are having varsity teams and the college spirit is being fostered." Next day came an expression of confidence from the trustees who favored the emphasis on Geography and "college spirit."

The rumpus apparently subsided, but now, if prominent Clark alumni in the eastern States have their way, Dr. Atwood will be removed from the Presidency. They have drawn up resolutions asserting that:

1) "The present administration has been unable to maintain the confidence of the faculty, the students and the general public interested in education.

2) "The institution has lost some of its ablest and most promising instructors, and the academic reputation of the university has steadily declined since the present administration assumed control.

3) "The present administration appears totally indifferent to the history and traditions of Clark University.

4) "President Atwood should be replaced by an educational administrator who will be able to gather about him a body of teachers and students responsive to the highest educational ideals."

Among the resolution-signers are Dr. W. T. Forbes, entomologist at Cornell, Dr. William Wheeler, dean of Bussey Institute (Harvard), and faculty members of Brown, Syracuse, Barnard, Wellesley, the Universities of Maine, South Carolina--many of whom were once members of the Clark faculty but left subsequent to Dr. Atwood's incumbency.

Previous to 1922, the enrollment at Clark had been restricted to exceptionally well-prepared men who wished to do three years' work for a B. A. There had been no extra-curriculum activities. But pressure was brought to bear upon the college by those who wanted intercollegiate athletics and were not exceptionally well-prepared. So the former three years' basis was changed to a four-year schedule, and intercollegiate athletics were started.

Shortly after Dr. Atwood became President (Feb., 1921), he discontinued the Departments of Biology and Mathematics, reduced the staffs in Psychology and Sociology, restricted other Departments, brought Geography to the centre of the stage. Under his predecessor, the late G. Stanley Hall, famed psychologist, Clark's graduate schools had achieved international prestige and the university was known for its co-operative spirit of scientific research. Now, however, that seems all changed. Members of the faculty have been steadily resigning, and a year ago the head of the Physics Department, Dr. Arthur G. Webster, committed suicide after stating that his work was not appreciated, he feared dismissal. The graduating class of 1923 adopted resolutions criticising Dr. Atwood and the Washington Alumni Club and the Pacific Coast Alumni have done likewise. The next move would seem to be Dr. Atwood's.

"Most Thorough"

Six British students are studying in the U. S. this year on the foundation established by Mrs. Henry P. Davison as a memorial to the late Mr. Davison. One of them, one Edward Christopher Moule, Davison scholar from Cambridge University, now in the junior class at Yale College, has won two important prizes in the annual awards. He received the Noyes-Cutter Prize of $50 for "rendering the Greek of the New Testament into modern English," and the Winthrop Prize of $200 for "the most thorough acquaintance [among Yale College juniors] with the Greek and Latin poets."