man. Hence the emphasis upon decorative subjects such as classical languages. Hence, we might add, the absurd objective of a college education, the Bachelor of Arts diploma - of which more later.

Rather suddenly there came the rush of thousands into colleges. In 1870 only one out of 150 youths was in college. In 1880, one out of 100. In 1890, one out of 75. In 1900, one out of 50. In 1910, one out of 40. In 1920, one out of 20. And in the year of our Lord 1927 the proportion is probably near to one out of 12.

A college student is, therefore, no more rara avis, no more necessarily a son or a daughter of the upper classes. The great democratic American masses are looking to sending their children to college - or, at least, their children are looking to going there, as naturally as they looked to high school ten or twenty years ago. Of course, even one in twelve is only one in twelve; there are eleven others who do not go; but the proportion is sure to increase. Whatever the proportion, they are a privileged group, against the remaining eleven twelfths or five sixths or even two thirds, who are deprived of college for economic or other reasons, and who enter productive life without waiting until twenty-two to do so.

In the appraisal of value of any property, service, or institution, a sound system of accounting is imperative. The balance sheet is not only a business concept. It is, or ought to be, if not the true measure, at least one of the measures for the evaluation of any social effort.

What the individual cost is I know, and so do many other parents. From my varied experience I know that it cannot be done comfortably for less than the $1500 per annum I have named. And, moreover, the costs are constantly rising.

Few luxuries are here included. The clothing allowance certainly does not allow a girl in college to dress better than does a New York stenographer there is no reason why she should, except that she wants to or as well as many of her college friends dress, much to her and her mother's distress and mental anguish. Nor does the minimum budget provide for the maintenance of even the little roadster which many a college boy expects. It provides for pocket expenses, but not for hip-pocket expenses and the appurtenances thereto. Finally, it does n't provide for railroad trips to college and home - at least two of them - and a summer vacation.

So let us accept the figure of $1500 as reasonable. Four years of that is $6000. We know that there are to-day some 600,000 students in colleges, and some 600,000 pairs of parents making this sacrifice to send them through.

A few years ago the National Bureau of Economic Research published a most painstaking investigation of 'Income in the United States: Its Amount and Distribution.' While the data refer to 1918, the situation probably has not changed materially during the last few years. The conclusions are based partly upon careful study of income tax statistics and partly upon estimates. In all, 37,569,060 incomes are considered. Let me inject this brief statistical summary:

With all the display of wealth in our midst, with all our lavish expenditures, it is significant that the incomes of $10,000 and over number a little more than a quarter of a million (254,634), representing only about two thirds of one per cent of the total. Even if all incomes of $6000 or over are included, they number only about 600,000 and represent only 14 per cent. You can't deduct $1500 from $6000 without creating some disturbance in the family budget. And yet we have 600,000 college students to-day. We shall have many more to-morrow - a round million, if students in professional and normal schools are included.

And what about the collective social cost? It has become a somewhat hackneyed observation of American students of European conditions before the war that Europe was being driven into bankruptcy by its standing armies. The same reason is often given in explanation of the financial difficulties which France or Poland or Central Europe is going through to-day. Comparisons are made to show the enormous cost of maintaining a million able-bodied men in idleness, and an expensive apparatus to keep them busy besides - for, paradoxical as it may sound, even idle men must be kept busy at something. Mutatis mutandis, does n't this describe at least one aspect of the American college problem? If my estimate of $1500 per

37,569,060

annum is correct, what is the cost of 600,000 students? Is not $900,000,000 per annum a substantial amount? But is that the entire cost? We are frequently told that, no matter how high the tuition fees, no student pays more than twenty or twenty-five per cent of what it costs the college to instruct him. The expenditures of college over and above the income from college fees must be added. They may amount to some $300,000,000 or $400,000,000 per annum. And what about the loss of income from capital investments? What about the continuous capital outlays which are required to meet the demands of a constantly increasing student population? Is there a college or a college president who is not continuously soliciting funds?

Limiting the number of students, selection on psychological, financial, or any other grounds, all this may help to save an individual institution, but it only aggravates the problem, for it strengthens the illusion of those great advantages which ma may be derived from a college education. In the final analysis it is the wishes of the people, not the decision of the college authorities, that will decide the size of the student population in this country.

Let us say that the college bill amounts to nearly $2,000,000,000, a respectable amount for even this rich country. Added to this is the enforced idleness, the nonproductive existence, of an army of 600,000 young men and women. And the army is rapidly growing, and the cost figures are increasing even more rapidly than the army.

Now it would seem to be good social ethics, or common sense, that a privileged standing ought to have some justification. Surely that should hold true in an ideal democracy such as ours. The privilege of a college education, the privilege of postponing entrance upo upon one's life's duties in this workaday world until the age of twenty-two or twenty-three, ought to be worthy of some justification to the other social groups not so privileged; to the other age groups within its own social class; and to college youth itself.

III

The extension of the schooling period from fourteen to eighteen, through the democratization of the high schools, corresponds with the views held by an increasing number of physiologists, psychologists, educators, and students of social conditions, that it is wise and useful to postpone entrance into modern productive industry to fourteen, or sixteen, and for many industries to eighteen, years of age. If this prolonged childhood will give children a better chance in later life, surely modern American society can afford it. Whatever the fiscal arrangements, whatever the shifting of cost depending upon distribution of wealth and income and our system of taxation, society can well afford to say: 'We, the grown-up people, young as well as middle-aged, are willing to carry the burden, individually for the good of our children, collectively for the good of the next generation and of the country at large. It is up to us to do the world's work while the old folks rest and young folks are getting ready.'

But is the situation at all similar for

that group which makes up the student body of our colleges? The college period extends from the age of eighteen to twenty-three or more. Physically our students are grown up. They are able to do the work that has to be done: athletic feats would seem to demonstrate that. Their health is usually above the average. For physiological reasons they have an oversupply of energy, which they should dispose of in order not to get into mischief. A very expensive apparatus must be furnished to meet that need in a wasteful way. Not so very long ago persons at their age were the fathers and mothers of the race. Surely they are or ought to be self-supporting - not in positions of leadership, of course, but in the rank and file. Even now the other eleven out of twelve, those who are not in college, are employed in industry, commerce, arts, in every line of endeavor except science and the learned professions. Surely even we complacent middleaged Americans do not mean to say, 'Let the middle-aged and the old folks, those of fifty years and over, work more and harder, so that our boys and girls between eighteen and twenty-four may have more time to play while they are studying a little.' But that is exactly what we are doing.

Is this policy justified? If so, what is the justification?

The traditional reply is obvious: 'You are paying for the education of the children. Do you question the value of education?'

I do not. But I am beginning to question the meaning of the word in its application to a present-day college.

In whatever I have said, and will say presently, I am not referring to professional and technical education. But college, undergraduate college, is not vocational. It deals with that ill-defined entity often described as 'culture' or general education. Far be it from me to deny the necessity of it. I hold, I think, fairly advanced ideas on the subject. Culture and general education must, I believe, embrace some understanding of the ego's relationship to the universe, the earth, the human race, society, and himself. But what I do insist upon on is that this ideal general education and culture is obtained in our colleges by only an infinitesimal proportion of students; that the effort to obtain it is not even encouraged either by the college or by the student body; and that no one who possesses this much-desired culture - I am thinking of something much more substantial than the mere polish of a gentleman has obtained it during the specified years of college.

The idea that anything approaching a general education can be crammed down in four years of college, certified by an A.B., and enjoyed ever after without further effort, is the greatest impediment to the growth of American culture. Education is an important part of life. But should it ever occupy all of life? The one great contribution to the theory of the place of the educational process in life as a whole was made by the Gary formula, intended for a younger group but applicable to all ages: Study, play, work. I am questioning our college system because it puts the greatest emphasis on play and considers work either as a necessary evil or not at all. Against this policy I, as a middle-aged man, do revolt. My life is mostly work. There is some study - always has been. Perhaps my reading hours average more than the traditional fifteen hours

a week of the college student. But there is very little play. And I am getting tired, and the height of my productive energy has passed. Meanwhile, the young folks have much play and very little work, if any. Whether the arrangement is quite fair as between myself and my children is a personal

matter; but whether the arrangement is fair between two generations is a matter of great concern to society at large.

IV

This question must be answered in the light of the return the country gets for the expenditure of two billion dollars'per annum. What do we get collectively and individually? What does the country get? What does the paying father get? What does the student get?

The one thing that the student obviously gets, or achieves, is his A.B. Will the answer appear facetious or cynical? But, seriously, no other definite answer can be given - at least, none that will apply to the student body as a whole.

What is this mysterious A.B. degree? Why 'bachelor'? And why 'arts'?

The corresponding, though not altogether comparable, German symbol at least has a meaning: certificas maturitatis, a certificate of (intellectual) maturity. A certain intellectual content has been acquired. Whether rightly or not, it is assumed to include the intellectual baggage needed for intellectual maturity. And the mature person may be expected to go forth and at least take care of himself. Isn't that, after all, the minimum test of maturity?

But what does the A.B. certify? It is true, we too speak on Commencement Day of the young graduate going forth to 'conquer the world.' We grandiloquently declare that 'omnia jura, honores, privilegia ad hunc gradum pertinentia' are conferred upon him or her. But all this Latin, we know, means no more than the two Horse Guards, standing on duty in London, mean in the economic problems of the British Empire. Does it stand for any definite educational content? A large modern American university offers perhaps two or three thousand courses, but, on the average, a student may not take more than twenty to thirty of them during his four years. The A.B. does, to be sure, confer the right to reënter the university and to work for an A.M. degree. But the same question may arise. What does an A.M. stand for?

Strange as it may seem, the A.B. is a quantitative measure. It certifies to the acquisition of a certain amount of knowledge of assorted kinds - almost like a pound of assorted chocolates. One might say that it stands for four years of academic training. But even that is no more accurate, for it is now quite possible to acquire it with no unearthly effort in three and a half years, or even in three. So another measure must be accepted. An A.B. stands for 120 points, or counts, or whatever the yardstick of the particular college happens to be. Roughly, of course, this may be converted into units intelligible to the layman. A point usually stands for one hour a week for a semester of some sixteen weeks; so an A.B. stands for some 120 times 16that is, 1920 hours of classroom instruction, with proper deductions for vacations, holidays, and cuts, excused and unexcused. And there you are.

Does this mean anything to you? It means nothing to me. Some 1800 hours of classroom attendance may mean some education, some culture, some knowledge, some philosophy, some Weltanschauung - it may mean any one of these things or a little, very little, of each. And it may mean none of these things. It may mean nothing at all beyond some formal compliance with the minimum (quantitative) requirements and some luck and dexterity at the final examinations.

The elective system came as a useful reaction against the scholasticism and formalism of a so-called classical education. Surely no one would wish to return to the mediæval system of education which was limited almost to

dead languages and dead cultures. No one would want to force 600,000 youths to study for four long years subjects in which they have no interest at all. But, on the other hand, if we want to confer the title of a learned or an educated man, for an A.B. must mean or at least symbolize that, if anything at all, - we must first of all arrive at some agreement as to what education means.

A bare few winters within an educational institution mean nothing. A mechanical agglomeration of trigonometry, history of the Renaissance, Greek philosophy, scenario writing, interpretation of French drama, psychological measurements, palæontology, accounting, third-year German, and Provençal French, or any similarly relevant combination, arrived at with due consideration of the looks of the professors, their reputation as to 'cinch' courses, desire for a free Saturday, conflicts with various athletic events, and hatred of early rising - this, we submit, is not a systematic education. Just what the effect of this mental food is likely to be we are unable to tell. No one has figured it out.

No, this is not an exaggeration or a caricature. For all we know, this may be an actual record. There is no reason why it shouldn't be. Some colleges have made an effort to overcome this evil. There are tutorial systems, honor systems, outlines, and requirements for major subjects. But, with all these efforts in the right direction, the combined effect is slight. In the opposition against the old classical programme, no unified plan for a rounded-out general educational programme was created.

V

We come back to the original question. What does the college give the average student? Surely not a systematic education. Surely not scientific training. Unfortunately, no accurate