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Show DO TOO MANY GO TO COLLEGE? ull Text of the Address by President Hopkins of Dartmouth, in VVhicIi He Declared the PrivilegesofHighei Education Should Not Be Wasted on the Unfit. In m rerewf arfrfress Presides! op-fries op-fries o imrtmamlh declared Ms cos. rirtion that tno sisng srii are. auing f enllep'. Tsi srti-spaper prearsli herewith the complete text of the tpeech. By ERNEST MARTIN HOPKINS, IX. D Prstideat of Dartmouth Collage. THE: opening of the college year, with Its attendant assembling of upper clsss men for the continuation of their courses and the Incoming of hundreds of men. new to college environment and to college work, la fitting time for recapitulation and reiteration of the collage purpose. Kor the Individual undergreduste, gins at this period to assume grestly Increased Importance, both because of ths atsge of his advance toward maturity ma-turity and because of ths particular conditions of college life, wherein ths responsibility Is constsntly thrust upon up-on him for making decisions. Many of these decisions, under superficial guise of merely temporary consequence, conse-quence, ss a mutter of fact are destined to be significant to all subsequent sub-sequent passes of his life. It hi at this point, perhaps, that ths col legs falls most definitely. It has not found any sufficient way to maka evident to Ita men ths enduring In flue ncs upon Ister career of even minor details of dally life through their Influence In forming habit. It does not carry conviction to undergraduates under-graduates In emphasising , tha importance im-portance of cultivating those qualities which make for sslf-dlrscted lives of purpose and strength, rather than of allowing tbosa hsblta of inertia and Indifference to become fastsned upon us, which merely in being tolerated become mora fixed each day. It la at this point, likewise, that tha undergraduate remains most oblivious of his own best Intsresta Ths processes proc-esses helpful to acquiring mental strength and moral fortitude are at least as Important and as rigorous aa thoss required for gaining oiuacular atrength and physical resistance. Nevertheless, It la to ba doubted if tha coaches and trainers of our sth- lello teams would ba willing to trust solely to suddenly acquired desire to compete or to a sudden burst of an ' thuslasm on tha part of Individual man as Justification tor relying upon them In intrrcuilealata contests. And yet. tha Intelligence, tha endurance, tha consciousness of power, and tha will to do. required in even tha greatest of athletic, contests does not exceed what la daily and hourly required of tha man who goes forth from tha college to compete with adverse clrcumstsnoss In tha struggle to make hla life of consequence, con-sequence, useful to society and satis, tying ts hla owa aspirations. Shall ws not then keep In mind tha reason for our undertaking tha course upsa which to-day wa set out and shall wa not prassrva or cultivate respect re-spect far tha proved canons of train IngT StaJntM Must Decide Which Interest! Art Viul The great question In college Ufa la at what point wa are going to apply ourselves and ths degree of devotion with which wa are willing to commit aursalvss to tha different Interests which will attract our attention. There la oo tha boards In London at tha present tuns a play written by Mr. Oatsworthy entitled "Loyal Ilea" which night after, night draws capacity houses It presents for consideration In form of tha drama tha contusion worked In tha human mind by ths crass purposes of conflicting loyaltlss sf various aorta, respectively stimulated stimu-lated or reprisal d by such factors aa Instinct, deslrs. racial prejudice, class feeling, professional caste, family ties or Interest In abstract Justice, There la no greater problem In Ufa than that of ths authenticity of tha Ideas which we hold or of those which ws are disposed to accept aa our own. There Is no greater necessity upon ths collega than that It shall proclaim tha exlstencn of this problem to ths Individual In-dividual man within Its balls, that ha may ba Impelled to seek knowledge and command of mental - processes wherewith to define for himself ths desirable loyalties and that ha may ba Influenced to cultivate tha will to plsdgs himself and ail his works wholeheartedly to these. The collega cannot do this for him. All that the college can do la to maintain main-tain an atmosphere or to create an Influence which will be helpfiH to such ends for those men who seek to establish es-tablish contact with tha real purpose of ths college. It can neither ba emphasised em-phasised too strongly nor too frequently fre-quently that a college course does not of Itself necessarily do away with ig- Dora nee, eliminate bigotry or diminish partisanship, sven In tha caas of many a man who seemingly fulfills all ths requirements of the college. Ths most that can Justifiably be claimed la that the college processes, rightly accepted and properly -utilised, make It somewhst more feasible for ths Individual man to do these things Intelligently for himself then would bs ths case otherwise. Incidentslly. II may lie observed that within ths college life Itself, hera and now, there are the calls of con- . flictlng loysltles, none unworthy In , - themselves but rseh susreptitite to ap-prslsal ap-prslsal as to Its relative worth In relation re-lation to the others. To men genuinely gen-uinely bewildered smong these thla assursre-e can be held out that ths aerfdlsrtplina of serious effort to de-cids de-cids intelligently whirh of the loysltles loysl-tles are of major Im ports ore and which are of minor will probably bs 1 . ' as helpfnl to then own development as any work undertaken within thl ' college course. ' For the fullest possible common un-i un-i demtandfng, snd the earliest, a fee principles spplylng to our mutual re latlonshlp may well be atsted at thli Junolurs. These principles are Involved In-volved nsrtlcularly at Dartmouth tr auch policies as ths restriction of en rollment. the selective process of ad-mission ad-mission snd the permsnent elimination elimina-tion from the college msmbershln ol men Incompetent or unwilling to qualify qual-ify according to the standards whicll the college seeks to maintain. . Sty Too Utny Ilea Art Coini to Collett t m TaMI aaVValHy IHsMti aaafat AisaaV teat IMtilt& L Tbm opportunitira for Mrurinf an education edu-cation by way of the coll courm ar derinttHy a nrivtiir and not at all a t univermal riorht. Tha fundn - avallala for appropriation to the uia of limtl-tutlona limtl-tutlona of hi her learnlnjr ax not Ilnv ..tlaa and cannot h made an, whether their orljtln be Bought In tha mwurcfd of public taxation or In the aecurabla benefactlnna for- th 'enhancing of private pri-vate endowments. It conaguently becomes be-comes easentUl that a working theory be aought that will operate with noma degree of accuracy to define the Individuals In-dividuals who ahall make up tha graup to whom. In Justice to tha public good, the privilege ahall be ei tended and to specify those from whom tha privilege ahould be withheld! Thla la a twofold neceeetty: on tha one hand, that men Incapable of profiting profit-ing by the advantagea which the college col-lege offers, or Indisposed, shall not be withdrawn from useful work to apend their time prontles-ily. In Idleneaa, acquiring ac-quiring falre standards of living, and, on tha other hand, that tha contribution contribu-tion which the collega la capable of making to the Uvea of competent men and through them to society shall not be too largely lessened by the slackening slack-ening of pace due to tho presence of men Indifferent or wanting In capacity ca-pacity Wa hear much of men seeking an education, but too often they ar only aweklng membership In a social organisation organ-isation which haa reputation for af-fording af-fording an d. -eat inn, from which rep-u rep-u tat Ion they expect to benefit if they can avoid being detached from the association. as-sociation. The assumption would be humorous if It were not so aerlous that enrollment with a college require re-quire that the collega ahall either force education upon the Individual man or surreptitiously bait him to It rather than that be ahould crave and at the coat Of any effort poaeeea himself him-self of the utmost which tha college can give. It would-be Incompatible with all of tha concept lone of democracy to assume as-sume that the privilege of higher education edu-cation ahould be restricted to any class defined by the accident of birth or by the fortuitous clrcumatance of poaaca-alon poaaca-alon of wealth, but there la auch a thing aa an aristocracy of brain, made up of men Intellectually alert and Intellectually, ee.ger, to whom. Increasingly, In-creasingly, the opportuntles of higher education ought to ba restricted ft democracy de-mocracy Is to become a quality product prod-uct rather than simply a quantity one and If excellence and effectiveness are to displace the mediocrity toward which democracy haa such a tndency to skid, atratal Gymnssficj Not Csrfuine Thinking I wish carefully to safeguard these statements, however, by Iteration and feneration that It behooves all of ua to avoid confusing the symbols and the facts of Intellectuality, and I should hops that under any ctrcum-atancea ctrcum-atancea we might avoid confusing mental gymnastics and facility In appropriating ap-propriating the Ideaa of others with genuine thinking. Unfortunately, Intellectual In-tellectual hypocrisy and its complement, comple-ment, intellectual smugness, are not sufnciently Infrequent even within college col-lege halls, while at the same time I believe that on the whole, they are as much to be avoided and that they are as detrimental to the spirit of true scholarship as Is ignorance. In the last analysis the stimulation In the individual man of hla ability to think and the willingness to follow the logic of hla carefully conaidered thought though to conviction la the desirable ambition for the college. This presupposes the 'scquleltton of certain fundamental knowledge, the mastery of the technic of fin-ling new knowledge when needed, acquaintanceship acquaint-anceship with the method of gaming access to orlglnsl sources, a disposition disposi-tion to seek all facta and to sort these according to relative Importance before accepting conclusions and finally an openminded tolerance for new facts If they ahall appear and be proved valid, even though they attack conclusion! already formed. This all It simply another way of suying that the collega ambition la that Its men may be consecrated to the spirit of truth. Such is the eseen-tial eseen-tial loyalty. It la. moreover, at this tune especially necessary to repeat the statement, for there never was a hirur time to know where truth may be found than now. and e have nothing noth-ing to designate the npproach to it except the finely attuned and rlsidly dinipttred processes of the humac mind. The iwu great conflicting forces of the world at the present time are the spirit of truth and the spirit of propaganda, propa-ganda, the former of which leads toward tow-ard tlte light and to ultimate pemce and happiness for mankind and the latter of which hi not only the father of lie but a whole ancestral tree, ulti mately making for confusion and distress. Many of ua thought we were to have been done with any necessity for thinking of or discussing propaganda once the war ahould have been ended, but instead we find ourselves con-" fronted with the definite possibility that what was reluctantly accepted as a war neoesslty will be Imposed upon ua In larger dimensions and with greater thoroughness than ever before aa a working procedure of dally life, despite It tendency to shrink minds and to aoll souls In the muddled waters of things that are not so. Olven the necessity for accepting the evils of war to avoid other evil even greater, I do not feel quo 1 if led to state the extent o which aqueam-lshness aqueam-lshness can be expected to sffect Us conduct, but I assume that In the minds of thinking mm there Is agreement agree-ment that in a world seeking a basis o? cooperation rather than of conflict con-flict the prevalent wartime practice of distorting truth nnd of clothing plausible fuleehood with respectability should not prevail nnd yet It does prevail! Sayi Colleges Should fight Spirit of Falsehood . As s tangible and practical objective, objec-tive, college men could commit themselves them-selves to no purpose more In accord with the spirit of the found it Ion by which they seek to benefit than the early and utter elimination of the spirit of propaganda In the affairs of thli world, and In the dlscuaslun of those of the next. Thre could be no more genuine consecration to the principle prin-ciple of the search for truth than In militant opposition to and repudiation of this spirit, whether It emanate from the manufacturers' association, tha offices of organised labor, the editor's column, the preacher's pulpit or the college offlcera desk. The principle ami the method are invariably wrong, however worthy bo the motive. In course of time 1 hope that aome thinker will write a aerloua dissertation disserta-tion on the subject of labels aa related to truth and propaganda. L'nforttv nately, labels do not ulways accurately designate the giKxl. The buyer returning re-turning from Paris with a few Pnrtsian hats but with a quantity of rartslan labels to be affixed to creations crea-tions of domestic manufacture may do no great Injury to the purchasers of lit goods but he certainly will never advan.-e the science of honest merchandising. mer-chandising. The duty dodger who aits on the ed of his berth Industriously tearing out from hla clothes the firm name of hla Kngllsh tailors snd replacing re-placing them with labels forehanded I y provided, bearing the name of hla home town ault maker, may not greatly dam-mc society but he definitely defi-nitely damages his own capacity to be useful to society when he' iwjures himself to the Government inspector. When we, however, somewhat less consciously dire$.ird the true labels 'to be affixed to men or cauaea and, without care In ancertalnlng the facta tag them with labels which designate them to be what we wish them to be thought to be pe destroy the essential evidence In regurd to their true characteristics char-acteristics snd make accurate delg nation impossible, and thus make unobtainable un-obtainable all thought or action dependent de-pendent upon accurate knowledge. We have all seen the effects of this on individuals. To the latent unpopularity un-popularity of a clubmate. or It may be a popularity so great ss to arouee envy, there Is attached, through lr-responsibility lr-responsibility or malice, the whispered Implication of some disapproved action. It Is Immediately aaaumed that be la not of our kind. It begins to seem thai he might be of the kind that he la accused of being, and of a sudden all whkh haa been suggested becomes accepted as fact. The label is aftlxed and the man la outlawed. fmmr af ihm Unnrlhnf0x Cause of Unjust Stigms Or again, to the lurking fear that some new movement will disturb the existing order and thus create personal per-sonal complications for us. Is sdded the suggestion that certain Individual ctimes of violence. Increasingly prevalent, prev-alent, hsd their origin and Instigation within the dHlik-d movement. Immediately Im-mediately there is almost inevitable disposition to assume these things to be fact. We detest and fenr the type of crime and we dislike and distrust people who think thus unorthodoxly. What more reasonable than that the two are associated! And Immediately, wlthoift mental effort and si moat without with-out consciousness there Is affixed to a group the label whirh signifies a condition which may or may not be true, but the group is damned with the crimes ascribed to It by the suggestion sug-gestion of a label. - There would be less point to bringing bring-ing any such comment as thin before sn undergraduate audience If Judgments Judg-ments of men and policies In undergraduate under-graduate life were not bo frequently derived and held by responsible men on the basis of like labels aftlxed by other men Irresponsible and for reasons rea-sons Insufficient. I am not going Into this at length. You men of the college col-lege -know the facta and can discuss the question aa Intelligently aa can any one. 1 would simply Inquire, as tearing upon any argument, to what extent among us merited and desirable confidence can be destroyed and real worth can he obscured by malevolence, irresponsibi lit y , or ca reles ness in such cases ss affixing the label "yellow" "yel-low" to an athlete, "weir" to a scholar; or hlgh-browM to a policy. If. uir.ong a carefully selected group of men. living in a presumably Intellectual Intel-lectual environment and with unusual f recdom of em n ft c t with advnnta geoua ppnort unl t ies. we cannot free ourselves from the cure-of Judgment by label, then the hope Is slim indeed that truth shall be souuht and real v&luia shall he conceded to men and policies In the world at large. I advert once mere to the statement which I have anade heretofore that a standardised group I a mediocre group and that a conventionalised civilisation la a dying civilisation. The principles behind these statements are operative In college life as definitely defi-nitely as anywhere else. Must Have Liberty To Choose Owa Coal The only stsndanlfxation that I would wslllng'y tolerate for the men of this college would be an imprint that marked them as men craving the mentsl abilities and the qualities of the soul to know the truth, snd aa no!iclng the atnmina nnd constructive construc-tive force to do it. Kven then, with mens attributes as different aa they are and with the realisation f pur-pce pur-pce as distant as It will always he, liberty mu.t be eorn-eded to the Individual Indi-vidual to choose' his own ath of approach ap-proach to tUr far off goal. It Is undoubtedly f.irt that the hope of the world are centered now as reve"r before so Mrongly in th youth of the world. Men trained In old schools of thought and worn by the mental and spiritual struggle of adapting tht-se to new conditions seek relief from further responsibility. Men discouraged either by the Inertia In their own ranks or by what seems to them lack of stability in the oncoming Cooyrtcat, IKS, r The 2w York llerwls. |