STEPPING EASTWARD

A letter written by Professor A. P. Taylor, Dean of Science at the New Mexico State College, to "The New Student" shows that there exists a real dissatisfaction with educational methods. He proposes that all college students who find something lacking in the present American University cooperate with him in the formation of an ideal school--three hundred selected scholars and a faculty of untrammeled professors." There would be no regents or trustees, no hierarchical graduation, and presumably no outside activities. Apparently Professor Taylor advocates something like a return to the old system of sitting on straw and learning when and where one willed.

Whether or not anything comes of the suggestion, its more proposal is significant in that it gives voice to a widespread discontent with the present mechanical, mass production system. Professor Taylor's college is not the ideal. He does not, for instance, mention such vital necessities as the elimination of hour examinations, in fact of any examinations of the present type; nor of disciplinary measures such as that relic of school days, Probation, so that any student who could not do the work, or who lost interest, would simply be expected to make room for one more suitable. Perhaps, however, such matters are understood.

Where this proposal does mark a great advance over the present system is in emphasizing the individual--of allowing the wings of each student to unfold naturally. Such is far from the case at present and if Democracy is to live up to its meaning, such a method of education is imperative.

On the other hand there are values inherent in the present system which are too good to lose, and of these perhaps the most important is the multifarious nature of college interests and activities. Contrary to the general hue and cry, there are not too many extra curriculum activities at present: if anything there are not enough. To give the student nothing to do with his time except to forage for knowledge when and where he will is productive in the long run only of indolence or dilettantism or pedantry. The ideal college must combine with the much-desired individualistic emphasis, the present many-sided pressure.