YOUNG REFORM

The student conference at Chicago this week called to consider world peace is another in a long series of such conferences which have taken place with growing frequency since 1920. They are not to be dismissed by the refusal of the shallow or the cynical to discriminate between the socially minded man and the unadjusted crank who, like Calvin, well deserves the epithet of accusative ease.

The far-famed individualism cultivated so extensively by the Harvard undergraduate is all very well in its place but it often leads to a failure to realize that he is after all merely a member of a community of other men, that the world is not made for him alone. That is what they tell the 6 year old child in Sunday School but it is true notwithstanding and therefore worth repeating when it is forgotten. The problem of adjustment, like other problems, cannot be solved by ignoring it. All these student conferences and reports on world peace, student military training, football, and educational problems in general merely form the external evidence of a healthy interest in the problems of the social community, and more narrowly in the student community. Because no immediate practical results always ensue they are not to be condemned. If they have provoked sane discussion and an exchange of ideas they have been eminently worth while.

The Chicago conference, for instance, has emphasized once again the importance of exchange scholarships. Attention was called to the Kosciusko Foundation which provides for exchange of students between Poland and the United States. Such scholarships are practical and all too scarce. Creating a strong and coherent demand for more is one very good way of increasing the supply.

The chief fault of student discussion of these varied problems of social adjustment has been the want of some sort of a permanent organization which will act as a clearing house and give a greater continuity, clarity and force to student opinion. This want will be filed by the National Student Federation of America which meets at Anu Arbor in a fortnight to adopt a permanent constitution and extend its scope. Its projects will be discussed in detail later in this column, but its general topic for discussion. "The Student's Part in Education" sums up in one phrase the need for its existence and the essential work which it will accomplish.