THE HIGHER EDUCATION

Morals, as such cannot be taught. Once a theme for educational discussion, now generally acknowledged and specifically taught in at least one course of Harvard College, this idea is attacked by Dean R.A. Kent of the College of Liberal Arts at Northwestern University, in an article in the current Educational Review.

So deep was the belief of Dean Kent in the imparting of the abstract virtues through instruction that he sent cards to his colleagues in several schools of the University, requesting that they grade themselves with regard to their emphasis on Honesty, Chastity, Sincerity, Healthfulness, Economy, Service, Religiousness, Dependability, Scholarliness and High-mindedness.

Ingenious cross-referencing according to rank revealed that while professors and associate professors put most emphasis on Dependability and Sincerity, Scholarliness was admitted the universal requisite among instructors and assistant professors. Point is lent thereby to the phrase recently used by the Harvard Alumni Bulletin "the stifling influence of graduate scholarship." Confession like this is good for the academic soul.

Among teachers of Speech, Sincerity ranks a paradoxical first. Healthfulness is held in least favor by the Department of Mathematics. But most illuminating when connected with the present state of society is the ranking of the special virtue of Chastity. Placed lowest of all by the teachers of the social sciences, it finds haven in the assistant professor, only teacher to give it any place at all.

Nothing could rank higher than the figures of Dean Kent in Honesty. The statistics were gathered in a laudable spirit of investigation. There remains only the standard of Service, upon which only an expert would venture classification.