HIS NOT TO REASON WHY

The vogue of saying sensational things about colleges and college men has spread so widely of late that pungent opinions on the subject have ceased to be a cause of any deep concern. But though extreme remarks usually carry with them the warrant of their own weakness, some of them strike near enough the truth to be suggestive as caricatures. Into this class falls a remark recently published in a New York paper to the effect that colleges are not attended for the purpose of obtaining an education, but because it is the thing to do.

This penetrating indictment is one that might cause much pain and heart-searching to the conscientious college man. It might drive him to despair. It might induce him to abandon his hypocrisy and leave college. Fortunately, it will do none of these things, for the simple reason that the college man is, or should be, busy enough and sane enough to have no time for such speculations. If he reflects upon his own attitude toward his work, he passes it off with the thought that his attitude at the end of college is going to be more important to him than his undergraduate attitude. And he would be wise to spend his time in doing things to develop the former rather than waste it in analyzing the latter. One has only to picture the fate of any poor man who set out to discover exactly why he came to college. If he were lucky he might escape with nothing worse than a complete nervous collapse, and it is certain that he would not succeed in satisfying himself, or his critics, or the requirements for his degree.