LONG-TERM INVESTMENT

Vibrant though it is with the overtones of the Harkness Hoot's unrelenting radicalism, R. S. Child's "Portrait of Undergraduate Yale" in the Nation is nevertheless a careful and well-balanced analysis. The article is specially interesting for its candid picture of the relations between academic and non-intellectual activities.

That social life and the chance to "do something" are, as Mr. Childs believes, more important to most students than intellectual education, few will deny. Again as Mr. Childs points out, this tendency is justified by undergraduates and by the University on the grounds that it produces men with exceptionally bright prospects in the business world. The University fulfills its obligation by providing the opportunity at least for purely intellectual education.

Every facet of this problem of university education has been repeatedly examined under the searchlight of conflicting opinions, but an essential question is worth asking again. Is not the devotion to non-intellectual work for able men a short-sighted procedure, both for themselves and for the community?

Admitting that a man trained in student organizations may be more valuable to any business firm, school, or newspaper on his graduation day than is the purely academically trained man, it is quite possible that a greater fund of knowledge and more thorough habits of thought may make the latter superior ten years later. To the man of ability, inexperience in "doing things" will be no permanent handicap.

There seems an even stronger probability that, for the community as a whole, intellectual work at college among the best students will prove a good investment. Superior mental calibre is certainly demanded of leaders in government and economics today. In addition to an immense mass of information, they should have well-considered opinions on fundamental principles. Their collegiate training ought surely to have demanded considerable intellectual maturity.

In weighing the relative values of academic and non-intellectual pursuits, emphasis ought to be placed on a long period of years. The investment of devotion to intelligent scholarship gains instre if seen in perspective.