Sill Urges "Personality, Teaching Ability, and Enthusiasm" As Requisites For Teachers in Elementary College Courses

"Personality, teaching ability, and enthusiasm, rather than the number or quality of degrees to a man's credit, should be the primary considerations in the choice of teachers for elementary college courses," said the Reverend F. H. Sill, headmaster of the Kent School, in an interview last night.

"The superior learning of a Ph.D.," continued Father Sill," is wasted on the ears of bored Freshmen; only through talented and, above all, enthusiastic teachers, can their interest be properly aroused. Obviously, a teacher must know his subject, and the more he knows about it, the better, other things being equal; the point to be emphasized is the diminishing importance of successive additions to a teacher's scholastic accomplishments, beyond a certain point. Thus, among a group of prospective teachers who have a comprehensive, if unspecialized grasp of a subject, the scholastic attainment of individuals in the group, compared to their talent for teaching, is a negligible consideration.

"Much of the expenditure by college athletic departments could be saved, and a much closer contact between instructor and student could be effected through the abolition of professional coaches, and the substitution for them of amateurs whose primary occupation is teaching. At Kent, there are no professional coaches, and the school is, I venture to say, deficient neither in athletes nor in scholars. At Harvard, the purpose so often expressed by the authorities to draw student and tutor closer together, could be greatly furthered by an application of the scheme to the House Plan, making tutors coaches of House athletics. In any event, the charges against American colleges of 'professionalism' in athletics would be forever silenced by the systematic pursuance of such a policy."