the march of progress; they must take part in the solution of ethical problems, in the bettering of government and society. The world demands of them altruism, public spirit, high ideals. They should mass the forces of the past for an onward movement in the present. Old knowledge should reach out toward new and useful applications.
To these ends the college should provide for a deeper knowledge of some subject or group of related subjects. This is an essential element of general education, and also has a practical aim. The principles of the philosophical and social sciences should find concrete illustration in the present. And above all, student life should be inspired with ideas of the duties and responsibilities of citizenship.
A public statement has been made that the seniors of a well-known university have less intellectual vigor and less moral power than the average man they might meet on the streets. If the charge be true, it is a matter for serious thought, but the statement should be swallowed with a large grain of salt. It may, however, serve as a text. The college must assume an amount of responsibility for the character of the undergraduate student. There has been a natural reaction against some of the unwise requirements of twenty-five years ago, but the reaction may have gone too far. One of our famous universities ten years ago adopted the policy of leaving the student to his own devices and the moral restraint of the policeman, but the plan was condemned by the patrons of the institution, and to-day it exercises a wise and friendly care over the student's choice of studies, his attendance upon lec-
