lt. Is it not, however, a trenchant criticism on the situation in
our higher education, that so often the one common interest should be in
something that is, at least, aside from the main business of the
institution?

Moreover, no institution can rightly serve democracy, unless it is
itself democratic. Thus the growth of an aristocratic spirit in our
colleges and universities is an ominous sign. For instance, it is still
true that any boy or girl, with a sound body and a good mind and no
family to support, can get a college education. Money is not
indispensable: it is possible to work one's way through. Will this
always be true? One wonders. It is significant that it is easiest to
work your way through college, and keep your self-respect and the
respect of your fellows, in the small, meagerly endowed college on the
frontier. It is most difficult, with a few exceptions one gladly
recognizes, in the great, rich universities of the East. What does that
mean?

Straws show the tide: it was announced some time ago by the president of
one of our richest and oldest universities that henceforth scholarships
in that institution would be given solely on the basis of intellectual
scholarship, as tested by examination; and applause went up from the
alumni all across the country; yet what does it mean? It means that the
boy who has to work on a threshing machine, sell books to an
unsuspecting public, or do some other semi-honorable work all summer to
get back into college in the Fall, cannot pass those examinations
equally with a rich man's son of equal mind, who can take a tutor to the
seashore or the mountains and coach up all summer. Thus foundations,
established by well-meaning people to help poor boys self-respectingly
through college, become intellectual prizes for those who do not need
them. That is all wrong.

Take the special student problem. When a college or university is
founded, it needs students: they are the life-blood of the institution.
Really all that is needed to make a college is a teacher and some
students: buildings are not indispensable, but students the school must
have. Thus it is apt to keep its bars down and its entrance
requirements flexible. Special students, often mature men and women,
who are not prepared to pass the freshman examinations, are admitted on
the recommendation of heads of d epartments, to special courses they are
well fitted to take. Students are admitted freely, and then