isa-normaladvance-1914-00133

Description:	THE NORMAL ADVANCE133exchange ColumnT T pays to keep an eye on the editorials which * come from the pens of our colleagues in the field of journalism. Not all the wise things have yet been said, despite our tendency to believe that such is the case, and many pertinent and timely remarks may be found in the columns of our exchanges. From a recent issue of the Daily Maroon, published at Chicago University, we clipped the following, which we think should be thoughtfully read and reflected upon by every one of our students. Chicago is not the only place afflicted with this twentieth cen¬ tury impulse and each one of us would do well to put the question to himself, Is it worth while?Student activities form the greater part of college life and at the same time create one of the biggest college problems. There are var¬ ious kinds of student activities. The one type is represented by those few colleges and univer¬ sities where the one student activity, (how strange it sounds!) is study. From this type, activities range through the spontaneous efforts of students who gather to play baseball or pro¬ duce a play, through the more or less organized efforts of students who have a certain amount of tradition in their student life, but no great organization, to the type where everything is highly specialized. In this class a Freshman chooses his line and enters as a type. From then on, it is a steady grind, and from among the few who last to the Senior year, a chief leader is chosen. Professional help is secured at big prices students work night and day  strong and influential organizations exist to correlate and supervise the activities and student life is more or less mapped out. There is little spontaniety freshman are regarded as working units by the impassive Seniors, who direct and issue orders in cold fashion, and never come in contact with the cub and the cub must obey orders or lose his chance work, do something, get results, is the con¬ stant cry. Student life at the University of Chicago is typical of this spirit. The big ques¬ tion is whether it is worth while. A student entering this mill has no time to enjoy life no time to assimilate his studies. The increasing demand for work on studies finds little com¬ pensating yield in the demands of the organiza¬ tions so study must be systematized. The student packs his mind with the necessary facts, unpacks and spreads out his mental store in examination for the instructors inspection and he himself never has had time to look at wThat he has learned. He never has had time to turn over literature and history in his mind, to per¬ ceive the beautiful interrelations. In learning Lockes polemic against innate i~deas, he cannot take time to recollect what he learned in Psychology I and notice the interesting way in which the philosopher was feeling for the truth of the psychology involved, nearly grasped it, but somehow missed the big point, Everything is formal and when vacation comes, every one breathes a sigh of relief the eternal grind has let up a little. And when one is through, one cannot look back on many of the bright and cheerful joys which constitute the typical college memory. It is a retrospect over a long and weary road of work. This is the evil of highly organized student activities. But it is also their strength. The wyork spirit is the twentieth century impulse. A student who has gone through this rigorous mill does not enjoy life easily and philosophically he has lost the capacity for quiet, placid living. He is spoiled for anything but work he is enslaved in the habit of doing something all the time, morning, noon and night. Leisure is more abhorrent to him than prohibition to the drunkard. The highly organized student life is the element which makes workers of college graduates in¬ stead of the loafers expected by the business world.
Source:	http://indstate.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/isuarchive/id/32585
Collection:	Indiana State University Archives

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