Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 309, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 January 1918 — Small College Has Its Own Work to Do and Must Do It Efficiently [ARTICLE]

Small College Has Its Own Work to Do and Must Do It Efficiently

By L.P. POWELL.

President of Hobart College

There are a few small jjgfl of them mend their ways they enaMei* a* the; year* for supporters are not going to confuse smallness with inefficient, and the small college, however small, must function efficiently, or it will cease to have a reason for existence. But here and there you find a small college of which the alumni can proudly as well as truly say, with Daniel Webster, “It Is a small college. And yet there are those who love it.” The small college is the real college. It has no ambition to be a university. It is not tainted seriously with the distinctively university spirit. It still stands, for general mental discipline; a liberal outlook on life and what we cp.ll cultural interests, without longer narrowing the term merely to the pursuit of classical study. The small college today must serve a valid purpose. It cannot rest on the laurels of the past. The small college today must do well its own special work. Problems it has. What live institution has not problems, whether it is big or .little? The small college has suffered much through the persistence of puerilities, but they are going. Sense and solidarity are taking their place. Brutal “hazing,” vulgar “horsing,” premature “rushing,” vulgar “paddling” and excessive drinking, made possible by scholarship funds given to the college by good Christians, are going because they have to go—and they are going rapidly because they cannot withstand the pitiless publicity of good breeding. • ...............