the portrait of an Ebionitic Christ; the portrait, which emerges from Dr. Warfield's work, comes dangerously near being that of a Docetic Christ. A portrait of Jesus which shall give us, in perfect form, and in equal proportions, the glory of the transcendent Son of God, shining through the attractive loveliness, the sinless perfection, and the selfsacrificing love of the lowly Son of Man, is still a desideratum. LANCASTER, PA.

IV.

THE SCHOOL VERSUS THE COLLEGE.

BY PROF. CHARLES H. LERCH, A.M.

Professor Münsterberg, of Harvard, in a college address, not long ago, voiced, no doubt, the convictions of many, if not of all who are engaged in instruction in the college and the university, by his expression in no mistaken terms of the positive force of the college in the community, and by attributing her failings to the unsatisfactory work done in the lower school. "I must admire," says he, "what the American college has made and makes to-day, and will make in the future out of the entering freshman in the few years until he receives his bachelor diploma. He came as a boy and goes out as a man. He came from a school where ready-made knowledge was imparted to a passive, immature mind, and when he leaves he goes out into the world for practical work or professional schooling with that senior maturity which relies on independent judgment. Secluded from the rough battle of the outer world he can pass four years of inner growth and self-development, of learning and comradeship under the influence of scholars who devote their lives with ever-young enthusiasm to all that is true and good and beautiful. Of course, I do not want to be misunderstood as seeing no fault in the American system of instruction. There are not a few wrong tones in the symphony, wrong tones which hurt the ear of the newcomer, discords to which he will never become insensible. But those fundamental errors belong rather to the school than to the college. It is enough to point to the most devastating one, the lack of mental discipline at the very beginning of intellectual growth. The school methods appeal to

the natural desires and do not train in overcoming desire; they plead instead of command; they teach one to follow the path of least resistance instead of teaching to obey. The result is a flabby inefficiency, a loose vagueness and inaccuracy, an acquaintance with a hundred things and a mastery of none."

The writer feels sure that the majority of schoolmen will not altogether agree with the Harvard professor in his criticism of the school. Loyal as most of these are to the college, they believe that her failings are in a large measure her own. Yes, some even would go so far as to attribute the lack of mental discipline of the school to the impotency of the college. College-bred men and women are the salt of the community and teach the spirit, more definitely the social spirit, of the college, to their children and to others among whom they live. Almost all the teachers in the high schools and other preparatory institutions are college-bred and bring down with them to the school the traditions of the college. The school, thus, year by year, appropriates to itself the life of the college so that most of our larger American schools are becoming more and more like miniature colleges. A student in school anticipates college life to such a degree that he often loses his interest in it by the end of freshman year. The college thus is like a city upon a hill which becomes the cynosure of all educational eyes. She sets the example and the pace and becomes the dictator, even the autocrat, of intellectual matters and policies. Is it possible, then to trace the failings of the school to the inefficiency of the college?

What is the impression that the student of the school gets from reading about the college and from the talk of her alumni? It would be strange if it did not come to him that the serious business of the college is not scholarship. He learns through these sources so little about this and so much how to evade or to compromise with it that the axe is already laid, before he is ready for college, at the very root of the tree of his earnestness. He hears, too, that the college cata

logue must not be interpreted literally and taken too seriously. If he thinks a little for himself, he does not see how some men, whom he knows very well, managed to get a diploma. He can not help but be impressed with the fact that the heroes of the gridiron and the diamond receive greater recognition from some of the faculty and the alumni than those who bring honor to their Alma Mater through sound scholarship. To his mind, evidently, the getting of wisdom, of knowledge, is not the chief thing of the college.

In the light of this view of the college is it not rather a difficult task for the teacher of the school, who has high ideals, to preach scholarship? If he is in favor of moderate athletics, athletics which are a means to an end, not an end in themselves, he will not be always popular and successful with his doctrine of self-restraint. Football, baseball and other features of athletics must be pursued with the same degree of attention and enthusiasm as in college, and the school has caught the fire of the college in this respect. The college sends its missionaries into the schools to proclaim the gospel of athleticism and her emissaries to cull out baseball and football material. Thus the college imparts one phase of her life to the school, but not that which ministers against "flabby inefficiency or "loose vagueness" of scholarly training.

How about the social life of the college? How does that impress the school? Do the conduct, personal appearance, culture of the student body incite a love for high ideals in the school? Does the fraternal or unfraternal life create a stimulus in the school towards that democratic, truly American way of looking at things which it is the pride and glory of the school to teach? Is not this ugly fraternal life, after the fashion of the college, fixing its tendrils into the students below so that school boards can hardly dislodge it? The preparatory student is frequently almost wholly influenced in his choice of a college by the inducements of her fraternity life. The non-fraternity colleges must needs soon get into

the fraternity line in order that they may also put in strong bids for freshmen.

The college is the example of the school in scholarship. What is the dynamic which energizes into activity the mind of the average college student? Is it "the true and good and beautiful" of the Harvard professor? Remove the pressure of honors, prizes, grades, conditions and how much incentive to hard work is left? With these, the general average of the gerund-grinding business is low. Where there is genuine scholarship there is usually specializing, and specializing according to Professor Münsterberg is not the sphere of the college. The Harvard professor in relating the fecundating experience of his own life simply pictures the condition of the average student in college. He says that "when in the middle of his philosophical studies he came to psychology, the lightning struck." Many a youth in college suffers from a similar stroke before he gets to the middle of his subject and refuses absolutely to be interested in anything outside of his favorite specialty. The average college student turns his back on the culture studies or those which make for highmindedness and character and applies his understanding almost wholly to the specialty for life. Through this narrow and narrowing mental process he gradually loses his willpower for general application and in many instances in his senior year he discovers that he is less of a student than when a freshman. The vagaries of college life have a tendency to lead to mental dissipation, and a certain high authority in a medical school had this, no doubt, in mind, when he said, I would rather have my medical students fresh from the school than from the college.

How about methods of instruction in school and college? Are not the teachers in the high and preparatory schools graduates of the colleges, often postgraduates of the universities? Have they not learned their trade at these institutions? One can scarcely teach in the live schools of to-day unless he has learned and is still learning his lessons in pedagogics or