COLLEGE, GOING TO
COLLEGE OP NEW YORK CITY
cause they deal with real issues; and most of the old lines of study have been so modified in content and method that they function much more than formerly. Therefore, as a result of a good college-course, to-day, one becomes reasonably well-informed in regard to modern problems, and he has such an interest in them that his mind is likely to be alert and active in regard to these and other problems in the future. He is then well-prepared to be identified with the workers of the world.
All this applies as well to college-education for young women as for young men. It is true that it used to be a question whether the ordinary college-course for young women, while it possessed many merits, did not to a considerable extent inculcate a distaste for home-keeping—a sad result, indeed. It tended to do this through neglect of the problems of the home, if in no more positive way. But that evil is now being rapidly remedied, just as are the somewhat similar but lesser evils in the men's colleges.
But knowledge of and interest in human problems are only some of the benefits of a college course. Any one who spends three or four years at college forms there many of his main friendships for life. It is an especially cultured, ambitious and able class of persons that one meets in college; and to cement enduring friendships there that one will often enjoy later is one of the chief objects of going to college. Many an adult suffers from lack of numerous well-educated and close friends. The suggestion follows from this fact that study should not be taken so seriously as to exclude social life at college.
The college-graduate, to be sure, is likely to feel his lack of preparation for most lines of work, the moment he leaves college and sets out to earn a living. He must often at first take a position much inferior to those occupied by other persons possessing little education. But his superior knowledge, training and associations give him innumerable advantages over such persons in the race for advancement, and usually, before many years are passed, he passes be-ycnd them. He not only occupies a higher position in his chosen work, too, but he takes higher rank as a factor for progress in community life.
The selection of a good college is not an easy matter. A college that is very good for one person may not be desirable for another. Large colleges or universities possess the advantage over small ones of having more valuable equipments and of paying larger salaries to head-professors. IBut the difficulty with the large college is that the average student who attends it becomes lost in the mass. The lecture-plan is largely followed, and the classes are large, so that few responsibilities besides
getting his lessons fall upon the ordinary student, and he has little or no personal contact with his instructors. Many of these, also, are poorly paid underlings, the head-professors, worth large salaries, working mainly with advanced students.
The small college, on the other hand, is very likely to secure a close contact between teacher and student, and each student is likely to feel more social responsibility. The difference is much the same as that between life in a great city and that in a small town. Any person having any vigor is likely to count for something in a small community; while only the born leaders are called forth in great cities. Many enlightened persons to-day are inclined to favor the small, reasonably well-equipped college to the very large one for the ordinary student,
But the college that one chooses should depend very much upon its strength in the line of study that one expects mainly to pursue. Moreover, whatever college one attends, the courses that he selects after he arrives there should not be determined solely by their titles. In fact, one should not choose a college chiefly either because it is small or large, but because there are certain persons of power there whom he wants and can have as his own instructors. The average instruction in any school or college is not very good, and frequently it is very poor. This is not due to any carelessness on the part of any class; it is true because good teaching is so difficult an art that it is not common. Not infrequently professors with national reputations are miserable instructors. They can attract students, but cannot hold them. In choosing a college, therefore, one should make sure, by correspondence with friends and in other ways, that his prospective teachers will be a source of inspiration. It makes little difference how learned the faculty as a whole is, or how many members it may contain; the very few men who will instruct a given student are practically the institution for that particular student.
The principal of the hig;h-school nearest to you can probably be relied upon to give good advice about particulars in regard to going to college. By writing to the secretary of any college one can obtain desired information, including the catalogue of the institution. See, also, COLLEGES, AMERICAN. F. M. McMuRRY.
College of the City of New York. In 1847-8 the city board of education established an institution for higher education which was at first known as the New York Free Academy. Its location was the corner of 23rd St. and Lexington Avenue. In 1858 it became a college, but it had no separate board of trustees until 1900, when the members of the board of education were replaced by the president of that
