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The Graduate magazine of the University of Kansas
The Graduate magazine of the University of Kansas Author:Unknown Author Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Editorial A Decaying Tradition ? In the American university policy of today there are some indications of a diminished confidence on the part of university... more » authorities in the ability of students to look after themselves and their interests. By this it is not meant, of course, that there is any clearly defined thing which can be labeled ''American university policy of today," but only that there is perceptible an average of official attitude on this matter distinctly different from the attitude of ten or a dozen years ago. Philosophically considered, this is, no doubt, simply an indication that in the educational world the pendulum swings back and forth, as it does in all other worlds in which there is freedom for the play of various forces. It is only in despotism that the glory—or the shame—of conpletc consistency in policy is possible. The Bourbons might press forward, with undeviating purpose, in a single direction, until the catastrophe came that swept them and their policy into eternity. But wherever we have the rule of the many-headed we must expect that there will be a succession of right abouts executed; and it really does not seern greatly to .matter whether the many-headed be Coriolanus's hated mob or the grave(and learned gentlemen who have in their charge the science and the art of education. If there be a difference it is only, perhaps, that the mob's right about is often—not always—more swiftly executed. But whatever the philosophy of the matter, the tendency under discussion is in many ways to be regretted. Any curtailment of the student's liberty that is not absolutely necessitated by regard for order, decency, and good work, must do harm in the academic community; any official and uninvited intrusion into the student's private affairs, however well meant,...« less