COLLEGES TEACH “RUBBISH”

Evening Star, Issue 20672, 20 December 1930, Page 29

COLLEGES TEACH “RUBBISH”

AMERICAN PROFESSOR'S INDICTMENT THE. SUPREMACY OF SPORT [From Quit Own Correspondent.] SAN FRANCISCO, November 20. A striking slam has been administered to the American system of university education by Dr Abraham Flexner, director of the Institute of Advance Study in Newark, New Jersey, in a new book which criticises American universities for teaching “ rub--1 bish.” ‘ Universities —American, English, and German,’ published by the Oxford University Press, ho declares, “ the sort of easy rubbish which may bo counted toward a Bachelor of Arts degree passes tho limit of credibility.” Institutions, he adds, “ have needlessly cheapened, vulgarised, and mechanised themselves.” Mentioning clog dancing for men and wrestling among courses that count towards a degree, he says great universities descend to “ humbug in bestowing degrees that represent neither a substantial secondary education nor a substantial vocational training.” Criticising tho Harvard School Business Administration, he declares it is an irrelevant and ijnworthy thing for ■ a modern university to undertake to lt short-circuit ” experience. English universities, ho holds, are seats of higher learning, incomparably superior ■to anything in America. He was of the opinion that there is not a college in America “ that has tho courage to place athletics where everyone knows they properly belong.” During the present season athletics seem to"doiniuate all the leading colleges of the United States, football of the American style filling the newspapers with comment and probabilities of prospective matches from the pens of sporting writers, many of whom are supposed to bo studying educational subjects in the respective universities and colleges. Day after day the prowess of rival teams is discussed in the Press, many hours are devoted by , the students to training for weekly i matches, and in many instances immense distances have to be travelled by teams to meet their opponents on Saturdays and Sundays. In consequence, there is very little time lor propei' study. Everything seems to be subordinated to the pursuit of sport. The radio is engaged to work up interest for the weekly gate receipts, and out in the West as many as 90.000 spectators witness some of the “ big games ” between rival universities. Many believe that America has gone mad on college football, and, although there is much talk of unemployment and poverty, there is never any lack of a big gate for any “ big ” football match. ' Compared with tlir intelligence of a _ British university rraduate the American is sadly in the rear, especially in subjects like mental arithmetic, the Yankee student hav- : itig to resolve to pencil and paper to j figure out what the average English i schoolboy does in hisbead. Obviously, j too much outside influence of sport militates against the perlccling of edu--1 cation in tiro United States colleges.