Chapter VI

THE PERSONAL FACTORS IN A COLLEGE EDUCATION.

One of the personal elements entering into a college education is the choice of a college to attend. This decision is a problem of the first importance, and should not be left to ignorance or caprice, but ought to be carefully considered, inasmuch as it largely involves the future type of character a student will have after the formative period of college life. The college puts a life-long stamp upon its graduates. It largely shapes their tastes, determines the company they keep, and greatly influences the serious work of their lives. There are a few principles by which we may test the excellence of a college without undue disparagement of any.

In the first place, a young man or woman should select a college where the standard of scholarship is high. The number and extent of studies in the college curriculum is not so important as the quality and tone of instruction. The world has come to require accuracy and thoroughness in instruction. What little a student knows he ought to know thoroughly, and then he can speak and act with assurance. A low intellectual tone or lack of critical work on the part of a college has a debilitating influence on the student. The professors should have a ripe scholarship, and be earnest and strong in their work, as well as inspire scholarly ambitions. Their bearing should be kind, courteous, and gentlemanly, in order that the students may come to possess more manly and womanly qualities of character as well as scholarship. Such teachers, in close personal contact with students, will awaken new powers, and help to discipline the mind to clear thinking, and impart noble impulses that will enrich manhood and womanhood.

Again, the college buildings, libraries, apparatus, and general equipment are important, but not as essential as the teaching force. President Gates says: "Harvard ranked as a small training college, and had no cabinets illustrative of science, when she trained Emerson and Holmes and Lowell, among all her gifted sons still her triple crown of glory. Bowdoin had no expensive buildings upon her modest campus when Hawthorne and Longfellow there drank at the celestial fount. Amherst, among her purple hills, boasted no wealth of appliances or endowment when she printed the roll of undergraduates rendered forever illustrious by the names of Richard S. Storrs, Henry Ward Beecher, and Roswell D. Hitchcock. Presidents Woolsey and Wayland, and Mark Hopkins and Martin B. Anderson, were trained for their noble and ennobling work in colleges which lacked rich appliances and thronging numbers." Such, however, has been the growth of the sciences and advancement in the methods of teaching, that in our modern schools for superior instruction the well-equipped college has a decided advantage over those with meager appliances.

Likewise, select a college where the life and _esprit de corps_ is the very best. The college is not an exercising ground for the intellect alone, but a place for inspiring ideas and aims. These are the soul of college life. They are more important than college buildings, endowment or libraries.

The religious principle should have the ascendancy in the choice of a college, because religion demands the supreme place in life. The moral and religious character is by no means fixed when the student enters college, and he needs to come into a pure Christian atmosphere, where the heart, as well as the mind, is molded and stimulated.

Other things being equal, the student should favor a college of his own denomination, or the one that he thinks best represents the spirit and form of Christianity. His church affiliations should be strengthened. In advising this, we do so not from any sectarian bigotry. The probabilities are that if the student attends a college of another denomination, the impressions made may tend to produce indifference to the church of his fathers, or weaken his own Christian efficiency in it. The young should maintain personal loyalty to the church that has helped to build up their Christian character and to inspire in them a thirst for a broader culture.

It is claimed to be an advantage to the student living in the West to select a college in his own state, where he will form his friendships and associations, which afterward may be of value to him in his chosen profession. In such cases, it is thought advisable to take graduate work in the East, in some university which is pre-eminent for its special courses, libraries, laboratories, and appliances. On the other hand, it would often be an advantage for the Eastern student to take work in the best universities of the West.

We come now to speak of some of the _personal hindrances and advantages_ in acquiring an education. Student life has its hindrances. All have not the same capacity to assimilate culture. It requires more effort for some to master a college course than for others. A thorough college training costs arduous labor. Many are not willing to pay the price, and to practice the self-denial necessary to acquire the power to think and master the great subjects of study. It demands all the force of a strong conviction and an earnest resolution to go through college and win a place among the thinkers of the world. One reason why so many students enter college and drop out before they complete their course of study, arises from the fact that they have not acquired the power of application. Their feeble wills and intellectual lethargy succumb before mental tasks requiring eight or ten hours of hard, earnest work a day. They should be encouraged with the words of Lord Bacon, who says: "There is no comparison between that which we may lose by not trying and not succeeding, since by not trying we throw away the chance of an immense good, and by not succeeding we only incur the loss of a little human labor."

Again, there are those who are led to look for some short cut to obtain a college education. This is a serious mistake. "Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap," is as true in an intellectual career as in any other work of life. The laws of mental growth must be observed to make the most of ourselves, and to do the most for humanity and God. The young must learn that it takes years of work to get a college education. "If I am asked," says President J. W. Bashford, "why Methodism does not produce more John Wesleys, I assign as one reason of this failure the fact that none of us observe the laws of mental development as John Wesley kept them, and devote the time to mental growth which John Wesley gladly gave. I turn to Arminius, and find that he spent between twelve and thirteen years at the universities of Europe before he began to preach. Arminius died at fifty-nine. Yet he left behind him a work on divinity which ranks him with La Place and Newton, with Calvin and Augustine and Spinoza, as one of the world's master minds. Calvin spent nine years at college, and later was able to devote three years more to study. Augustine devoted thirteen years to study after his father sent him away to college before he accepted the professorship at Milan. It was eleven years after Luther left home for college before he left the scholar's bench for the professor's chair. Four years later, Luther took another scholastic degree, showing that he was still pursuing his studies. Five years more were required for Luther to reach clear convictions on religion and theology. Paul was a student in the most celebrated schools in Jerusalem for fifteen years. If, therefore, you do not seem to have that mastery of truth, if you do not find yourself the intellectual giant which you once thought you might become, do not blame the Lord, do not depreciate your talent, until you have devoted as many years to college studies as did Arminius, and Calvin, and Augustine, and Wesley, and Luther, and Paul. If you would do a great work in the world, fulfill the conditions by which men outgrow their fellows." The student should be willing to begin at the bottom of the ladder and work upward. It will take more time, but it will yield rich returns and bring real satisfaction.

Again, if the college life is to be profitable and pleasant, the student should refuse to enter an advanced class when his general culture or discipline is so deficient as to render it difficult to make reasonable progress in his studies. It is true that the entrance examination is not always a fair test of the student's capacity or promise. The difficulty cannot be corrected, and study be made a pleasure, unless a student himself shows frankness, and is willing to begin where every step forward is thoroughly understood.

Among the _personal advantages_ of a college education is the fact that it helps to _emancipate the individual_. The studies pursued take the student out of his narrow self and his present environment, and make him conversant with other ages and conditions, where he finds his larger self. The personality becomes enlarged and enriched by a wider vision and a knowledge of the great and good men who have lived to make the world better. The best thoughts of the past and the present are at the student's command. He may place himself in touch with all ages and peoples and feel that he is contemporaneous with the best spirit and thought of all that have gone before. Truth thus gathered and stored up in life and character has a wonderful emancipating power. The gateway of truth is always thrown open to those who earnestly knock and search for her hidden treasures. The individual in this age, more than in any other, needs the emancipating power of truth to act intelligently and effectively in the drama of life.

A college education likewise _tends to liberalize the individual_ by first eliminating any self-conceit, or inclination to rashness or falsity, and to build up firmness, judgment, and sincerity of character. The aim of the college is to enable the student to know himself and his mission in life. He must have a right conception of self, because he must everywhere live and act with self. He owes it to himself, and to the race, and to God, to make the most of life by developing his God-given faculties. God had a purpose in creating each person, and the aim of each individual should be to live worthy of his origin, by finding out what God wants of him, and then training his faculties and aptitudes on the line of this purpose. He who lives in willful ignorance lives beneath the privileges and possibilities of a human being created in the divine image. No one ought to be satisfied with anything short of the noblest and best possibilities for himself. The majority of men and women have rich capacities, and their natures are full of resources, but these are not always called out. Their incipient powers often need some outside impulse or suggestion to open the chambers of the soul and lead them to discover their unconscious capacities, natural aptitudes, and untried powers.

There are hidden forces in our nature and in life about us of which we little dream. The marvelous forces of electricity are being applied to all human activities, and are unfolding to us new life and new possibilities. We are told that there are mightier currents in the atmosphere above us than those in the Mississippi or the Amazon. Likewise, the science of education exhibits how the trained powers of man reveal unexpected forces and capacities, which have needed only the touch of truth and personality to awaken a higher life and to impart fresh inspiration. Now the college is the best place to discover our inborn energies, and to awaken talent and develop greatness through the influence of men and books.

The student is also liberalized by a knowledge of the truth. Ignorance is the synonym for narrowness and bigotry. Charity, good-will, and human brotherhood spring from a kind heart and an enlightened understanding. The student, by reason of years of study, is better able to see truth in its various human relations and personally exhibit a breadth of charity unknown to those of narrow vision. His informed judgment and quickened conscience will enable him to act generously and to stuffer courageously, because his soul is quietly resting in the bosom of truth.

A college education likewise _helps to fortify the individual_ for complete living. It is in the college that the student gains a deeper consciousness of his own ability, which gives independence to character. Through genius, or by dint of extraordinary application, he attains an intellectual ability which gives him the right to wield his trained powers to uphold the truth and work for the general good. His mental powers, stores of knowledge, and humanitarian sympathies naturally give greater opportunity for influence and usefulness. The judgment and reasoning powers have been trained so that the student goes forth fortified against the acceptance of plausible delusions and sophisms, and can speak with rightful authority as to the facts or principles he has observed and verified. Truth and personality, thus coupled together, face practical duties and questions with the confident strength and heroic courage which presage victory.

The college-trained man, who enters his vocation in life as a vigorous, virtuous and capable being, equipped with facts and principles as the propelling power of life, will wield the greatest influence for good. He will be fortified for the battles of life, and able to maintain himself in honest independence.

The college offers another safeguard to the student by conserving scholarly tastes and habits. The student who acquires a literary taste is never at a loss to know how he may best employ his time. The baser things of life are crowded out to give place to nobler thoughts and higher aims. He finds his real happiness in cultivating the inner life of exalted thought and generous impulses. He realizes that, as the body demands sustenance, and the soul needs "bread from heaven," so the mind must have intellectual food, which gratifies a taste for the best thoughts of the best thinkers.

The student is also helped to fortify himself with a noble purpose. He is led to feel that he has a mission in life, and the power of this purpose gives an elevation to the spirit and a dignity and loftiness to conduct. More than anything else, it helps to strengthen the will to resist temptation and to conform to the highest moral code. By far too many of our youth are drifting through life without any particular aim or purpose. They fail to act in life under the inspiration of a devotion to a great purpose. Henry D. Thoreau was right when he wrote: "The fact is, you have got to take the world on your shoulders, like Atlas, and put along with it. You will do this for an idea's sake, and your success will be in proportion to your devotion to ideas. It may make your back ache occasionally, but you will have the satisfaction of hanging it or twirling it to suit yourself. Cowards suffer; heroes enjoy." Any worthy calling or useful employment will lead to honor and a broader development of self, providing that self is filled with an absorbing love to God, so that it will be the unit of measure for action towards a neighbor and the true base line from which his rights and boundaries are surveyed and determined.

The college helps to fortify the young by imparting good impulses, which enable them to enter upon life full of hope and courage. It is the place to kindle the youth with a glow of enthusiasm, and impart an inspiration which will pervade the whole career of life. It speaks for the immaterial and unseen forces of life, and supplies the purest motives by which to form a true and beautiful character.

No young man can afford to enter the wide-open door of the twentieth century without a harmonious development of his faculties, and a nature sensitive to the best and holiest influences, and responsive to the most generous impulses. The aspirations of bright minds and noble natures can never excel the lofty descriptions of wisdom by the wisest of men.

"Happy is the man that findeth wisdom
And the man that getteth understanding,
For the merchandise of it is better than silver,
And the gain thereof than fine gold.
She is more precious than rubies,
And all things thou canst desire are not to be compared unto her.
Length of days is in her right hand,
And in her left hand riches and honor;
Her ways are ways of pleasantness,
And all her paths are peace."