Sea-Going College

A company of 450 U. S. students, all men, from the last year of preparatory school upwards, "enrolled on a basis of character pro rata from the different states"; a faculty of 40 able instructors chosen widely throughout the land; an 18,000-ton steamer; an itinerary for the steamer including 35 foreign countries between Manhattan and Manhattan via the seven seas; a curriculum for the students including 34 college courses, credit for which would be given by shore colleges--in a word, a seagoing, globe-trotting university operated on the usual shore basis with scheduled class hours, strict discipline and university commons for meals, all at $2,200 a head for board, passage and tuition--this was the proposal of New York University. The aim: a world point of view for U. S. students. Up to last week, some 1,800 candidates had applied for admission.

It (the S. S. University) was to sail September, 1925, return June, 1926. Invitations were extended to the governments of Japan, Germany, England, France, Spain and Italy to appoint "educators of national standing" to accompany the trippers. Assurances were received that the students would enjoy "considerable official recognition" in many countries. To extract maximum benefits from the shore-stops, it was planned to divide the tourist-students into small squads, each accompanied by the guide-instructors of his choice. In the ship's hold were to be 70 automobiles. One excursion scheduled was a 600-mile run from Bagdad through the Arabian desert.

Skipper of the intellectual activities of the S. S. University was to be Dr. Charles F. Thwing, learned and widely traveled President Emeritus of Western Reserve University (Cleveland, Ohio). The relations of a sea-univer-sity's President with his students would necessarily be exceptionally intimate. One of many bright prospects seen for the trip was that of Dr. Thwing in the role of traveling companion, expounding Theology--he is an ordained minister --to his followers after a visit to the grave of Confucius or a devil-service in Borneo; or Pedagogy--that is his specialty--after inspecting Punjab University at Lahore or a Norwegian public school.

Dean James E. Lough of New York University, the project's father, hopes to make the cruise an annual affair productive of "antidotes to Bryanism" in business men and politicians of the next decade.