Following Whose Nose?

Significant words were spoken last week by the businesslike head of a businesslike U.S. university. Said President Robert Gordon Sproul (rhymes with owl) of the University of California: "About 50 years ago, under the leadership of President Eliot of Harvard University, higher education swung over almost completely to the free elective system, and primary and secondary education transferred control of the school in large part from the teachers to the pupils. Students of all ages were encouraged to follow their highly efficient noses into snap courses and vocational courses, into courses that came in the afternoon and thus permitted long morning naps, or into courses that came in the morning and left the afternoon free. . . .

"Faculties, and particularly departments, without any control by competent educational dietitians, were encouraged to multiply the dishes on the steam table of the educational cafeteria. No wonder the helpless victims suffered all manner of educational dyspepsia and malnutrition. . . .

"The cultivated mind will more and more be attained by ... discipline related to a purpose and impelled by a purpose. . . . Freedom must always be exercised under discipline, and postwar higher education will, I believe, rededicate itself to the high purpose of social and civic devotion to unified, outgoing, outgiving, democratic America."

Since booming President Sproul's booming university has long made it a policy to offer just about as many courses as can be had anywhere, with great latitude of student choice, his remarks may indicate a decided change in his university's educational policies.

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