Mid-West Quarterly, The (1913-1918)
Date of this Version
1914
Abstract
College study, as we judge it by the quality of intellectual leaven that our young graduates bring into society, is still a theme of discontent. In particular, we feel that the college study of literature and of the literary medium foments no genuine social demand for books and writing of the highest scholarly and reflective type. The criticisms voicing this discontent, it is true, often imply unreasonable expectations as to what the college can achieve with studies elective and students not particularly elect. "We require it to do all sorts of things for all sorts of people, and then wonder why it misses doing an ideal sort of thing for a special sort of people." But the discontent springs from a sound conviction that the college, after all, has a central cultural aim, and we can sift the unjust criticism from the just only by giving that aim a sound definition.
Comments
Published in THE MID-WEST QUARTERLY Vol. 1, No. 3 (April 1914).