Cultivating Social Motives
C OURSES of study may be informative, and they may even make for more intelligent choices on the part of social-minded citizens; but they have little tendency to improve the social motives of college students if the colleges in which an intimate study of campus agencies has recently been completed are typical. This inquiry attempted to distinguish information regarding social processes and problems from social motives. No question was raised concerning methods of imparting facts or cultivating ability to think logically.1 These academic processes have received predominant attention. Little has been done, however, to discover whether or not methods intended to build social ideals are effective. Hence this study. The need for such an investigation is apparent to all who have considered the gulf between knowledge and conduct, or who have noted the variety of means by which social training is attempted in the colleges. This need is further verified by data gathered from 275 college executives. The information received in the reply to the question, "On what means do you chiefly rely for the cultivation of social ideals?" has been assembled and classified according to no preconceived framework, but along lines suggested by the replies themselves. In Table I are listed the means of chief reliance for social training in the 275 colleges from which reports were received. One hundred seventy reports indicate that the total situation, rather than any particular aspect of the college, is responsible for results of this spiritual type. More than sixty per cent of the replies thus reveal a faith in the integrated product of many factors. What is this integrated force? Is it like a balanced diet with all the necessary vitamins present, of which no part can be selected as the factor essential to growth? Is it like the combination of sunshine and exercise and sleep and food and cleanliness and happiness, producing health, with no factor predominant, but with each indispensable? Perhaps. But cannot the factors be isolated and provided in correct proportion? A few made such attempts. Faculty influence is one of those elements, so ten colleges reported. Can the assumption be disapproved or proved? Is the influence of instructors on student ideals dominant or 'Tuttle, H. S. The Campus and Social Ideals: A4 Study of the Influence of Campus Agencies on the Increase in Social-mindedness. New York: Author, College of the City of New York, I936. 88 pp.