Design for a College Curriculum
IN CONSIDERING its curriculum the small college is usually between the deep sea of tradition and outmoded formulas and the devil of a costly experiment. By the time curriculum revision is thorough enough to be of much value, it is a serious and radical business to be undertaken only with prayer and fasting, not to mention the wholehearted enthusiasm of an enlightened faculty. Small wonder, then, that half-way measures are so often tried-and so often fall short of complete success. A common way out of the dilemma is to adopt some plan already in operation in such or such a university in the miscalculated assurance that sauce for X will be savory for Izzard. It seldom is, because the very virtues of a plan flourishing in one institution will often grow rank and sterile when they are transplanted in other soil. And yet, there is hope that any college can get a good curriculum to grow in any moderately promising location, provided it will consider with a gardener's care the circumstances of soil and climate, and will choose the plantings to suit its special need. It is best to assume that no two colleges are identical in their circumstances of enrollment, endowment, faculty, or any of the score of variables which give them individuality. Consequently, this outlined solution to the difficulties of one small, wellestablished, denominational college is not expected to be alpha and omega to similar institutions. Advantages it undoubtedly has, however, since it is freshly laid upon a foundation of simple objectives and aims; and these advantages, properly adapted, may easily have a modest share in solving problems peculiar to the college of the present thirties and the forties. The college I speak of is located in Pennsylvania. Its enrollment of between four hundred and four hun-