None the less discreditable is a sympathy with idle students arising from a similar spirit of idleness in the professor—and yet one is tempted to believe that the real cause of such sympathy is often a kind of unconscious fellow feeling. In few other professions is it easier for the strenuous man to be overworked or for the opposite kind of man to appear to fill his post; so much of the teacher's labor is elusive and impossible to fit into an exact schedule of hours that practically nothing but conscience or ambition can call him to account for loafing, and nothing but his nerves warn him when to rest. Hence arises the fatal risk that—given fallible humanity—this liberty may be abused, and that bridge, golf or literary browsing may take the place of real work; hence, too, the danger that the instructor who is living this delightful life of ease in Zion may not hold before his student the ideal of tireless effort, particularly when he finds that the only sure road to the goal lies through the horrid drudgery of frequent conferences or written papers.
Some of the causes of unwise leniency toward inefficient students which we have been discussing are administrative rather than pedagogical; such are not always conspicuously operative in the creation of "snap" courses. But ignorance of bad conditions—be it perverse or innocent—is harmful in both directions at once; it militates against the toning up of weak courses as well as against honest dealing with obviously worthless students. Take for instance the amiable or uncourageous pedagogue who conducts a "popular" course year after year without making the slightest effort to discover why it is so popular—to determine, that is to say, whether he is exacting a decent amount of collateral work week by week, or whether he is simply delivering an innocuous series of lectures followed by an examination which practically any student can pass after four or five hours over a printed syllabus; and who, if some base traitor hints at inefficiency, is eloquent with denials in regard to conditions which he has never taken the trouble to investigate. And yet it would seem a quite easy matter to discover why our courses appeal to the student body. For instance, we might enquire of graduates (for they are beyond fear or favor)
pursue the courses offered, and, second, whether there has been a corresponding increase in the number and efficiency of the faculty. Of late the only institutions that exhibit much loss in registration are Princeton and Harvard, yet some believe that few institutions have made greater gains in efficiency. This is not a mere coincidence. The dropping of 680 incompetents in six years at Princeton and the loss of 50 'specials' at Harvard in 1910, has a meaning in progress precisely opposite to the so-called great gains of some colleges. We must rid ourselves of the notion that there is any credit per se in enrolment gains. Any college—without exception—can increase its numbers if it is willing to pay the price; just as, on the same terms, jailbirds can be elected to political office in some American cities. Conversely, any college, without exception, can increase its efficiency if it is willing to pay the price, which under present conditions is likely to be a falling off in numbers." W. T. Foster, op. cit., 320-321.
