The third stage of the undergraduate’s philosophy is usually in line with constructive action. He begins to be interested in doing something, and practice for him, as for men generally, helps to solve the riddle of the universe. The best test of college theology or college philosophy is its serviceableness, its power to attach the student to something which needs to be done, and which he can do. Many an undergraduate whose college course has seemed an intellectually unsettling period has found himself upon solid ground as soon as he has begun seriously to engage in the world’s work.
Indeed a strikingly aggressive social propaganda is now in operation in the North American colleges. The college student, like the modern American, is a practical being and is interested in securing practical results. His first question regarding any movement usually is, “What is it doing that is really worth while?” Recently a graduate of an Eastern university was secured to give his entire time to the study and promotion of social service in the colleges of the United States and Canada.
An example of such service is demonstrated by the social work that the University of Pennsylvania is doing in connection with its settlement house in Philadelphia, which is owned and conducted by the Christian Association of the university. The settlement, erected in the river-front district, immediately opposite the university, at Lombard and Twenty-sixth streets, consists of a group of buildings built at a cost of $60,000; a children’s playground adjoining the house; an athletic field across the river; and, forty miles from Philadelphia, a beautifully situated farm of sixty-four acres, used for a camp for boys and girls, for mothers and children, in the summer months. Every year one hundred students and members of the faculty take part in the active service and support of the settlement. Among the activities are the following: Boys’ and girls’ and adults’ clubs; industrial classes; athletics; dispensary; modified milk station; visiting physician; resident nurse; public lectures; entertainments; religious meetings; social investigation; political work; and the usual activities of a playground, athletic field, and summer camp. Former residents and volunteer workers of the settlement are scattered throughout the world engaging in social and religious work. Four are medical missionaries in China, one is a missionary in Persia, another in Honolulu, another in South America, while three are holding prominent positions in social work in this country.
PHILOSOPHY OF SERVICEABLENESS
Such works, with numerous other tendencies which might be mentioned in the line of unpaid and voluntary service for college publications, musical organizations, debating organizations, and athletics, lead one to define the American undergraduate’s philosophy of life as one of service. Unlike the German or Indian, his seriousness is not associated with metaphysical or theological discussion or expression. He asks not so much What? as What for? His aims belong to “a kingdom of ends.” Student theory operates in a real world—a world where contact is not so marked with creeds and laws as with virile movements and living men. The undergraduate is enamoured of a gospel of action. To him “deeds are mightier things than words” are. His spirit slumbers under sermons and lectures upon dogma and description, but rises with an heroic call to give money, time, and life for vital college or world enterprises. Difficulties stir him as they always stir true men. He admires the power that is “caught in the cylinder and does not escape in the whistle.” More and more plainly in all his undergraduate and graduate work the American student is revealing his love and ability for that serviceableness to the state, to the church, and to industrial life which, though often unpaid and unappreciated, brings to the servant a satisfying reward in the doing.
A few years ago a Harvard athlete played in a hard and exciting foot-ball game against Yale. Toward the end of the game, when it was nearly dark, this man was fairly hurled through the Yale line in a play that shortly afterward resulted in giving the game to the Cambridge men. It seemed a strange irony of circumstance that just before time was called the heroic player was disqualified. When the game was over and the crimson men were marching wildly about the field, yelling for Harvard and carrying the foot-ball players on their shoulders, the man whose playing was largely contributory to this triumph was down in the training-quarters, almost alone, but with the satisfaction that, although forgotten by the crowd, he had “played the game.” Certain alumni, who had seen this man’s plucky but unpraised fight for his Alma Mater, sent to him these words of Kipling:
And only the Master shall praise us, and only the Master shall blame;
And no one shall work for money, and no one shall work for fame,