Colleges in America

by John Marshall Barker

College students also edit and publish college newspapers and journals. They are issued as daily, weekly, or monthly papers, and are supposed to voice the sentiment of the college and reflect its social, intellectual, and moral conditions. These journals help to keep the alumni and the undergraduate students in touch with the college and its work.

The religious life in college is very important. One of the primary purposes of the founders of American colleges was to promote such a religious life among students that they would go forth into all vocations as religious teachers and leaders of the people. This religious purpose has not been entirely thwarted. The general religious interest was never more marked and aggressive than at present. From one-half to five-sevenths of the students in American colleges make an open confession of Christ. In 1893, there were 70,419 young people in Protestant colleges. Of these, 38,327 were members of churches. Within the last few years the religious tone of our colleges has been elevated and improved. The average American student feels the need of educating the spiritual nature, and that there is no better way to attain this end than through a knowledge of the Bible and the soul touch of the Christ-life.

College authorities, recognizing the student's need of daily spiritual food, almost universally require once a day attendance at college prayers, which last from fifteen to thirty minutes. The students have frequent opportunities to meet the college pastor or one of the professors for conversation on personal religion.

Revivals are of frequent occurrence in many of our American colleges. These religious awakenings are strong and pervasive, and not only show the deep religious interest, but give a Christian tone to the body of students. The extent and intensity of these revivals in some colleges is so manifest that from three-fourths to nine-tenths of the graduates go out from their halls professing Christians.

The Young Men's and Young Women's Christian Associations are organized in nearly all the colleges, to secure growth in the Christian life and to encourage aggressive work among the students. They have either separate buildings on the college campus, or rooms fitted up in some of the college buildings, for their regular religious meetings. These associations are operated through standing committees, composed of one or more members from each college class. These societies have done much to awaken, increase, and intensify the interest of the students in religious matters, and by prayer and mutual sympathy have strengthened each other's Christian character and principles during the trying years of college life.

The morals of students should not be expected to rise much above the morals of the homes from which they come. The formative period of the student begins prior to college life. Parents who neglect this opportune time for training the moral life should not place this responsibility upon college professors and expect them to make up for parental neglect. It is a well-known fact, however, that only a very small per cent. of college students are known to be immoral. The prevalence of the drinking habit is decreasing. In one or two of the Eastern colleges a large per cent. of the students will take a social glass on public occasions and at inter-collegiate games, but in Western colleges this custom is rarely practiced. Money supplied by over-indulgent parents is the occasion of most of the immoralities. There is no general laxity of college law and sentiment in regard to the morals of the student. Most college authorities deal severely with known cases of drunkenness, theater going, and gambling.

The consensus of opinion among college authorities is that the morals of students are better than those of the same number of youth outside the college. "Our opinion is," says Noah Porter, "and we believe it will be confirmed by the most extended observation and the most accurate statistics, that there is no community in which the pre-eminently critical period of life can be spent with greater safety than it can in the college." President Timothy Dwight bears this testimony: "There is no community of the same number anywhere in the world which has a better spirit, or is more free from what is unworthy, than the community gathered within our university borders. The religious life of the community has been earnest and sincere. The proportion of Christian men in the university is very large, and the influence exerted by them is manifest in its results."

President Thwing says: "I do believe, and believe upon evidence, that the morals of the American college student are cleaner than the morals of the young man in the office, or behind the counter, or at the bench. His life and associations belong to the realm of the intellect, not to the realm of the appetite. His discipline is a training in that virtue the most comprehensive of all virtues—the virtue of self-control. He is able to trace more carefully than most the relations of cause and effect in the sphere of moral action. He recognizes the penalties of base indulgence. It is, therefore, my conviction that the college man is at once less tempted to the satisfaction of evil appetites, and less indulgent towards this satisfaction, than are most young men."

The expenses in college vary according to the means and dispositions of the students themselves. In making general estimates, it is impossible to be strictly accurate.

The average cost per year of an education at Harvard is estimated at about $900; at Yale and Columbia, $700; at Princeton, Boston, Cornell, and Amherst, $600; at Wellesley, Smith, and Vassar Colleges, $500 to $600. The average cost of an education in most Western colleges does not exceed $300 or $400. At Oberlin College, Wooster University, and the Ohio Wesleyan University the average yearly expenses are reduced to $200 or $250.