events is one of these methods; and in general, the only sound procedure, I suppose, is to establish ideals of conduct and living with which the foolish, wasteful use of bodily powers is inconsistent.

Some conditions peculiar to the college have, I think, their unwholesome aspects. For some students the great assemblage of their contemporaries brings fear and a sense of oppression. For some and these not the least conscientious - the constant compulsion to self-improvement becomes a goad, helpful neither to mind nor nerves. We laugh today at the Gradgrind school; but every enthusiastic believer in any special type of education ought occasionally to read Hard Times and to reflect upon the fates of Tom and Louisa. To some young people the sense of being under close observation is extremely disturbing; and in these days of mental tests and personnel officers (hopeful as I am of good results from them) we need to bear in mind, I believe, that great harm may result from a clumsy or ill-judged invasion of a young person's privacy. Any one who has much to do with college boys and girls must realize that he is in a constant dilemma. Somehow the idealism which is based upon ignorance of reality must be converted into the idealism which can bear the impact of facts. Frankness, candor, keen criticism, and analysis are often necessary; and yet to break down with impatient hands the reticence of a sensitive, groping personality is a dangerous thing. Stevenson describes some task as calling for all that a man has of fortitude and delicacy. Here, for the administrative officer, is such a task.

And yet the foes to health in the college routine are easily manageable compared to those which assail the

college from outside. The general conditions of our time, the confusion between recreation and amusement, between work and busy-ness, are felt constantly in the college. Not alone in the week-ends and the short vacations from which the students return wearied and ailing, but in their whole idea of the tempo of life do they suffer. The delicious fatigue which follows sustained effort has come to be a rare luxury in these days, and we have instead, both in college and out of it, the miserable restless fatigue of irritable nerves which results from incessant, unrelated, and unfruitful effort.

As I see it, the college health problem has little to do with the combating of disease and a great deal to do with fostering the increasing strength of people not yet mature, laying the foundation for a strong and capable life. It affords an ideal field, I should suppose, for the practice of preventive medicine. Health and work- how they can and should serve each other-is the theme for the college health officer.

In the improvement of health in colleges a number of forces are active. The positive efforts now being made in departments of hygiene and physical education and health are growing yearly in definiteness and extent. I am glad to be able to state here the vote of the council authorizing the appointment of a health officer at Radcliffe whose duty shall be to give each student a health examination each year and to hold office hours at which questions of college health can be brought to her the general conception of her position being "that she shall deal with questions of health as they come up in connection with college work and activities; that she shall not give treat

ment; and that her general aim shall be to establish in the minds of students the purpose of maintaining a high level of health and physical fitness." The increase of outdoor life in this country, the summer camps, the automobile camping parties, have their effects upon the promotion of ideals of wholesome living; and among women the greater objectivity of their lives is important to health. Travelers' Insurance insures women only against death, no payments being made to women on account of injury resulting in loss of time, the assumption being, I suppose, that a woman's life may be valuable to her family but that her time has no financial value for herself. More and more women are coming to feel, however, that whether in their homes or elsewhere, their work is important and their fitness for it a matter of concern; and the effect on their respect for health is apparent. Graceful invalidism has lost its charm.

Yet neither in the world nor in colleges have we put the maintenance of health, I think, exactly where it belongs. In intellectual matters, the movement just now is for the integration of the separate courses, so that a student may have before him the idea of mastering a given field. Some colleges are going still farther in their effort to bring together the various elements in student life. At Antioch College health, financial responsibility, and responsibility in a job are associated with academic training in the hope of securing for the student a symmetrical development. At Reed College the subjects of study are regarded as material for the formulation by the student of a philosophy of life; and at intervals he is compelled to make trial formulations. Whether these

services will prove successful I do not know, but the idea back of them seems to me to be sound - that the interplay, the interpenetration of the various elements in life can neither be overlooked in the college routine nor taken care of by separate departments, proceeding without reference to each other.

In the classroom, as well as in the office of the college physician, the health of the students can be served; and in a sense, every teacher may be — perhaps, should be — a teacher of hygiene. I do not mean, of course, that he should give health advice; nor do I mean that teachers should show greater generosity than they do at present in excusing students for work which has been omitted on account of illness. My idea is rather that there should be in the classroom a greater insistence on the formation of right habits of work. We have all had experience in receiving from students pieces of work good enough in themselves, perhaps - possibly even brilliant-but accomplished by wrong methods. They have been the result of orgies of effort. They have been done in weariness, or feverishly, or with that half-hearted effort of the mind which, if it becomes habitual, weakens the mental fiber. To ignore the process by which such work has been done is to ignore a vital element. The business of the teacher, as I see it, is to teach the steady and vigorous and competent use of the mind. This is his best contribution to the intellectual development of the students, and it happens also to be a valuable contribution to health.

THE ESTHETIC LIFE OF THE COLLEGE GIRL

DEAN ELISABETH CONRAD

The Ohio State University

When I was asked what place art, beauty, and the æsthetic have in the life of the American university of today, I passed the question on to several of my friends. I was surprised to find that they did not believe that there is or that there can exist such a thing as pure beauty in the atmosphere of modern materialism which, as it seems to the outsider, characterizes our semi-technical and professional universities. So my next impulse was to draw up an outline of some of the departments introduced by our best universities that enable the student with an artistic bent to secure technical training in a fine art such as music, painting, landscape architecture, dramatic art, and house decoration at the same time that he is working for his university degree. These highly developed departments are to my mind a very important indication that both the university administration and the college student grant to the artistic a place in democratic education.

Then I began to think of you, Freshmen. Many of you have never thought of yourselves as potential artists. Yet, surely, beauty and art are to play a great part in the lives of every one of you. As I see hundreds of Freshman girls come each year to the university, I wish there were