Antioch College

ANTIOCH COLLEGE, an institution of higher education at Yellow Springs (0.). The college is governed by a board of 20 trustees, the president of the college being ex officio president of the board, and was opened in 1853, Horace Mann being its first president. As reorganized in 1921, by Arthur E. Morgan then president, Antioch entered upon a distinctive career that has at tracted widespread attention both on the part of the general public and of educators. The enrolment is limited to about 700. The course for undergraduates commonly requires five or six years, and leads to the B.S. or B.A. degree.

In choosing students, consideration is given to reports on required physical examinations, secondary school records, intelli gence tests, life sketches by the applicants, and reports of refer ences. The traditional dominant purpose of the American college is the "stimulation and development of those gifts of intellect with which nature has endowed the student." Antioch has deavoured to restate the proper purpose of the college. According to its philosophy, that purpose is nothing less than the integration of life and its symmetrical velopment.

In America the college and uni versity, including the technical school, are becoming recognized as providing the chief and almost the only ordered means for pre paring intelligent young people for life. Students should be con cerned, not with scholarship or technical skill alone, but with learning what life means and how to make the most of it. Antioch holds that there is no single fac ulty, not even intelligence, which is the chief element of human excellence, or which chiefly needs systematic development.

The work of the college falls under four main heads ; required physical education, a required liberal curriculum, technical or professional training, and part-time practical economic work. The required courses include two years of English and literature ; four years of history, economics, and government ; one year each of mathematics, chemistry, physics, biology, earth science (a com bination of physiography, geology, and astronomy) ; psychology; and a study of scientific method. A year of philosophy is re quired; and a year of "applied aesthetics." In the autumn of 1928, Antioch adopted a system of "autono mous study," for all students above the sophomore year. Under the new plan upperclass students are not required to attend classes. The work for an entire term is outlined and the student then is left to master the subject in his own way, coming to the in st: uctor only for necessary help, for discussion, and for inspira tion.

To

develop traits not easily reached by class-room work, such as initiative, self-reliance, responsibility, courage, and adaptability, and to help practical adjustment to life, both men and women students spend half their time at college and half in practical economic occupations, in alternate five-week shifts. Each working position is continuously filled, one student working while his or her alternate studies. These "co-operative" students work over a radius of i ,Doom., with 200 employers, in a wide variety of callings; the positions being chosen because of their educational value to the particular students. Self-support is incidental, but the students, to a large degree, themselves meet college expenses.

(A. E. M.)