T

HE giving of prizes is one of the oldest customs of society. One, somehow, cannot think of attending a church bazaar, bridge party, county fair, or national convention of any type where there is not a prize to be won. There are prizes for the baby in the baby contests; prizes for the high school boy or girl in the beauty and popularity contests; prizes for the young lady at the dance and for the young man at the club; and prizes for the old folks in golf and bridge. Pick up almost any magazine and read the advertisements and you will find the announcement of some prize contest. Society, it seems, is continually boosting them.

During 1924, seventeen hundred and fiftyfive cash prizes amounting to $78,770.00 were awarded to the young men and women attending our colleges. Twenty-six per cent of them were awarded in oratorical contests and ranged in value from $5.00 to $250.00. Approximately seventy per cent of the oratory prizes were awarded in contests where the students delivered some memorized selection. The remainder were won in extemporaneous public speaking contests and debates. In most cases the prize winners were selected by committees of "prominent citizens" or "honorable judges." In more than half the schools where these contests were given there was no course to furnish specific training for the oratorical contests. Whatever help the contestants received they got privately. The college furnished the contest and some private individual who was charitably inclined the prize money.

Fifteen per cent of the total number of prizes were awarded for English essays of

various types and on many different subjects; nine per cent for scholarship or having maintained the highest average standing in class; six per cent for special work or scholarship in political science and four per cent in each of the following: history, Greek, and Latin. Forty-seven per cent of them, varying in amounts from $2.50 to $1000.00, were distributed among forty-three different subjects.

When your daughter participates in a bridge party and wins a prize she might be considered a gambler. When she writes an essay and submits it in an essay contest for a prize perhaps she is again gambling. Is she gambling when she writes an essay and submits to a special examination in philosophy on the subject, "Ethics of Gambling" to win a prize of $60.00? One would like some information about the special examination to be given by a college faculty on this subject. Perhaps it was your son who won the prize of $100.00 for the best "Essay on Truth," or because he "best exemplified the combination of ability in athletics and excellence in scholarship." scholarship." Did your daughter try for that ten dollar prize offered by the president of college for the "Best Essay on Amusements"? How would you like to be a member of the committee to award a prize to the student "who, in face of difficulties, has shown consistent improvement in studies and made the greatest general progress," or "to the student making the greatest progress against the greatest obstacles"? Would not the committee be deserving of a similar award after they have made a just and fair selection of the winner? Surely you were a proud uncle if your nephew was awarded

the prize of $100.00 for being the student "who most nearly conforms to the type student the university should aim to produce." But the prize of all prizes must be the prize going to the "student having received the largest number of prizes during the year."

During the last few years there has been a growing tendency to offer prizes in our secondary schools and colleges to "The best school citizen." Here is a prize of $25.00 for "the student who throughout the year has done the most real good to fellow students and the university by deeds of kindness and genuine helpfulness" or $250.00 to the one "who during his college course, by example and influence, has shown the highest qualities of gentlemanly conduct and character." One cannot but commend awards of this type for here the student has no opportunity of winning on account of being the strongest physically, the most alert mentally, or the most successful at "cramming" but must win on account of having shown the best habits of work and conduct. To the student who develops the right habits of study, work, and conduct belongs the great prize of success.

There is very good evidence that the great majority of the college students do not participate actively in any of these prize contests, even though approximately $100,000.00 is distributed annually in cash prizes, gold watches, and medals. If this is the case these contests in essay writing, memorizing selections for oratorical contests, etc., do not offer any inducement or furnish any incentive to the student body as a whole to write better themes or become better public speakers. They effect only the few who have a peculiar and special interest in the subject and enter the contest for the chance of winning the prize. Invariably they are capable of spending a few sleepless nights cramming" for the test and as a result the real value and purpose of the prize is defeated. By means of these contests the prize givers hope to arouse within the student body a desire to do better work. Why should it be necessary to pay students for

doing their best? Is not the opportunity for studying the subject itself sufficient reward? The prize for having done something well should be of such a nature as to encourage the student to further and greater effort. Of what use, anyway, are all these prize essays and theses? Hundreds of them are written annually on various political science subjects, yet they do not seem to help us solve our present political problems. They are never heard of outside the college halls and the authors themselves forget the great messages they contained. Would it not be better if the prize givers would donate their money outright to the various institutions and then allow these funds to be used as the institutions see fit?

At each commencement we hear the orator explain that these students who have now completed certain courses are qualified to commence the higher studies or professions to which they have been advanced. Since this is the case why do we award our prizes at the beginning of the real contest? Would it not be better to wait five or ten years and then award them to those who have achieved success or distinction through some laborsaving invention, the discovery of some means of alleviating mankind of the ravages of a disease, or for some other distinctive contribution to the welfare of society? These persons have "carried on" in their studies and work and it would be a far greater honor to them, then, to be recalled by their Alma Mater at commencement season for the purpose of receiving the prize and reward they so justly deserve. Every educational institution claims to instil within its pupils a certain "spirit" that will help them succeed. Would it not be of more encouragement to the graduates of a school to make greater effort in their special fields or work after graduation, if at commencement time they could hear the story of several alumni and see them commended and rewarded for their work after leaving school, than to have a few of their own classmates rewarded? Prizes, as now given, do not stimulate the average student they become an extra-curriculum activity of a few "prize hunters."