terested in providing something tangible for the church, school, or community. Such progress as has been accomplished by the community mentioned in the foregoing pages indicates very clearly that it is in this second stage. The last stage is the educational or "study." It is abstract, intangible and hard to measure with any known measuring sticks. However, it is this stage that is after all significant. For it is when an organization reaches this point that it begins to create ideals, attitudes and ideas on the part of its membership. Gradually public opinion becomes crystallized until the people of the community are perfectly willing to tax themselves for the equipment that the organization had to spend its energy for while the community was in the second stage.

No doubt the reader will agree that the Parent Teacher Association in this community, at least, did much to make more than a glimmering generality the saying, "Make the country a place to live in as well as a place to make a living in." A new fire has been kindled on a cold hearth.

The foregoing illustration points out the possibilities in recreating a rural community through organized effort. The Parent Teacher Association was the principal means. The next case deals with a community in the State of South Dakota in which the principal form of organization was a community club. The State Agricultural College of this state was instrumental in organizing a number of such clubs throughout the State several years ago.

Community "X" was one of those fortunate communities. The organization was perfected here three years ago. During this brief time this club has been active in promoting an intelligent discussion of relevant farm problems. It has awakened a community consciousness. A "we-feeling" exists and there is a general atmosphere of

community pride. Not alone has this club been responsible for developing a higher idealism, but it has accomplished several definite concrete things for its school. Last spring eight or nine busy farmers gathered at the schoolhouse one evening for the purpose of planting trees and shrubbery. Some of these men came without their suppers and worked until dark. Last Thanksgiving vacation approximately one dozen men gathered at the school for the purpose of painting the interior of the school building, and oiling the floor. They came about ten thirty in the morning, ate a lunch at noon and completed the task about four thirty in the afternoon. Again during the Christmas vacation they assembled at the school and gave the interior of the school. house another coat of paint. This time they arrived in the morning and had an oyster feed at noon.

The above examples are not spectacular in and of themselves. This rejuvenation of rural communities might be duplicated in hundreds of localities throughout the Northwest where organized effort has been directed in the rected in the proper channels.

A man might have been hired at a reasonable cost to do the work accomplished by these patrons. But nothing is quite so effective to get people interested in their own institutions as to get them working in some direct way for their community. The spirit that prompts busy farmers to give of their time and energy in helping to further some community project can not but help to make them better citizens of their county, state and nation.

A new light is seen coming over the horizon of the rural community, a light that is destined to quicken the heartbeats of community consciousness. Some few adjustments will have to be made in order to supplant "New fires for Old."

A

66

CCORDING to the writers of the Oxford Dictionary, Alma Mater Bounteous Mother"-was a title given by the Romans to several goddesses, especially Ceres and Cybele. The term was transferred in England to universities and schools which were regarded as fostering mothers to their alumni. Its earliest use whatever in the English language was by Trevisa in 1378 when he spoke of it as being a sign and token of great plenty. But Pope in the Dunciad uses the expression approximating its present use and meaning as: "Till Isis elders reel-and Alma Mater lye dissolved in port." Scott in 1839 in Lockart's Life speaks of "The literary man," and "his alma mater." In 1866 it had grown pretty well up to present usage when Carlyle in his inaugural address as rector of the University of Edinburgh says: "If it (this office) could do anything to serve my dear old Alma Mater and you, why should not I?"

As we see it, the functions of Alma Mater are two: 1. The fostering of ability, and, 2. the selection of material for fostering. Alma Mater is a bounteous mother to her children as no other mother on earth is bounteous and at the same time she, like no natural mother, is able to select her progeny. She is true to her calling if she selects and fosters with earnest zeal and care.

"I dare say you know, very many of you," to quote further Carlyle's inaugural address, "that it is now some seven hundred

years since universities were first set-up in this world of ours. Abelard and other thinkers had arisen with doctrines in them which people wished to hear of, and students flocked toward them from all parts of the world. There was no getting the thing recorded in books as you may know. You had to hear the man speaking to you vocally, or else you could not learn at all what it was that he wanted to say. And so they gathered together, these speaking ones, the various people who had anything to teach; and formed themselves gradually, under the patronage of kings, and other potentates who were anxious about the culture of their populations, and nobly studious of their best benefit; and became a body-corporate with high privileges, high dignities, and really high aims, under the title of a University."

This is the beginning of Alma Mater and when we understand a thing's beginning, we understand the thing itself better. Carlyle goes on to say that things have changed and that "The true University of our days is a Collection of Books," and he emphasizes the value of reading above just hearing alone.

There is another very radical change which has taken place since the early days. of universities for to the old and original university student, often and quite generally, a student career and poverty were synonymous and again to him his university meant a place of protection from legal

emprizes as well as a place of privilege. According to Laurie, being a student in those days meant, in many cases, being a beggar, for education and university training did not have of necessity, a monetary value, and students sought knowledge for its own sake.

How interesting it is to note the influence of the aim of education on this very thing poverty! For in those days, as we all know, the grand aim of many of the Universities was Theology. According to Carlyle, "their eye turned earnestly on Heaven." And being turned to Heaven they were turned from the sordid things of earth, and so these students, like the lilies of the field, toiled not, neither did they spin —they attended university.

It is not difficult to see that if one studies theology earnestly and honestly, it will bring him to consider the Universe itself and our relations to it, and thus the door is finally opened to the pursuit of the study of natural science. And this and related studies was found to have a monetary value if put into use. In this way our student personnel changes from one of beggars to sons of merchant princes and others, seeking to prepare themselves for living. Thus the aim is seen to change and this selects a different student personnel.

While, of course, we do not desire to discount the university of today as a selecting device still the time allotted to us will not permit that we speak of more than one phase of the two we pointed to at the startselecting and fostering. And being very much interested in the process of nurturing, fostering, or the learning process and its possibilities, we select that phase for our remaining few remarks. Moreover, it seems that today we are neglecting to pay adequate attention to fostering the student. We are leaving him too much to his own devices.

We have heard of the mythical Mowgli and the consequences of his being left to himself in the jungle. We have laughed at Rousseau's queer notion of placing Emile out in the woods to learn from the brooks and the trees and the birds and especially

from his own self as though Nature within him would spring forth and take a proper human direction. And at the same time we turn the student loose to find his way in a maze of human subject matter and human knowledge as though he had the nose of a dog to take up the right scent, as if there were any scent at all for him to take up. If you present hieroglyphics to one, they will still be hieroglyphics to him. One cannot see his way through the hieroglyphics without being shown, and it is the best he can do to find his way even when he is shown the way. If it has taken the human race thousands of years, by the method of trial and error, and mostly error, to reach its present point of advantage in scientific and other knowledge, how could one expect one single human student to make the trip unaided in his short life span? No, he needs assistance and direction and at that he should have the most expert assistance we can give him. And here is where the fostering mother comes in.

If Alma Mater is really the fostering mother she should be she will take the young student by the hand and by the thrill of her touch, cause him to see visions and to dream dreams he never could have seen or dreamed without this contact. What is more, the bruised reed she will not break and the smoking flax will she not quench.

Don't be uneasy, a dead coal sets no fires. But a "red hot prof." is sure to cause a conflagration. You can't catch the measles even, from one who hasn't got it, much less the smallpox. Live wires are always dangerous and youth is exceedingly susceptible to the shocks coming from them. If you don't want your boy to be a chemist, don't let him go near "Prof. So-and-So." If you don't want him to be a "bug-ologist," keep him away from that eccentric prof (whom no one understands) who is always pottering around in his garden or in the foothills and the swamps. But beware of the poker-face prof for he will give you a congestive chill, followed by awful nightmares.

I am steadfastly set against the teacher of the "take-it-or-leave-it" attitude who

throws his "stuff" at the student regardless of whether he gets it or not. He thinks subject matter is just so much ammunition to be shot; but I am earnestly for the instructor who assumes the fostering attitude. There is no real magic by which one takes on information, educational values they call them, but there is a psychology to it, and just as in any other process it has its science. There is a science to the learning process and if one disregards what science offers, either consciously or unconsciously, there will be disaster in the outcome.

There is, we think, too little good teaching in our colleges and universities and what is more there is not enough, if we may say it, of atmosphere. But Alma Mater as we conceive it, must give real stimulation and teaching, and what is not consciously taught should be imbibed by the student. If our college or university fails to do this, it is no fostering mother at all. It may be a mother; it will be some sort of influence in the student's life; it will have to be, for impressions are made that will remain indelibly stamped upon the student, willy nilly.

In closing I wish to give the picture of the process of change called education that goes on in the student's mind. In doing so I follow one of the best teachers in his conception of the thing. When a student is learning, there is not just one learning taking place, but there are many learnings. He is not merely getting the learning that is the direct concern, as mathematics or language, et cetera, but he is getting other things as well. He is getting something from the instructor's manner, he is getting an appreciation, he is taking on attitudes favorable or unfavorable to the subject.

The fact is, there are simultaneous learnings going on-some in the focus, as the main line of learning, some just outside of the focus, and some concomitant learning to it all, an intangible thing, but none the less real and important. real and important. The fact is, the concomitant learning may give the bent to the student's life for always, and he may never get over it.

In our learnings it will be well to look to the main line of learning as the heart of the matter, but we must not fail to consider as well the setting, material, and mental into which the main line of learning falls. We cannot say too much for the atmosphere surrounding Alma Mater. The faculty is made of earnest, well-meaning, honest openminded persons, with the interests of the students, the cause, and of progress at heart. There can be no place in their body for selfishness and selfseeking. The student will get from his instructors an earnest, honest, open-minded attitude toward life and its problems and he should have this before he leaves the college halls and campus. If he waits until he has left college, why he just hardly ever gets it at all. College is the place for visions, for high resolves and anything short of this should not come near the

campus.

Alma Mater, fostering mother, takes the student by the hand and shows to him the things of the race of the past and points to him what is to be. She induces him to dream dreams, to form high resolves to better the world by his life. She places before him ideals and ideals which will last him for his lifetime.

And if Alma Mater is not this she is recreant to her trust.

W

HEN the imperium was granted to a Roman military commander, it was understood that his power should be exercised outside Rome in the interests of Rome. A limit was put upon his individuality in order that the power of the state should continue to exist. Modern self-determinism in education has created a condition of rebellion against authority in some minds that is regarded as a danger to the survival of civilization by other minds. The way of wisdom is to take stock of the situation. Since our wealth and industries, our comforts and luxuries, our science and art, our power and population, all are dependent upon the continuance of an adequate supply of energy, it is advisable to take an inventory of energy. The folly of individualism has been a too lavish expenditure of the potential energy we find on earth.

The sources of energy on which we are now relying, coal, oil, and gas, are being rapidly used up and are irreplaceable. Natural gas is almost exhausted; gasoline production is about at its peak; the United States has enough coal for five thousand years, but many countries have not any. A desirable inventory will require the coöperation of the scientists and engineers of all nations for an investigation lasting many years. Steps were taken in the right direction for the first time in 1922 at Brussels, where the International Research Council took under consideration this project. A new suggestion seems fitting here, that the science of education shall be represented in all progressive movements of this type, because the educator has an intensely human stake in the diagnosis of every kind of

energy and the direction of its use. It is the teacher who holds the imperium needed for governing the expenditure of our re

sources.

We are reminded that an immediate control of progress is very pressing by such students as Edwin E. Slosson, Director of Science Service, at Washington, who says, "If we try to list all the sources of energy that we can think of we will find that none of them is yet available or certain ever to be secured in adequate quantity. Our primary and only practical source of energy is the sun. The sunshine falling upon a square mile of land at sea level in our latitude in the course of a year is equivalent on the average to seven hundred thousand horse power, but no satisfactory solar engine has yet been discovered that will enable us to make use of this abundant supply directly. When we turn from the sun to the earth we find here also an abundance of power but no way to get it. We are living on top of a furnace, but unfortunately for us the lid is thick and non-conducting. Although engines are run by internal heat in Italy, Hawaii, and California, the utilization of such power can be said to remain an engineering dream. Last and most illusive of all is the internal energy of the atom, revealed to us in the heat that radium is continually giving off. We are using radium rays already to illuminate watch-dials and scorch out cancer, but many elements have similar stores of energy if we only knew how to release it. What it would mean if we should gain access to this exhaustless supply of potential wealth H. G. Wells has tried to tell in 'The World Set Free,' but even his brilliant imagination is baffled by its dazzling