tive information as to what the university is accomplishing and by the welcome given a frank discussion of his problems. He may start off with athletics, but he will end up with the university.

How this spirit on the part of the alumni can be best utilized is becoming a vital problem for university administrators. Just now in most colleges and universities alumni relations are a matter of haphazard development. But to continue drifting simply means more trouble in the future of the same kind every institution has been familiar with at different times in the past. This is a somewhat grudging acceptance of the largess which alumni are willing and anxious to bestow, and a chorus of criticism of every benefaction, on the part of faculty men who do not see, or are unwilling to acknowledge, the implication as to the new status of the alumni which these things represent. There are those of course who believe that the present situation is on the whole satisfactory, but there are others who feel that neither the universities nor the alumni are accomplishing a quarter of what they might, if this relationship were established on a proper basis. The solution of the problem seems to the writer to lie in a frank and painstaking study of the whole situation which will be accepted as authoritative at once by the professor and his former student.

There are certain elements which, it seems fairly obvious, must enter into such a study. In the first place, the present status of the great alumni bodies in all our universities must be, so to speak, acknowledged and legalized. Then, the university trustees and faculties must be brought to recognize, practically as well as theoretically, that the alumni are actually a part of the university, and not merely a source of financial support. And finally, the alumni must in some way acquire a better understanding of the educational aims of the university. They must come to recognize that it is a living and growing force, and not necessarily a crystallization for all time of the place and life they knew when they were students.

The two last suggestions might be discussed a little more at length since they

involve a programme which has enormous significance for the future of American universities. Unquestionably there is a rather deep-seated, though concealed, antagonism between the alumni as a body and the university faculty as a body. Most university executives, particularly college presidents, have sufficient contact with the alumni to appreciate at least the graduate point of view. Many alumni for one reason or another also have a sympathetic comprehension of the faculty man's views. But we are speaking of groups rather than individuals. Generally speaking the professorial emphasis is on the period when the student is in residence. That is almost necessarily so. He is proud of the achievements of his former students as individuals, but he fails to sense the fact that the university lives in its graduates, that in some measure at least the actions and ways of thought of the graduates are a direct reflection of-and sometimes on-his teachings. He is reluctant, to say the least, to acknowledge that the alumni are entitled to consideration in matters where their co-operation and advice can be of service, particularly as this means almost all the broader and less technical aspects of university education.

For the alumnus the question simmers down to a question of education on a subject rarely included in a university curriculum-the university itself and university education. The average alumnus doesn't know anything at all about these things. What is more, he is usually not interested, or at least only superficially. That is, he is not unless some definite effort is made to arouse his interest, and that demands intelligent and far-sighted measures on the part of the university. It means a course of alumni education which should begin with the freshman year. As President Chase of the University of North Carolina puts it: "How can an alumnus understand his university in middle life, if he has not somehow 'got the feel of it' as an undergraduate?" To cut off the channels of contact, as ordinarily happens, just when the student is ready and eager to develop into a really interested and thoughtful element in the university commonwealth, is, to say the least, short-sighted. The student

should be prepared to be an alumnus before he leaves; he should have some insight into the problems to which the president, the trustees or regents, and the faculty are committed. A course on university history and problems might well be given during one year of the college course. It might be a "one-hour snap," but if the material were presented in a stimulating way by some one who knew how to appeal to that intangible but very real element in student life, college spirit, the result might well be incalculable. But that of course can be only a beginning. Contacts of every kind should be encouraged and developed by the university. The special preoccupations of the graduate wherever they touch the university should be encouraged. In fact every possible means should be used to make the university a force in the life of the individual alumnus. It is only through the individual ties thus formed that the university and the alumni body will be knit into the greater university.

For the alumnus certain premises must underlie any effort to co-operate effectively with the university. They may seem rather obvious, but there are plenty of college and university graduates to whom they will be something more than platitudes.

1. In the first place, the alumni must recognize that the fundamental aim of the university is education-not merely the studies listed in the annual catalogue, but training for life. Not alone knowledge from books or teachers, but the things of the spirit, which have their share in the training of the mind, body, and will. Few university graduates would question this statement; but some, and unfortunately they often wield a certain influence in graduate councils, show no recognition of this ideal in their ordinary relations to the university. Peculiarly is this true of those alumni who believe, or at least act as if they believed, that the university existed for athletics, instead of at least putting the proposition the other way round. We all know them. While they may pay lip-service to what would seem to be the fairly obvious and natural reason for the university's existence, they are sure to resent any limita

tions which the educational welfare of the university may place upon the chances for a championship.

2. A second premise which must be granted by college graduates, if they are to co-operate effectively in university affairs, is that the educational task of the university should be left pretty largely in the hands of experts-the faculties. We are all of us familiar with that traditional figure of the absent-minded professor. Most of us can pick his prototype in real life even though nowadays he is coming to be the exception. What we have failed to realize in our amusement over his eccentricities is that he has qualified as an expert in some branch of knowledge, and that his personal influence may extend through the teachings and lives of a thousand students to whom he has furnished inspiration and a wholesome, if perhaps unworldly, guidance.

But this gentle figure is, for the most part, of an older generation, though it is more than likely that he figures in our fondest memories. The university teacher of the present is pretty apt to be decidedly a man of affairs, a trained executive who might do far better for himself away from college halls if it were not for the sheer idealism and love of learning for its own sake which lead him to accept the less conspicuous rewards of a university career. Still, if the graduate fails to appreciate the complexity of the problems that face our universities, it is because of the failure of the university man to make them clear to the alumni, his impatience with the graduate point of view, as well as because of the equally massive impatience of the alumnus at the professor's attitude toward his task. For some reason the average alumnus has a feeling that he is competent to give an offhand opinion upon many subjects long and prayerfully, and, it must be acknowledged, sometimes tediously, debated in faculty councils, simply because he has attained some degree of prominence in another field. It is up to the alumnus to recognize that he must fit himself to co-operate with his faculty confrère, rather than to insist upon a point of view which the latter knows is rather absurd or at least impracticable. That is where a definite course of undergraduate

training for graduate responsibilities would be peculiarly valuable.

3. As a direct corollary of the other two comes the third premise: that no alumni effort can be really helpful which is not based upon a thoroughgoing sympathy with the educational aims of the institution, and which does not consciously seek to support the university administration-the president, the governing body, and the faculties. This of course is far from implying that the alumni should not have an independent voice upon matters in which they are concerned and upon which they are qualified to speak with understanding. Nor would I imply that, upon occasion, they should not express themselves upon the most fundamental problems of university policy. The alumni often have a fresher, broader, and more practical view, based upon their activities and contacts in other fields, as well as what might be called a practical idealism, which the faculty man sometimes loses in the daily attrition of the classroom. Moreover once the gap is bridged, the university man is ready to welcome the practical spirit with which the alumnus approaches many of the questions laid before him, provided that with it is revealed both a willingness to consider the educational problems involved, and a sympathy for the specialized point of view of the university man.

All this points to the development of a more constructive programme on the

part of the university in its relations with the alumni, and an effort on the part of the alumni to "keep their pictures of the university up-to-date." It must be granted that many manifestations of alumni enthusiasm are footless and unintelligible, but as a whole the alumni, as a body, can be neglected only at a loss to the spiritual as well as the material welfare of our American universities. There are limits to the degree and kind of participation in university questions open to the alumni, but these limits are freely recognized by the right-minded graduate. The university's endeavor must be to bring it about that all alumni become thus minded. It cannot merely assume a receptive attitude as regards its graduates, looking for manna from heaven; it must develop an active policy which will incorporate them into the great fellowship. The alumni are doing their part through their organizations. The next move is up to the universities. In the alumni associations, alumni councils, in the network of alumni clubs scattered all over the country in any city of any size, in the graduate publications and the alumni funds, great instruments are being forged which can offer efficient support in enabling the universities to develop far beyond anything that we know at the present time. How far these instruments are to be used for the best interests of university and graduate alike is a problem which must be studied and solved.

CABINET minister here in Washington told me only the other day, with a show of exasperation tempered by a twinkle and a twisted smile, that it seemed to him our handful of American colonists claiming Russia's discarded Bear Cub as a home could "raise more diverse and persistent howls than the joint populations of ten decent States. What does Alaska want?"

Although that question is a hard one, maybe I can give you an inside answer because I have been living literally inside Alaska for so many years-in its most interior section, as far in as you can go without starting out again! I can at least suggest some immediate reasons for the why" of those howls, by giving you three concise definitions of my own, describing what Alaska really is. "Alaska: a bear cub; a growing boy; a group of American colonies." Any one of these VOL. LXXXI.-45

rôles gives Alaska a perfectly legitimate right to howl.

Our own avuncular Samuel adopted Russia's cub when it was a very helpless small bear indeed, giving solemn promise, couched in high-sounding, sacredly attested documents of state, that if only its rather unnatural daddy would withdraw entirely from the vicinity, for keeps, and renounce all claim of paternity in the waif, Uncle Sam would himself henceforward and hereafter protect and cherish the same as one of his very own brood. An insignificant matter of money changed hands in this transaction, merely enough to cover some necessary expenses, make the affair legally tight, and save the rather shamed Muscovitic face.

Seward had acted as go-between in this deal, my grandfather's own old York State neighbor whom he loved and admired above all men save Lincoln's self. When the great secretary was retiring, after that arduous pilotage of the ship of state, they asked him what act of all his half-century of public service he himself

625

stirring then, all of which seemed rather more vital to the men of the upper sixties. The Atlantic cable had just been laid successfully, and men's minds were already expanding with the intoxicating idea of the earth and the fulness thereof, the sea, and all that in them is, as tractable things to be controlled and bound. They were busy even then binding the continent with its first twin threads of steel, to be completed at Promontory Point early in the next year. Who had any time or thought for Alaska?

But even in neglect this tough-fibred creature kept on growing, developing, feeling out its youthful strength. American colonists sought Alaska and made their homes there, among them my grandfather's granddaughter. We have come to love and prize our adopted land with a fierce and intense loyalty. But when we return to the States and are asked, as I

tinct political and economic units, although the good people back in Washington do not apprehend this.

Strictly speaking, the term "Alaska" has significance to-day as a geographic unity, but carries little real homogeneity of meaning in other fields. I could tell you pretty clearly what the Fourth Division wants, for that comprises the great empire lying behind the mountains where I myself have been living; and I could tell you, from travel and observation and the trusted words of friends, something of the individual wants of the Second and Third Divisions; and even, perhaps (though God forbid that I should have to, for that includes our Capitoline Juneau), what the First Division wants. But unless you will promise to carry with you some notion of this quadruple cleavage, it will be very hard indeed to explain in any understandable detail what Alaska as a whole wants,