At Antioch

An essay* on Antioch College has been written by its President, Arthur E. Morgan. Sound physical health is so fundamental, says President Morgan, that ” we say no Antioch student can remain with us unless he will give reasonable attention to his physical condition.”

But the healthy undergraduate who would continue to breathe the air of Antioch must also be partially selfsupporting. “Until one has learned how to discharge his obligations (economic) to society, he does not know how to live. For we must all work or steal, howsoe’er we name our stealing.” And since most people must acquire the art of existing in limited financial circumstances, every Antioch Freshman takes a course in personal finance. He is taught to live by budget. His budget is discussed in class, and, every ten weeks, is reviewed by the head of the accounting department.

It is, further, impossible to remain at Antioch without learning to earn a living. But Antioch differs from a trade or technical school in its insistence that all students effectively expose themselves to cultural interests. Two years at literature, five at history, the social and the other sciences precede the degree. No self-made Antioch man will exhibit the ignorance of a Princeton trustee who asked: “Who is John Calvin?”

Antioch (Yellow Spring, O.) was established in 1852. Horace Mann was its first president. Long unable to compete with state universities because of its small endowment, the college was reorganized in 1921, two years after Arthur Morgan became a trustee.

The new curriculum requires a six-year course. Equipment includes factories on the college grounds. The students, numbering about 500, work in the college plants. Work and study is alternated in five-week shifts, half the student body composing each shift. This arrangement enables students to pay their own way through and also to carry the overhead of the institution. Antioch knows not the regular college holiday periods.

Associated with Mr. Morgan on Antioch’s staff: C. F. Kettering, Consulting Engineer of the General Motors; George Verity, President of the American Rolling Mill Co.; William Mayo, Chief Engineer of the Ford Motor Co.; Ellery Sedgwick, Editor of The Atlantic Monthly; E. F. Gay, President of the New York Evening Post; Henry S. Dennison, President of the Dennison Manufacturing Co.

*The Century Magazine for October.