Education: New Bottles

Well aware of the value of salesmanship, many a U. S. college and university last week unveiled its annual fall display of educational wares in new or odd bottles:

¶No fewer than three institutions offered courses in international relations under the dramatic label of WAR! At New York University’s General Education Division, The Next War was to be illustrated by maps of the theatres of the coming conflict, by snapshots and movies of European military forces taken by Professor Charles Hodges. At Hobart College motion pictures of the World War were to be shown in a course on War & Peace. In The Problem of War Wesleyan University promised to prescribe “practical, effective steps for preventing war.”

¶ Meanwhile, Mural Painter Thomas Laman set up a studio on the campus and invited less serious-minded Wesleyan students to drop in at any time to learn painting, wood carving, clay modeling.

¶ Bryn Mawr College housed students of French and German in new buildings where they will be permitted to speak English only one half-hour out of the 24.

¶ Columbia’s Teachers College marched students into a classroom to talk about the Weather.

¶ On Boston University’s menu was listed a tidbit called Private Life of the Greeks.

¶ Norwich University announced that with an endowment of nearly $250,000 it would give next year the first college course in the world on Air Traffic Regulations and Air Transportation. ¶Manhattan’s New School for Social Research advertised something called Compensating Gymnastics for Sedentaries.