WHY GO TO COLLEGE [Illustration: The Chapel at West Point as seen from an Entrance to the Area of the Cadet Barracks] WHY GO TO COLLEGE BY CLAYTON SEDGWICK COOPER Author of “College Men and the Bible” _ILLUSTRATED_ [Illustration: (Publisher colophon.)] NEW YORK THE CENTURY CO. 1912 Copyright, 1912, by THE CENTURY CO. _Published, October, 1912_ WITH GRATEFUL REMEMBRANCE THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED TO MY COLLEGE TEACHER AND FRIEND E. BENJAMIN ANDREWS CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS 3 II EDUCATION À LA CARTE 51 III THE COLLEGE CAMPUS 93 IV REASONS FOR GOING TO COLLEGE 135 V THE COLLEGE MAN AND THE WORLD 173 INDEX 203 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS The Chapel at West Point as seen from an Entrance to the Area of the Cadet Barracks _Frontispiece_ PAGE Old South Middle, Yale University 8 A Protest against Prosiness 21 University Hall, University of Michigan 37 The Serpentine Dance after a Foot-ball Game 45 Johnston Gate from the Yard, Harvard University 55 The Library, Columbia University 66 A Popular Professor of Chemistry and his Crowded Lecture-Room 80 Student Waiters in the Dining-Hall of an American College 97 Amateur College Theatricals 112 The Main Hall, University of Wisconsin 122 Blair Arch, Princeton University 143 Editors of the Harvard _Lampoon_ making up the “Dummy” of a Number 154 The Library and the Thomas Jefferson Statue, University of Virginia 164 Harper Memorial Building and the Law Building, University of Chicago 178 The Arch between the Dormitory Quadrangle and the Triangle, University of Pennsylvania 192 PREFACE The characteristics of a college course demanded by our American undergraduates is determined by two things; first, by the character of the man who is to be educated, and second, by the kind of world in which the man is to live and work. Without these two factors vividly and practically in mind, all plans for courses of study, recreation, teaching, or methods of social and religious betterment are theoretical and uncertain.