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12 Special Opportunities of Small Boarding School For Girls By DUMAS MALONE, Professor of Marthematies, Andrew College, Cuthbert, Ga. Although the differences between schools are usually due to their differ ently taking advantage of opportuni ties rather than to — differences in the opportunities, it is undoubtedly true that the various types of schools do have different fields and that each type has distinct opportunities and advan tages. The small boarding school for girls, the school with less than 200 stu dents, while not pretending to offer the breadth of training or the minute at tention to detail which, the great col lege affords, has yet certain special ad vantages of its own. For one thing, such a school gives greater opportunity than any other sort of institution for individual attention •n the part of the teacher to the pupil’s school work. There are not so many pupils but that each one’s course can be gone over carefully at the begin ning of the year and proper sugges tions be made. The individual capa bility of the pupil can be more easily determined, and she can be given the amount of work and that sort work which she is best qualified to do. In many of the large schools, such attention seems to be impossible. Al though the tendency is now in tfie other direction, for a long time students in many of the large colleges and univer sities arranged their courses of study almost entirely to suit themselves, se lecting more often the easiest than the most suitable subjects. Where each pupil can be given proper faculty guid ance such mistakes are less likely to occur. Lecture System Important. Tn the small school the classes are always small. The teacher knows every pupil well and soon learns what each one can do. Although in many of the great and wealthy universities classes are small, it is a rare thing for university professors to know much more about their pupils than their names. In some of the schools of the South which lie between the great uni versity and the small school, owing to insufficient faculties, classes in some subjects are very large. Where such is the case the lecture system must of necessity almost en tirely prevail, and the examination must be made almost the sole test of the standing of the pupil. Much good as there is in such a system, especially for older students, it lias its limitations even with them, and is wholly unsuited to younger ones. It Is all right for graduate students in English to hear a lecture on some phase of poetical struc ture. A lecture to boys and girls in the parts of speech, however, or on some of the fundamentals of rhetoric is. of course, out of the question. In some cases, nevertheless, in the lower classes of larger colleges very element ary work is treated in almost Ss ob jectionable a manner. Certainly in a large class it is very bard to do drill work of anv sort. In the small class it may easily be arranged for. Not only may courses of study be better attended to where there are not many pupils, and not .only may the regular class work be better directed, but, in addition, the teacher is enabled to study his pupils more closely, to watch their progress and to aid them individually in their work. Where classes are large, teachers become barely acquainted with their pupils and are unable to offer much direction to them. More Homelike For Students. Again, the small boarding school for girls may provide a more homelike and a more democratic social life than al most any other type of institution. It is almost impossible to make a big dor mitory. where there are hundreds of students, seem like a home. It will naturally be more like a hotel where each student is an individual unit, en tirely self-directing and responsible JHE ATLANTA (iKORGI AX. SATl’h’nA Y. JULY (i. 1912 ll' ' wll ■M ' R DUMAS MALONE. A.8.. Professor of Mathematics, Andrew Col lege, Cuthbert, Ga. only to himself. In a school where there are less than 200 pupils it is far easier to make the dormitory seem like a home. Especially is this true where the president and his family or some of the teachers’ families live in the dor mitory. Their presence adds a touch of home lite such as nothing else cati do. In the small boarding school for girls it is possible to make the entire student body feel somewhat like a big family, each member realizing her influence upon and responsibility to the rest. Intimate contact between teachers and pupils is impossible in many larger colleges. It is taken as a matter of course in many small ones. Teachers and pupils see each other every day and come to know each other intimate ly. Thus is the chasm which often exists between them bridged in a per fectly natural way. This intimacy, fur thermore. adds greatly to the charm of the home life. A group of interesting teachers can make things very attrac tive for a crowd of girls. This relation ship likewise adds greatly to the oem .ocratie spirit of the school. By thus moving on terms of equality with ail, the teachers cause pupils to do like wise. Under such an argument, with ev eryone in the college home well ac quainted with everyone else, there is little formality and little clannishness and snobbery. Everyday association with everybody doesn’t allow much room for the development of the feel ing of social superiority. The smalt size of the student body, furthermore, allows an easier direction of the so cial life. If much direction of this sort is possible in the large college, lit tle is ever given. The social life of the pupils is almost entirely of their own direction. Teachers in the small school can ever be on the lookout to protect the manifestation of class dis tinction. Snobbery, which is so com mon in many quarters, may be almost entirely eliminated. Opportunity For Uplift. Not only are there some phases of the intellectual and social life which may be better provided for in the small school than in the large, but there are also some phases of the spiritual life which find their finest field in the small boarding school. Nowhere may there be such an opportunity for spiritual up lift. The greatest lessons of life are learned and the greatest inspiration is caught, not from printed page nor from the words of preacher or lecturer, but from the lives of other people with whom we daily come in contact. It is the contact of personality which is of most vital importance. Few boys and girls ever find such associations anywhere as they do oft at school. The pick of the land are there. To associate with them is a privilege. Never will any boy or girl have such an opportunity for intimacy as is af forded in dormitory life. One will not find such an opportunity for inti mate association with them. It nat urally follow's that pupils will never have such a chance to be uplifted in that way that most uplifts come, through the contact with noble per sonalities. The faculty of a girls boarding school is usually composed of the highest type of men and women. Their equal can scarcely be found anywhere. Pupils have the priceless privilege of asso ciating intimately with them. What an opportunity for the quickening cf all that is high and noble in a pupil through this contact with such per sonalities! Good Chance at Small College. Perhaps the best explanation of the marked superiority cf the products of the small college* is that such institu- &, - g I PARENTS '■ $ $ i The University I • $ I of Georgia f & • $ was founded I 27 years ago by the > state. It is maintained by the state for the use of the people of the state. & . | It Is Your University | It stands ready to help you train your sons for lives of usefulness. Over , J 1,000 students enjoyed its privileges this year. Will you let the state help you and your sons? , 'v' tyj Send for Bulletins describing $ * . & courses in Law, Pharmacy, Edu= cation, Agriculture, Forestry, Engineering, Finance, Literary and Scientific Studies and Grad- g uate Work. g g ADDRESS | & . $ g THE CHANCELLOR, g $ ATHENS, GA. $ $ M [VT tions give the best chance for contact between their pupils and the nobler personalities of those in charge of their work. The great university in the me tropolis gives finer opportunities for getting in touch with scholarship and for making original Investigation. One can delve there into the deepest recess es of the most minute branch of hu man Knowledge. This can not be cone in the small boarding school. But, somehow, in the great institution of learning, one often misses the touch of men. His teachers and fellow stu dents barely know him. the president has never heard of him, he is lost in the multitude. All efforts seem to be directed toward the developing of his scholarship; very little is done toward the making of his manhood. The small school may have very lim ited laboratory equipment and compar atively few elective courses. But it may have and usually does have true men and women guiding the destinies of those committed to its care. By the contact of the personalities of these teachers with those of their young charges may be produced as noble a work, as true an education as is possi ble in any school in all the world.