4 JANUARY 1930, Page 18

American college administrators in denouncing the popular American belief that

it necessarily does a student good to work his way through college. "The notion," an official bulletin from Cornell declares, "is as false as it is queer. Self-support handicaps a student." It is agreed that where self-support by paid employment is necessary, it is honourable. But, obviously, it takes time and energy, and since the regular university work requires at least a forty-eight hour week, a student cannot do full justice both to it and to other employment, and at the same time keep in good health. One or other has to suffer. The main objection to the popular notion, however, is that it has become a form of inverted snobbishness. Students whose parents can well afford to make adequate independent provision are encouraged to work their way through college because it is the thing to do and boast about. This simply means that needy students who might work their way through are deprived of oppor- tunity, for, as experience at Cornell and elsewhere has shown, there are not enough jobs now to go around.

YOUR NEW YORK CORRESPONDENT,