The problem with Dartmouth College today is that the administration has not clearly and forcefully laid out exactly where it wishes the College to go. Sure, intellectualism is important, but what is to be done about it?
Students are only here four years at a time, and wield very little power. What is worse, a student who comes to Dartmouth lacking in intellectual curiosity is already by and large fixed in his ways. The only real avenue for change lies with the College administration, especially in how it chooses to recruit students and the mission it chooses to spell out as that of Dartmouth.
To know where one should go, it is sometimes useful to know where one is coming from. The history of the "elite" colleges (by which I mean those in the Ivy League) in America parallels somewhat that of their sources of inspiration in England, Oxford and Cambridge. Starting out basically as schools to train seminarians and future theologians for the various Protestant factions of their founders, the colleges all rapidly transformed into finishing schools for the local elites. The purpose of a place such as Dartmouth was clear enough in those days -- one sent little John off to learn his Shakespeare, Shelley and Cicero, and when he was done with the place he had acquired the credentialing traits of a true son of the establishment.
Anyone who has the slightest doubt about this picture can turn to F. Scott FItzgerald's "This Side of Paradise" for a fictional account of one such career at turn of the century Princeton. It is a picture which did not change very much until the close of the 1950s. It was in this era, spurred into action by the technological challenge that Sputnik represented, that Americans really began to accept that the fostering of intellect on a meritocratic basis might have some value after all.
The changes in the class profiles at Harvard point this trend out powerfully. In the 1950s the average entering freshman at Harvard had an IQ of about 110 on the Stanford-Binet scale. By the middle of the 1960s the average had risen to about 125, and today it is over 140. It is safe to say that almost none of those who went to Harvard in the 1950s would qualify for admission on their own merits today.
The crucial thing to note is that this influx of talent into the Ivy League was also marked by the influx of members of the striving classes. What this meant was that, unlike as had been the case in the past, increasingly smaller percentages of Ivy League admits saw their goal as the acquisition of social poise and finish, ever greater numbers seeing these colleges as the means to climb the socioeconomic ladder. This trend was given added impetus by the fact that, in America, a professionally minded student cannot proceed straight to the study of his intended profession, but is made to jump the additional hoop of four years of college.
These changes, as I have said earlier, have parallels in the development of Oxford and Cambridge, and yet there is a curious difference. These schools have managed to create a viable atmosphere for intellectual inquiry, and yet their students are no brighter on average than those at Dartmouth, if by "bright" all we mean is IQ. These two institutions have managed to successfully make the transition from finishing schools to great houses of learning because of one crucial difference between them and their American counterparts -- those interested only in financial success are better advised to go elsewhere than Oxbridge for their education.
This is so partly because there are reputable places in Britain such as the London School of Economics where the professionally minded can immediately embark on their educations. It is also partly so because Oxford and Cambridge lack the hubris to think they can spot the "leaders of tomorrow," and rightly concentrate their attentions on prospective students' academic ability and intellectual curiosity. It cannot be said of English universities, as a former University of Oklahoma president once said of his own school, that they wish for universities their football teams can be proud of.
There are lessons here for Dartmouth's administration. If they are as serious about intellectualism as they claim to be, then their energies should be concentrated less on filling their admitted classes with prospective crew team members, "diversity" aiding individuals and the plastic surgeons and lawyers of tomorrow, and more on looking for the men of true gold, the future Maynard Keynes's, James Clerk Maxwell's and Bertrand Russell's. The hollow "well-roundedness" which American colleges are so fond of should take a back seat to intellectual brilliance and Promethean audacity.
All that rot about leadership "spotting" and "training" one hears all too often should also be thrown out like the stale management philosophy that it is. Leadership potential is not some general ability that can be spotted via high school transcripts and interviews, and even if it were, we must not forget that this is an academic institution, a place for the pursuit and advancement of knowledge, not a recruiting resource for IBM and the US Senate. Ours is to reason how, why, when and where, and no more. The only true qualities an academic institution should seek in its' students are piercing intellect and incessant curiosity, not swimming ability, compassion towards Guatemalans or financial acumen.
