ABSTRACT
One way to determine the central purposes of an institution is to ask whether a given function could be eliminated without changing its name. The central purpose of a college can be defined as socialization. Even a cursory reading of academic history makes clear that eighteenth-and nineteenth-century colleges, while small enough, were neither harmonious nor intimate. The customs and concerns of student subcultures vary enormously, but all are in one way or another at odds with the adult subcultures from which they spring. Psychologically if not chronologically, college therefore comes later in the over-all life cycle, and its role in loco parentis is increasingly subject to challenge. All over America there are children who want to eschew adolescence and move with maximum safety and minimal delay into some kind of adult world. The apparent safeness of the commuter college derives from the fact that students spend almost all their campus time in class.
