Touching the theme of higher education, inquiries were sent to a large
number of universities, colleges, and secondary schools. The first
two questions related to the work of secondary education, and were as
follows: (1) What should the high-school graduate be when entering
college? (2) What does he lack of an ideal education when he enters?
Considering the general character of the questions, the answers were
all that might be expected, and they are valuable for the limit of
their range, as well as for what they express, since they show that,
concerning the main purpose of education, there is nothing new to be
said.
The following are opinions that represent the majority or appear
important as individual views: (1) The high-school graduate, when
entering college, should possess a mind educated by methods that create
interest and make power to think and generalize—power to do original
work. (2) He should have an acquaintance with each field of knowledge,
and should show a symmetrical development of his mental activities.
(3) As tending to produce greater interest, knowledge, and power, he
should have been trained in only a limited number of subjects in each
field; in these subjects the work should have been continuous and
intensive. (4) He should have good command of English. (5) He should
be well-grounded in right habits and moral principles—the practice of
self-control.
While this inquiry is not strictly upon the subject, it shows that the
difficult problems of university life are to be solved in part by the
secondary schools, and that some of the failures in higher education
are due to the imperfections of earlier training. It also introduces
part of the discussion that follows.
The third question pertained to higher education: What should the
college or university do for the high-school graduate? Some of the more
important opinions received may be expressed as follows:
(a) It should supplement the failures of his earlier training. There
should be no chasm between secondary and higher education.
(b) It should give him a liberal education; it should offer him a
course that has unity and harmony. It should cultivate the power of
research. It should teach him to bring all his knowledge and all his
power to bear on the problems of life.
(c) It should make him broad, and then deep in some subject. It should
start him in lines of study leading to his life work.
(d) It should give him high ideals of private and civic conduct; it
should make a man of him.
To consider merely the subject of college ideals would be trite and
unprofitable, and some latitude will be used in the discussion.
* * * * *
The influence of the college should be felt in the work of preparation.
That the college should be closely articulated with the high schools
is an idea of modern date, but one that now is received with growing
favor. An examination of the admission requirements of the colleges
still shows a variety of demands, having no common basis in principles
of education, in the standard courses of high schools, or in uniform
agreement. The requirements of some colleges are imperative for
specific subjects that are not fundamental, but merely rank with a
series of allied subjects in a given field of knowledge. Often a method
of work acceptable to one college would be rejected by another. Among
reputable institutions the height of the standard varies by two years.
The dissatisfaction of the high schools with these evils is deep-seated
and wide-spread. The fault rests mainly with the colleges and
universities, and the reasons that maintain unessential distinctions
are absurd in the eyes of secondary-school men. If absolute uniformity
in college admission is not feasible, a reasonable choice of
equivalents within a given department of knowledge may be allowed. At
least a plan of admission may be “_organized without uniformity_.” A
college has been known to refuse four years’ excellent work in science
as a substitute for some chapters in a particular book on physical
geography. In another instance a certain scientific school, requiring
two years of preparation in Latin, refused a four years’ course in
Latin in lieu of the prescribed number of books in Cæsar. A joint
committee has recently been appointed by the Department of Higher
Education and the Department of Secondary Education, of the National
Educational Association, to consider further the basis of connection
between the high schools and the colleges. This committee consists of
eminent and able men, who will accomplish important results, if given
proper encouragement and aid by the National Association, and if the
various local associations coöperate, instead of fostering organized
differences.[3] The report of the Committee of Ten did much to prepare
the way for a more complete and satisfactory connection between the
colleges and the high schools, but much remains to be done which may
well be undertaken by this joint committee. It is interesting to note
that one of the longest sections in the report of the Royal Commission
on Secondary Education is on the “Relation of the University to
Secondary Education,” and that the importance of a close connection is
emphasized and the means of securing it is suggested.
The work of secondary education must be based on pedagogical principles
and adapted to the stage of development which it represents, and
the colleges must take up the work where the high schools leave it.
Whatever is best for a given period of growth is also good preparation
for what follows. There should be no _saltus_ in the process of general
education. We do not mean that the colleges are not to help determine
the preparatory courses of study; but they must regard the natural
order of development in grades below the college as well as ideal
college standards.
By a closer union with the high schools, the colleges may help to
fashion their courses, improve their methods, and may suggest the
importance of placing college-educated men and women in charge of
the various departments of high-school work. The report of the Royal
Commission previously referred to, discussing the preparation of
teachers for the secondary schools, says: “So far as regards general
education, they will obtain it, and, in our opinion, ought to obtain
it, not in special seminaries, but in the same schools and universities
as are resorted to by persons desiring to enter the other professions.
The more attractive the profession becomes, the larger will be the
number of teachers who will feel that they ought to fit themselves
for it by a university course.” The report further says: “Whatever
professional education is provided for teachers ought to have both a
theoretical and a practical side.... Freedom and variety would, in our
opinion, be best secured, if the universities were to take up the task;
... and, if the science of education is to make good the claims put
forward in its behalf, it ought to be studied where other branches of
mental and moral philosophy are fully handled by the ablest professors.”
Many colleges are doing much to increase laboratory practice in the
high schools, to cultivate the spirit of investigation, to limit the
number of subjects and secure good results. In one of the new States,
Colorado, the principle is generally recognized that a good preparatory
education is also a good general education, and that every high school
is, therefore, a preparatory school. The secondary-school period is
maintained at four years, laboratories are provided in all the schools,
and Latin and German, if not Greek, are found in all. These results are
largely due to the close relation in that State between secondary and
higher education.
* * * * *
In the second group of opinions quoted, the philosophy is Platonic
rather than materialistic or utilitarian. It makes a student a man of
ideal powers, possibilities, and aspirations. He possesses a nature
whose development is an end in itself, whose well-being is of prime
consideration. Liberal education aims to give the student a conscious
realization of his powers, without reference to material advantage
through their use in a given occupation or profession. Through liberal
education the student acquires ideas of universal interest and
essential character. He gains a comprehensive view that enables him to
estimate things at their relative value, to learn the place, use, and
end of each.
That liberal education should remain the ideal of at least a large
part of the college course, most educators agree. Were this function
of the college not a distinctive and essential one, that department
of learning would of necessity be abandoned, and the direct road to
practical business would be pursued. Recent addresses, representing
three of the greatest American universities, agree that the function of
the college is to be maintained, and that acquaintance with the several
fields of knowledge is necessary to the very idea of liberal education.
They agree to include the field of the languages and literature, the
field of the sciences and mathematics, the subjective field, that of
philosophy and psychology. In a late report of the Commissioner of
Education appears a German criticism of American education, which
mentions the lack of linguistic training. The writer says: “The
consequences are seen in the defective linguistic-logical discipline of
the mind, which perhaps more than the discipline in the mathematical
forms of thought is a requisite of all profound intellectual progress,
be that in linguistic or in mathematical and scientific branches.” In
the University of Berlin, philosophy is a required subject for all
degrees.
The conservation of the ideals of the race is largely the work of
liberally educated men. Some one has argued that not through education,
but through a higher standard of society and politics, will the youth
of the land be reached; but society and politics depend upon ideal
education and the church for their own purification.
The power of research is characteristic of modern university training
and is essential to a liberal education, as giving one the mastery
of his powers. Carlyle was not far from the right when he said that
the true university is a library. The ability to use a library is one
criterion of successful college work. Here the student gathers his own
material, uses his own discrimination, formulates his opinions in the
light of numerous facts and opinions, and gains self-reliance. It is
the scientific method, as taught by Socrates, applied to all fields of
study. This is the kind of work that prepares the student to grapple
with the practical problems of the day.
The opinion that some portion of the college work should be prescribed
appears to be well founded. This view is strengthened by the fact that
many high schools are weak in one or more departments of preparation.
A minimum of required work in leading departments of the college
will tend to supply the deficiencies of previous training. From an
inspection of the latest college catalogues it appears that all
colleges exercise some kind of supervision over the choice of studies,
and many of them prescribe and determine the order of more than half
the curriculum. In choice of electives many require the group system,
in order that consistency may be maintained and that a definite result
in some line of work may be reached.
The line of demarcation between college and university work is a
variable, and the problem of definitely locating it is perplexing in
the extreme. Many believe they see signs of segmentation at the end of
the junior year and predict that the senior year will adhere to the
graduate school. There are many evidences that somewhere along the line
the period of general education will be shortened, and the tendency to
specialize before the end of the college course is one proof that the
change is demanded. Historically the college in America stands as a
whole for liberal education, but in its later development the standard
has been advanced and the period of professional education has been
lengthened until the problem presents new phases demanding important
readjustments. Replies recently received from many institutions of
higher learning, touching this question, show a variety of opinions.
One correspondent pithily says, “Verily, we are a smattering folk.
I believe both the college and the professional course should be
lengthened.” President Eliot advocates “a three years’ course for the
A.B., without disguises or complications.” Estimating the replies
already received numerically, something more than half favor some kind
of time readjustment, to the end that the period covered by the college
and the professional school may be shortened one year.
* * * * *
While defending liberal education, it may be held that, especially
while a four years’ college course is maintained, it should also look
toward the world of active influence, and the filling of some vocation
therein. The student’s duties toward society must take on the modern
aspect, as contrasted with the self-centred interest of the mediæval
recluse. That education should aim at mere serene enjoyment of the
True, the Beautiful, and the Good is an idea of the past. The mere
recluse to-day has no meaning and no use in the world. Educated men
must join the march of progress; they must take part in the solution
of ethical problems, in the bettering of government and society. The
world demands of them altruism, public spirit, high ideals. They should
mass the forces of the past for an onward movement in the present. Old
knowledge should reach out toward new and useful applications.
To these ends the college should provide for a deeper knowledge of some
subject or group of related subjects. This is an essential element of
general education, and also has a practical aim. The principles of the
philosophical and social sciences should find concrete illustration in
the present. And above all, student life should be inspired with ideas
of the duties and responsibilities of citizenship.
* * * * *
A public statement has been made that the seniors of a well-known
university have less intellectual vigor and less moral power than the
average man they might meet on the streets. If the charge be true, it
is a matter for serious thought, but the statement should be swallowed
with a large grain of salt. It may, however, serve as a text. The
college must assume an amount of responsibility for the character of
the undergraduate student. There has been a natural reaction against
some of the unwise requirements of twenty-five years ago, but the
reaction may have gone too far. One of our famous universities ten
years ago adopted the policy of leaving the student to his own devices
and the moral restraint of the policeman, but the plan was condemned
by the patrons of the institution, and to-day it exercises a wise and
friendly care over the student’s choice of studies, his attendance
upon lectures, and his daily walk and conversation. Entire freedom in
student life belongs only to the graduate schools, and to place both
undergraduate and graduate students under one system can but prove
harmful.
The ethical problems of college life are not to be solved wholly by
perfunctory religious exercises, but by the spirit that pervades the
whole teaching and student body, and by the many ways and means that
the united efforts of earnest and devoted faculties may employ. It
is a favorable circumstance that the student to an extent can choose
subjects in accord with his tastes; that his powers may reach out
toward some great intellectual interest. That the spirit of education
is broader, more liberal, and scientific is significant; the fact makes
for truth and honesty. The historical method succeeds the dogmatic in
history, social science, philosophy, and ethics. Men are better because
they are broader and wiser and are coming to a higher realization of
truth.
No doubt the ethical life has the deepest significance for man.
The great Fichte was right in claiming that, if this is merely a
subjectively phenomenal world, it is a necessary creation of mind that
we may have it wherein to work and ethically develop. That institution
will turn out the best men where the Baconian philosophy is combined
with the Platonic, the scientific with the ideal. By some means the
student should constantly come in contact with strong manhood and high
ideals. It makes a practical difference whether the student believes in
his transcendent nature and possibilities or in mere materialism and
utilitarianism, whether his ethics is ideal or hedonistic, his view of
life optimistic or pessimistic.
* * * * *
If the question is made distinct, What should the university do for the
student?—there are some additional considerations.
It is enough to say of graduate courses that they should be a warrant
for extended and thorough knowledge of a group of related subjects,
and for original power to grasp and deal with difficult problems. The
candidate’s knowledge and power should be publicly tested by a good
old-fashioned examination and defence of thesis.
The university should refuse to admit the student to the professional
schools until he has received at least the equivalent of a complete
high-school education. The faculties of the University of Colorado have
made an investigation of the standard of admission to the professional
schools, the length of professional courses, and the relation of the
professional courses to the college. The results are of interest.[4]
Very few schools of applied science in the universities require four
years of preparation. Only three or four universities require that
standard for their law or medical schools. Most catalogues read after
this fashion: Admission to law or medical school—a college diploma,
or a high-school diploma, or a second-grade teacher’s certificate,
or evidence of fitness to pursue the subject. Less than half of the
law schools require entrance qualifications, and only twenty of them
require a three years’ course. All medical schools advocate a thorough
scientific foundation, many of them in a very ideal way, and urge
extensive laboratory practice in many special subjects. The most of
them think the first two years of a medical course could well be spent
without clinical work. Many colleges and collegiate departments of
universities provide electives that are accepted by some schools of
theology, law, or medicine for their regular first-year work. In rare
instances, studies covering two years are made common to the college
and the professional schools. But only a few universities have within
their own organization a plan for shortening the period of college and
professional study.
The “Report on Legal Education,” 1893, issued by the United States
Bureau of Education, says: “Admission to the bar in all Continental
(European) countries is obtained through the universities which are
professional schools for the four learned professions—theology,
medicine, law, and philosophy. In England and America the colleges
and universities are chiefly schools for general culture; only a
few offer provision for thorough professional studies. While in
England and America the erroneous idea is still predominant that a
collegiate education need not necessarily precede professional study,
in Continental Europe it is made a _conditio sine qua non_. No one
more needs than the lawyer the power of general education to grasp all
the facts relating to a subject, to weigh their value, discard the
unessential, and give prominence to the determining factors; no one
more needs the power to avoid fallacies and to argue intelligently
scientific points which may be involved in litigation. No one more than
the physician needs an acquaintance with psychology and philosophy,
with the various sciences and the modern languages; no one more
needs the power of judgment in view of seemingly contradictory facts
and symptoms; no one more needs the ethical quality of the noble
and honorable gentleman. Let the American universities maintain the
standards which in theory they all are ready to advocate.”