field of knowledge. The enlarged range of knowledge in our day is
owing principally to the clear thinking and earnest, original,
productive work done by college professors and students. They have
done more to extend the empire of thought than any other class of
intellectual workers. The college is the home of the arts and
sciences, and it exists to teach and promote them. Professors should
have the ability and the time, more and more, to make investigations,
to extend the domain of truth, and to give philosophical and
scientific guidance to the nation.
The university proper, as now being developed, regards as its special
function the training of men for research and professional work. Its
ample facilities and its methods of work give advanced students rare
privileges in any department of research.
"The modern university," says Professor Josiah Royce, "has its highest
business, to which all else is subordinate, the organization and
advance of learning. Not that the individual minds are now neglected.
They are wisely guarded as the servants of the one great cause. But
the real mind which the university has to train is the mind of the
nation--that concrete social mind whereof we all are ministers and
instruments. The daily business of the university is, therefore, first
of all, the creation and the advance of learning, as the means whereby
the national mind can be trained."
The constructive intellectual spirit so paramount in the university
begins in the college. The more formal methods of disciplinary work at
the beginning of a collegiate course gradually shade off, during the
closing years, into the methods and spirit of original discovery
adopted in university work. In the college there is kindled in the
student the love of new truth and an enthusiasm for the advancement of
learning. He is led to undertake creative work, and become an active,
intellectual producer, with aspirations to widen the horizon of
thought and weave the best results of his discoveries into the warp
and woof of the social organism.
The steps leading up to the important period in the student's life
where research is for the sake of fruitfulness are traceable in the
historic development and requirements of college studies. In nearly
all the colleges there is manifest a growing spirit of freedom in
pursuing a course of study. There is little doubt that elective
courses of study are a recognized necessity and benefit. It remains,
however, an open question what studies should be required and what
elected, and when the work of specialization should begin. If we keep
in view the fact that the primary aim of a college education is to
elevate and broaden the student by training him to clear and exact
thought and accurate observation and expression, we will see that,
whatever the course or subject of study chosen, it is only the means
to this end.
Required studies should be based upon the principle of the
instrumental, substantive and interpretative elements in a liberal
education. For example, the study of language is important as the
instrument of thought. A knowledge of the rich and copious foreign
languages opens up the wisdom of the past and present, and their study
develops memory and precision, as well as stimulates and provokes
thought. A knowledge of some of them is essential to the highest
professional success. The student who can read and appreciate the
foreign languages and appropriate their contents has a decided
advantage.
Mathematics is, likewise, an instrument of thought. It is the
foundation of the physical sciences and the framework of the material
universe. Its study trains the mind to think in relations and
quantities, and helps to obviate loose and confused thinking. Logic
and psychology are also important factors in developing the power of
orderly and protracted thought.
The substantive element in a liberal education is found in the study
of the natural and moral sciences. The study of them is both
attractive and stimulating, and helps to store the mind with useful
facts and principles. A general study of science should be required. A
knowledge of any favorite science involves in some measure a knowledge
of others. Physics, chemistry, biology, astronomy, are all more or
less related. There is an interacting and interweaving of the facts
and principles. Aside from the information imparted, there is no other
class of study that will so effectively train the mind to accurate
habits of observation.
Philosophy is the interpretative element in education, and helps to
give unity to our knowledge. No one can reasonably lay claim to be
liberally educated who has not some knowledge of the philosophical
principles which underlie and explain the phenomena of history and
life.
These required studies should be embraced and upheld in all college
courses in order to give unity and consistency to the knowledge of the
student. The value of these different studies cannot be reasonably
doubted. The colleges of the past developed strength by studying these
few subjects. No technical studies or professional training can be
substituted for this scholastic training. The professional man
especially needs this general culture, in order to escape the danger
of concentrating and contracting his intellectual interest. Colleges
may vigorously adhere to these scholarly requirements, and yet
advantageously introduce the elective system. The student must have
depth as well as breadth of scholarship. This can be effectively done
by the specialization which the elective system affords. The character
of the different studies chosen, however, should have a cohesive and
logical connection in order to secure concentration and attain the
best results.
The student who has had the advantages of a thorough preliminary
training for admission to college, and has done faithful work in the
required studies of the Freshman and Sophomore years, should have
acquired such mental discipline and reached such a plane of
scholarship that he is prepared for the more advanced work in special
studies looking toward his life work. He should then be allowed to
choose, within reasonable limits, those subjects for study during the
Junior and Senior years in which his natural aptitudes and modes of
thought would lead him to seek the highest degree of proficiency. This
plan accords with the German system of education at the point where
the student leaves the required work of the gymnasium and enters upon
the elective work of the university. The most aggressive colleges in
America have adopted this method, and are satisfied with the results.
The elective system is beset with difficulties. Liberty is always
subject to abuse, but the best attainments are found where negligence
and mental trifling are possible. The advantages, however, are many.
When the student decides upon a course of study suited to his real or
imaginary needs, he exhibits more enthusiasm than if it is imposed.
He is spurred on to his best effort, and develops personal power in
original work. He gains depth and breadth of training, and is better
fitted for more extended study in a university where the means and
facilities are unlimited for the highest attainments in technical and
professional training.
This is the sure way to raise up a class of experts and investigators
who will keep in touch with the sources of knowledge, and, by doing
original work, contribute something new that will widen the horizon of
knowledge and extend the empire of thought.
PREPARATION FOR SERVICE.
The function of the college is something more than developing men and
women and promoting knowledge. Its aim is, likewise, _to prepare the
student for service_. The knowledge and culture gained in college are
only a means to an end. The student must not only know something, but
be able to do something in the sphere of life. The ultimate object of
all culture is to equip a person for life's work. Milton declares that
the proper system of training is "that which fits man to perform
justly and skillfully and magnanimously all the offices, both private
and public, of peace and war;" and Herbert Spencer says that "the
function which education has to discharge is to prepare us for
complete living." And again, "the great object of education," says
Emerson, "should be commensurate with the objects of life." The mind,
placed in actual conscious relations with existing realities and
phenomena, should be prepared for the largest service. To know, see,
and learn the truth is a preparation for doing. The high type of
manhood and womanhood which a liberal culture in college aims to
promote should fit the student for every walk of life, in the family,
society, church, and state.
The purpose of a college education should be twofold--_professional_
and _humanitarian_--to prepare for one's vocation in life, and to
cultivate humanitarian sympathies for the largest service. A person
possessed of the humanitarian spirit realizes that the individual life
is rooted in God, and consequently has a broader and deeper sense of
human brotherhood, which enables him to keep in vital and sympathetic
relation with human activity and experience. When these two aims
blend, the best results are obtained, both for the individual and the
community.
Aside from the scientific passion for knowledge, there is a view of
culture, as Matthew Arnold puts it, "in which all the love of our
neighbor, the impulses toward action, help, and beneficence, the
desire for removing human error, clearing human confusion, and
diminishing human misery, the noble aspiration to leave the world
better and happier than we found it--motives eminently such as are
called social--come in as a part of the grounds of culture, and the
main and pre-eminent part."
It is to be feared that in some colleges the ideals and spirit are
such as to lead the student to place power on wealth above culture,
and social position above usefulness. Professor J. M. Hart estimates
that nearly one-half of the students who attend Cambridge and Oxford
Universities, in England, do so not for the sake of study, but in
order to form good social connections. Liberal culture should not be
sacrificed to preparing men for idle social life and paying places.
Colleges do not exist to train the students' powers for personal
benefits, but to promote culture, to the end that a larger service may
be rendered to human progress. "An education," says President Hill,
"that fails in producing lofty character, sustained and nourished by a
pure faith, may, indeed, fill the world with capable and masterly men
in their vocation; but, unless it can soften the heart of success and
open the palm of power, it only strengthens the grasp of greed, and
misses the making of noble men."
The true conception of man and his duties leaves but little room for
individualism or insolent self-assertion. No one can divorce himself
from his fellow-men and their interests without lowering and debasing
his own vocation in life, and becoming enfeebled and stunted in his
own development. "The supreme object of the college," says President
M. E. Gates, "is _to give an education for power in social life_."
Every advancement in knowledge should tend to strengthen the bonds of
human sympathy. Learning should be turned to the advantage of the
people, and thus cause intelligence and helpfulness to go together.
The great example of Christ teaches that a life of service is the only
real human life. The quality of the student's character will be
determined by his use or abuse of opportunity for service.
The very character of culture is social and beneficent. The great men
of the world have most fully represented humanity. Touching the hearts
of men, they have brought out the best of humanity in themselves,
illustrating the truth of the divine law whereby we attain eminence,
"Power to him who power exerts." The best thought not only contributes
to the fulfillment of duty, but we receive impulse and mental activity
by obedience to duty. Farrar says: "There are some who wish to know
only to be known, which is base vanity; and some wish to know only
that they may sell their knowledge, which is covetousness. There are
some others who wish to know that they may be edified, and some that
they may edify; that is heavenly prudence. In other words, the object
of education is not for amusement, for fame, or for profit, but it is
that one may learn to see and know God here, and to glorify Him in
heaven hereafter. Our education is desired that, in the language of a
Harrow prayer, we may become profitable members of the church and
commonwealth, and hereafter partakers of the immortal glories of the
resurrection." The measure and worth of a college should depend upon
the pure and forceful character manifest in its students, and upon
their willingness to employ the ability and knowledge acquired to
serve the highest good of their fellow-men. The college that does this
most efficiently will produce the best results.
When this conception of the function of a college is more thoroughly
fixed upon the attention of educators and students, it may help to
present in a clearer light some educational problems in regard to
culture and practical training in college. On the one hand, there is a
demand that the work of our colleges should become higher and more
theoretical and scholarly, and, on the other hand, the utilitarian
opinion and ideal of the function of a college is that the work should
be more progressive and practical. One class emphasizes the
importance of true culture and of making ardent, methodical, and
independent search after truth, irrespective of its application; the
other believes that practice should go along with theory, and that the
college should introduce the student into the practical methods of
actual life.
They are both, in a measure, right. There are forces at work in
society to strengthen the demand that colleges teach the branches of
industry, as well as prepare men for the so-called learned
professions. The demand is based on the worth and dignity of
intelligent labor. In fact, a scientific and technical education in
some branch of industry has already won its way to the rank of a
learned profession.
The demand for industrial education has grown out of a reorganization
of the industries and trades of the world. The great industries of the
country require men of trained minds and directive intelligence to
organize and control them. Mechanical skill is in great demand, and
workmen must be trained not merely in dexterity and skill in the use
of tools, but they must be so instructed in the principles governing
science that they shall be able to reach results of the highest
practical value in the sciences and arts. This age requires better
mechanics, manufacturers, foremen, architects, farmers, and
engineers--men whose creative genius will help to awaken the
aspirations of the race to master the forces of nature and bring in an
era of more convenience, comfort, and leisure for the cultivation of
the mind and heart.
Our systems of education are planning to meet the needs of the people.
Manual training that is adapted to youth between twelve and seventeen
years of age is incorporated in the curricula of many of the existing
public schools. Besides, we have in the United States more than one
hundred advanced schools in technology founded as independent
organizations. One-third of them have shops for laboratory practice.
The fact that such a prominent place has been given to the physical
and practical sciences in the courses of study in colleges shows that
these institutions are responding to the constantly increasing demands
of a practical age. Scientific departments have been advantageously
established in connection with our well-endowed universities. It is
both desirable and practicable to give instruction in mechanical,
electrical, and civil engineering in our high grade colleges. This
should not be done, however, at the expense of liberal culture.
How far the colleges can meet the demand for technical and practical
education depends upon their condition and resources. They cannot make
bricks without straw. Wealthy men cannot perform a more generous act
than to help establish these schools of technology in connection with
our colleges, in order to give instruction in the practical and useful
arts of life.
There is danger, perhaps, in pressing the utilitarian principle in
education too far. It is not the colleges that make the greatest show
of utility that develop the most effective men. In the effort to
secure a practical education, it is important not to lessen the power
to understand and apply the foundation principles which underlie
actual practice.
In the German universities the practical and technical are left alone.
Professor J. M. Hart says of them that their "chief task, that to
which all their energies are directed, is to develop great
thinkers--men who will extend the boundaries of knowledge." We are
under different conditions in this country, but the importance of the
principle should not be overlooked. Every one has not the desire or
ability to be a great scholar and thinker, but preparation for all the
so-called practical careers of life should at least carry the student
through the rigorous discipline of a college course up to the Junior
year, when he may elect studies of a more technical nature looking to
his life work. This is the best way to get a profound insight into
principles from which to deduce practice and promote the interests of
human society.
Professor Josiah Royce has well said that "the result of this
'conflict' between the two ideals of academic work has been the union
of both in the effort of all concerned to build up a system of
university training whose ideal is at once one of scholarly method and
of scientific comprehension of fact. For the scholar, as such, be he
biologist, or grammarian, or metaphysician, the exclusive opposition
between 'words' and 'things' has no meaning. He works to understand
truth, and the truth is at once word and thing, thought and object,
insight and apprehension, law and content, form and matter. * * *
There is no science unexpressed; there is no genuine expression of
truth that ought not to seek the form of science."
The importance of scientific theories leading to the best practical
results is illustrated in the case of Columbus, whose investigations
led him to believe in the sphericity of the earth and the probability
of land in the far West. "Adams and Leverrier discovered Neptune
simultaneously and independently, simply because certain observations
had revealed perturbations that could be most naturally accounted for
by the existence of an unknown planet." After Professor Helmholtz and
others had made known the subtle laws of the transmission of sound,
there was only a step to its practical application in the use of the
telephone.
The essential condition in all industrial and social progress is the
acquisition of judgement, skill, and foresight by patient study of
facts and principles. It is energy within the being that gives birth
to achievement in the outward sphere of practical life. It is
certainly the prerogative of the colleges to extend the best
educational opportunities to the people. It should embrace their
intellectual and industrial pursuits.
The lofty and sacred purpose to render the highest service, to advance
the welfare of men, is best reached by training men and women for
leadership. The demand for educated and influential Christian
leadership is greater than the supply. In 1890 there were about
15,000,000 pupils in the public schools receiving elementary
instruction, while only one in 455 of the population was under
superior instruction in colleges. The majority of this small number
will be among the real leaders of the country. The character of the
nation will, in a large measure, depend on the character of the
colleges which train and shape these leaders.
A comparatively few men act as leaders, frame platforms, and shape
legislation. It is quite difficult to find even this small number who
are qualified for leadership. Nearly all our political and social
reform movements are asking for a Moses, or a Luther, or a Lincoln,
to lead them to victory. Some organizations of labor are officered by
foreign born leaders who are ignorant and out of sympathy with the
moral ideas and principles that have shaped our national life. There
is a large number of imperfectly equipped men in all professions and
in social movements, presuming to act as leaders, who might well be
replaced by disciplined and cultured men, able to grapple with modern
social problems, and to conduct the people to higher thought and
nobler action. Men who are to become leaders and gain a strong hold on
society must have a good foundation of general knowledge, and be
trained to think on complicated questions. The man of thorough
training, whether literary, scientific, or practical, has an immense
advantage in leadership.
It is the prerogative of the college, in its aim to serve the people,
to extend such educational opportunities to youth as will equip them
for true leadership in every vocation of life.
The American college student should be sent forth with a purpose even
stronger than that of the Greek youth, who took the oath of
citizenship in these words:
"I will transmit my fatherland [its institutions, its
civilization, its system of education, its people], not only not
less, but greater and better, than it was committed to me."
V.
STUDENT LIFE IN COLLEGE.
Admission to college is dependent upon the mental and moral fitness of
the student. If the student has completed the work of an advanced high
school, or that of an academy, he may in many colleges pass
immediately into the Freshman year without examination. The student is
generally required to have, as a necessary preparation to gain
admission to the Freshman class, three years of Latin and two of
Greek, or an amount of modern languages equivalent to the Greek,
besides mathematics, history, and English. In some cases the
qualifications of the candidate must be such as to enable him to read
at sight either Greek, Latin, French, or German. An essay in English
must be correct in composition, spelling, grammar, expression, and
division into paragraphs.
Some favor admitting the student on trial, and giving him an
opportunity to show his fitness and worth by application to study.
Certainly the best test of the student's knowledge is the ability to
pursue advantageously the prescribed course of study.
After admission to college the student has at least fifteen hours per
week of class room work. He may select, within a limited range, his
studies. This selection is done under the guidance of the professors,
and depends largely on the acquirements or deficiencies of the
student. About three-fourths of the Freshman and Sophomore years are
devoted to the classics and mathematics. A large share of the work in
the Junior and Senior years may be devoted to specialization in
science, language, mathematics, history, sociology, or philosophy. In
some cases elocution, music, and the fine arts rightly receive a fair
share of attention on the part of a large number of students
throughout the college course.
The advantages of a college education do not consist alone in the
training of the faculties and the acquisition of knowledge, but one of
its chief advantages grows out of the incidental noble and generous
associations and influences.