THE AIM OF THE UNIVERSITY
"All public institutions of learning are called into existence by social
needs, and first of all by technical practical necessities. Theoretical
interests may lead to the founding of private associations such as the
Greek philosophers' schools; public schools owe their origin to the
social need for professional training. Thus during the Middle Ages the
first schools were called into being by the need of professional
training for ecclesiastics, the first learned profession, and a calling
whose importance seemed to demand such training. Essentially the same
necessity called into being the Universities of the Parisian type, with
their artistic and theological faculties. The two other types of
professional schools, the law school and the medical school, which were
first developed in Italy, then united with the former. The Universities
therefore originated as a union of 'technical' schools for
ecclesiastics, jurists, and physicians, to which division the faculty of
Arts was related as a general preparatory school, until during the
nineteenth century it also assumed something of the character of a
professional institution for the training of teachers for the Secondary
School."[41]
Thus the early aim of the University was, as it still continues to be,
to provide the training for the after-supply of those services which the
State requires at the hands of her theologians, her jurists, and her
physicians. In Germany, and to some extent even in our own country, the
Arts faculty of the University is ceasing to perform the function of a
General Preparatory School to the professional schools, and is becoming
an independent school, having for its aim the preparation of teachers
for the Intermediate and Secondary Schools of the country. In Scotland,
indeed, it serves at the present time as a Preparatory School mainly to
the theological faculty. As the Secondary Schools of the country become
more efficient, better differentiated, and better organised, the need of
a Preparatory School within our Universities will gradually become less,
and the University will be able to devote more of her energies to the
training of students preparing for some one or other of the above-named
professions. With this change the philosophical studies of the Arts
faculty will become increasingly important, and the method of teaching
the linguistic and scientific studies receive a larger share of
attention than they do at present.
But the other and perhaps the more important function of the University
is to carry on and to extend the work of scientific and literary
research for its own sake. This is the dominant note of the German and
American Universities of to-day. The emphasis is laid not so much upon
their function as schools for the supply of certain professional
services, but upon them as great national laboratories for the extension
of knowledge and the betterment of practice. In Great Britain, and
especially in Scotland, this conception of the function of the
University has not received the same prominence as, _e.g._, in Germany,
where the intimate union of scientific investigation and professional
instruction gives the German Universities their peculiar character.
Indeed, in the latter country the tendency at the present time is rather
to over-emphasise the function of the Universities in furthering
scientific and literary research to the neglect of the other and no less
important aim. Two dangers must be avoided. In the first place, whenever
the chief emphasis is laid upon the Universities as mainly schools for
professional training, the teaching tends to become narrow and dogmatic.
The teacher ceasing to be an investigator, gradually loses touch with
the spirit of the age, and as a consequence he fails adequately to
perform the duty of efficiently training his students for their after
life-work. In the second place, when the emphasis is laid strongly upon
the function of the University as an institution for the carrying on of
scientific and literary research there is the danger of again lapsing
into the old fallacy that knowledge for knowledge' sake is an end in
itself, that the object of education is to acquire and organise systems
of means which function in the attainment of no practical end, and that
the acquisition of knowledge is valuable for the culture of the
individual mind apart from any social purpose which the knowledge
subserves.
The University must therefore ever keep in view the two aims, of
advancing knowledge not for its own sake but in order that future action
may be rendered more efficient, and of adequately training for
professional services.
But to the older professions for which the University prepares there
have been added during the past century other vocations or professions
which need and demand an education no less important and no less
thorough than the education for the well established recognised
professions. The need for the higher training of the future leaders of
industry and the future captains of commerce has been provided by the
organisation and establishment of technological schools and colleges.
The establishment and organisation of the "Technical University" has
been more thorough in Germany than in this country. There we find
established newer institutions, of which the Charlottenburg College is
the best known and most important, for the higher education of those
intended in after-life to perform the more important industrial services
of the community. These institutions both in their organisation and
instruction are constantly approximating in type to the older
Universities.
The recently established Universities in the North of England attempt,
with what success it is too early yet to declare, to combine both aims
of training for the older and newer professions. In Scotland the latter
work is largely undertaken by the Technical Colleges, and in these
institutions the increasing need is for the extension and development of
the Day-school course.
One other question of some importance remains for brief consideration.
In our own country, but more especially in Germany, there is a tendency
at the present time to effect a complete separation between the work of
the University and the work of the Technical College.
This separation has arisen partly through the operation of external
historical conditions, but it has also arisen partly through the
tendency in certain academic circles to look down upon technical
knowledge and ability as something inferior. The exclusiveness and the
torpor of the older Universities in many cases has been a further cause
tending to the creation of the Technical College separated from the
University.
Such a separation, however, is good neither for the University nor for
the Technical College. The former in carrying out the aim of scientific
research and of the extension of knowledge requires ever the vivifying
touch of actual concrete experience, and this it can only obtain by
keeping in close contact with those whose chief function is the
application of scientific knowledge to practice. The latter in carrying
out its more practical aims requires, if it is to be saved from the
narrowness of mere specialisation and from degenerating into empirical
methods, the constant co-operation of those whose outlook is not
narrowed down to the immediate practical end, but takes in the subject
as a whole, and whose chief function is the better systematisation of
knowledge.
Hence, while the aim of the University is different from that of the
Technical College, they are so intimately correlated that neither can
reach its fullest development without the aid and co-operation of the
other. The Technical Colleges should be the professional schools
attached to the scientific side of the Universities. Moreover, this
division and separation is economically wasteful, since the general
training in science which must precede the practical training has to be
carried on both in the University and in the Technical College.
In Scotland this separation has not advanced to such a stage as is the
case in Germany. In any further reorganisation of university and higher
education it is earnestly to be hoped that the Day Technical College
will find its rightful place as an integral part of the University, and
that the latter may realise that her function is to further and extend
the bounds of knowledge in order that practice in every sphere of life
may be rendered more efficient.
FOOTNOTE:
[41] Cf. Prof. Paulsen, _The German Universities_, p. 111 (Eng. Trans.).