_EDITORS_
WALTER EDWARDS HOUGHTON, JR.
LAIRD SHIELDS GOLDSBOROUGH
DAVID GILLIS CARTER
MORRIS TYLER
NORMAN REGINALD JAFFRAY
_BUSINESS MANAGERS_
GEORGE W. P. HEFFELFINGER
WALTER CRAFTS
_Leader_
It would be difficult for even the most blindly ardent supporter of
Yale to deny that the traditional four-year course for the degree of
Bachelor of Arts no longer remains intact. There are probably fewer who
realize that an ever increasing number are receiving that degree after
completing a course that has had little or no relation to the field of
learning to which, by its very title, it is closely related.
Disintegration of the long established College curriculum has been
going on ever since the war. It began with the introduction of the old
“Select Course” of the Scientific School into the Academic curriculum
under the imposing title of Bachelor of Philosophy. This innovation
was followed shortly by the institution of the Common Freshman Year.
Furthermore, if a student now intends to become a lawyer, he may devote
an entire year (and that his Senior year) to the study of law--and yet
graduate as a Bachelor of Arts. Likewise, if an undergraduate desires
to devote his life to the practice of medicine, he may start as early
as Sophomore year, spending most of his time in the laboratories on
Prospect Hill scrutinizing the hidden mechanism of feline organs--and
still graduate as a Bachelor of Arts. In other words, assuming
that the Freshman year is not very different from what it was in
ante-bellum days, which is not the case, one-third of every class in
Yale College is now graduated as B.A. men without more than a three
years’ “exposure” to the subjects which, in the eyes of the world, are
customarily associated with that educational label.
The reason for this state of affairs may be fairly stated in a single
word--vocationalism. This utilitarian mania for taking the short-cut
to one’s life-work has been in recent years the ideal of a large
portion of American college men, and has left its mark on almost every
educational institution in this country, by forcing them to change
their curricula to meet the demand. Harvard long ago yielded to the
pressure of vocational demands in the matter of time, permitting
graduation in three years. It was not long after that Columbia took
still more drastic action by allowing admission to her graduate
schools at the end of Junior Year. In so doing these institutions were
unconsciously practicing the methods of the Correspondence Schools and
the twenty-lessons-in-your-home concerns whose business it is to supply
the needs of those who seek the short road to the payroll. The liberal
colleges endeavoring to provide such short-cuts by making inroads on
their liberal curricula are untrue to their genius and merely challenge
impossible competition.
It may be argued that this desire for specialization at the earliest
possible moment was the natural result of the ever increasing
complexity of modern life and the bewildering ramifications of
present-day knowledge which forced the bulk of undergraduates to accept
isolation in a single subject. This may be quite true, yet there
remains the question of whether or not it is the place of the college,
and in particular Yale College, to offer that opportunity even in part.
The recognized place for specialization is the graduate school. The
graduate student works presumably in a special atmosphere created by
the common labors of a common group for a common end; the end being
a particular degree desired because it has come to signify that the
bearer of such a symbol has mastered the details of a recognized
branch of learning. A graduate school is the most suitable medium
for accomplishing the task in hand. It is the only reason we have
post-graduate schools at all.
The existing situation in the college is exactly the reverse. Those who
are working for the B.A. degree and nothing else are carrying on side
by side with what are in reality pre-medical students and first-year
lawyers. Out of this have sprung two separate points of view on the
same campus. On the one hand there is a group which pursues its studies
with the realization that upon the complete mastery of every detail
depends in a large measure the success or failure of its life-work. On
the other, there remain those who are still searching in their work
for that particular field which to them will seem to be the one to
which they wish to devote their future time and energy. The result is a
repetition of the old story of the house divided against itself. It is
just this condition, we believe, that has led to such restless, groping
questionings as, “What is Yale for?” The definition of a university as
being one body of which there are many members admirably illustrates
the point. For the college to-day is in the anomalous position of
attempting to perform the duties of two members where it formerly
functioned as one. Such a state of affairs is not conducive to the
health of any organization whatever.
The solution in the minds of many seems to lie in the abolishment
of the old college course, following the law of the survival of the
fittest. This issue of our present afflictions we believe would be a
regretable blunder. There should always be a place for the study of the
so-called liberal arts; for the contemplation of “all the best that has
been thought and said and done in the world”. Without such a background
many a man cannot do his best work. What place is better fitted to
continue this undertaking than Yale, established in this spirit, as
attested by the words of the founder, “I give these books for the
founding of a college”? Professor Mather in a recent address summed up
the ideal of the college in these glowing terms:
“The college does its work alongside a dozen other equally worthy
educational institutions, mostly vocational. It does not compete with
them; it directly supplements them and incidentally aids them. It has
its own aims, which are not immediately practical, vocational, or
material.
“I should like to see inscribed over our college portals the following
inscription:
“‘Generous Youth! Enter at your peril. We may so quicken your
imagination as to bring you loss as the world counts it. There may be
a great inventor in you now, there may only be a poet in you when you
leave us; the captain of industry in you may give place to some obscure
pursuit of philosophy; you are literary, we shall leave you forever
incapable of best sellers; you are philanthropic, we may develop the
detached critic in you; you are politically shrewd and practical, we
may bring out the Utopian visionary in you. For our values are not
those of the world of work, with which we can only incidentally help
you to make terms--our values are those of the world of thought. We
shall make you contemporary of all ages, and since you must after all
live in this age, such an extension of your interest and imagination
may make you an exile in your own day and place. We offer you no
material reward of any sort for your effort here, we may even diminish
the rewards you would enjoy if you kept away from us. We offer you
nothing but what we ourselves most treasure--the companionship of the
great dreamers and thinkers. Enter if you dare. Should you enter, this
college will be indeed to you Alma Mater. All that we have shall be
yours.’”
In short, the duty of the college is to give its members their
intellectual bearings. What the prospective lawyer really needs to
broaden his horizon and prevent him from succumbing to the bondage of
his shop, is letters, science, mathematics; what the future doctor
needs is letters, art, history, and the unbiological sciences. This
ought to be the function of the college. To continue along any other
line is to destroy forever the Yale that has held such an enviable
place in American life for over two centuries--to extinguish the light
that has been a source of guidance and inspiration to its large and
distinguished band of alumni.