THE HIGHER EDUCATION OF THE CENTRAL WEST

T

CHARLES F. THWING,

PRESIDENT OF WESTERN RESERVE UNIVERSITY.

HREE types of the American college or university, in respect

to origin and control, are emerging: One ecclesiastical or denominational; one private or popular, springing from the people in its unorganized relation; and one State, arising from the people in its organized relation. These three types are not perfectly distinct. The ecclesiastical or denominational type may also be private or popular, and the private or popular form may also be denominational. Under the general law of the State a member of a certain church may found a university; it is thus made a private or personal foundation. If founded for service through the Baptist or Presbyterian Church, it is governed by a Board of Trustees of which the members are affiliated with the Presbyterian or Baptist Church, and is a denominational college or university. Again, an institution belonging for a time to one type may come to belong to another. Harvard and Yale were founded by and for the Congregational Church. Their special ecclesiastical relations have long since passed away. This transformation from one type to another may be so gradual that at certain times it would be difficult to affirm whether an institution were more denominational than private, or more private than denominational.

Than denominational, the popular and the State forms of higher education prevail more or less fully in different parts of the United States. In the older Northern States the private or popular college still predominates. In the older Southern Commonwealths it has an influence at least equal to that exerted by the denominational college. In the larger part of all the Commonwealths west of the Alleghanies the State institution holds a place superior to that of the denominational college.

The relations of the institutions of these three types to each other are in different conditions in the several sections of the country. In New England the relations are, on the whole, fixed, though developments in the University of Maine have been the cause of some disturbance during the last few years. In the older Southern sections, the State institutions dominate, and their leadership is commonly, though not always, admitted. In the Western Commonwealths, the relations are not fixed. Constantly subject to change, they engender discussion which, as the president of a State university has said to me, is sometimes "unworthy of a high-minded man.' And yet such characterization is not to be commonly applied. The govern

Copyright, 1904, Frederick A. Richardson, all rights reserved.

ing boards of practically all the institutions of the higher education between the Ohio and the Sacramento are eager to discover and to put into force principles and methods which will make for the enlargement and enrichment of all the people, and not simply for the betterment of their own immediate constituency. Each, to be sure, is concerned for its own prosperity. It is thus that general advancement can best be secured; but not one of them would purchase its own growth at the cost of the wider good. As the presence and power of the three types of institutions differ in different parts of the country, so also do they differ in different States of any one part. The relations of the University of Maine to the three other colleges of Maine are unlike the relations of the University of Vermont to the other college of Vermont. The relations of the University of California to the other institutions of California are unlike the relations of the University of Michigan to the colleges of Michigan. In certain Commonwealths, as Ohio, Wisconsin, Iowa and Indiana, a private and denominational college gained a secure place through general usefulness before a State institution was founded. In other Commonwealths, as Michigan, Nebraska and Kansas, the State institution held from the first in an administrative and educational leadership which it still maintains unchallenged. In Illinois and California personal foundations have recently been made, which have brought, among many other blessings, increased prosperity to the universities bearing the names of their great Commonwealths.

But among the hundreds of the colleges and universities which may be called Western has specially prevailed: to wit, a tendency to increase. the power of State-endowed and State-supported education. This increase has touched the lower no less than the higher education, and the expense involved has been heavy and constant. But seldom does the American people complain of paying taxes for the support of education, provided it can be assured that the money is honestly collected and effectively expended. The amount of money which the State Universities spend every year is sufficient to give a sense of pride to every patriot, though of course the sum is a pittance compared to the millions which we appropriate to the building of a navy.

The State Universities of the Central West are each spending from $400,000 to $1,000,000 in an academic year, while, with a few exceptions, the more conspicuous of the private institutions are spending between $100,000 and $200,000. These and similar comparisons prove that advance has been made in institutions of each of the three types. The financial statement is at once an element of progress and an indication of progress in other than financial lines. The record for all colleges is indeed magnificent. But I suppose that relatively the greatest progress has occurred in the State

institutions. It seems that the people dwelling in the several Commonwealths of the Central West have determined that the higher, as well as the lower, education shall not be left to the occasional generosity of the philanthropist, be he ever so wise or so generous, nor to the zeal of a church, be that church as progressive as the Methodist or as widely conservative and as thoroughly committed to education as the Congregational or Presbyterian; they have determined that they, in their formally constituted and legally established capacity, they themselves shall constantly, and generously, and completely take charge of the higher education. This movement, too, is apparently only a part of the still wider movement which shows itself in vast socializing processes and industrial combinations and consolidations. The whole educational progress or regress moves to and fro in sympathy with all the tendencies of life and of living.

In the making of any adjustment or re-adjustment of the forward forces of the higher education in the Central West, it is easy to find the single principle which should prevail. That principle is the welfare of all the people, and not the people of one State only, but of all the United States, and not only of the United States, but of the world; their welfare, too, not during the present year or decade only, but through all the future. The old Utilitarian principle, the greatest good of the greatest number, and, one may add, for the greatest length of time, represents the only sound and defensible policy.

The first thing which occurs to one in considering the forces of the higher education in the Central West and their adjustment to each other and to all human conditions, is the great number of institutions for the higher education. One may, of course, exclude institutions which have a name but no real existence, institutions, too, which have the title of college or university which are doing the work of high schools. But even after these eliminations have been made the number that remains is still vast. In most of the Commonwealths of the Central West is found what is generally called a "College Association," a society made up of the colleges of the Commonwealth which by common consent are recognized as the best. The total number of such colleges in the Central West is about one hundred and fifty, a number which seems too large for the population. Multiplicity of colleges means colleges small in numbers of their students, and colleges poor in purse, and colleges poor in purse mean colleges inadequate in equipment and insufficiently manned; colleges small in number of students may do better work for this small number than colleges large in numbers may be able to do for the many; but certainly poverty and its necessary consequences are not the usual elements of collegiate strength and value.

But let it be recognized that the presence of many colleges has certain

advantages. Chief among these is the opportunity for local influence. The Chancellor of the University of Nebraska, who has served as a teacher in a small denominational college, Denison University of Ohio, as a teacher in a large university, Cornell, as well as the chief executive of Brown University, says out of his wide experience: "The average denominational college possesses three points of conspicuous and indubitable usefulness, in which neither the great State university nor the great private university can vie with it. Precisely the smallness and the numbers of these institutions which make them the sport of thoughtless heads, open to them a vast and unique mission. The little colleges dotting the country up and down are the inland recruiting stations for the learned world. By their aid a vast number of ingenuous youth, who, but for such lowlier light plants of science would receive only common-school education, beam out as shining stars in the firmament of learning. The clientele of every school, large or small, is mainly local. Young people of the vicinity see a near-at-hand college, hear more or less about it and its work, now and then meet students from it, and thus, little by little, become inspired to seek at it or elsewhere liberal learning. If only the few large teaching centres existed, this influence would be most narrow, whereas now it pervades the country. The power of this sort which the little college in your country or congressional district exerts in the regions about it is, in the course of years, imBesides the students of the smaller institutions who pass from them directly to the work of life, numbers who attend become fired with ardor for learning and press on to universities or professional schools, building up their mentality until they become members of the World's great Academy. This recruiting power of the local college is assisted by the low cost of living and the simple manners which prevail in it. To be economical is more fashionable at a small college than at the average large college."

mense.

The small colleges, as Dr. Andrews says, are forced to give "an instruction characterized by intensity and thoroughness within a restricted range. The very limitation of such a community is helpful to the opening of intellectual life, and, in certain lines, to its continuance. A youth studying amid a vast concourse of students, taking all sorts of studies higher and lower in diverse departments, is often bewildered and discouraged. So various aspects of thought, science, literature, philosophy and practice being crowded upon his notice, he feels himself too weak to grasp them or too insignificant mentally to make his educational effort worth while. If, on the other hand, the mental word as first presented to a young scholar seems comprehensible, not infinitely above and beyond him, the vision of it, instead of appalling him, lures him on. No doubt there are brilliant pupils whom such restricted initial vision of the thought-world harms. Assimilating

at once all the knowledge in sight, they think they will have mastered the truth when they have just begun, harboring a sense of familiarity in their mental attainments, when these are in fact extremely meagre. But those geniuses are so rare that this defect in small colleges does little to counterbalance the intensity and thoroughness to which I have adverted.”

For better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, this vast number of colleges is here. They are a part of the problem. If they were not here, there would still be a problem, and perhaps a harder one than that which is now set for us.

In attempting to solve the problem of the mutual relation of the different colleges of the Central West, this obvious idea must be borne in mind; each institution should do that work which, by environment or endowment, or by its own historical heritage, it is best fitted to do. This work should be its primary duty. Other work which it is not so well qualified to do may represent a secondary duty.

There are three kinds of work which the State University is specially fitted to do: first, technical; second, advanced scientific or graduate; third, professional, excluding the training of clergymen and excluding the training of teachers. In the first kind is included all the work for the training of engineers, who serve society in the betterment of its physical and material conditions. In the second kind is included every form of research. A scholastic value of the highest significance for the progress of men and for the development of the forces of the earth and of the air. In the third kind is included the training of those to whom is specially committed the duty of promoting the personal rights and developing the personal powers of each individual.

There are at least three reasons why the State-endowed, State-supported institution should regard the doing of these three kinds of work as a primary duty. One reason is found in its expensiveness. The scientific studies and pursuits are far more costly than the linguistic, the historical and the philosophic. The library necessary for purely human studies is less elaborate than the laboratory necessary for the study of chemistry or of physics. Scientific experiment is the most expensive form of research. The professional study of medicine, with hospitals, and of pedagogy, with practice schools, represents a vast equipment and a large cost in administration. Such expense is so great that only the whole body of people, in their largest pecuniary relation, is able adequately to meet it. Any one of these three forms of education,-technical, advanced scientific, or professional,—the private university might be able to assume; all of them, a few of the oldest and ablest universities do take up and carry forward with great strength and to noble results; but in the newer States and the less well-to-do, in which so