VOL. XXVIII

NO. 8

A Proper Classification of Colleges.

As a result of the establishment of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, there has been more careful and intelligent scrutiny of educational conditions in the colleges of the country than had ever before been attempted. We are at last in a fair way to know both the actual status of the so-called higher education, and to ascertain which of the multitude of "colleges" and "universities" are what they pretend to be. At the very beginning, the trustees of the fund were brought face to face with the question what should constitute a college in America, in order to bring it within the range of their proposed influence. To make their list of "accepted institutions" they have had to consider all from the point of view of educational standard, as well as of denominational or State control. The working standard set up defines the requirements for admission, the scope and length of the curriculum, and the minimum equipment of professors to constitute a "college" within the intention of the Foundation.

Similarly, the General Education Board has had to examine carefully the conditions of college education. With its increased endowment it will have still further to extend these investigations. It will be essential, in this case also, to fix a standard of educational purpose to which both existing institutions and those to be created shall conform. Both of these foundations will thus tend to the defining more acurately than has been done the place and purpose of the college in the American system of education, and of letting in the light upon the manner in which that purpose is carried out. And

there is apparently need of better knowledge of the hap-hazard conditions that still prevail in the "colleges" and "universities" scattered broadly over the United States. The name signifies nothing, for, as the Carnegie report says, "it is not uncommon to find flourishing high schools which bear one or the other of these titles."

The administrative boards of the two funds plainly have it in their power to help determine fundamentally what shall constitute the college in America. It is within their province to insist, for their purposes upon certain definite requirements for admission, a curriculum leading in certain definite directions, and an adequate organization and equipment. Wholly aside from the question whether this or that institution is to benefit by one or the other of these funds, this is an opportunity that has not been before presented for the college to assert itself for what it really is.

The larger institutions may need no such stimulus. The smaller institutions of the country, however, frequently do need precisely such a spur to higher purpose and result. To many of them, too, the assistance of the General Education Board will come to raise them out of ruts into which they may have sunk through no fault save that of environment. The educational mission of the land, so far as the higher education is concerned, is largely in the hands of the small colleges, and not the great universities. The latter, from the very nature of the case, appeal directly to the few, and are destined to be few; while the former are many, and in the future are certain to be more. To make a college education widely available means the

presence of a large number of colleges scattered throughout the country. It does not matter that these many colleges are small, so long as they do actual college work. The lack of the lavish, and often bewildering, opportunity for selection in the choice of subjects presented by the universities with their unwieldy classes, is partly offset by the more definite character and clearer-cut purpose of the narrower range of courses offered, while the smaller classes mean closer contact with the teacher and with one's fellows.

The small college, to seize its chance and take its proper place in the system of education that is surely coming in the United States, must, nevertheless, be a college in fact. It is not necessary that the colleges shall be all alike, for historical development and specific environment will differentiate them, and it will often be best for them to maintain their characteristic individuality. Their courses of study may vary indefinitely; and whether they favor an elective system, a prescribed system in whole or in part, or a group system will make little difference, provided they have a teaching equipment sufficient to attain their ends. Their admission requirements, however, from Maine to Mexico, should be substantially the same at any rate in those essentials which mark the beginning of the higher as distinguished from secondary education.

As a matter of fact, the best results have not always been attained at those seats of learning where there has been the largest endowment. When Balliol led all the Oxford colleges, in the matter of scholarship, her fellows were miserably paid, and Jowlett was contributing from his own purse to keep the college alive. Even now, when England is lamenting her educational poverty and is looking with envy at the vast sums devoted to education in this country, her universities are attracting students from every part of the world. We seldom read of magnificent gifts to the smaller fresh water colleges in the United States; but graduates of these institutions hold their own in competition. Perhaps the greatest danger in the tendency to magnify wealth

in a university lies in the example set to the under-graduates. If they see their president making obeisance to rich men, they may lose something of that democratic sentiment which is as essential to academic as to political life and progress.

As the college should not be turned into an athletic club, the members of which have to be scrutinized to determine whether they are amateurs, neither should it be a city of refuge whither the millionaire may run to advertise himself and get a degree to his greater glory, but to further cheapening of academic honors.

of the latter, and advocated the endowed universities as opposed to the state schools.

"I am unwilling to say a word of criticism," he said, "against the system of state universities. They are rendering magnificent services to the country. Ĭ nevertheless think that if the tendency to localize learning went to an extreme our teaching of science and literature would lose half its benefit." But upon the subject of the state university as compared with the endowed university of the east President Hadley continued:

"The history of our country, in every department of national life, is a story of interaction between the east and the west. The history of collegiate education is no exception to this general rule. Until the early part of the nineteenth century the work of higher education was done by a few colleges in the east. These were with few exceptions sectarian or narrow. The founding of state universities introduced wider views. Virginia. began this movement, but it was soon taken up by Michigan and other western states. For more than half of the nineteenth century the state universities of the west stood for a broader conception of university training than that which generally prevailed in the east. They were not always able to realize that con

the sectarian colleges and the state college the latter represented the broader and more progressive ideal.

"But in the last forty years the eastern universities have undergone a great change. They have lessened their denominational ties. They have widened their conception of what a college should do. They have so increased their endowment that they can offer a greater range of subject and appeal to more types of men. They differ from the western institution not so much in the things they teach as in the character and traditions of the student body.

"These endowed universities of the east are national, the state universities of the west are by contrast local. This difference is almost inevitable. State universities are supported by taxation. They form in a large sense part of the public school system. Under these circumstances it is impossible for them to charge large fees to students that come from the state itself. Some take no charge at all. Others, like Michigan, impose a moderate fee. But in no case, I believe, is the charge nearly as high as in the corresponding grade of institutions in the

east.

"We do not want the republic of letters to be organized too sharply on state lines. We need to have places where the best men from different parts of the country can see each other and know each other, can toil together and play together, and can form a coherent public sentiment which shall prevent the possibility of that disruption in thought which alone creates the danger of political disruption. This element in our system, this safeguard in our national life, is furnished by a great endowed university like Yale. A university is something more than a group of schools. It is an atmosphere charged with traditions. You cannot create such an institution in a day or a year, no matter how great its endowment and how able its professors. The effect of this atmosphere and this tradition is much needed in America at the present day."

In conclusion President Hadley ap

pealed to the graduates to wean away the best men of the west from the state universities and start them towards the eastern schools.

"There are enough good western men to go around at the eastern colleges," he said, "and the good men will come to you if, by your influence in the public life, and business life, and professional life of your several centers, you make it clear to the rising generation that it is a mark of distinction and an evidence of power to be known as a man from Yale. It is for us and for you so to shape the ideals of the future that a man who bounds his generosity by municipal lines or by state lines shall be regarded as a man of restricted vision, ignorant as yet of the full glory of our opprtunities as citizens of a common country."

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The Springfield Republican of a recent date takes up a discussion of the probDean West on lems of a higher education in America. "American Liberal The discussion is Education." based upon a little volume which has recently been published by Scribners entitled "American Liberal Education," written by Dean Andrew Fleming West of Princeton graduate school. The Republican's account is in part as follows:

The business of getting an education. has complicated itself since the days when the old-fashioned college course was the single road that was supposed to lead everywhere. It was a road, to be sure, which "practical" men did not always approve of; there were others beside Horace Greeley who lumped college students with "horned cattle." Complaint was made of the preponderance of book-learning; practical America gives fuller sanction to the excellent technical institutions which have so greatly developed during the past generation. So far as training can be made practical the graduate of one of these institutions, whether in civil, mechanical or electrical engineering, seems to be soundly equipped, and no fault, it would seem, could be found with such an education on that score. "It is a common criticism that graduates of technical

schools are narrow, and that, while suited for subordinate positions, they are not so well qualified for high administrative positions as college men. The writer believes that, taken broadly, this criticism is unsound; that is to say, he does not believe that the average college man is better fitted for administrative work or is any broader than the average technical graduate. Nevertheless he believes that there is much suggestiveness in the charge, and that the technical schools may profit by considering it." On the other hand we find Dean West criticising the technical schools for doing so little for science: "The technical aspects of the sciences taught have tended more and more to create a demand for strictly technological instruction to the exclusion of the theoretical and nontechnical aspects. It is this cause more than any other which has tended to restrict the energies of schools of science to the production of experts in the various mechanical and chemical arts and industries and has caused them to do so little for the advancement of pure science."

It is not needful here to discuss the soundness of either criticism, so far as it touches the work of our best technical schools. There can be no doubt, however, that there is a very strong tendency in this country toward a kind of practicality the ultimate wisdom of which may be doubted even on the ultilitarian side. It manifests itself in a spirit of contempt for studies the wage-earning value of which is not immediately apparent; and it often seriously cripples development. The country is full of stenographers who studied shorthand because it is "practical" and neglected English which is really ten times as practical; of clerks who studied bookkeeping and neglected books; of draftsmen who learned young to copy other people's work and will never do any of their own; of half-trained experts of every kind, who have a mechanical dexterity in their own field, but no solid foundation of useless things to build opOn. And this short-sighted policy has become a real menace to American education in all grades from the primary to the graduate school.

It is clear that the relations at pres

ent between the colleges and the professional schools are not quite happy, chiefly because of their unfortunate overlapping of ages and of kinds of work. The author suggests as a solution that all professional schools should exact as an entrance requirement two years of college work. But this is on the face of it irregular and illogical. What is really needed, apparently, in our educational system is a new degree-a degree corresponding somewhat to the French "bachelier." It is such a degree as might naturally come at the time when the education sharply divides-when in all colleges, or almost all, increased opportunities for electives are offered, and studies of a broader character are undertaken. It would be something between a high school diploma and the degree of bachelor of arts-a certificate that the foundations are soundly laid and that the student is equipped for undertaking special studies of whatever character fits his needs. If such a degree became universally established it would become the most important of academic degrees next to that of doctor; which would mark the completion of work, as the new degree would mark the completion of preparation for work. The degree of bachelor is too much or not enough; it does not certify to efficiency, and involves too protracted studies to be required as a starting point for professional studies. There is no reason to fear that the conferring of such a degree would rend the college course in twain; it would merely draw a sharper line between lower and upper class-men, and give a dignity and sense of responsibility to the latter which would not at all be a disadvantage. And those who had taken the lower degree might well, even in college, begin serious studies leading toward the special career before them.

Dean West, like many other observers, is not quite satisfied with the later developments of post-graduate work. This is a comparatively modern thing in American college life-a generation or so ago the colleges had little to offer beyond the four-years' course, and there was small demand for post-graduate studies. There has been a great change, but the complaint is made that the post

graduate courses are little more than fitting schools for teachers; that they are narrowly specialized and are resorted to for professional rather than humanistic ends. It is at this point, perhaps, that American universities can least challenge comparison with those of Europe; the graduate schools, which give a university its character, are weak and lack influence. As the author says: "No aggregation of professional and technical schools makes a real university because such an aggregation lacks its vital center, its faculty of arts and sciences, which alone can maintain the universal standards of knowledge in all their exactness and vigor." But while these other schools will always flourish so long as there are men seeking to be educated in order to make a profitable living, "graduate work in liberal studies cannot be maintained on this basis." To study to make a living "is not a scholarly end." And when a graduate school becomes an employment bureau, "a sordid motive enters, and it is in danger of learning to be a school devoted to the cause of truth and knowledge."

As a result of present conditions the standards of knowledge in graduate work are threatened by "an unenlightened specialization." There should be some consideration of the intrinsic value of the thing studied. It is not enough in the larger economy of things, that it brings a degree, and that the degree brings a tutorship. It is not specialization in itself to which Dean West objects, but the study of the unimportant, whether it takes the form of investigating trifles, or of proving the obvious by solemn statistics.

If the graduate schools of most of our universities are not all that could be wished, it is due in part, no doubt, to this stunting specialization. Yet a deeper reason is to be found in the small and diminishing appeal which scholarship for its own sake makes: "The attractions of a scholar's life are not relatively as great as they were a generation ago, nor is the honor paid to the schools so great in our land as in the older civilization of Great Britain, France and Germany." And SO the responsibility ultimately

comes back upon the nation and the nation's ideals.

Report of the Harvard Union.

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The reports of the treasurer, the governing board and the library committee of the Harvard Union, which were presented at the annual business meeting, show that the year is in every way a successful one for this important institution. The treasurer's report shows a loss of $538 in the restaurant, a great improvement over last year when the loss was nearly three thousand dollars. The loss in the restaurant is made up by a gain of $559.79 in the cigar counter. The total loss was $484, as compared with $2,040 last year. The total expense of running the Union for the half year ending February 28 was $26,167.54.

A gain of nearly 100 in the membership over the figures at the end of the last college year accounts in part for the increased revenue. On March I there were 2,166 active members, while on July 1, 1906, there were 2,093. Of the active members, 1,957 charged their dues on their term bills at the purser's office, as they are permitted to do by vote of the corporation.

The most striking success of the year has been in the entertainment feature. Among the prominent speakers who have given their services to the union have been President Roosevelt, Secretary Shaw, Jacob A. Riis, Hon. John D. Long, William J. Bryan, Dr. W. T. Grenfell, Booker T. Washington and Mr. F. Hopkinson Smith. Large audiences have been present at nearly every address. Another popular feature has been the serving of tea in the living room every afternoon from four to six o'clock. A daily average of 125 cups of tea indicates that the members appreciate the privilege. An effort will be made by the governing board to make the corridors more attractive by lining them with rubber plants and palms. A number of these have already been ordered and will soon be delivered. The junior dance which was held in the union in February was even more successful than the preceding ones, and insures the continuance