John James Stevenson

“ In the old faculty, there was always some one to whom troubled students could go, knowing that he would give the best he had of advice and sympathy; and that man is present in every faculty to-day. Reasoning a priori, the number of such men should be greater now. The college professor of a half century ago was apt to be a recluse, not a man of affairs. Too often, especially in the smaller colleges, he had become teacher late in life, having been more or less unsuccessful in another profession, which, naturally, he regarded as of higher grade than teaching. ”

“ Naturally enough, trustees have come to regard themselves as the institution and the professors as merely their employees, as, indeed, has been asserted. This has gone so far that in one institution, at least until a very recent period, all appointments were for the period of one year—a plan admirably adapted to secure adherence to the powers in control. For trustees having this conception of their powers and duties, the usefulness or worth of an instructor is not measured by his ability as teacher or investigator. ”

“ There were many little colleges whose faculties were as earnest and as faithful as the best, yet one finds among their graduates very few who became even modestly prominent in any calling or profession; the reason being that they had not a strong type of people as constituency. Not the size of the college, but the type of students was responsible for the result. Colleges situated amid sturdy communities have long lists of men eminent in every kind of work. The men were there before they went to college; the elements of success were innate; no training, no education can impart them. ”

“ University faculties have rarely any direct representation in the board of trustees or before it, the common mouthpiece being the president, who, no matter how earnest and faithful he may be, is not, in the very nature of things, competent to understand all matters or to present them properly. In too many cases, the professors are not consulted even in the matter of appointments and the trustees place the responsibility for these upon the president, as though the institution were a country academy. ”

“ The curriculum in the old colleges was narrow, but it was compulsory, and its definite aim was to prepare men for undertaking professional study. Too many of the newer colleges, while pretending to be legitimate successors of the older, offer a curriculum of amazing range, music, art, pedagogy, semi-professional studies and elective courses in college work. In looking over the announcements, one is apt at times to imagine that at last he has found the ideal institution in which instruction can be obtained in almost every subject under the sun. ”

“ The vast increase in number of students has not been in the best interests of true education; too many are seeking neither knowledge nor training; too many others are unfitted by native limitations or by early surroundings; they merely limp through the course and by dint of hard labor gain little more than the minimum demanded. It would be well for our colleges, well for the men themselves, if a great part of those now on college rolls should drop out and have no successors of their kind. ”

“ As matters now stand, a lad, crammed to pass an entrance examination, but untrained in the art of thinking, is thrown into university conditions to choose his courses, though neither he nor, in most cases, his parents are competent to determine the selection. The university and the college should be differentiated and the old-time method should be revived. In that, training was the main purpose; it was not, as now, secondary to athletics or tertiary to increased numbers. This is not to say that the narrow curriculum should be revived. ”

“ The curriculum should be designed to accord with modern conditions, should deal more with what is around us and less with mere abstractions; more with matters exercising the power of reason and less with such petty niceties as linguistic problems. Such a course of study, recognizing the many-sidedness of the intellect and compulsory throughout, would be the ideal gymnasium in which to prepare a young man for undertaking professional studies or for assuming the responsibilities of business life. ”

“ The universities should confine themselves to graduate work. They should admit to their professional schools only those who have a college degree, earned not in correspondence schools or in college annexes, but by actual attendance at an institution maintaining the required standard. The country is not suffering from a famine of lawyers, physicians or even of clergymen, and the time is ripe for raising the requirements in all professional schools. ”

“ A COLLEGE-MATE recently indulged in wholesale denunciation of present conditions in American colleges; classes have grown so large that teaching is done mostly by instructors or assistant professors and students are drilled no longer by men of mature intellect; the intimacy between professors and students, which was the glory of the old college, has disappeared and with it has disappeared also the fatherly interest formerly shown by professors; the output of colleges is inferior in quality; there is no hope of improvement except in return to the small college of our youth. ”

“ Even now, though the system is, so to speak, in its infancy, graduates judge of universities not so much by the standing of the professors or by the grade of instruction offered, as by the value of the fellowships. Students about to graduate have been known to ask their professors what inducement the college offers them to remain—more than that, have been candidates for appointment at more than one institution. ”

“ But when he examines the list of teachers, surprise vanishes. If those teachers are competent, mentally and physically, to perform the task assigned in the announcements, it is no longer necessary to hark back three centuries to find a world's prodigy in the admirable Crichton; our land is full of them. These academy-colleges have little in common with the modest colleges of sixty years ago; those were substantial, these are superficial; they can not do well what they promise, for they are without equipment, and much of what they offer has no place in college work. ”

“ There remains for the college professor hardly a trace of 'literary leisure,' and even the university professor is apt to find the stress of outside duties connected with his work so exhausting that, during term time, any prolonged study beyond that which is necessary becomes irksome. ”

“ Trustees are chosen in view of their fitness to manage the financial affairs, very rarely with reference to their familiarity with educational matters; yet their board has, as of old, the power to appoint professors and even to create new chairs, thus controlling not only the selection of the faculty but also the curriculum, matters with which, in the very nature of the case, they cannot deal intelligently—as a board. ”

“ An excellent man of large means once informed the writer that he would never send his grandson to a college in which tuition is free, a?, he always paid for what he received. He was taken aback when told that, although paying a large sum for his grandson's tuition, he was still an object of charity to the extent of several hundred dollars a year, the cost per student at that institution being, as the writer knew, four times the fee. It is probable that in no college to-day is the cost less than three times the fee, and in those with small fees the cost is proportionately very much greater. ”

“ A university is not a mass of several thousand students; it is made up of small units or schools, each of which has its dean, who deals with the students directly as did the old-time president. In many institutions, the guardianship is still closer than formerly, each student being placed in direct relation to some member of the faculty, who is required to look after him. Arrangements for personal supervision and opportunities for association with teachers are many times better than they were of old. ”

“ In all probability, there are institutions with a net endowment not so great as it was thirty years ago, though showing a great increase in number of students and instructors as well as in property. The average salary is much less and the president's energies are devoted to raising money to meet the annual deficit. So it has come about that the college president of our day has duties very different from those of thirty years ago. The loss of the old-time president has been a disaster and the good of our colleges requires that he be brought back. ”

“ They seem to feel convinced that by attending the college and by securing a degree, whether deserved or not, they have placed their college under such material obligation that they should have a large voice in its control. This notion, which would be grotesque were its effects not so serious, is due perhaps to the constant hunt for students and to the prevalent opinion that the success of a college is measured by the number in attendance. ”

“ Buildings are necessary, but they do not make the college, no matter how complete their equipment may be. The college is not here to cultivate public taste in architecture or even to restore the Grecian games; primarily, its purpose is to train men for life's struggle; secondarily, to advance the world's welfare by investigation. Without a thoroughly efficient staff of instructors, the college is a farce, no matter how magnificent its plant may be, how numerous the students or the victories in athletic contests. ”

“ Editors rejoiced in the 'era of education' pointing with pride to the four hundred and fifty colleges, more or less, with about 15,000 instructors and about ten times as many students and a total income for all purposes approaching $25,000,000. Unquestionably, there is much in this of which to be proud, but the broad statement, as given in the journals, fails to emphasize the fact that this great fabric of higher education owes its existence, in great measure, to the willingness of college professors to bear a great part of the cost. ”

“ Trustees and teachers are unwilling to acknowledge that their college has no good reason for separate existence, though they know and the community knows that they know the fact. Alumni, whose only manifestation of interest in the college has been an occasional visit to a summer re-union, are apt to display a sudden and emphatic love for Alma Mater when consolidation is suggested, putting forth energy enough against consolidation to place the college on a good footing, if properly directed. ”

“ When money is received by a college, the trustees should not hasten simply to relieve themselves from their subscriptions, they should share the relief with the professors; and if, at length, sufficient money should come to relieve the actual pecuniary stress and to leave a surplus, common honesty requires that that surplus be devoted toward finally relieving the professors. That done, the time will have come to consider the question of expanding the curriculum and of appointing new instructors. ”

“ There are too many academies calling themselves 'college' or even 'university,' with high grade curriculum and low grade requirements, with long lists of pupils in preparatory classes of one sort or another and very short lists of students in so-called college classes. ”

“ When the men referred to were graduated every American college was small; even Harvard, Yale, Princeton and Columbia were small, and two of them had fewer students than are claimed by some colleges whose presidents are bombarding the generously inclined with letters, circulars and speeches denouncing the evils of great universities; on the other hand, even the smallest colleges of the older days had more genuine college students than can be found in two thirds of the mendicant concerns to-day. ”

“ One would be justified in using a harsher term than "lack of frankness." Many advocates of present-day "small colleges," with 60 to 90 per cent, of their enrollment taking non-collegiate studies, are not content to say that their work is very good; they maintain that, if one may judge the tree by its fruit, their work is far better than that done by the larger colleges. In an address delivered several years ago at the inauguration of a college president, the speaker said that of the fifteen college graduates, chosen to the presidency of the United States, two thirds came from small colleges ”