Charles University

“ A little before the restoration of Charles the IId, he became a gentleman commoner of queen's college in Oxford, and lived in the provost's lodgings; and was entered in the public library, under the title of philosophiæ studiosus, in July 1660. He quitted the university without being matriculated, having, according to the Oxford antiquary, been reconciled to the protestant religion, which he had renounced during his travels, probably by the person of those gay ladies, with whom he conversed in France. ”

“ It sends out on an average about twenty graduates a year in the various departments, science, literature, mechanic arts, and agriculture. The bane of a State university is politics, and in the West the hand of the Granger is on the college, endeavoring to make it “practical.” Probably this modern idea of education will have to run its course, and so long as it is running its course the Eastern colleges which adhere to the idea of intellectual discipline will attract the young men who value a liberal rather than a material education. ”

“ The general intention is to give a practical industrial education. The collegiate department, a course of three years, has 77 pupils; in the preparatory department are about 200; but the catalogue, including special students in art and music, the medical department at Little Rock of 60, and the Normal School at Pine Bluff of 215, foots up about 600 students. The University is situated in a part of the State most attractive in its scenery and most healthful, and offers a chance for every sort of mental and manual training. ”

“ In organization and scope of effort Harvard has grown, especially after 1869, under the direction of President Charles W. Eliot, to be in the highest sense a university; but the “college” proper, whose end is the liberal culture of undergraduates, continues to be in many ways the centre of university life, as it is the embodiment of university traditions. ”

“ It has a magnificent new Science building, and will have excellent shops and machinery for the sciences (especially the applied) and the mechanic arts. The system is elective. A small per cent, of the students take Greek, a larger number Latin, French, and German, but the University is largely devoted to science. In all the departments, including law, there are about six hundred students, of whom above one hundred are girls. There seems to be no doubt about co-education as a practical matter in the conduct of the college, and as a desirable thing for women. ”

“ The systematized enlightenment of the farmers in the farmers’ institutes by means of their vital connection with the University needs the steady direction of those who are devoted to it, and not to any party success. As to education generally, it may be said that while for the present the popular favor to the State University depends upon its being “practical” in this and other ways, the time will come when it will be seen that the highest service it can render the State is by upholding pure scholarship, without the least material object. ”

“ No one should be admitted unless he satisfies the tests of ability, and no one should be allowed to remain unless he satisfies the authorities that he is using his time to advantage. The idea of the university as a place of leisure where rich young men loaf for three or four years is dying, but, like Charles II, it is an unconscionable time about it. ”

“ Charles was admitted to Merchant Taylors' School, 1776, and thence elected to St. John's College, Oxford, 1785, of which society he became fellow in 1788. He graduated M.A. 1793, and B.D. 1796. In 1795 he was elected by the university professor of Anglo-Saxon on the foundation of Dr. Rawlinson, being the first to hold that office, and he occupied it for the allotted space of five years. Dr. ”

“ It will be readily admitted, that a degree conferred by an university, ought to be a pledge to the public that he who holds it possesses a certain quantity of knowledge. ”

“ Technology, '68, in 1872 marks a definite period in the history of this department. He found himself associated with two other men who had been instructors for a short period under Professor Wood, J.B. Davis, '68e, Assistant Professor of Civil Engineering, who became Professor of Geodesy and Surveying in 1891, and Charles S. Denison, Vermont, '70, who was to be in later years Professor of Stereotomy, Mechanism, and Drawing. These men saw the Department grow almost to its present proportions, and, as the first Faculty, formed a most harmonious combination of unusually varied elements. ”

“ Harvard and Columbia Universities have for several years maintained an exchange of professors with the Prussian government, and both universities have recently made similar arrangements for Paris. Columbia has had at least one visiting professor from Copenhagen, and Wisconsin has recently obtained a Karl Schurz endowment for German professors. Each of our leading universities has lectureships which are frequently filled by foreign men of science and scholars; and there are certain extra university courses, such as the Lowell lectures in Boston and those of the Brooklyn Institute. ”

“ Upon its foundation the chief aim was announced to be the development of instruction in the methods of scientific research. The influence of this institution upon the development of higher education in the United States has been incalculably great. Johns Hopkins was not a transplanted German university. The unique place of the college in American education was shown by the fact that graduate schools have followed the lead of Johns Hopkins in building upon the college. Even Clark University at Worcester, founded in 1889 upon a purely graduate basis, established an undergraduate college in 1902. ”

“ Whenever a college has a chair to fill, it is necessary to hunt far and wide for a suitable person to fill it. The demand is not from the old places alone. Almost every year a new college is founded. Every year the old ones grow. In twenty-five years Harvard has quadrupled its staff. Columbia, Cornell, Princeton, Yale, the University of Michigan, the University of Pennsylvania,—indeed almost every strong college 118 in the country,—shows an immense advance. ”

“ Leading Washington out of account, a laboratory for research might perhaps be best established in connection with some good university—like Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Michigan, or Cornell. It would then be already provided with a library and a building-lot, some apparatus at least would be ready to hand, and a strong social element would aid in the attraction of scientific men. Moreover, with such affiliations, the laboratory would often be able to secure good volunteer work from advanced or post-graduate students; an advantage by no means to be despised. ”

“ The lectures, as a rule of admirable learning and thoroughness, invariably laying great and prosy stress on "development," are delivered in large halls and may be subscribed for in as many faculties as the student chooses, the cost being about thirty shillings or there-abouts per term for each lecture "heard." Outside the university the student enjoys complete independence, which is a privilege highly (and sometimes violently) cherished, especially by non-studious undergraduates, under the name "academic freedom." ”

“ These three elements, represented by the bachelor's degree, the doctorate of philosophy and the professional degrees, are variously combined and developed in our different institutions; and this certainly gives great flexibility and possibilities to university development. The foundation of new universities—Cornell, Johns Hopkins, Stanford and Chicago—and the enlargement of the resources of private and state institutions have greatly favored progress and differentiation. We have no one kind of university, but many types, each seeking to work out its own salvation. ”

“ The state universities naturally show a tendency toward the German university system.
In America the college has been frankly maintained in accord with Platonic ideals. A full rounded manhood, drawing its power from each chief source of knowledge, and prepared in a general way for every practical activity, has been the aim. The American college is dear to the people, and it has done much to make strong men who have powerfully influenced the nation. There are, however, various tendencies which are likely to modify the whole organization of the American university, including that of the college. ”

“ The study is largely restricted to preparing the student for his advanced professional and technical work. The university goes further and arranges its courses of study so as to supplement the instruction given in college and direct the student in an advanced grade of work in any department of intellectual life. The courses have the broadest scope and embrace departments in liberal arts, law, medicine, theology and science, each having a faculty composed of able professors. ”

“ As for the state university, it will allow the widest range of free electives, and as an university it will aim to comprise within itself every possible department of practical activity, such as business administration, journalism, banking and finance, foreign trade, political science, psycho-analysis, mining, sanitary engineering, veterinary surgery, as well as law, medicine, agriculture, and civil and mechanical engineering. ”

“ Not only do two distinct institutions differ in the scope and character of their questions, but the same university varies its demands from year to year. The only safe course to pursue is, therefore, a generally comprehensive one. ”

“ Though the graduates of the earlier American colleges had a certain influence on the policies and growth of their institutions, it is only within the last twenty-five years that these associations have become a factor of recognized importance in every university. ”

“ Among the graduates of Princeton, which has always ranked with Yale and Harvard, stand some of the most distinguished men in American history. The university consists of the academic and graduate departments and of John C. Green School of Science, the last including departments of science, civil engineering and electrical engineering. ”

“ Most of them have been mentioned elsewhere, but it may not be amiss to suggest some of them once more; such as the emphasis on modern science, with the parallel classical and scientific courses within the academic department; the wide range of elections eventually introduced; the early inauguration of professional and graduate schools; the introduction of seminary and laboratory methods; the admission of women; the diploma system of admission from the high schools; and the recognition of the claims of special students.
Until within recent years also, the University had no marking system. ”

“ Columbia University early announced that a university situated in such a city, full of problems at a time when "industrial and social progress is bringing the modern community face to face with social questions of the greatest magnitude, the solution of which will demand the best scientific study and the most honest practical endeavor," must provide facilities for bringing university study into connection with practical work. In 1901 definite practical courses shared honors of first place with the elementary or general course in college announcements. ”

“ Professor Chamberlin, of the University of Chicago, who opened the discussion, spoke of the importance of endowing in connection with universities not only chairs and departments but also special schools and colleges of research. He said that instead of the colleges of the English universities, devoted mainly to personal education, the ideal university should be an association of colleges of research for the benefit of mankind as a whole. He also held that we need independent institutions of research and endowments for the coordination of research. ”

“ With these plans rapidly evolving there is every reason to hope that, at no distant period, the University may find an imposing physical setting more in keeping with her standing among American universities. ”

“ Not only was there a steadily increasing enrolment, but there was a distinct increase in the number of advanced courses, as well as in the time given by teachers to graduate instruction and to research work, which greatly strengthened the prestige of the University as a center of higher education. ”

“ Thus, though the University throughout its whole history necessarily has had to recognize the first claims of the students for instruction, often of a somewhat elementary character, there have always been influences which have kept the ideals of higher scholarship constantly in view. In the older days the idea of research in its modern sense was hardly understood; but as the atmosphere of European learning began to pervade American academic life the double function of a true university came to be more clearly recognized. ”

“ The college—the university as it in time came to be—early broadened its scope, but it has from the first continued to aim at the needs of those unable to secure education without such help as, through its methods, it affords.
It was chartered in 1888, at which time its numbers had reached almost six hundred, and it has ever since had a constant flood of applicants. [Pg 137] "It has demonstrated," as Dr. Conwell puts it, "that those who work for a living have time for study." ”

“ I hope that not merely morals, but, in some degree at all events, manners, will be cultivated in this University; and we, a handful of people, who spend comparatively enormous sums every year on primary and secondary education, shall have additional reason to be proud when we see the effects of the University now inaugurating being spread throughout the land. ”