Higher education

“ What you want in order to stimulate higher education in the higher sense of the word is a staff of competent tutors supplied with ample means for advancing and furthering knowledge in every possible direction; encouragement for all efforts to cultivate sound science, and nothing but the most beneficial results will accrue to society at large. Universities, at the dawn of their existence, were, as a rule, endowed with certain rights and privileges, like moral corporations ”

“ And we can the more readily admit this, inasmuch as in the university we have a new type of institution which does have just this aim. Accordingly, since the discovery and promoting of peculiar intellectual excellence is perhaps the most obvious statement of the end of higher education, we find a strong disposition of late among those who care for the theory of education, and like logical neatness, to look forward to the day when the college as an institution shall have been shorn of its present importance. ”

“ The Universities, as representing the higher education of the country, have gone out to the people, clearly seeing that the popular desire is not for the second-best, but for the best,—only presented in forms which can be understood. ”

“ The widespread appreciation of the advantages of the higher education among all classes of the American people, and the general recognition among manufacturers, engineers and employers of labour, of the value to them, in their own work, of the services of college-trained men, has largely helped to increase the number of students in attendance at the universities and technical institutions, and to encourage in every state the foundation of schools for advanced professional training. ”

“ You will endeavour to correct these tendencies, to lead the student to value culture for its own sake as well as for what it brings, to despise mere position in University lists in comparison with his higher interests, and to look beyond the glittering and evanescent honours of a College, career to the requirements of after-life.
When the higher education is still in its infancy, When can we look for original research. we can scarcely look among you for the highest learning or for original research. ”

“ The chief aim of higher education up to the present time, in most countries, has been a preparation for the subsequent profession, and the acquisition of a certain amount of information and direction for civic duties. ”

“ The spread of varied types of secondary schools, the increasing specialisation of higher education, and the experience which all the universities of the world have accumulated as to the possibility of testing the genuineness and intellectual quality of 'post graduate' theses have had little or no effect. ”

“ There are some institutions devoted almost exclusively to professional training; whilst in others the engineering faculty exists side by side with other faculties of university rank. The general interest in higher education which is shown by the desire of students of all classes to obtain it, in many cases at considerable individual sacrifice, and by the value which masters and employers attach to a college-trained youth, is partly due to the large proportion of pupils from the ordinary schools who proceed to the secondary or high schools. ”

“ There is a disciplinary stage in education which is the requisite introduction to the higher and freer work of the university. This is the sphere of the colleges. 2. The success of the higher work depends upon the intellectual and moral qualities of the professors. No amount of material prosperity is of value unless the dominant authorities are able to discover, secure and retain as teachers men of rare gifts, resolute will, superior training and an indomitable love of learning. ”

“ In our colleges and universities, therefore, we notice the yearly increasing prominence given to the material sciences and to branches of technology, and the crowding out of the time-honored humanistic studies. These so-called "liberal arts," studied for subjective culture rather than for objective utilities, have, during the whole history of education, figured as the central and principal group of studies in higher education, and still do so to a large extent in our older colleges and in European universities. ”

“ The Three Learned Professions.—When there were but three learned professions, law, medicine, and theology, and the man of action, soldier or ruler, thought lightly of them all in comparison with his own field of activity, the higher education could be limited to those of selected classes. Now the social need is for trained talent in a far broader area, and the consequence is that not only 273is the grade-school being made over but the professional goal of college and university is being extended beyond the dreams of old pedagogues. ”

“ But you should be for ever grateful that the scheme of higher education marked out for you was at once modelled on more scientific lines than those which till then prevailed in some of the leading Universities of Great Britain, Your fathers were not limited to instruction in ancient Languages, and Letters, or in Mathematics, but they were at once given a course which compelled them to study not only Language or Mathematics, but also History and Moral Philosophy, with an option of either Natural Philosophy, Physical Science, or Logic and Mental Philosophy. ”

“ You will find therein the results of the University Examination, of which let it suffice to say that they are generally satisfactory, and prove by the increasing number of successful students in nearly all branches of study that the demand for higher education is still extending. ”

“ Historically the college in America stands as a whole for liberal education, but in its later development the standard has been advanced and the period of professional education has been lengthened until the problem presents new phases demanding important readjustments. Replies recently received from many institutions of higher learning, touching this question, show a variety of opinions. ”

“ Among other varieties of popular instruction there are the attempts at university extension, which are very familiar. The chief aim is here to utilize the teaching forces and other means of instruction of the higher educational institutions for the benefit of the great masses. ”

“ We welcome you to the university and to such advantages as it can afford, and we shall do all in our power to render your brief residence here fruitful both in experience and in knowledge; hoping also that the university may become to you, as she has to so many others, a bright light shining calmly over the troubled sea of active life, ever suggesting lofty thoughts, encouraging noble endeavors, and inciting all her children to work together toward those great ends, the advancement of knowledge and the education of mankind. ”

“ The University was governed, the University was taught, by the graduates at large. Professor, Master, Doctor, were originally synonymous. Every graduate had an equal right of teaching publicly in the University the subjects competent to his faculty, and to the rank of his degree; nay, every graduate incurred the obligation of teaching publicly, for a certain period, the subjects of his faculty, for such was the condition involved in the grant of the degree itself." Sir William Hamilton, Discussions on Philosophy and Literature, etc.: Education, chapter 4. EDUCATION: Modern: European Countries. ”

“ But generally it is admitted that college training is one thing, and work in a university is another; that thorough instruction in language, history, mathematics, natural and physical sciences, and in morals, should precede the discipline of professional schools and the pursuit of the higher and more advanced studies in letters and science. In a complete university provision should be made, according to ancient and widespread usages, for the study of law, medicine and theology ”

“ Our people, for the most part, look upon universities and other higher institutions of learning as merely schools for recruiting the learned professions, and estimate their efficiency solely by the amount of teaching-work which they perform. But, however important the teaching function of the university may be, I need not tell you that this is not its only or chief value to a community. The university should be the centre of scientific investigation and literary culture, the nursery of lofty aspirations and noble thoughts, and thus should become the soul of the higher life of the nation. ”

“ And then, the training of all these distinct classes will not be by Universities of general knowledge, but by distinct schools of such knowledge as shall be most useful for every class: in which, first the principles of their special business may be perfectly taught, and whatever higher learning, and cultivation of the faculties for receiving and giving pleasure, may be properly joined with that labour, taught in connection with it. ”

“ University education, as such, when it is efficient, has certain characteristics which differentiate it from the training of a specialist, however high the level of the teaching in the special subject may be. ”

“ The university on the other hand is specialized to fit men for a life of science and scholarship; and it is accordingly concerned, with such discipline only as will give efficiency in the pursuit of knowledge and fit its students for the increase and diffusion of learning. ”

“ For the growth and development of the study, as an instrument of education, we must look for much help to the public schools and other great feeders of University life. If they find it possible to incorporate it permanently with their course of work introductory to the University career, the men will come up better prepared for such training as we can give them, and so more and more ready to assist in the growth of the growing study. ”

“ Now the student, a young man of about twenty-one or twenty-two years, is supposed to be prepared, either to go into the world as a fairly well-educated citizen, or to continue his studies for a professional career. He finds the graduate schools of the universities ready to give him courses which lead to the degree of M.A. or Ph.D., and prepare him for the higher kind of teaching. ”

“ In an ideal University, as I conceive it, a man should be able to obtain instruction in all forms of knowledge, and discipline in the use of all the methods by which knowledge is obtained. In such a University, the force of living example should fire the student with a noble ambition to emulate the learning of learned men, and to follow in the footsteps of the explorers of new fields of knowledge. ”

“ Besides the college of liberal arts there are in most of them colleges or schools of law, medicine, engineering in its several lines, education, pharmacy, dentistry, commerce, industrial arts, and fine arts. ”

“ Although not a University at all, it has put educational influence, atmosphere and ambition into the homes of the people, which will lead many thousands of youth to seek the education which colleges and universities supply. ”

“ To her keen insight the University stood revealed as the great panderer to this latest century’s obsessing idea that the true function of education is expressed in the imparting of changing, human information and a training for the business of earning one’s daily bread according to the infamous code of the world’s carnal social system. ”

“ It will ask much more than that,—a college education where the work is done in earnest, students and teachers realizing its serious value, and besides all this, it will demand the best special training which its best universities can give. ”

“ As the university course would include the professional courses, students would thus come out at twenty-three or twenty-four years of age equipped thoroughly, so far as our educational institutions can equip them, to cope successfully with the important problems and duties of active life.
It will be seen that for the thorough application of such an outline of study, each institution, of whatever grade, should aim to do its own work most thoroughly and well, and attempt no part of that of an institution of a higher or lower grade. ”

“ There are very few in all the history of education who have insisted as he on the important principles of the necessity for careful training, for the maintenance of high standards in examination and degree-giving, and for the endeavor to bring the large universities in intimate contact with the {144} small ones, to the benefit especially of the latter, though, as we know now, always also to the reactionary advantage of the important institutions. ”

“ So that, while the higher learning still remains as the enduring purpose and substantial interest of the university establishment, the dominant practical interests of the day will, transiently but effectually, govern the detail lines of academic policy, the range of instruction offered, and the character of the personnel; and more particularly and immediately will the character of the governing boards and the academic administration so be determined by the current run of popular sentiment touching the community's practical needs and aims ”

“ Instead of an academic staff made up of those who professed to teach some special branch of knowledge, these colleges had a master and fellows (or tutors) , men who were fit to teach others those rudiments of higher learning in which they had themselves been taught. ”

“ Only when the professional schools are real graduate departments, requiring under-graduate training for admission, is the university doing its work properly. This was the rule in the past--hence the precious lessons for the present in the story of these old-time universities. ”

“ The candidates for university degrees will, as we have already explained, be supplied by colleges affiliated to the universities. These will comprise all such institutions as are capable of supplying a sufficiently high order of instruction in the different branches of art and science, in which university degrees will be accorded. ”