Student government

“ THE STUDENT COMMUNITY HAMILTON WRIGHT MABIE '67 A very interesting and significant feature of university life in the early days was the great part played by students in the scholastic community. They were not only included in the group described by the word "faculty," but they were charged with administrative and executive functions. The movement toward self-government, which has already borne fruit in many of our colleges, is in no sense a modern influence; it is a return to a condition widely prevalent in the early history of university organization. ”

“ To prepare citizens for a democracy the organization of the college itself must be democratic. If it be true that we learn to do by doing, the student should learn at college to be a citizen of a free state, not alone by precepts or academic instruction, but by the experience of membership in a free college community. ”

“ Each State plan shall demonstrate that the State has developed and is implementing a single, statewide accountability system to ensure that all public school students graduate from high school prepared for postsecondary education or the workforce without the need for remediation. ”

“ The youth intrusted to their tutelage are soon to take part, if not as legislators, at least as freemen, in the government of our common land. May the dignity and duty and exceeding privilege of an American citizen be impressed upon their minds by all the influences that rule this place! Trust me, Alumni, the country will thank the University more for the loyalty her influences shall foster, than for all the knowledge her schools may impart. Learning is the costly ornament of states, but patriotism is the life of a nation. ”

“ With administrators ordering the institution, and faculty the curriculum, the student learns by his isolation to accept elite rule within the university, which prepares him to accept later forms of minority control. The real function of the educational system--as opposed to its more rhetorical function of "searching for truth"--is to impart the key information and styles that will help the student get by, modestly but comfortably, in the big society beyond. ”

“ The establishment of the free public high school and the state university represent the crowning achievements of those who struggled to found a state-supported educational system fitted to the needs of great democratic States. Probably no other influences have done more to unify the American People, reconcile diverse points of view, eliminate state jealousies, set ideals for the people, and train leaders for the service of the States and of the Nation than the academies, high schools, and colleges scattered over the land. ”

“ Without recourse to such compulsion the state is free to compel attendance at school and require teaching by instruction and study of all in our history and in the structure and organization of our government, including the guaranties of civil liberty which tend to inspire patriotism and love of country. ”

“ It is not to be taken for granted that the particular regimen of studies, best fitting the student to pass the entrance examinations of a college or university, is the best possible for the nine out of ten students, who go directly from the high school into the world, and must fulfill some measure of moral leadership for American democracy. ”

“ If no other purpose could be attained by raising the standard and broadening the scope of{582} such of our colleges as aspire to the rank of universities, and of sending to them all of our young men who sincerely desire a liberal education, there would be the enormous gain, to each student, of association with men of his own kind. Such association elsewhere is almost impossible in this land of scattered population and magnificent distances. ”

“ If a student works as a reading tutor, colleges will no longer be required to pay one-quarter of that student's work-study costs. With today's actions by these college presidents, and with the steps we are taking to help them, college students can now work their way through school by teaching our children to read. That is how we will take more responsibility, create, more opportunity, and build a stronger, more united community for all Americans. ”

“ Every government depending upon a two-class school system must of necessity draw its leaders in the professions, in government, in pure and applied science, and in many other lines from the small but carefully selected classes its universities train. In a democracy, depending entirely upon drawing its future leaders from among the mass, the university becomes an indispensable institution for the training of leaders and for the promotion of the national welfare. ”

“ I am quite prepared to say further that those youths who pass through the better class of secondary schools are well entitled to make the claims put forward by the fully-fledged public school boy; and the time is certainly not far distant when such pupils will be everywhere freely admitted to the universities and positions under the government, which has hitherto been the case only with scholars from the public schools—of our present public schools, be it noted! ”

“ Yet thousands annually complete their school education, who have never devoted any time to the study of the principles of the government in which they are soon to take a part--who become invested with political power without the preparation necessary to exercise it with discretion. The schools are regarded as the nurseries of our future statesmen. They share largely in the bounty of the state; yet few of them render in return even the rudiments of political science to those who are to become her legislators, and governors, and judges. ”

“ In order to give a proper impulse to study, by securing protection for it, some insist that the full control of public instruction should be given to the government of each country, to be carried on by Ministers of State, or public boards; others attach so much importance to the development of the intellectual faculties, that they call for compulsory and gratuitous education, in order to give a great degree of culture to all classes ”

“ The standard of collegiate instruction will at once rise many degrees, the college teacher will become a more useful member of society, as will also the college president, harmony instead of discord will reign among the three branches of the college government, and all three will be in a position to make a united and effective attack on the educational problems that are calling for solution. ”

“ The school system and its relations to local authorities, on the one hand, and to the general government, on the other, form a vast and difficult subject involving not merely pedagogical principles, but also such aims as the maintenance of higher learning, the dissemination of useful information, and the practice of indispensable arts. In university lectures a few words on such topics suffice, since young men who accept a school position assume, at the same time, obligations which for a long time to come prescribe for them the path they must follow. ”

“ I would see young men and women go out into the world with a true democratic spirit, with a ready sympathy for all classes of people, and with a helpful attitude toward all problems of state and society. The work of any public institution of higher learning is a failure in so far as its graduates fail to honor the state’s claim on them as citizens. ”

“ In the next place, you can raise the standard of your classes, you will make your pupils work seriously, get a good name for your college, and end by having more students. Sensible people will always send their children to institutions that insist upon hard study and rid themselves of idlers.
Another difficulty which I must notice regards the action, or rather inaction, of the state. It is a pity that our government, with all its fuss about education, does so little real honor to higher education. What is the necessity or emolument of a diploma from a college? ”

“ In advocating greater freedom from clerical influence, and more breadth in the relations between the authorities and the graduates in the government of the colleges, we presume that he is treading on delicate ground. In our smaller institutions we have long since adopted the principle he recommends. Our national universities will become before long the property of the nation, and not of a sect, and be governed in deference to law, by their own alumni, without any privilege but that which is earned by distinguished ability. ”

“ The anonymous author argued that the Government should confine its operations to promoting elementary education, leaving all higher education to be organized on the voluntary principle and to be paid for by those who value it. ”

“ The purpose of university education is totally different. The interest of the Republic is, indeed, that it should maintain the very highest and best provision for advanced instruction, general, scientific, and technical; and it is also in the highest interest of the Republic that its fittest young men and women should secure such instruction. No republic, no nation in fact, possesses any other treasure comparable to its young citizens of active mind and earnest purpose. ”

“ The plea is that the state university, as the only fit organ of the state, must first of all not merely consent to train men for the professions that serve the masses, but that it must demand this right. Of course we are assuming that the state is not a poverty-stricken one, and that it is not fighting for a bare existence. Secondly, the state's university must insist on giving its students a broad education. By this is meant that all students should not only be trained toward a professional career, but that they should also have the elements of a liberal education. ”

“ In all our education proposals, we've tried to make a fundamental change in the way the Federal Government helps students to meet their goals. Instead of prescribing detailed rules and regulations that schools have to follow, as the Federal Government has done in the past, we've tried to show that it's the responsibility of individual teachers and students and communities, with the help of our National Government, to work hard to make good lives for themselves. ”

“ Just this week, our national service program cleared its final hurdles and now will clearly become law. That means 100,000 young people will have the chance to help America's communities while helping themselves pay for a college education. ”

“ At the head of the free university of the United States is the president, with a governing body and a board of trustees elected from members of the university; they appoint teachers, prescribe schedules of study and examinations, and conduct its business. True, the state cannot relinquish its right to oppose a system of teaching dangerous to the common weal; it will also provide that those to be licensed to practice the professions possess the necessary education and training; but the state refrains from further interference in the management of free universities. ”

“ Again, if the students and the college in general with a fuller measure of academic freedom and an increased sense of their social responsibility would reconsider the curriculum and methods of instruction in the light of democratic principles, many wholesome changes could be brought about. ”

“ That is, they should be students, who are learning and teaching, and teachers who are instructing and learning.
So, all in all, a state university should be a group of men and women who are trained, and are in training, for service in the actual life and problems of the state; who are becoming intelligent in their work, and who are preparing to help the state solve its present and future problems, as true state's men and state's women, servants of the commonwealth and leaders in the constructive, democratic life of the state. ”

“ The denominational college and university compete with the work of the state institutions, and infringe upon the right and duty of the state to attend to the intellectual training and preparation for citizenship of its youth. The specious argument may be presented that these private institutions, founded in the past to accomplish the twofold task of educating ministers for the ministry and citizens for citizenship, still exist for the sake of helping out with the educational work of the country, the great task of the state colleges and universities. ”

“ Until we know a little better than we do at present what we are doing and why we are doing it, it might be well to move slowly in legislating for or against specific subjects. The university should keep in mind the fact that the high school has other duties to perform—and possibly more important ones—than preparing a few students for the university. ”

“ Well, if the potsherds of the earth may be permitted to strive with each other, why not the colleges?—if the boys of the street may pitch pennies for the sake of winning them, why should not the students secure a little pelf by a trial of skill with their tongues?—all we ask is that the policy shall be formulated and recognized. We hope that in future the advocates of the perfection of our college system of culture will consent to regard it as a composite system working in various ways, and appealing to divers motives for the attainment of its ends. ”

“ The most obvious fact about these universities, perhaps, lies in their integral relation with the public schools, whereby the pupil has pressed upon him the question whether he shall go to college, and whereby the road is made open and direct to the highest training. By this means the State offers to every class the means of education, and even engages in propaganda to induce students to continue. It sinks deep shafts through the social strata to find the gold of real ability in the underlying rock of the masses. ”