Undergraduate education

“ But his words truly express the aim and tendency of the best university teaching. It belongs to the spirit of such teaching that it should nourish and sustain ideals; and a university can do nothing better for its sons than that; a vision of the ideal can guard monotony of work from becoming monotony of life. But there is yet another element of university training which must not be left out of account; it is, indeed, among the most vital of all. I mean that informal education which young men give to each other. ”

“ The elective principle was broadened so as to bridge the gaps between preparatory school and college, and underclass and upperclass years, giving the student in his underclass years a broad general training in subjects deemed fundamental to real education, and in his upperclass years requiring him to follow continuous work in one of three divisions of studies, the literary-philosophical, the historical-economic, or the mathematical-scientific. ”

“ In connection with higher education there are such new tendencies as university extension, correspondence courses, summer sessions, university interest in the practical problems of the people, the correlation of the first two years of college with the secondary school, more flexible entrance requirements, an increasing number of fields of professional work, and, above all, the professional training of teachers through Departments of Education, Teachers Colleges, and Schools of Education. ”

“ There is little doubt that elective courses of study are a recognized necessity and benefit. It remains, however, an open question what studies should be required and what elected, and when the work of specialization should begin. If we keep in view the fact that the primary aim of a college education is to elevate and broaden the student by training him to clear and exact thought and accurate observation and expression, we will see that, whatever the course or subject of study chosen, it is only the means to this end. ”

“ College training aims to develop the student's ability to observe accurately, to think logically, and to express his ideas clearly and effectively—all of which is vital to good special feature writing. In addition, such a course gives a student a knowledge of many subjects that he will find useful for his articles. A liberal education furnishes a background that is invaluable for all kinds of literary work. Universities also offer excellent opportunities for specialization. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Not only should we adhere to our faith in university education, but we can find reasons for raising the standard of a part of university work. Even now, no student should receive a professional degree who has not previously obtained at least a complete high-school education; and the time may come when, in all institutions, at least two years of college life will be required as a basis for a doctor’s or a lawyer’s degree. Graduate courses have become a prominent feature of many American universities, and year by year larger numbers of students seek higher degrees. ”

“ 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. ”

“ A very large majority of those who enter our colleges are desirous of acquiring that knowledge, as well as discipline, which will prepare them most thoroughly for some one of the learned professions: it is a course preparatory to one still higher,—a gateway by which the industrious and sagacious may with greater ease traverse the long and winding avenues of science. Of a more general nature is the object of that instruction provided by the State for all, because it is designed to fit them for a greater variety of duties, and the chief of these duties is that of living justly. ”

“ In short, many a lad of fifteen or sixteen who has been taught in a good school has it quite in his reach to take a university degree at eighteen or nineteen, and then enter on his professional studies and duties with all the advantages of a completed education. ”

“ It will be remembered that the undergraduate courses constitute for many of those who plan to teach in the secondary schools the sole opportunity for specialization. For them the undergraduate curriculum affords essentially a professional training, and subserves exactly the same function as does the graduate school for those who are preparing for collegiate positions. ”

“ Some of these opponents have gone so far as to assert that the customary college degree, Bachelor of Arts, stands as definitely for Latin and Greek as the degree M.D. stands for the study of medicine. Now, inasmuch as the college is the school in which, according to the best authorities, our young people are expected to gain a higher degree of education than the lower schools, academies, and high-schools can give them, the question. What constitutes the basis of higher education? ”

“ Where many are rather apt to suppose that sufficient is done by a school education for the practical and rougher life, which is the lot of many here, I am sure that all present value the higher training to be alone obtained in a university. ”

“ THE future of higher education in America depends upon the position we shall grant to the college and university professor. The growing conception that the faculty—not buildings, nor advertisements, nor pyrotechnic display—but the faculty, makes the school is bound eventually to be accepted. ”

“ You have no general knowledge, no intellectual interests, you haven't even opinions, and at the end of four years of education you will march up and be handed a degree—Bachelor of Arts! Magnificent! And we Americans have a sense of humor! Do you wonder why I repeat that our colleges are splendidly organized institutions for the prevention of learning? ”

“ What are the aims? At present the secondary school’s main function is to give sufficient training in the humanities, in mathematics and science, to enable pupils to pass the entrance examination of a university. (We may for the purpose of the present [23] argument disregard the social activities of the school.) In other words, its business is to produce scholars of the intellectual type fitted for university training. It is true that art, handicraft, domestic science, and physical exercises appear in the curriculum but they occupy more or less subordinate places. ”

“ Inasmuch as the majority of undergraduates who study education in a college department intend to go into the practical work of teaching, it is important to fortify them, as well as possible in the brief time which they devote to the subject, concerning the best means of securing definite results in education. The majority are not so much interested in the abstract science or the philosophy of education as they are in its practical problems. ”

“ 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. ”

“ And now the undergraduate will emphasize study. But a sharp line must be drawn between study that looks forward merely to the A.B. degree as the end of schooling and the beginning of business, and study that is a part of professional training, that looks forward to some professional degree at Commencement or to matriculation in a graduate school. ”

“ The Arts student may, and often does, select courses that are not the most appropriate for high school teaching: for example, instead of a course in adolescence he may select one in child study which deals only with the child in the grades. Instead of a special methods course in the subjects he plans to teach in high school, he may select a course in methods in elementary subjects; and he may not take any course in secondary education nor have any practise teaching in the Model High School. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In accordance with these principles, the object of the system of college education in America has always been development and discipline of character, and the broad preparation of the student for his subsequent special or professional pursuits. ”

“ Even in freshman and sophomore years the arrangement of studies is often left to the choice of the immature student. In one of our oldest universities there is at present only one prescribed course of study. For the rest, the students are allowed to choose at their own sweet will, and their choice, while dictated by a variety of motives, is influenced in no small degree by the preponderance of emphasis, both in buildings and faculty, upon technical education. Students are left to flounder about in their selection of courses, guided neither by curriculum nor life purpose. ”

“ While it is the work of science and scholarship, roughly what is known in American usage as graduate work, that gives the university its rank as a seat of learning and keeps it in countenance as such with laymen and scholars, it is the undergraduate school, or college, that still continues to be the larger fact, and that still engages the greater and more immediate attention in university management. ”

“ Others, take certain prescribed courses, and certain optional courses in pedagogics, during the third and fourth years of their ordinary graduate work. The degree entitles to a life-certificate to teach in any of the public schools of the State. It is noticeable, in connection with the prescribed courses in this University, that the study of education, historically, comes before the consideration of theory or philosophy of education and its application in school work. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In the Normal course, special attention is given to those studies which will furnish young men and women with the education needed in the various branches of business life open to them, and which especially will qualify them as teachers, for which there is, and must continue to be, a great demand. In the Collegiate Department—which includes, among other studies, the higher Mathematics, Mental and Moral Philosophy, and Latin—a higher grade and wider scope of studies will be added so soon as there is a demand for them. ”

“ Instruction will be given in all the studies preparatory to entering College, or, if desired, in any of the higher branches of a classical education. The subscriber pledges himself that no effort shall be wanting on his part to promote both the moral and intellectual improvement of those who may be confided to his care. ”

“ What counts toward the advancement of learning and the scholarly character of the university is the graduate work, but what gives statistically formidable results in the way of a numerous enrolment, many degrees conferred, public exhibitions, courses of instruction -- in short what rolls up a large showing of turnover and output -- is the perfunctory work of the undergraduate department, as well as the array of vocational schools latterly subjoined as auxiliaries to this end. ”

“ Whatever course of study properly belongs to a secondary school is also a good preparation for higher education, else either secondary or higher education is seriously in error. Whenever a youth decides to take a college course, he should find himself on the road toward it. No one can doubt that in the coming years pupils having pursued properly arranged high-school courses must be admitted to corresponding courses in higher education. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The best claim that a college education can possibly make on your respect, the best thing it can aspire to accomplish for you, is this: that it should help you to know a good man when you see him. This is as true of women's as of men's colleges; but that it is neither a joke nor a one-sided abstraction I shall now endeavor to show.
What talk do we commonly hear about the contrast between college education and the education which business or technical or professional schools confer? The college education is called higher because it is supposed to be so general and so disinterested. ”