Undergraduate studies

“ If the best use of our colleges is to give young men a wider openness of mind and a more flexible way of thinking than special technical training can generate, then we hold that philosophy (taken in the broad sense in which our correspondent uses the word) is the most important of all college studies. ”

“ 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. ”

“ None of our graduate schools require any course in education or teaching methods, or any previous experience in teaching work for a Ph. D. degree, except, of course, in the field of education, where theory is cultivated, if not practised. May it not be found that the best method to increase the teaching efficiency of the undergraduate instruction in colleges and universities will be to provide every graduate student with definite and detailed instruction in teaching methods for his chosen subject? ”

“ The “appointed” and “recognized” teachers in each group of subjects form the various faculties of the university. Of these there are eight—theology, arts, law, music, medicine, science, engineering, economics and political science (including commerce and industry) . Each faculty elects its dean. Courses of study are to be provided by the university for its “internal” students, i.e. those who pursue their studies in one of the schools of the university. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The work of the university is organized in seven undergraduate courses, partially elective, leading to the bachelor's degree in arts, science, pedagogy, philosophy, mining, and both civil and electrical engineering. ”

“ 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. ”

“ There is far too much effort at variety rather than thoroughness in study. However hard both professors and students may labor, it can not be possible in a four-years' course to fill a lad, who has previously had but a common-school education, with a satisfactory knowledge of Latin, high mathematics, Euclid, history, English grammar and composition, chemistry, organic and inorganic, geography, geology, mechanics, electricity, polarization of light, and various other studies usually required for the master of arts honors examination in a British university. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It must be admitted, we hope, by critics, candid and impartial, that the M.A. and M.Sc. courses should not take the form merely of a more thorough undergraduate course conducted on very similar lines and methods. ”

“ This prevalence of the spirit of research is the reason why, as the Report of the Dean of the Graduate School points out, the Philosophical Department has a larger number of graduate students who have carried on graduate studies elsewhere than any other Department of the University. The table of the Dean which records these migrating graduate students who come to us for advanced work after graduate studies at other universities, is as follows: Mathematics 6, Natural History 7, Political Science 7, Modern Languages 11, Classics 14, History 15, English Literature 16, Philosophy 20. ”

“ The importance of subjects undertaken for Post-Graduate study and research in this University has never been considered to be absolutely dependent upon the number of students that those studies may attract. Such a narrow and superficial view of the scope of activities of higher teaching cannot certainly commend itself to men of judgment and wide academic experience. ”

“ 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. ”

“ But great changes have been made, and are still making, in the degree of previous qualification.
‘Still, it would be premature to say, that there is any one of the American universities where classical knowledge, or even science, is profoundly attained, even at the present day. Some of the professors push their studies, for a life, certainly; and you well know, after all, that little short of a life, and a long one too, will make any man a good general scholar. ”

“ But the majority of students, it is to be expected, will avail themselves of the permission accorded to them to specialise to a greater or less extent their studies after they have passed the First Examination in Arts. ”

“ 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 great increase in the numbers of the gentlemen who come up for these lower stages leading towards the degrees suggests always to one interested in the advancement of learning that the preparatory studies for this University ought to be made wider, deeper, and more complete than they are. ”

“ A narrow mind is thought to be that which contains little knowledge; and an enlarged mind, that which holds a great deal; and what seems to put the matter beyond dispute is, the [pg 130] fact of the great number of studies which are pursued in a University, by its very profession. Lectures are given on every kind of subject; examinations are held; prizes awarded. There are moral, metaphysical, physical Professors; Professors of languages, of history, of mathematics, of experimental science. ”

“ The want of college training, and especially of the indirect advantage of association with men whose favourite studies lie in different directions, and who possess very different kinds of ability, was partly counteracted by the wide range of subjects in which candidates for degrees were required to pass. ”

“ The establishment of universities will offer considerable further inducements for the attainment of high proficiency, and thus supply the place of the present senior scholarships, with this additional advantage, that a greater number of subjects in which distinction can be gained will be offered to the choice of students than can be comprised in one uniform examination for a scholarship, and that their studies will thus be practically directed into channels which will aid them in the different professions of life which they may afterwards adopt. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I believe that an honest observer of the highest institutions for learning in our land, whether they were founded for the interests of young men or young women, will remark that there is too small a chance for grouping studies, and that the opportunities for choosing electives are too few. The American idea is, to get through the academy or college, and graduate with a diploma, rather than to pursue a study till such time as those who know most about that branch of learning shall deem a student ready for entrance upon higher work. ”

“ Every one has not the desire or ability to be a great scholar and thinker, but preparation for all the so-called practical careers of life should at least carry the student through the rigorous discipline of a college course up to the Junior year, when he may electPage 151 studies of a more technical nature looking to his life work. This is the best way to get a profound insight into principles from which to deduce practice and promote the interests of human society. ”

“ The curriculum of the university conceived in the Great didactic is universal in character, making provision for a wide range of studies in every branch of human knowledge. The university must possess learned and able professors in the languages, sciences, and arts, as well as a library of well-selected books for the common use of all. One of the fundamental aims of the university106 is to widen the domain of knowledge through original investigation ”

“ He is led to undertake creative work, and become an active, intellectual producer, with aspirations to widen the horizon of thought and weave the best results of his discoveries into the warp and woof of the social organism.
Page 135The steps leading up to the important period in the student's life where research is for the sake of fruitfulness are traceable in the historic development and requirements of college studies. In nearly all the colleges there is manifest a growing spirit of freedom in pursuing a course of study. ”

“ At universities in the ordinary sense of the word there are not more than ten thousand students and the remainder is added in order surely to include all those who may be considered as doing undergraduate work in colleges and schools of various kinds. ”

“ When the higher grades are reached, the pupils take more and more optional studies, and less and less required. And, as the curriculum widens toward the end of the course, the linguistic and scientific studies yield more and more to the inclination of the parent or the pupil, until the post-graduates of the high-school, as well as of the university, severally fall into chosen specialties, as their tastes and preparation may dictate. ”

“ There is no doubt at all about the value of the undergraduate training, nor of the scholarship of the men who were turned out under the system, nor of their ability to concentrate their minds on difficult subjects—a faculty that we strive to cultivate in our time and do not always congratulate ourselves on securing to the degree, at least, that we would like. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is frequently claimed that the undergraduate is incapable of wisely choosing a specialty, and that hence specialization should come after a four-year course,—i.e., in the graduate school or by self-instruction after graduation. ”

“ No technical studies or professional training can be substituted for this scholastic training. The professional man especially needs this general culture, in order to escape the danger of concentrating and contracting his intellectual interest. Colleges may vigorously adhere to these scholarly requirements, and yet advantageously introduce the elective system. The student must have depth as well as breadth of scholarship. This can be effectively done by the specialization which the elective system affords. ”

“ If the student would or could do this reading by himself, without formal requirement or assistance, there might be little need of undergraduate teaching of literature; but every one who knows much of American college conditions knows that the average undergraduate has neither time, inclination, nor ability for such voluntary reading. ”

“ Those who looked forward to a University degree, or any career in which public examinations must play an important part, were placed on the "Collegiate" side, and trained accordingly in the necessary classics, mathematics and physics, which would fit them for matriculation, or as candidates for certain scholarships. ”

“ Scarcely any of those who have taken honours during the last few years, have come to their examinations from "private study," and sixteen out of the twenty who have taken the degree of Bachelor of Science are from the colleges connected with the University. ”