The American college occupies a distinctive place among the educational systems of the world. It differs from the English and Scotch systems, and is diverse in form and purpose from the German university system. The American college signifies more than the EnglishGrammarschool, the FrenchLycéeor the GermanGymnasium, and its course of study is broader and more comprehensive. The Germangymnasiahold the place of our high schools and academies, and their course of study carries the student through what is an equivalent to our Sophomore year in college.
The colleges established in the early history of our country were shaped in somemeasure after the English model, but the American college of to-day "is the bright consummate flower of democracy." We may apply to it what Lowell says of Lincoln:
"For him her old-world moulds aside she threw,And choosing sweet clay from the breastOf the unexhausted West,With stuff untainted shaped a hero new."
"For him her old-world moulds aside she threw,And choosing sweet clay from the breastOf the unexhausted West,With stuff untainted shaped a hero new."
The American colleges have held fast to the best of the ancient learning and utilized the best experiences and ideas of the English, German and French systems of education, and mapped out a distinctive system for themselves. They have sought to meet the needs of our age and the requirements of our generation, and we have as a product the modern American college, adapted to the wants of the people and the formation of a strong national character.
The American people believe in individual rights and personal sovereignty. They have accordingly shaped their institutions in harmony with this view. In Germanythe man is educated largely for the State, but here we educate the man as a citizen and as an individual whose intrinsic dignity and value are worthy of training. The American college makes adequate provision for the full development of all the human powers and the exercise of the functions of the noblest manhood and womanhood. Her halls have always been wide open to all the youth of the land, who have gathered by the thousand to drink in "the American spirit of freedom and brotherhood of mankind, of reverence for God, for law, for the Bible and for the Sabbath." Our colleges have been built up through the generous and effective support of the several churches, and of the patriotic people. For more than two and a half centuries it has been the settled policy of the American people to maintain and perpetuate colleges. They are deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, since they are the offspring of their free-offerings and voluntary sacrifices.
A few unthinking people are indifferent and fail to see and realize the vital relations the colleges sustain to the national welfare; but the more enlightened public opinion is eager and restless for their advancement and influence. Our colleges are the pride and the crowning glory of the American people. They bring the nation more renown than all her fertile plains, rich treasures and splendid palaces.
In order to particularize some of the distinctive features of the American college, we need to understand our educational system as a whole. We start with the public school and impart to the youth a primary education. In the high school or academy the pupil is introduced into a higher circle of thought and life and then passes on to the college, where the aim is to extend general culture and prepare for special work. The educational system culminates in the university, which is devoted chiefly to technical and professional education.
These educational agencies do not differ in kind, but in degree. There is not as yet, however, a sufficient co-ordination of them to secure the greatest economy of time and strength in mental effort. The richest and broadest culture and scholarship demand a friendly and harmonious relation between all of these educational agencies. We are approaching co-operation and unity on these lines, but there are practical difficulties which it is hoped that time will help to solve. One of the difficulties has been that the standard of admission into many of our colleges has outgrown the capacity of the high schools. In order to supply the need of a more thorough preparation, a preparatory department has been maintained in many colleges. The present aim and tendency of our educational system is to introduce the pupil from the high school to the rank of Freshman in college. This condition can not become general unless there be a greater differentiation in the courses ofstudy in our high schools. It is encouraging to see that in many States the high schools, academies and colleges are coming to a helpful understanding of each other's province, and that there is a practical agreement among them regarding a uniform minimum requirement for entrance into the Freshman class in college.
The prescribedcourses of studyin the average American college are broad and comprehensive. They cover the general field of knowledge. The regular parallel courses of study are usually designated Classical, Scientific, Literary and Philosophical. These special arrangements aim to encourage thought and study along different lines. The groupings vary according to the time devoted to the study of languages and other special branches. Each of the courses includes the study of language, mathematics, science, mental and moral philosophy, and covers a period of four years, generally designated Freshman, Sophomore, Junior and Senior years. Asa rule, in the Classical course the study of Greek and Latin is required, while Greek is omitted in the Scientific course, and more attention is given to the study of the sciences. The Literary and Philosophical courses substitute one or more of the modern languages for the ancient classics. The number of these courses may be multiplied indefinitely, especially in the universities where the grouping of studies is essential to the highest success.
The work ofthe college and the universityso overlap each other that it is difficult to make clear their distinction. The word university is an elastic term in the United States, because until within a brief period we have had nothing more than colleges. Many of our colleges are called universities because of their chartered privileges, but their aim is to become universities in fact.
Hence the terms are often used interchangeably. The few universities we have are modelled largely after those in Germany and have grown up by a natural development out of colleges. The reverse is true in England, where the college has grown up within the university. The college originally signified a society of scholars. In this country it is an incorporated school of instruction in the liberal arts, having one faculty, with advanced courses of study.
The college and university differ first in theiraim. The college endeavors to discipline the mind and form character for the broader work in a chosen field of university study. The thorough scholastic training is now regarded quite an essential preparation for the more advanced work of the university. On the other hand, the university aims at universal culture, and includes, if possible, every description of knowledge for the training of specialists in the various professions. Its aim is rather to do graduate work exclusively.
Again they differ in theircourses of study. In the college, the courses of study include the higher branches of learning; and areso arranged as to give the student an outline survey of the field of knowledge. 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. Gladstone gives the true historic idea of a university in these words: "To methodize, perpetuate and apply all knowledge which exists and to adopt and take up into itself every new branch as it comes successively into existence."
The college and the university likewise differ in theirmethods of work. The college seeks the highest results in discipline. Its method is more formal and didactic. In the later years of the college course acertain amount of specialization is usually allowed, both for the ends of discipline and as a provision for the work of the university proper. The university adopts methods of work along the line of original discovery, literary productivity, and the advancement of the kingdom of knowledge. The inspiring aim of the university is the discovery of truth. The student imbued with the spirit of research passes from the known to the unknown, and feels that he lives in an atmosphere of investigation, and in the center of the latest thought.
Finally, they differ in their resources. The college is usually limited in its means and appliances. On the contrary, the university, with abundant resources, great libraries and laboratories, affords a broader scope and wider opportunities for work and growth.
TheState and denominational collegeshave a common intellectual aim. The first of the two often have larger resources and aim to give more instruction in "practicalaffairs." Both State and denominational colleges are generous and liberal in their spirit and teaching. It is somewhat unfortunate that there should have arisen any occasion for criticism by the friends of either the State universities or of those under denominational control. One class of critics are ready to declare that the colleges and universities under Protestant denominational control are sectarian. Whereas it is unfair to designate such colleges as sectarian, since as a class they are not founded solely in the interest of any single Christian sect and are not intolerant and bigoted. They set up no denominational standard for entrance, and teach no particular creed or dogma, but extend their privileges equally to all and on the same basis as the State universities. Hence, they are denominational, but not sectarian.
It is equally unfair to assert that our State universities are godless and run by political parties. The managers of them have possibly laid themselves open to thiscriticism because they often fail to recognize either the scientific bases or practical value of religion and do not permit it to rank equally with the other sciences in the courses of study. The right policy would not necessarily involve the teaching of religious dogma, but only of facts concerning man's spiritual nature, and the relative importance of the Christian religion among the religious systems of the world to meet the demands of man as a religious being. No reasonable man in a Christian nation should object to this recognition of the science of religion. The State universities should be at least religious in character without having any denominational bias. The teaching of dogma in our colleges for the sake of dogma would be narrow bigotry and rightly deserving of censure. The State universities are as likely to be open to this charge as the denominational colleges. The dogmas of scientists, politicians, legalists and physicians are as intolerant and engender as much strife as thoseof theologians. We are glad to believe however, that the dogmatic spirit in all lines of study is fast disappearing from our American colleges, and from the professions.
Again, the majority of the professors in the State universities are avowedly Christian. Possibly one-third of the State universities have Christian clergymen for presidents. After careful inquiry from those in a position to know, it was ascertained that in one of the oldest State universities there were eight professors out of more than one hundred who were unbelievers or skeptics, and in one of the youngest there were but three known skeptics among more than eighty professors. Even this small number should not be possible, because one "anti-Christian sophist or a velvet-footed infidel" may work moral and religious disaster to the young in any college. "A college," remarks President Gates, "must be either avowedly and openly Christian, or by the very absence of avowed Christian influence itwill be strongly and decidedly un-Christian in its effects upon students."
The State universities will gain greater influence if they will rigidly exclude from their teaching force the brilliant skeptic who "becomes the center of a coterie without his gifts, dazzled by his boldness, infected by his skepticism;" but rather employ Christian professors who will inspire a "noble ambition that unites in its scope the life that now is and that which is to come, that comprehends earth-born sciences and the philosophy of salvation, the tongues of men and the language of the city of the great King."
Likewise the State and denominational colleges and universities have the largest freedom and independence. Their boards of management are comparatively free from interference on the part of party politicians and demagogues, or of those influenced by denominational prejudices. Party leaders in the church or state may be equally liable to an undue bias or a partisan spirit and influence which is beneath the dignity of those who claim to represent the people in a Christian Republic.
The American college is a chartered institution, under the control of aBoard of TrusteesorRegents. These boards are composed of about twenty or thirty representative men in church or state. They are, in some cases, a self-perpetuating corporation, while others are chosen for a term of years by the affiliating conferences or synods. Occasionally, the Alumni of the college may elect some of the Trustees. The State universities are under a Board of Regents appointed by the Governor, with the consent of the legislative body, or are chosen by popular election. These boards meet once or twice a year. Their principal duties are to make laws for the government of the college; appoint the officers and professors, and fix their salaries and tenure of office, and hold all property entrusted to the college, and retain general supervision and control of all expenditures.These boards are the ultimate source of authority in all matters pertaining to the welfare of the college.
The Chicago University and some others have aUniversity Council, composed of the chief administrative officials of the university. They direct all administrative matters. TheUniversity Senateis composed of the heads of the departments of instruction. It is their duty to control all educational affairs. TheHarvard Corporationconsists of the President, five Fellows, and the Treasurer, with the right to fill their own vacancies. Their acts are "alterable" by theBoard of Overseers, to whom they are responsible. This board consists of thirty-two members, elected by the Alumni.
The Facultyis a body of instructors. The universities may have as many faculties as there are departments of instruction. In the American college proper there is but one faculty, composed of all the instructors. It varies in number andefficiency according to the number of students and financial resources of the college. The proportionate number of professors to the students follows the custom of the best English and German universities, which usually is one professor for every twenty or thirty students.The Deanis an administrative officer of a department in a university, and is concerned with the internal discipline and executive affairs.
The Presidentsof the American colleges are usually clergymen. They are chosen with reference to their pre-eminent ability as scholars and administrators. The President has oversight of the plan of instruction, the maintenance of discipline, and is the representative head of the college before the public. Considerable importance is attached to the office of the President, since the success of the college in a great measure depends on his individual talent and character.
The American collegeprofessors, as a class, may be characterized as having aliving scholarship and a genuine speculative spirit, combined with tact and firmness in teaching. They are enthusiastically devoted to their work. There is a growing disposition to break away from mechanical and plodding routine, and adopt an intellectual, energizing style of questions in class work, that elicit enthusiasm and aid the student. Lecturing is but little used. The teaching is more of an active, earnest conversation on a special subject between the teacher and the pupil. The instructor seeks to lead, but not to carry, the student through the study. There is also less inclination to dogmatize, and the student's mind is trained to habits of original and philosophical investigation.
The studentsin our American colleges have been well estimated by Professor Von Holst in these words: "I have not only visited, but lived in a number of countries, and the results of my observations of their higher educated youth is that, though by no means as to knowledge, yet as to theearnestness, steadiness and enthusiasm in the pursuit of knowledge, the American students stand first. And nature has not been in a stingy mood when weighing out their allotment of brains! Give them but the opportunities, and you will soon see whether they need to shun comparison with the scholars of any other nation."
College governmentis an important question. The college, as a distinct and separate community, has rules and regulations based on well-established principles, which aim to conserve the general good of the whole body of students. The college honor can not be sustained unless there is a recognition of authority and responsibility.
The college legislation and government rests principally with the faculty, overseers and trustees, who aim to be liberal, yet firm. College sentiment among students is often capricious and subject to sudden revolutions. Some of them have strong passions, immature judgments, and impetuous and weak wills, and authoritymust be lodged with those who will sacredly uphold law and exercise a firm, rigorous discipline.
In the early stages of college life in this country the regulations were quite severe. In many cases the college authorities did not hesitate to inflict upon the students corporal punishment for certain offenses. College Presidents would sometimes personally attend to the flogging of students, resorting to this punishment with great solemnity. Mr. George C. Bush tells us what occurred at Harvard College in 1674: "On that occasion the overseers of the college, the President and Fellows, the students who chose to attend having been called together in the library, the sentence was read in their presence and the offender required to kneel. The President then offered prayer, after which 'the prison keeper at Cambridge,' at a given signal from him 'attended to the performance of his part of the work.' The President then closed the solemn exercise with prayer."
Possibly this relic of severe college government found its example across the water, where it is related that in a bygone age a Fellow at Oxford, "who had been proved guilty of an over-susceptibility to the charms of beauty, was condemned, as a penance, to preach eight sermons in the Church of Saint Peter-in-the-East." In the days of President Dunster, of Harvard, "no possible conduct escaped his eye. Class deportment, plan of studies, personal habits, daily life, private devotions, social intercourse, and civil privileges, were all directed."
The student should feel that, in disobeying the rightful authority of the college, he abridges the rights and privileges of every student. The college sentiment should be so strong against unworthy conduct that a student would as soon shrink from doing a mean action, and having it known, as any citizen outside the college community. When it is discovered that a student has mean and unworthy motivesand wilful evil tendencies, he should be summarily dismissed.
In some colleges the students participate in the governing affairs. This is done by having representatives chosen from each college class, elected by their fellow-students, who unitedly compose a College Senate, with power to interpret the college laws, and deal with all questions relating to the good order and decorum of students. The President of the college is chairman, and has the power to veto the decision of the senate. There are many favorable features of this system. In the first place, it lessens the antagonism sometimes manifest between the faculty and students. There are no less requirements upon all college classes and duties, and it helps to remove any feeling of suspicion and the semblance of espionage. The students feel that they have been taken into confidence with the college authorities and will get strict, even-handed justice in college discipline. The result is that there comesto exist a more pleasant and friendly relation between the professors and students.
Again, this system gives the freest scope for teaching. The professor's time is not occupied doing police duty or sitting as a juror, but is given wholly to his work as teacher.
The self-responsibility of the student also has an educating influence, giving to the worthy and right-minded a better training for future citizenship. It is undoubtedly true that the autonomy of a college is an important factor in shaping the future liberties of our country. No college, however, can hope to uphold the highest standard of conduct by trusting to the force of rules and penalties. The spring of right action is in the heart. All college authorities must rely principally upon appeals to calm reason and an enlightened conscience, reinforced by religious faith and feeling.
The general good order and morals of the students in American colleges arechanging for the better. In a large proportion of our colleges only a small per cent. of the students use intoxicating drinks or tobacco. All reprehensible conduct must be carried on so secretly as to elude the college authorities. Those disposed to do evil represent only a very small proportion of the great body of students, but these give occasion for some supercilious and conceited correspondent of the public press severely to criticise the college government, and to give gross caricatures and exaggerated statements of the mischief done by this small percentage of students, and then include the entire academic body in the same general censure. It is generally believed by those qualified to know that the average morals and good conduct of the students in college are much better than those of the same number of young men outside the college community.
The chartered colleges are entitled to conferdegreesas a measure of honor thecollege wishes to bestow on men and women of merit. This privilege has been so much abused by some colleges that a little confusion arises as to the true value and significance of the degrees conferred. In 1890, there were 8,290 degrees conferred in course or on examination, and 727 honorary degrees, by 415 colleges and professional schools.
In the best American colleges, the student completing the classical course receives the degree ofBachelor of Arts(A. B.)—bas chevalier, a knight of low degree; it signifies "inception in arts." If the student, after taking his bachelor's degree, pursues for a few years some literary or scientific study, he may receive the degree of Master of Arts (A. M.), meaning fitness to teach, a title which began to be conferred in the twelfth century. These degrees are granted as a reward of merit, based on examination and general fitness. The degrees of Doctor of Divinity (D. D.) and Doctor of Laws (LL. D.) are grantedas honorary degrees to men of pre-eminent ability or for conspicuous services. The student who completes a college course or its equivalent, and follows it with a professional course in a university, receives a degree recognizing the fact. Schools of Theology confer the degree of Bachelor of Divinity (D. B.) Schools of Law, Bachelor of Law (LL. B.), and Schools of Medicine, Doctor of Medicine (M. D.)
A post-graduate course of study, looking to the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Ph. D.), has reference not so much to the professional and practical side of life as to the original investigation and exploration of a special subject, with no other immediate aim than the discovery of truth and a philosophical insight into the same. The student, before receiving the degree in the best universities, is required, at the close of his post-graduate work, to write a thesis which would be regarded as an original contribution to the subject discussed.
There is no practical uniformity in thescope and requirement of the work for this degree. The Doctor's degree should stand in this country, as it does in Europe, for research, and a general knowledge of philosophy, with ability to open up original sources of information. The student should be a resident graduate for at least one year, and after rigorous examination be required to contribute something to the advancement of knowledge, and withal be a man of good character and judgment, before receiving this most desirable degree in American and European universities. With such a uniform standard, this degree will not likely depreciate in public esteem, but have, as all degrees should, a uniform value. A federation of colleges may help to attain this end.
College degrees are not essential to a man's success in life, but when they are obtained as a reward of merit have a certain social value which usually insures a speedier entrance into any chosen field of work.
Another characteristic of American colleges is that they areendowedeither by churches, by the state or by individual donors. The endowment is generally in the form of property or stocks yielding an annual revenue. It may be a sum of money given to the college, to be loaned and the interest to be permanently appropriated to the support of professors or applied to the current expenses. The amount necessary to endow a professorship varies from twenty-five to fifty thousand dollars. The fund thus given remains intact, and the interest or revenue of it alone is used to carry out the purpose of the donor.
No college of a high grade can exist without a generous endowment or aid from some source. Education in the colleges and universities throughout the world is given almost as a gratuity. It is maintained principally through the benefactions of wealthy men who erect buildings, found professorships and establish libraries for the use of others.
The resources of American colleges surpass those of any other country in the world. In 1890, the value of grounds, buildings and apparatus for 378 colleges in the United States was $77,894,729, and the productive fund of 315 colleges aggregated $74,090,415. In Germany, the twenty-two universities are national property, and are supported out of the national treasury at a large annual expense. The annual incomes of Oxford and Cambridge in England aggregate more than $3,500,000.
Many of the American colleges have wealthy foundations. Harvard College has in grounds, buildings and productive endowment the sum of $12,000,000, with an income in 1892 of $978,881.92. Columbia College claims $13,000,000, with an annual income of $629,000. The estimated value of the funds of Cornell College is $9,000,000, with an annual income of more than $400,000, and Johns Hopkins University has $5,000,000 endowment. In 1892, Yale College had $4,019,000, with an annual incomeof $520,246. The Northwestern University has nearly $3,000,000 endowment and an annual income of $225,000. Boston University has more than $1,500,000 endowment and an annual income of $160,000. Chicago University is one of our youngest universities, and yet it has in property and endowment $7,500,000. These are only a small portion of the 415 colleges and universities in this country whose aggregate wealth and income are a source of satisfaction to all the friends of higher education.
The munificence of the wealthy men of this nation in behalf of higher education has excited the surprise and admiration of the old world. Within the last quarter of a century nearly seventy-five million dollars has been given for this cause. We recall with satisfaction some of these distinguished donors: George Peabody left $6,000,000 of his estate to the cause of education; Isaac Rich, $1,000,000 to Boston University; Johns Hopkins, $3,140,000 to found a university in Baltimorewhich bears his name; Asa Packard gave $3,000,000 to Lehigh University; D. B. Fayerweather left a bequest of nearly $3,000,000 to various colleges; Cornelius Vanderbilt gave $1,000,000 to the Vanderbilt University; John C. Green gave $1,500,000 to Princeton College; Amasa Stone, $600,000 to Adelbert College; George I. Seney, $450,000 to Wesleyan University; Matthew Vassar, $800,000 to Vassar College for women; John D. Rockefeller's gifts to the Chicago University aggregate $4,500,000, and Leland Stanford's estate will yield from $12,000,000 to $15,000,000 for the university that bears his name on the Pacific Coast. These men and a host of others will be remembered through succeeding generations for their generous liberality. The wisdom of these noble benefactions commends itself to the enlightened judgment of all good citizens. We believe, with President Schurman, that "the heart behind American wealth is at the bottom generous and discerning, and so long asmoney can foster intelligence, that heart will not suffer our civilization to become a prey to ignorance, brutishness and stupid materialism. No one knows better than the millionaire that man lives not by bread alone." The colleges are not founded to make money but to benefit the public by training and fitting men for the highest service. The majority of the students in American colleges are of limited means. If it were possible to sustain a first-class college by means of the income from students, the tuition would be so high as to limit the great advantage of a higher education to a few children of rich men. The annual cost of each undergraduate to the University at Oxford is $700, at Cambridge $600, and at Harvard $300. If the actual expenses of running a college of high grade were divided proportionately among the students, they would have to pay three or four times the amount they now do for tuition. It is important that these educational advantages and incentives comewithin the reach of the humblest youth of the Republic, in order that they may be productive of the noblest manhood and womanhood.
Time and experience confirm the claim that the wisest and most permanent use of money is to help endow a college. Large wealth imposes obligations to make the best and most permanent use of it. Every man of means ought to be a patron of learning, because it yields the most satisfactory returns. "What better gift can we offer the Republic," says Cicero, "than to teach and instruct the youth." Wendell Phillips says that "education is the only interest worthy deep, controlling anxiety of thoughtful men," and President Gilman makes an equally forcible statement when he says that "to be concerned in the establishment of a university is one of the noblest and most important tasks ever imposed on a community or on a set of men."
Many of our denominational colleges are parsimoniously sustained. If their constituency, both rich and poor, would become imbued with the spirit of the Colonial fathers, and arouse themselves to give liberally, their power and influence would be multiplied a hundred fold. "Let it not be forgotten," says President Thwing, "that if the college and university have large need of the wealth of the community, this wealth has yet a larger need of the college and university. Without the aid of the higher education in the past, much of the wealth could not have been created; and without the higher education of the present, wealth would now become sordid; gold-dust is no less dust because it is golden. The rich man needs the college as his beneficiary to help him to be a noble man quite as much as the college needs his benefactions to help it make noble men. A college in poverty can make men; a rich man (or a poor man, indeed,) cannot hoard in meanness without degradation of manhood." The colleges are the agencies to help call out the constructive talent ofthe nation. They open the pathway of opportunity to every young man and woman who desires to do the most for himself and humanity. Each one may link himself through his means and prayers to these powerful agencies for good.
The function of the American college is to train and develop all the human powers and faculties and help the student to attain a complete individuality. The broadest educational theory estimates the worth of all the human powers and has the highest notion of personality, the development of which demands the impact of physical, intellectual, moral, and religious forces. A rounded human development provides for the fullest and freest exercise of all the powers of being. "Culture," says Matthew Arnold, "is a harmonious expansion of all the powers which make the beauty and worth of human nature, andis not consistent with the over-development of any one power at the expense of the rest."
Man is a unit, but inasmuch as God has endowed him with various capacities, his highest glory should be to develop them. The only limit to the college student is his native abilities and aptitudes, modified by the parental training, various social influences, and the preliminary discipline in the public schools. The college that receives the students, with their different aims and predilections and acquirements, and leads them to appreciate the greater possibilities of their natures, and arouses and encourages them to strive for their fullest development, is worthy of confidence and support.
A symmetrically developed manhood or womanhood impliesthe training of the mind to think accurately and systematically. The tried and historic conception of education is expressed in the Latin word,educare: to lead out. It is to draw out ofthe living soul, by the aid of books, appliances, and instructors, all its latent capacities, to help in the formation of correct intellectual habits, and pre-eminently to form character, and thus to enrich and broaden the whole range of life. The purpose of a liberal education is not to cram the mind with facts and principles, but "to build up and build out the mind" by the natural process of growth, so that all knowledge from without will be assimilated by a living mental organism. The important work of the college is to develop intellectual power. It is to aid in giving such a directive power of mind as will enable the student, by a fixed determination, to recall facts, apply principles, and perform acts as if they were spontaneous. It is so to train the judgment and reasoning faculties of the student that in the end he will have acquired power to do earnest intellectual work.
The direct aim of the instruction in college is to give the student access tovital and formative knowledge by studying man and his works, and nature and her works. He is thus led to know himself and to know the world, and the laws which govern nature, and man as a part of nature. He comes to see things as they are and to understand the laws of things, and thus he thinks and acts on more perfect knowledge. If the student is to be trained to independent thought and action, he must have a sounder basis of knowledge than the teachings of those whose ideas and opinions are shaped by current, ephemeral literature. The majority of men act on too imperfect knowledge, because they will not take the time and exercise the patience to study the facts and principles relating to any given subject, and to do their own thinking. Gœthe says: "To act is easy, to think is hard." The remedy is found in the college courses of study which involve the study of ourselves through psychology, logic, and mental, moral, political and social philosophy, and the study ofnature through the sciences and the laws of the world about us.
Another method, aside from the nature and scope of the studies pursued, to attain the end, is through the strong personality of the college professor. Alexander the Great said: "Philip gave me life, Aristotle taught me how to live well," and Emerson's judgment was that "it is little matter what you learn; the question is, with whom you learn." It is within the power of the college professor to help enlighten the understanding, strengthen and guide the intuitions and reasoning faculties, and to awaken within the student a consciousness of his new powers and capacities, and incite him to mental activity. The highest scholastic training demands that the professor studiously avoid all those methods of instruction which tend to mechanical habits of thought, and which check the mind's spontaneity of growth and repress the individuality so essential to true scholarship.
Incidental to intellectual culture in college is the ability to find promptly the information we want. "Next to knowing a thing," says Dr. Johnson, "is to know where to find it." No student can become a walking encyclopædia, but he should learn while in college how to avail himself advantageously of reference books, libraries and other sources of information.
A college education likewise implies the ability to express one's ideas in a clear, appropriate style. The student should be able to tell what he knows. This clearness of thought and precision of expression is best acquired in the class room, in the literary societies, and in the classes devoted especially to the study of expression.
The intellectual aim of a college should be not only to awaken and develop independent thinking power as an abiding impulse which will prompt to effective intellectual work, but withal the will, the imagination, and emotive nature should be so trained that the student will have amental taste and moral appreciation for the best and noblest thought. Mental discipline and the dull routine of study will become cold and insipid unless the student is inducted into those fields of science and literature where he will find the richest sources of refined and elevating pleasures, and through them be incited to noble action. It is on these lines of study that the student acquires that spirit of study which becomes spontaneous, attractive, and joyous. He loves culture for culture's sake, and does not abandon its acquisition on leaving college.
A symmetrically developed manhood or womanhood involvesphysical culture. The ascetic idea of college life no longer prevails. The body, as well as the mind, is trained. The value to a student of good health and an alert and vigorous body cannot be overestimated. Educators are coming to realize more fully than in the past that the physical and psychical factors of life are inseparable. The body and mindare mutually related and affected. Systematic exercise stimulates quickness of mental processes and promotes brain power.
The leading American colleges are conducted on better physiological and hygienic principles than in the past. The student, on entering college, is subject to a careful physical examination by a competent physician, and a course of systematic physical training is prescribed. Any organic defect or incipient disease is discovered, and, if possible, corrected. Physical training has become an integral part of a good college course. Exercise is largely compulsory, because studious and ambitious students are likely to sacrifice physical for intellectual training.
A well-equipped gymnasium is essential for the most thorough physical culture. Bath-rooms, with facilities for plunge and shower baths, are an important adjunct in promoting that healthy condition of the skin which follows from frequent bathing. An athletic field for outdoor sports is, likewise, a valuable accessory to develop a lithe and active body.
The master of the gymnasium is generally a vigorous and enthusiastic instructor, who is able to conduct skillfully daily gymnastic class work, and relieve monotony and evoke interest by introducing a variety of exercises for the different college classes. He is also the hygienic adviser in all matters relating to study and recreation. The students are taught that regular exercise, sufficient sleep, personal cleanliness, and proper diet will correct most of the so-called pernicious effects of over-study.
Outdoor sports, under proper restrictions, promote health and foster mental qualities. Foot-ball and base-ball have gained an undue prominence in some colleges. It is questionable whether they are the most desirable forms of exercise for physical development, since only a very small portion of the students at any one time can engage in them.
The evil features of inter-collegiategames, especially as practiced, offset their advantages. The undue excitement and spirit of rivalry fostered is foreign to the true idea of an earnest student life. The college is no monastery to make the student a recluse, but it should be a place of solitude, a modern cloister, where the student may be kept in partial isolation and away from the turbulent stream of public life and distracting social influences. The student may keep in the midst of the current of actual modern thought and life without sacrificing the quiet seclusion which is an essential requirement for the best scholarship.
These inter-collegiate games have been attended with temptations perilous to character. Abundant testimony is not wanting to show that their tendency has been toward rowdyism, gambling, debauchery, and other disgraceful conduct. Some of the games scarcely rise above the brutality of the prize fight. They have no elevating tendency, and no apology can bemade for their roughness and bad moral effects.
The fine natural instincts of the majority of American people are repelled at such physical prowess. It is not necessary to introduce the element of pugilism in order to give vent to the superabundance of youthful animal spirits.
The abuse of these outdoor sports should not make us blind to the fact that they have a legitimate use. It is wiser to control and direct them than to curb the exuberance of good feeling which they call forth, and which might find expression in less appropriate channels. It should be borne in mind that all physical training is a failure unless the aim is to maintain and develop health, to make the student symmetrical, strong, graceful and better fitted for the duties of living.
A symmetrical development involves, likewise,the cultivation of the moral and spiritual nature.
The Christian religion affords the broadest educational basis, because it presents the most exalted notion of personality and its development. It takes account of the deepest facts of our nature, and teaches philosophical principles that are true for all created intelligences. Hence it is that Christianity is essential to the best educational system. It precedes and governs true education. A narrow and false conception of man leads to building only one side of his nature. The will, the conscience, the emotional and spiritual natures demand a share in the broadest culture. We cannot divide these essential elements against themselves. The religious sentiment is so interwoven with our being that it cannot be eliminated or dethroned. It takes no subordinate place, because it is supreme. There is no true theory of life without the spiritual element. All theories of education and principles of action that do not recognize the relations of the human soul to the supernatural are out of harmony with the laws governing human life.
These truths have been impressed on the noblest minds. "The greatest thought," said Daniel Webster, "that ever entered my mind, is the thought of my personal accountability to God." And Channing says that "man's relation to God is the great quickening truth, throwing all other truths into insignificance, and a truth which, however obscured and paralyzed by the many errors which ignorance and fraud have hitherto linked with it, has ever been a chief spring of human improvement. We look to it as the true life of the intellect. No man can be just to himself, can comprehend his own existence, can put forth all his powers with an heroic confidence, can deserve to be the guide and inspirer of other minds, till he has risen to communion with the Supreme Mind; till he feels his filial connection with the Universal Parent; till he regards himself as the recipient and minister of the Infinite Spirit; till he feels his consecration to the ends which religion unfolds; till he risesabove human opinion, and is moved by a higher impulse than fame."
The Christian religion is in harmony with intellectual activity, because it favors application to study, and enjoins the duty of seeking truth, as well as awakens and intensifies the love of the good and beautiful. In fact, the human intellect owes its greatest triumphs to Christianity. From the beginning, the Christian religion has assimilated and employed human learning, and has become a great formative force in modern intellectual movements. It favors a broad catholic spirit, and is the counterpoise and remedy of a narrow range of intellectual activity. History teaches that it has been a strong incentive in the search after truth, and the chief factor in training the race to a higher civilized life. The changes in the progress in modern civilization are stimulated and guided by Christian knowledge. The whole trend of modern thought and instruction in the higher intellectual circles is to apply Christianprinciples to the problems of life. In every age it has stimulated and invigorated the human mind. It has introduced nobler and better ideas of life, given impetus to self-development, and has produced the highest types of manhood and of womanhood. The inspiration and encouragement in advancing general intelligence and founding the higher institutions of learning is principally due to the Christian religion.
"From the days of the Apologists onwards," says Prof. John De Witt, "learning has always advanced under the fostering care of our religion. In the schools of Antioch and of Alexandria, in Carthage and Hippo, in the old Rome on the Tiber, and in the new Rome on the Bosphorus, throughout the period of the ancient church, religion is the great inspiration of intellectual labor. How true this is of the Middle Age I need not stop to say. Religion in Anselm assimilates the philosophy of Plato. In the Anglican doctorit employs the dialectic and metaphysics of Aristotle. And the true father of the inductive philosophy, who anticipated the Organon and the very Idola of his great namesake, is Roger Bacon, the Franciscan brother. It was to this wonderful and unique power of Christianity to assimilate and employ all the triumphs of the human intellect, that the Western World is indebted for the universities by which, most of all, learning was increased and transmitted from generation to generation. Bologna and Naples, the school of Egbert at York, the schools of Charlemagne in the New Christian Empire, with Alcuin as minister of education; the later universities, with their tens of thousands of eager students—Paris, Cologne, and Oxford—sprang into being obedient, indeed, to a thirst for knowledge, but a thirst for knowledge which, in turn, owed its existence and intensity to the unique fact that Christianity alone among religions can assimilate and employ all the truths ofhuman philosophy, of science, and of literature."
The importance of promoting religious culture in our colleges cannot be overestimated. Dr. Thomas Arnold has spoken words that should be preserved in letters of gold. "Consider," he says, "what a religious education, in the true sense of the word, is: It is no other than a training our children to life eternal; no other than the making them know and love God, know and abhor evil; no other than the fashioning all the parts of our nature for the very ends which God designed for them; the teaching our understandings to know the highest truth; the teaching our affections tolovethe highest good!" One of the greatest teachers, Mark Hopkins, on the fiftieth anniversary of his connection with Williams College, said: "Christianity is the greatest civilizing, molding, uplifting power on this globe, and it is a sad defect in any institution of higher learning if it does not bring those under its care intothe closest possible relation to it." The profound French philosopher, Victor Cousin, declares that "any system of school training which sharpens and strengthens the intellectual powers without supplying moral culture and religious principle is a curse rather than a blessing." And President M. E. Gates says: "In place of the fermenting despair of nihilism, the reckless immoralities of atheism, and the suicidal negations of agnosticism which have cursed liberally-educated Europe, if we are to have here in America an influence strong, binding and beneficient in our social system, as the result of collegiate education, it must be, it can be only by retaining in that system a clear faith in God, and by making prominent, as the highest aim of life, the service of God in serving the best interests of one's fellow-men."
The goal of all education is fulness of stature of men and women in Christ. Art and science are a vain show without thisaim. A man may have a brain as keen as a Damascus scimiter, and yet he is wanting without piety. This moral and religious equipment is necessary for right conduct which, Matthew Arnold says, is three-fourths of life. Other things being equal, the student that is touched and saturated with the religious life will be under the strongest motives and attain the highest culture and efficiency in life. A pure heart and a clear brain are closely related. "Our education will never be perfect unless, like the ancient temples, it is lighted from above." Martin Luther said: "To have prayed well is to have studied well," which accords with the idea of the best scholars in former days at Cambridge:Bene orasse est bene studisse.
The Christian spirit is eminently favorable to culture and to the promotion of literary productivity. It helps to make brilliant and earnest teachers, and lends zest to professional ambition. "Other things being equal," says Noah Porter,"that institution of learning which is earnestly religious is certain to make the largest and most valuable achievements in science and learning, as well as in literary tastes and capacities."
President Gates forcibly expresses the thought in these words: "Man is not, and was not meant to be, pure disembodied intellect. True philosophy, as well as common sense, teaches that the heart and the will have their rightful domain in every man's life. If the understanding becomes arrogant and spurns the aid of the other powers of the mind, not only does the man become an incomplete man, but his intellect itself inevitably loses poise and clearness. The man ceases to be a man, and becomes a calculating machine, and his intellect becomes subject to those sudden reversals of legitimate processes and results which the law of construction for calculating machines renders inevitable in them, but from whichlifesaves the living man, the feeling, worshiping soul."
There is nothing more important to equip the complete scholar and gentleman than the Christian religion. Tennyson's poetic interpretation of this truth is thus beautifully expressed: