# Jesuit Education/Chapter 11

Contents
Chapter XI.
Prescribed Courses or Elective Studies?
Intimately connected with the subject of the last chapter is a question now much discussed in pedagogical circles, namely, whether the "old-fashioned" prescribed courses are the best way of attaining the object of education, the training of the mind, or whether: the elective system should claim the monopoly in the education of our nation.
Not many years ago the secondary school programmes offered a single course of study, or at most two courses which were to be pursued in order to obtain the diploma of the school. The principal course consisted of Latin, Greek, history and mathematics. At present we find in most secondary schools a number of parallel courses, and the disposition is growing to regard the different courses as of equal value and dignity. It has been said by advocates of the new system that "the old narrow course, with its formal contents and mechanical routine, is doomed; and a richer course of study, with a broader and more inspiring conception of the elementary school-teacher's responsibilities and opportunities, is taking its place."
Whence these changes? Not from the conviction of teachers that the old system was bad and inefficient; but, as Professor Hanus says, these changes are chiefly the result of external demands of parents and ​sons and daughters. They have not been stimulated by the marked encouragement of the colleges; for, at the present day, several important colleges still decline to regard any pre-collegiate course of study as comparable in value to the traditional classical course. Would it not have been the duty of the "leading" schools of the country to lead public opinion, and not allow themselves to be guided by it? When some large and influential schools adopted many parallel courses, the majority of the smaller and less important schools imitated the larger ones, or were practically forced to do so. After these schools had yielded to external demands, it was but natural that there "has also come a desire on the part of all to justify such programmes by an appeal to reason."
This appeal has been made most forcibly by President Eliot on various occasions. We have heard that his most serious charge against Jesuit colleges is their adherence to prescribed courses. To this indictment the President added: "Nothing but an unhesitating belief in the Divine wisdom of such prescriptions can justify them; for no human wisdom is equal to contriving a prescribed course of study equally good for even two children of the same family, between the ages of eight and eighteen. Direct revelation from on high would be the only satisfactory basis for a uniform prescribed school curriculum. The immense deepening and expanding of human knowledge, in the nineteenth century, and the increasing sense of the ​sanctity of the individual's gifts and will power, have made uniform prescriptions of study in secondary schools impossible and absurd. We must absolutely give up the notion that any set of human beings, however wise and learned, can ever again construct and enforce on school children one uniform course of study. The class system, that is, the process of instructing children in large groups, is a quite sufficient school evil, without clinging to its twin evil, an inflexible programme of studies. Individual instruction is the new ideal."
If this new ideal of individual instruction should be carried out consistently—and the patrons of this electivism certainly ought to work at the realization of this ideal state—we might in the twentieth century see the day, when for five thousand students at Harvard there will be no less than five thousand instructors. No wonder that all these pupils will turn out geniuses, such as the world has never seen before. It seems certain that great results are anticipated by President Eliot. For he concludes his paper with the words: "These gains are noiseless but persuasive; they take effect on five hundred thousand pupils every year. Have we not here some solid ground for hopefulness about the Republic, both as a form of government and as a state of society?"
Not less amusing is the absolute certainty with which President Eliot affirms that electivism is the only system which can claim a right to exist. He says: "Direct revelation from on high would be the only satisfactory basis for a uniform prescribed school curriculum, and nothing but an unhesitating belief in ​the Divine wisdom of such prescriptions can justify them." Does not the President himself claim almost a superhuman infallibility when he straightway asserts: "Uniform prescriptions in secondary schools have been made impossible and absurd. We must absolutely give up the notion that any set of human beings, however wise and learned, can ever again construct and enforce on school children one uniform course of study." Could any one, whether prophet or pope, speak with more certainty, than President Eliot does in this passage? How can uniform prescriptions be styled impossible and absurd, when they are exacted in whole countries, and not only among half-civilized Moslems, or "decaying" Latin races, but also in "Teutonic" States, for instance in Germany, a country which leads in scholarship and of late years has so rapidly advanced also in industrial and commercial enterprise, that it is considered a formidable rival of American industry and commerce? The absolute certainty with which President Eliot proclaims his views is all the more unwarranted if we compare them with what other distinguished scholars think on this subject.
We quoted before the words of Professor Russell of Columbia, that the experience of Germany can teach us much, especially that "a uniform course of study for all schools of a particular grade, and a common standard for promotion and graduation, can be made most serviceable in a national scheme of education." Mr. Canfield, in his interesting book The College Student and his Problems, cautions the student in the following terms: "The more specialized your course, ​the more certain ought you to be that the end is that which you desire. It is quite necessary, therefore, that you know yourself and your purposes, something quite definite of your capacity and powers, if you are to make a wise selection of your work. In the inefficiency or inexactness of such knowledge the college finds one weakness and one danger in multiplying courses or in enlarging the number of electives within a course. For very few young men know themselves at the age at which they enter college, and I think that others know them less. ... It is because of this uncertainty of purpose and this ignorance of self that the wisest educators and the most thoughtful students of mankind have always given such loyal adherence to the general culture courses, and especially to the classical courses. This adherence does not mean that all culture power is denied to other courses. It is simply an insistence upon that broad and humanizing work which has been and which ever will be one of the best and surest foundations for large and generous life." Nothing less is contained in these statements than a condemnation of President Eliot's electivism. For, if a choice of a specialized course without perfect knowledge of self is a great danger to the college student, how much more to the pupil in the high school? Or, if very few know themselves when entering college, how many can be expected to know themselves when entering the high school? Another remark is most significant. President Eliot asserts that "Moslems and Jesuits" uphold the old ​prescribed courses; the former President of Ohio State University does not hesitate to say, that for the most weighty reasons, "the wisest educators and the most thoughtful students of mankind have always given loyal adherence to the general culture courses, and especially to the classical courses," that is practically, to the old prescribed courses.
But to return to the Jesuit system. President Eliot is perfectly correct in stating that it defends a prescribed curriculum. However, it does not exclude, but in many places admits distinct parallel courses; beside the classical course there may be offered an English course, consisting chiefly in English, history, modern languages, some of the natural sciences and mathematics; or a Scientific course in which mathematics and natural sciences are the principal subjects taught. But these courses have to be followed as laid down, at least in the main subjects. Nor do the Jesuits exclude a certain amount of election in secondary branches. We say secondary, as there can be no reasonable doubt that not all branches are of the same educational value. For who would have the hardihood to say, that music and drawing, or even botany and zoology, are as well fitted to develop the mental faculties as the old-fashioned course of classics and mathematics? The Society at least does not dare to affirm it, and in this she is at one with the best educators of all ages, our own not excepted. Dr. McCosh said years ago in the famous debate with President Eliot: "At Harvard a young man has two hundred courses from which he may choose, and many of these courses, I am compelled to call dilettante. I should prefer a young man who has been trained in an ​old-fashioned college, in rhetoric, philosophy, Latin, Greek, and mathematics, to one who had frittered away four years in studying the French drama of the eighteenth century, a little music and similar branches." Again Dr. McCosh maintains "there should be required studies for all who pursue a full course for a degree, and the required studies should be disciplinary, affording true mental training. Such studies are English, Greek, Latin, German, French, history, mathematics and physical science."
The objections of the Jesuits to the extreme electivism are mainly two. The first is that they apprehend serious dangers for the intellectual training from this new system. As was said in the preceding chapter, the intellectual scope of the Jesuit system is a thorough general training of the mind. There are the gravest reasons to fear that this training can scarcely be expected from the elective system as practised in many schools. The second objection arises from the conviction that the moral training of the students will be injured if the choice of studies is to any great extent left to them, especially if they are allowed to change the branches which they find difficult and disagreeable. For, greatly as the Jesuits value the intellectual training of their pupils, they attach far greater importance to the moral training, to the training of the will and the development of character.
President Eliot implicitly asserts that the Jesuits, as upholders of prescribed courses, violate the sanctity of the individual's will-power. This is a serious charge. In answer to it we may first quote the words ​of a prominent educator who in the strongest terms makes the same charge against systems like that of President Eliot. Professor Weissenfels of Berlin wrote in 1901: "In our times the moment comes relatively early when the special gifts and abilities of the individual try to assert themselves. But let it not be forgotten that there are brilliant abnormities. The talent for a special science, particularly mathematics, or for a special art, particularly music, even in childhood, gets a tyrannical ascendancy over everything else. Shall we give free play to it and foster it? Or shall we at first endeavor to counteract it, or at least keep from it all that could stimulate still more the inclination which is in itself too strong? Among the tolerably intelligent there is but one opinion: they distrust precociousness. ... It is justly considered want of common sense, nay more, a sin against the child's soul, to make advances to the impatience with which the special aptitude is trying to assert itself, and thus to add fuel to the fire." The author further calls this system a criminal mutilation of the soul, and maintains that the special talent, if unduly and prematurely fostered will be like a rank weed that stifles every other inclination and thus destroys all harmony of mind and character.
We hear now-a-days so much about the "sanctity of the individual's will" that one's idea of human nature may easily get confused. True, there is something sacred in human nature, because it is the image and likeness of its Maker. Still, that sanctity of man is not pure and unalloyed, that image is not altogether ​intact and spotless. Divine revelation, the world's history, daily experience and our innermost conscience tell us that there are disorders and derangements, that there are not only holy and divine, but also animal desires, not only upward, but also downward tendencies in our nature. The great Apostle testifies to this truth, when he exclaims: "For I know that there dwelleth not in me, that is to say, in my flesh, that which is good. For to will is present with me; but to accomplish that which is good, I find not. For the good which I will, I do not; but the evil which I will not, that I do." Now this "law of sin which fights against the spirit" manifests itself differently according to the different dispositions and the age of the individual. In youth, it assumes generally the shape of love of pleasure and enjoyment together with a tendency to idleness, and "idleness is the fruitful mother of many vices." The old educational systems believed in Allopathy, and thought that these moral diseases could be cured effectively only by means which directly attack the root of the evil. So they tried seriously to occupy a boy's mind, to accustom him to hard, steady work, to fight against his dislikes, to do his duty and to break his will. But, we are told, that was all wrong, it was only the outcropping of the severe and gloomy asceticism of former ages. Our modern pedagogues have discovered that Homoeopathy alone will do in education. "The poor children are overburdened, make it easy for them. Give, full vent to the pupil's inclinations and do not force him to anything he dislikes. For this would be interfering with the sanctity of the individual!"
​If the old view of life and youth and education savors of asceticism, the new one is sheer materialism. But setting aside all supernatural considerations, we must condemn the extreme electivism of the modern system on merely natural grounds. Nor is this attitude peculiar to the Society of Jesus; it is firmly maintained by educators who in their religious tenets differ widely from ourselves. Professor Münsterberg has well pointed out the damage which results from this system to the character of the child, to the "formal side of education," as he styles it. "A child who has himself the right of choice, or who sees that parents and teachers select these courses according to his tastes and inclinations, may learn a thousand pretty things, but never the one which is the greatest of all: to do his duty. He who is allowed always to follow the paths of least resistance never develops the power to overcome resistance; he remains utterly unprepared for life. To do what we like to do, – that needs no pedagogical encouragement: water always runs down hill. Our whole public and social life shows the working of this impulse, and our institutions outbid one another in catering to the taste of the public. The school alone has the power to develop the opposite tendency, to encourage and train the belief in duties and obligations, to inspire devotion to better things than those to which we are drawn by our lower instincts. Yes, water runs down hill all the time; and yet all the earth were sterile and dead if water could not ascend again to the clouds, and supply rain to the field which brings us the harvest. We see only the streams going down to the ocean; we do not see how the ocean sends up the waters to bless our fields. Just so do we see in ​the streams of life the human emotions following the impulses down to selfishness and pleasure and enjoyment, but we do not see how the human emotions ascend again to the ideals, – ascend in feelings of duty and enthusiasm; and yet without this upward movement our fields were dry, our harvest lost. That invisible work is the sacred mission of the school; it is the school that must raise man's mind from his likings to his belief in duties, from his instincts to his ideals, that art and science, national honor and morality, friendship and religion, may spring from the ground and blossom."
According to Dean Briggs of Harvard, no people lay themselves more recklessly open to reductio ad absurdum than advocates of the elective system. They wish to put enjoyment into education, without being sure that such education is robust enough. He quotes the example of Dr. Martineau, who gave double time to the studies he disliked, in order to correct the weak side of his nature rather than to develop its strong side. Now it is not necessary to go to such length; studies need not be imposed because they are difficult and unpleasant, but if they are of real educational value they should be imposed although they are hard and unpleasant. Still, no branch is of any educational value, unless it presents difficulties; the mental powers are called into action and are trained only if they have to overcome obstacles.
Some pedagogists sneer at the idea that resistance, the overcoming of obstacles, plays an important part in education. Herein, however, they manifest their shortsightedness. The old adage, "Fast gotten, fast ​gone," might be expressed in somewhat different form: "Easily gotten, easily gone." Dr. Stanley Hall, President of Clark University, whose fame as an educator is widely acknowledged, has well said: "Only great, concentrated and prolonged efforts in one direction really train the mind, because they alone train the will beneath it." President Jones of Hobart College speaks to a like purpose: "The college must not always follow the line of least resistance. The intellectual life has also its athletic exercises, and mental slouchiness is no less to be regretted than physical insufficiency. The youthful will needs cultivation no less than the growing body."
On the same head Mr. Townsend Austen wrote most appositely in the North American Review (May 1898). He severely censures those systems of education which attempt to remove as far as possible the obstacles from the course of study. He rightly maintains that the finest nature is the one out of which the dross has been squeezed by painful pressure, and the precious metal has been hammered and beaten into shape. The human being rarely works more than he has to. He appreciates by instinct an easy thing – what college students call a 'snap'. Some of the strongest points of our nature are best called out by resistance. This element in education should never be overlooked. To eliminate the element of difficulty from a study is an act of dishonesty; it deceives the student. The practice side of almost any study is not interesting, but is often rather tedious and must be so: for instance, to spell correctly, to write good English, to draw well, to reason clearly. – This repugnance ​constitutes one of the numerous forms of resistance offered to success in human endeavor; drudgery is the bridge to success. The honors of this life must be won, as the Germans say (and how well the progress of that nation illustrates it), "mit saurem Schweiss," and by the application of another German proverb: "Geduld bricht Eisen" (patience breaks iron). In the development of character in the youth the wise instructor finds the application of this principle most useful and efficient. Will power is acquired. The acquisition of self-control, by which I mean not only the ability to control the passions, but also to compel the action of the mental powers upon a given subject, is aided. The German historian, von Ranke, has stated as a principle in human development, that "all progress is through conflict." The results become of value, because they have a value in work.
Now this last principle was the favorite one of the founder of the Society of Jesus, which he used to inculcate on every occasion, quoting the words of Thomas a Kempis: Tantum proficies, quantum tibi ipsi vim intuleris – "The greater violence thou offerest to thyself, the greater progress thou wilt make." But the "make-it-easy" method – and such is the elective system as advocated by its foremost champions – is pernicious to the formation of the character.
Not less serious is the harm done to instruction, as distinguished from moral education. If the choice of subjects is left to the personal likings of the pupils, in many, if not in most cases, such branches will be chosen which seem to be the easiest, no matter what ​their educational value is. No one who knows human nature will deny this. But that the subjects left to the choice of the students are not all equally capable of giving a thorough mental discipline, is quite evident; and the easier the subject, the less is, as a rule, its educational value.
There are several false assumptions in the contentions of the advocates of electivism. They state without hesitation that the first and foremost object of modern education is to develop the special aptitudes of the pupils, and they apply this not only to college but also to high school education. But this is a most serious mistake. The application of the pupil's talent to specialties belongs to the university and the professional school; but in the secondary schools, and even in the college, special aptitudes may and should be left to themselves. They will assert themselves when the occasion offers, and the wise teacher will be more solicitous to prevent them from warping the whole course of education than to promote their abnormal development. Special aptitudes must be developed after the general education is completed.
The premature and excessive development of such special aptitudes will invariably result in products which have been called "lop-sided". It is Lowell who said: "I had rather the college turn out one of Aristotle's four-square men, capable of holding his own in whatever field he may be cast, than a score of lop-sided ones developed abnormally in one direction." The outcome of such education, or rather instruction, is a sort of mental deformity: one faculty is over​developed, while the others are suffering from atrophy. If the "special aptitude" of the student lies in the field of natural sciences or technics, he is liable to neglect altogether literature, history and philosophy, branches which are indispensable for the real culture of the mind. He becomes a narrow specialist, he swells the host of those men who even now afflict the community, men who are incapable of forming a sane opinion on any question which cannot be decided by a laboratory experiment. Such men have no perceptions of the relations and interrelations of the various branches of knowledge; they lack all appreciation of what is noble and sublime; above all they are most liable to ignore, or even to deny, that beyond the narrow limits of natural science lie truths of the utmost importance, unattainable by any process of synthetic reasoning. It is such warped specialists that Goethe ridicules in the famous passage in Faust (part 2, act 1):
There is always a danger that science leads to pride, particularly to that kind of pride which the Germans call Gelehrtenstolz and Professorendünkel. This danger is especially great in the case of specialists. Professor Paulsen quotes a passage from Kant, in which the philosopher of Königsberg speaks of "Cyclopses of science," who carry an immense weight of learning, a "load of a hundred camels," but who have only one eye, namely that of their own specialty. They lack ​entirely the "philosophic eye," with which they see the relations of things to one another. Of such men Schopenhauer, in his wonted forcible but not overpolite manner, has said: "The man who, disregarding everything else, studies one branch, will in this branch be superior to the rabble (vulgus), but in all the rest he will belong to it. If to this specialization is added a thing which now-a-days becomes more and more common, namely, the neglect of the ancient languages, in consequence of which the general humanistic culture is dropped, then we shall see scientists who, outside their special branch, are real oxen." This danger can be obviated only by a solid general training. But the earlier the specialization begins, the greater shall be the temptation to disregard all other branches, and to despise all those who know little about this special subject, no matter how much they know in other branches. This is intellectual pride, as contemptible as it is ridiculous.
After having described some of the effects which must necessarily result from electivism, as defended by some, we now turn to a plain question, which has been well stated by Professor Münsterberg. "Are elective studies really elected at all? I mean, do they really represent the deeper desires and demands of the individual, or do they not simply express the cumulation of a hundred chance influences? I have intentionally lingered on the story of my shifting interests in my boyhood; it is more or less the story of every half-way intelligent boy or girl. A little bit of talent, a petty caprice favored by accident, a contagious craze or fad, a chance demand for something of which scarcely the outside is known, – all these whir and buzz ​in every boyhood; but to follow such superficial moods would mean dissolution of all organized life, and education would be an empty word. Election which is more than a chance grasping presupposes first of all acquaintance with the object of our choice. Even in the college two thirds of the elections are haphazard, controlled by accidental motives; election of courses demands a wide view and broad knowledge of the whole field. The lower the level on which the choice is made, the more external and misleading are the motives which direct it. A helter-skelter chase of the unknown is no election. If a man who does not know French goes into a restaurant where the bill of fare is given in the French language, and points to one and to another line, not knowing whether his order is fish, or roast, or pudding, the waiter will bring him a meal, but he cannot say that he has 'elected his course.' From whatever standpoint I view it, the tendency to base the school on elective studies seems to me a mistake, – a mistake for which, of course, not a special school, but the social consciousness is to be blamed."
​The same truth has been expressed in very plain language by other American educators. We mention a few utterances of more recent date. President Draper, of the University of Illinois, declared recently: "Children are being told that they should elect their studies. They cannot elect." Professor Peck of Columbia University, reviewing Father Brosnahan's answer to President Eliot's charges, speaks of the latter's "theories which have made Harvard into a curious jumble of college and university, and which President Eliot would like to see carried down into the schools, in the apparent belief that babes and sucklings have an intuitive and prophetic power of determining just what is going to be best for them in all their after life." Mr. Tetlow, of Boston, calls the elective system "elective chaos, and philosophical anarchism," and he lays down these propositions: the students are not competent to direct their own studies; most of the parents are utterly incompetent to make an intelligent choice, too many will readily accept the choice made ​by the children; the principals and teachers are in most cases incompetent to make a wise choice for the pupils, as they are hardly ever sufficiently acquainted with the individual scholars.Indeed, to make such a choice for the individual would require nothing less than "direct revelation from on high," as no man knows sufficiently the talent and possibilities that may lie dormant in the mind of a young student. If this system is the outcome of the much vaunted child study and pedagogical psychology, we have little reason to boast of this modern science. And we think those are amply justified who, against this "apotheosis of individual caprice," defend the old system which prescribes those branches that give a solid general training and thereby prepare the mind for taking up successfully any specialty in due time. The philosophical basis of this system is undoubtedly sound, whereas the elective system fully deserves the stigma of "philosophical anarchism".
We have purposely dwelt longer on the question of "electives," as a serious charge has recently been raised against the educational institutions of the Jesuits for not accepting the electivism of some modern reformers. After having quoted the opinions of leading educators on that subject, we may ask: Was ​that charge justified? – It is superfluous to ask, whether the Society will ever adopt that excessive electivism advocated by several educationists. The Society considers this system as destructive of thorough education.
As early as 1832 the General of the Order, in an encyclical letter on education addressed to his subjects, thus spoke of new inventions: "As to the methods, ever easier and easier, which are being excogitated, whatever convenience may be found in them, there is this grave inconvenience: first, that what is acquired without labor adheres but lightly to the mind, and what is summarily gathered is summarily forgotten; secondly, and this, though not adverted to by many, is a much more serious injury, almost the principal fruit of a boy's training is sacrificed, which is, accustoming himself from an early age to serious application of mind, and to that deliberate exertion which is required for hard work." A comparison with former quotations shows an almost literal identity of these remarks with those of Prof. Münsterberg and other American educators. This agreement, in our humble opinion, is no discredit to either party. Before concluding this chapter, we repeat once more that the Jesuits are not absolutely opposed to the election of courses or branches. But they think with many other educators that the elective system could work well only with many limitations and safeguards. Such limitations are nothing else but prescriptions of certain branches.
* ↑ Hanus, Educational Aims and Educational Values (1900), pp. 76, 78.
* ↑ Ibid., p. 78. – However, a writer in the Electrical World (Oct. 25, 1902) maintains that "the present anomalous status of the college is due perhaps more to its own laudable but ill-judged ambition than to the pressure of the times."
* ↑ Ibid., p. 26.
* ↑ Atlantic Monthly, Oct. 1899, p. 443.
* ↑ The Italics are ours.
* ↑ German Higher Schools, p. 409. See above p. 9.
* ↑ The College Student and his Problems, by J. H. Canfield, formerly chancellor of the University of Nebraska and President of Ohio State University. (New York, MacMillan, 1902) pp. 44-46.
* ↑ Life of James McCosh, p. 201.
* ↑ Ibid., p. 200.
* ↑ Weissenfels, Die Bildungswirren der Gegenwart, pp. 324-329.
* ↑ Romans 7, 18.
* ↑ Atlantic Monthly, October 1900.
* ↑ The Forum, January 1901, p. 592.
* ↑ Peter Townsend Austen: "The Educational Value of Resistance," North Am. Rev., May 1898.
* ↑ See Francis J. Barnes, M. D., Catholic Education, A Lecture delivered at Boston, April 28, 1901.
* ↑ Die deutschen Universitäten, Berlin 1902, p. 219.
* ↑ Atlantic Monthly, May 1900, pp. 665-666. – To judge from numberless comments in newspapers and magazines, Prof. Münsterberg's article seems to have caused a great stir, as coming from one of the most prominent Professors of Harvard, the centre of the movement towards electivism. The New York Nation, on May 17, page 379, said as follows: "If Professor Münsterberg's article on 'School Reform' in the Atlantic cannot be answered effectively, something is radically wrong with our scheme of education." Various attempts were made to answer the Professor's indictments of the elective system, v. g. in the Educational Review, June and September 1900. But the answers were anything but effective. The Nation had said, "what we are most curious to know is what they think about it at Harvard." A Graduate Student wrote soon after from Harvard: "I wish to call attention to a result of the elective system which he [Prof. Münsterberg] has not mentioned, and which might even strengthen his argument – a result most disgraceful, yet most common, and whose truth cannot be ignored. I refer to the undisguised custom of electing 'snap courses,' – courses in which, for various reasons, good marks can be made without much work. For the desire for honors, and the fear of being thought a 'dig', are two very potent factors in determining a choice." (Nation, May 24, p. 396.) This statement is not at all surprising; it confirms what intelligent men had expected from such a system.
* ↑ Educational Review, May 1902, p. 455.
* ↑ Bookman, April 1900.
* ↑ Educational Review, January 1901. We may be excused for quoting the following lines from the same Review, May 1900, which not unaptly travesty the elective system:   Most pupils, like good-natured cows, Keeping browsing and forever browse; If a fair flower come in their way, They take it too, nor ask, "what, pray?" Like other fodder it is food, And for the stomach quite as good.
* ↑ Hughes, Loyola, p. 291.