# Essays on the Higher Education/Chapter 1

ESSAYS
ON THE HIGHER EDUCATION
THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE AMERICAN UNIVERSITY
Neither of the two most attractive and promising methods which ordinarily lie open for the discussion of a question like this, can in the present instance be followed exclusively. These two methods may be styled the descriptive, or historical, and the speculative, or ideal. By following the first method one would be led to state what the university has been and is in this country, and in other parts of the world whose civilization most nearly resembles our own; and then to show by what modifications the institution, as it now exists, might be made what it should be. Even in this way, however, it is plain that one would have to set up some ideal standard, in accordance with which any proposed modifications should take place. In following the second method one might feel emboldened at once to state what the ​lent form of the university ought to be; but one would then have to show how our existing educational institutions may be changed in order to bring them into conformity with such an ideal standard.
Now, in this country, up to the present time, there has existed no form of an educational institution which we can call "the American university," if by this term we intend to designate something other and higher than "the American college," with its possible attachment of one or more professional schools. Any one possessed of the requisite information knows at once what is meant by the university of France, the English universities, or a German university; but no one can become so conversant with facts as to tell what an American university is. It would by no means be fair, however, to sum up the history of the development of this institution with the curt sentence: "There are no universities in America." To be sure, it is hardly twenty years since the rector of Lincoln College, Oxford (Mark Pattison), wrote: "In America scientific culture has never been introduced. It has no universities such as we understand by the term." But the same writer speaks of Yale University as "stated to be a poor and hard-worked seminary," and marvels at the extent and variety of its required curriculum. Since Mr. Pattison's writing, a large number of schools have ​sprung up in our West, some private and some state institutions, most of which have but veiled thinly over their deficiencies in scientific quality, equipment, and force and aim in teaching, by putting on the title of "university." Yale (and, to a greater extent, Harvard) has changed rapidly in the effort to validate this title. Johns Hopkins has made a noble start toward the realization of a high ideal, and various other institutions have given notice of their claims to be, or intentions to become, genuine universities. Still, it is scarcely less true than it was a score of years ago that, although there may be universities in America, no one can tell what an American university is.
On the other hand, there is no lack of theory and counsel as to the important inquiry, what the American university should be. Perhaps it would not be unfair to say that, as a rule, the less the amount of study which a man has given to the many difficult problems that enter into the development of the highest-class educational institutions in this country, the prompter and more certain is his response to this inquiry. Men who have a million or two of money, and who, from the training of their lives, have come to think all things—save heaven, and scarcely save that—purchasable with so goodly a sum, are peculiarly tempted to try the experiment of founding and calling by their name the one genuine and great American ​university. If the general theory of the purchasableness of all things which enter into a university were true, it would still have to be said that the ordinary estimate of the amount required is inadequate. But surely, as long as the primary and indispensable prerequisite of a genuine and great university, wherever under the sky it may be located, is a body of teachers and pupils rightly trained, and united and animated by the right spirit, the actual result attainable by merely giving large sums of money will not fulfil a worthy ideal.
The speculative method, when employed by persons informed in the principles and practice of education, is, of course, far safer and more valuable than when employed by the ignorant. Yet I can never forget that institutions, unlike systems of abstract truth, are not wisely treated in the purely speculative way. A university is, at most, an institution; it is a complicated system of means through which one set of persons operates upon another set of persons for the accomplishment of certain ends. But every means must afford an answer to four inquiries: Out of what material can it be constituted? Who or what is to use it? Upon whom or upon what is it to be used? For what end is it to be used? To inquire as to what the American philosophy should be, savors of irrationality; and the inquiry would have the same savor if it took the form, What should the Scottish, ​or French, or German, or Sandwich-Islands philosophy be? For the only answer to all these inquiries is that philosophy is not a matter for adjustment, as a means, to national requirements, but every nation and individual that cultivates philosophy should aim at having a true philosophy. On the contrary, the inquiry, "What should the American university be?" is not an irrational inquiry, for it is an inquiry after the best means to an end. For the same reason it cannot be raised and answered as a purely speculative inquiry; since the nature of the material out of which the American university must be constituted, if it is constituted at all, imposes upon every ideal some very hard and unavoidable limitations.
Accordingly, I shall abstain as carefully from speculating about an unattainable ideal as from describing a nonentity. Since neither the historical nor the speculative method can be pursued exclusively to their final results, let us be content to go only a little way into the subject by the use of both methods. For although there is no history, as yet, of the development of the American university, there are colleges and professional schools and other institutions of the so-called higher learning in this country, and all these institutions have a tolerably rich and instructive history. If we are ever to attain a distinctive university education, such as can be properly called "American," these ​institutions, their existing and prospective structure and work, must be chiefly taken into our account, for they furnish the material from which, and the conditions on which, the development of the university must, for the most part, take place. If this material and these conditions are dealt with ill, no amount of talk and enthusiasm will save us from pursuing an unattainable or an unworthy ideal.
One word more should be premised upon this point. The American university must be developed on its own soil, and out of the existing materials, and under the existing conditions. It cannot be imported, or constructed de novo, as it were, from the brain and purse of any one man, or of any small number of men. "The University of Oxford," says Mr. Maxwell Lyte, "did not spring into being in any particular year, or at the bidding of any particular founder; it was not established by any formal charter of incorporation." Particular institutions bearing the name of universities may, of course, be founded in this country in a particular year, and at the bidding of a particular founder. But these will not give us the true norm or type. This will come only as the result of a living development.
Nor can I believe that it will be possible to create our university by using large importations of finished foreign goods. Would that the German ​model might furnish us certain of the more important and vital factors of the ideal toward which we resolve to grow! Yet the proposal at once to import largely from the methods and constitution of the German university would be likely to result in failure. There are many features of the University as already established in Germany which we should not wish to imitate if we could. The more important commendable factors—the thorough secondary education of those who matriculate, the scientific character of the teachers and the scientific and free quality of their teaching, the relative disregard for what we incline so much to overestimate, namely, the pursuits that fit directly for some form of practical life (Brodstudien)—we can gain only in time and by paying the price for them. Many things in the French university system, also, and especially what Matthew Arnold calls "too much requiring of authorizations before a man may stir," unfit it to be our model. Nor can we think of taking very freely and directly from those great English institutions of Oxford and Cambridge, to which we should most naturally look for our models. The expensive character of the education they impart, the dominance of the tutorial system in their colleges to the detriment of the university, the large amount of sinecurism which they permit and encourage, the distinction between "pass" and "honor" examinations, and between the one-​quarter who come to study and win prizes and the three-quarters who come chiefly to gain the social distinction of a degree,—prevent our imitating them. As to the Scotch universities, I cannot avoid thinking that following them is most of all to be deprecated. For this reason it should not escape our notice that certain modifications now taking place in the constitution and working of the American college are liable to encourage in this country some of the worst features of the Scotch universities. At present, however, it is safely within the limits of truth to say that the degree of M.A. in a Scotch university does not necessarily signify (with the exception of logic and metaphysics) so much of training or acquisition as is required for admission to a first-rate American college. To model after the Scotch universities would accordingly be to lower the college as we already have it, and not to develop the university as we should desire to have it.
The development of the American university involves the progressive settlement of two questions concerning the best general method of education, which have been of late much discussed both here and in Europe. These are, the nature and amount of choice which the person under education shall exercise as to the subjects and method of his education, and the kind and proportion of knowledges and disciplines which ought to enter into a so-called ​"liberal? education. In this country both these questions have generally been debated in a rather narrow way. The first has ordinarily been proposed as follows: How much of the college curriculum should be required, how much optional? The second has ordinarily been reduced to a strife over the point, whether Greek is necessary to be studied by every one who shall be entitled B.A. The limits of this paper do not, of course, permit me to elaborate and argue my opinion on either of these two questions. Nothing more than an intelligent and defensible opinion, appealing to probabilities in the light of past experience, can be gained upon such subjects of discussion. The purpose before me, however, makes it desirable that I should briefly state my opinion upon both these subjects.
The question as to the choice which the person under education shall have in the material and form of his education is one both of degrees and of expedients,—that is to say, it is a question as to how much such choice shall be allowed, and at what time it shall begin, as well as a question concerning the best means for guiding the choice and for taking the expression of it.
For the sake of convenience I will speak of the grades of education which may be secured at present in this country as four in number; these are, the primary, the secondary, the higher, and the university education, the last being understood to ​be in a very inchoate and unformed condition. By the primary education we will understand such as, whether gained in public or private schools, deals with the most common and elementary subjects, and is not designed in itself to fit the pupil for the higher education. By the secondary education we will understand such as is expressly designed in preparation of the higher education; this will include those courses in the best high-schools and academies which fit pupils to enter the colleges and first-rate scientific schools of the country. These latter (excluding all merely technical schools) give what is entitled to be called the "higher" education. Beyond all this lies so much of the more strictly university education as is mingled with the later years of the higher education, or is taught in so-called "graduate" courses or in professional schools, so far as the latter are conformed to the university idea. It will appear in the sequel that one difficult problem connected with the development of the American university concerns the right separation of the higher education into the two parts of which it has actually come to consist, so that, by combining one of these parts with the secondary education as it now exists, we may gain a broad and solid foundation upon which to build the university education. The university part of the higher education as it now exists will, of course, then have to be joined with the other ​kindred elements in so-called "post-graduate" courses, so as to furnish a genuine university education in the greatest possible wealth and solidity. When this problem is practically solved, therefore, we shall have three instead of four grades of education; these will be, the primary, the secondary, and the higher or university education, but the two latter will probably have far more of significance than they now have.
Looked at in the light of the foregoing distinctions, the question of the place and amount of the pupil's choice which should enter into his education appears to me not so difficult of solution. With regard to the strictly primary education no choice whatever should be permitted, either to the pupil or to his guardian,—that is to say, I would have each youth compelled by the state to go to a certain distance along paths common to all, without permission to decide whether he will go at all, or whether, if he go, he will go by just such paths rather than others. Of course, the guardian of the pupil should have the exercise of discretion as to the mode of teaching, whether public or private, and perhaps as to the age at which the primary education shall have been accomplished. Opportunity for exceptions in the cases of the incapable or sickly should also be given. But the State should compel so much of education as seems necessary for the safe and intelligent exercise ​of the citizen's rights, and for his decent intercourse with his fellows. No doubt opinions will differ as to the amount and kinds of subjects which should be included in the primary education, and as to its methods, text-books, etc. But the settlement of such questions should not be left to the dull or dishonest wits of the successful politician of the ward or district; they should rather be settled by commission of the most notable experts in education, appointed for that purpose by the highest authority of the state.
The element of the pupil's choice should enter somewhat largely into the secondary education, but even here by no means in an unlimited way. In the first place, liberty of choice should be allowed in deciding whether the secondary education will be entered upon at all or not, and also, if entered upon, to what extent it will be pursued. In my opinion, also, near the beginning of the secondary education there should be given that opportunity for "bifurcation" which must certainly come at some time in the course of mental training. The principle of this bifurcation is now tolerably plain and pretty generally acknowledged. In the words of Matthew Arnold, the prime, direct aim of education is "to enable a man to know himself and the world." Corresponding to this twofold aim of education there is in most men, dormant or already dominant, one or the other of two great ​"aptitudes;" these are, the aptitude for the more subjective and reflective studies, and the aptitude for the studies of external observation. In other words, among youths who take to anything in the way of study, some take more naturally to letters and philosophy, and some take more naturally to physical and natural sciences. The secondary education should recognize this difference in aptitudes for one or the other part of the prime twofold aim of education. Such recognition should provide for two main courses of study, in one of which letters and the so-called humanities should predominate, and in the other mathematics and the physical and natural sciences. These courses should themselves, however, be fixed without making a frequent appeal to the choice of the pupil; they should be fixed in accordance with the world's accumulated wisdom as to the best way to teach a man "to know himself and the world," in harmony with his particular aptitude. The secondary education, in all cases where it is to lead up to a university education, should be long and thorough enough to secure what the Germans strive to secure as a preparation for their universities,—namely, the general scientific culture, or formation (allgemeine wissenschaftliche Bildung), of the pupil.
The higher or university education should permit and encourage the greatest possible freedom ​of choice on the pupil's part; but it should not be open (except as a matter of courtesy or privilege of visitation) to those who have not satisfactorily finished the secondary stage. To this subject, however, I shall return later.
A word is pertinent in this connection as to the much-debated question of the amount of optional courses to be allowed in the present college curriculum. The American college was formerly a secondary school, pure and simple, and properly, therefore, did not admit the university method and the university idea. The American college has now developed out of the stage in which it was strictly a means for secondary education, without having yet developed into the higher or university stage. It contains, however, certain elements of the university idea. These elements are to be welcomed as existing in the place of something better but as yet unrealizable. In so far as the college can wisely admit into itself, for a time, the elements of a university education, it may have, and should have, so-called " optional " courses. But the education which most American colleges give is still chiefly of the secondary order and kind. 'This is necessarily so, because the opportunity for such an education as should already be possessed by every candidate for matriculation in university courses cannot be obtained in this country outside of the colleges.
​The chief part of the present college curriculum, therefore, cannot wisely be made optional, for it belongs on the other than the university side of the college; it belongs to the secondary education. It is an indispensable part of that training which enables the youth, where universities do exist, to exercise such choice of subjects and teachers (Lernfreiheit) as belongs to the university education. To make this part of the college education optional would not advance us one step toward converting the college into the genuine university. My objection—and it is an objection which seems to me unanswerable, except by raising greatly the standard of secondary education outside the college—my objection to making the entire college curriculum elective is the necessary sequence of the facts. The freshman in the best American college, irrespective of his age and his wisdom, whether in his own eyes or in the eyes of others, has not had (except in rare instances) a secondary education of sufficient extent or thoroughness to fit him to enjoy the privileges of the university idea. Place the average Harvard or Yale student who has just passed his entrance examinations beside the German student who has just gone through with his Abiturienten-Examen, and compare the two. The latter is greatly superior to the former in respect of "general scientific culture;" he is even superior to the average Harvard or ​Yale junior in this respect. However, we are rapidly approaching the time when we may make the secondary and relatively compulsory education end earlier than it now does—unless, alas! we lose our fast-ripening fruit by plucking it prematurely.
Into the question of the means by which to secure and guide the pupils' choice, I shall not attempt to enter. To permit the student who is really in the secondary stage of education to make up from term to term, or year to year, whatever potpourri he will of elective courses, is perhaps of all methods least likely to prove satisfactory. It should also be noticed that the effort to secure the right kind and amount of work in the secondary stage of education solely or chiefly by insisting upon "pass" examinations results in making "crammed" men instead of "formed" men. Perverse studet qui examinibus studet, Wolf used to declare. "The country of examinations," says M. Laboulaye, speaking of Austria, "is precisely that in which they do not work hard." But the remedy does not consist in abolishing all examinations, but rather in stimulating thorough teaching and in requiring from the pupil the preparation of daily and organically ordered tasks.
The question as to the amount and kind of knowledges and disciplines which are necessary to a "liberal education" is, both in theory and in ​fact, closely connected with the development of the university. No one would think of claiming that the university man ought not in all cases to be a man liberally educated. But one essential part of the idea and practice of a genuine university education is freedom of choice, on the pupil's part, as to the kind, if not the amount, of knowledges and disciplines in which he will attain his scientific culture. HH, then, any particular knowledges and disciplines are to be required as necessary for a liberal education, the enforcement of this requirement belongs to the secondary rather than to the university stage of education. In other words, if one hold that a "liberal education' should comprise a certain knowledge of, and training in, any branches of learning, one must also hold that such branches of learning should be rigidly required of the pupil in the preparatory school and early years of his college course. For, as we have seen, the preparatory school and the early years of the college course have hitherto constituted, and do still constitute, our means of secondary education in this country.
I have no hesitation in stating my conviction that a goodly amount of certain kinds of knowledges and disciplines is necessary for every education worthy to enjoy the distinction of being called "liberal." Therefore I am compelled, also, to hold that both the main courses of secondary ​education should require of all their pupils at least a certain amount of particular kinds of mental acquirement and culture, as a prerequisite to entrance upon university studies. This amount should be notably greater than that now exacted for admission to our highest-class colleges. In my judgment, it should be even somewhat greater than that now attained by the average junior in such colleges.
It is at once objected, to the proposal to enforce a considerable amount of training in definite branches of learning and culture upon every pupil, that the number of modern sciences is far too great to require even a smattering of them all in the secondary education. And, it is added, a smattering of many sciences is equivalent to no science; it is even positively injurious to the mind of the learner, while the attempt to enforce it makes a potpourri of education which is quite as unreasonable as that composed for themselves by some of those pupils who enjoy the freest exercise of choice. All this and more is undoubtedly true in objection to a certain way of working the principle of compulsion through the whole of the secondary education. But I have not urged that a certain large number of particular sciences should be enforced in the secondary education of every pupil. I have only spoken of an amount and number of knowledges and disciplines which are requisite for such a secondary education as will serve for a ​foundation to a genuine university education. If there is any such amount and number of studies, then we cannot successfully develop the American university without settling this basis of requirement upon which the development must rest. The settlement of this question will not take place, in fact and life, through the dictum of any one man—not even though that man be learned in the theory of education or in a position favorable for forcing his convictions upon others. The settlement of this question will come only in time (and perhaps in a long time), as a growing consensus of the opinions of those most competent in such matters. The opinion which I have to express shall be modestly expressed; at most, it is only one man's opinion, except so far as it is in accord with the consensus of opinion already formed on the part of the most competent authorities.
A "liberal education" seems to me to include, of necessity, a goodly amount of four great branches of human knowledge and discipline; these are: language, including literature; mathematics and natural science; the science of man as an individual spirit who feels and thinks and acts in relation to the world of nature and of his fellows, and to God; and the development of the human race in history. All education preparatory to the university should require these studies to have been already pursued liberally; but the ​education of the university should leave every learner free to follow any special examples of one or more of them, according to his aptitude and choice. At the same time, even in the secondary education, a generous allowance should be made—as I have already said—for differences in aptitudes, in view of the twofold aim of all scientific culture. But this allowance should not be made subject to the choice of the pupil from term to term, or from year to year,—if for no other reason, still because a real continuity or organic and vital connection cannot be secured in this way for the different parts of the secondary education. Nor should the allowance be made in the form of a great variety of parallel courses among which the pupil must choose. This plan is open, though in less degree, to the same objection as the foregoing. Moreover, unless it is further limited, it does not secure thorough training in the four great branches of learning and discipline of which I have spoken. And, finally, it inevitably results in the repetition, in the small, of the same attempt at compulsory imparting of a smattering of many knowledges, of which the unrevised college curriculum in this country has been accused. The secondary education should, then, consist of required studies in all these four branches; but it should be arranged in such a way as to be thorough in a very few examples under each, and it should be divided into ​two great courses in which, by laying greater emphasis upon some one or more of the four, a generous allowance can be made for the pupil's aptitude. Further as to some of the details of this plan of a secondary education, which should be required as a necessary preparation for university studies, I shall speak later on.
Substantial agreement upon the points hitherto discussed will insure a good measure of agreement upon those which are now to follow. There need be little dispute, since the subject has in late years received so thorough an historical examination, over the essential nature of a genuine university. Since the American university must, in any event, be a "university," although it may have certain peculiar features which may be called American, the noun will set limits to the adjective beyond which the peculiar features cannot grow. What, then, is the norm according to which, and the ideal toward which, we must develop our higher education? In other words, what is the true university idea?
Although intelligent persons need not dispute over the true idea of the university, there is current a great amount of unintelligent opinion on this subject. One prevalent thought obviously is, that a university is a school, or collection of schools, where a great lot of subjects are taught and a great crowd of pupils go. And there are elements of truth in this opinion. A number of faculties and ​free concourse of students, perhaps of many nations and from many places, are intimately connected with the university idea. But there are large schools, in this country and elsewhere, that are not universities; and there have been great universities with a relatively small number of students. The grade and method of the teaching, and the spirit and previous training of the students, are important factors in the university idea. Again, the universality of the university has been thought to consist in this, that the scope of its instruction should include all subjects; thus the idea toward which the American institution should strive is held to be that of a place where anybody can come to learn anything that can be taught anywhere. Now, historically considered, this view is absurd. The phrases in which the word universitas occurs, if thus interpreted, would (it has been pointed out) be equivalent to speaking of the university as "an institution for studying everything where they study nothing but law." Moreover, this interpretation of the word misses the spirit of the reality. For example, a school of veterinary surgery, or a school for learning to sing and to play the piano, may be a convenient adjunct or appendage of a university. But certainly neither of these schools can ever become an integral part of a genuine university. The study and teaching of comparative anatomy and physiology, or of zoölogy, ​including the structure of those valuable domestic animals, the horse and the cow, is a legitimate and important part of a university. But such study must constitute a part of general scientific culture, and be conducted as such.
It is the scientific spirit to which the university education primarily appeals, and which it encourages; it is the large and free pursuit of science, as science, which it is bound to yield. This is true even of its professional schools. Even the study of surgery and medicine, or of theology, is primarily and pre-eminently scientific in the genuine university. For the same reason the call for chairs of "journalism," "telegraphy," etc., in the American university, and the complaint that our university instruction does not teach men to speak French and Italian, are both quite out of place. Journalism and telegraphy can never properly enter into the instruction of the faculties of the university, for they can never be regarded as broadly inductive or speculative sciences. The modern languages have no place in university instruction, except as they are used for the study of language and of literature, or are made the means of getting at other sciences through the works written in these languages.
The history of the word "university" has now been very thoroughly investigated. This history throws no little light on the meaning of the word, ​the content of the idea. It is connected with the history of the term studium generale, which the word universitas came to supplant. "The name studium generale," says Savigny, "has been interpreted to intend the whole collective body of the sciences, but incorrectly. . . . The name rather refers to the extent of the scope of operation of these institutions, which were intended for pupils of all countries." "It meant,' says Professor Laurie, "a place where one or more of the liberal arts might be prosecuted, and which was open to all who chose to go there and study, free from the canonical or monastic obligations and control." It was, therefore, a school of high grade, where the spirit of freedom, in both teacher and pupil, prevailed. It afterward came to mean "both a school for liberal studies and a school open to all." The word universitas, on the other hand, was originally applied to any association of persons acting somewhat permanently together. It has been said that, in a papal rescript, vestra universitas often means scarcely more than "all of you." As applied to a studium it came to mean a literary and incorporated community. But when these schools began to act under some express grant or character the two terms tended to become identical; and, finally, the word "university" came to take the other's place and to be exclusively used.
​It appears, therefore, that the primary thing in the university idea, both in time and in thought, is the association in a certain way of the teacher and his pupils. "Universities," says Dr. Döllinger, "originated as free associations of respected teachers and eager scholars." This does not, indeed, sufficiently define the modern university, but. it describes an essential and indestructible factor of it. Now, if we attempt further to describe the modern university in the light of the ancient idea, we find that it differs from the university of the Middle Ages chiefly with respect to the extent and variety of means in command for the realization of this idea. The idea to be realized, and the general conception of the method necessary for its realization, remain the same. The idea to be realized is the highest scientific culture of the individual, and the method deemed necessary for its realization is the right association of the teacher and pupil. The one word which, beyond all others, describes this method is "freedom."
The university teacher must have freedom in investigating and teaching; the pupil must have freedom in investigating and learning (Lehrfreiheit and Lernfreiheit). But freedom that does not degenerate into license is secured in the teacher by selecting a man of formed character, who has himself gone over the same path of patient, conscientious, wide, and deep research by which he ​offers to lead the pupil. He still travels daily in this same path. The pupil, on his part, is free to choose his teacher and his subjects of research; and his freedom is secured, as much as possible, against license by his having been prepared for freedom through the rigorous training, under law, of the secondary education, and through the example and inspiration of his teacher and of the entire community of which he forms a part. He must learn to "know from experience," as says Professor von Sybel, "what is the meaning of emancipation of the individual mind, scientific thoroughness, and free depth of thought."
Such freedom in scientific research and teaching as the university uses to attain its end of the highest scientific culture is not, however, to be considered as separable from character. For, in the words of another German professor, " genuine science is the foundation of genuine freedom of spirit. Universities are, therefore, places for the formation of genuine freedom of spirit. They could not be this if they were directed in a one-sided way to the setting free and forming of intelligence. Freedom of spirit without the formation of character is not conceivable. Only the unity of the formation of intelligence and character is genuine freedom of spirit."
The true end of the university is, then, the highest scientific culture of the individual, and its peculiar ​method is the most intelligent and highly trained freedom in research, in teaching, and in learning. This end and this method served at the beginning to distinguish the schools of the university order from the monastic and ecclesiastical schools; they may fitly serve still as setting the ideal to which the American university must conform itself. Writers so widely divergent in their views and ways of thought as Matthew Arnold and Cardinal Newman are in substantial agreement as to the end at which the genuine university aims. This end is not, then, primarily the preparation of the pupil for any particular employment or profession, or even for being a good and useful citizen in general. University culture, does, indeed, tend strongly to produce good and useful service of every kind, and good and useful citizenship; but this is its indirect tendency rather than its direct primary aim. For example, Professor Payne, in pleading for a science of education, reminds Englishmen of Sir Bartle Frere's conviction that " the acknowledged and growing power of Germany is intimately connected with the admirable education which the great body of the German nation are in the habit of receiving;" as well as of the declaration of a writer in the "Times": "I think the maintenance of our commercial superiority is very much of a schoolmaster's question;" and of the statement of another writer that "the ​Germans are outstripping us in the race for commercial superiority in the far East." These advantages of a liberal and university education, widely diffused, are not to be directly aimed at, for, like happiness, they are likely thus to be lost. They are to be secured as the indirect but sure result, so far as the university is concerned, of the attainment of its direct aim in the highest scientific culture of the greatest number possible, and especially of all those placed in positions where they are trusted and followed by the people.
Choice by the pupil as to what he will study, and as to where and of whom and how far he will study it, belongs of right to the university idea. The university itself, however, must decide how much of secondary education the pupil shall have in order to admission to its freedom, and also how much of the highest scientific culture he must attain to win the mark of its approval as his alma mater. Beyond these restrictions, the more generous the freedom permitted and encouraged the more worthy the compliance of the university with its own ideal. In so far as professional studies constitute an integral part of the instruction of the university, since the degree conferred upon the student of them is a guarantee of a certain amount of scientific culture of a particular kind, such studies may be prescribed. Yet even in these cases the same end and method must be adhered ​to with the utmost possible strictness. A theological seminary or medical school where freedom of instruction and learning is not regnant cannot become a proper part of a genuine university; it must remain of the nature of a sectional, or monastic and ecclesiastical, school.
It is chiefly because the German universities most worthily realize the ideal of the highest free and scientific culture that they are confessedly superior to all others,—confessedly, on the part of the most thoughtful and well-informed educators under rival systems. "The danger of France," says M. Renan of its university, "consists in this: we are becoming a nation of brilliant lecturers and fine writers." "It is," says Professor Pattison, of England, "as if our universities were destined only to teach in perfection the art of writing leading articles." No one, however, would for a moment think of implying what is involved in remarks like these with reference to the poorest German university; for every university in Germany, by its theory and custom alike, undertakes worthily to realize this admirable ideal.
Supposing that those upon whom falls the task of developing the American university have grasped the right conception, the actual attainment of the ideal will inevitably encounter many difficulties. They have certain problems before them which are embodied in hard matter-of-fact. No amount ​of fine writing or generous planning will do away with the necessity of encountering these problems one by one, and of giving them a progressively better and better practical solution. The whole condition of education in this country, as it stands in the minds of the people and in the existing educational institutions, from highest to lowest, is concerned in the development of the university. I shall treat of only two of these problems. But these two are perhaps the most difficult, and they are so closely related to each other as to constitute in some respects one and the same problem. They are, the present condition and future development of the secondary education of the country, and the constitution and fate of the American college.
No one would contend that the secondary education in this country is in a satisfactory condition. It is undoubtedly lacking in thoroughness, in balance, in organic unity, and progressive character. By the "secondary" education I now mean such education, in addition to that primary education required of every one by the State, as the university must require for admission to its privileges. But—as has already been pointed out—the whole circuit of secondary education is at present, in this country, divided into two sections, one of which lies in courses preparatory for college or for the highest-class scientific school, and the other in the curriculum of the college or of the scientific school.
​This latter section is supposed to constitute the "higher" or highest education. Neither of these two sections of what, in its entirety, virtually represents the secondary education of the country—the education which must be required in preparation for the university—is in a satisfactory condition.
No one who is acquainted with the subject would think of claiming that (with a few exceptions) the high-schools and academies and other places for fitting youth for college are doing their work in a satisfactory way. This fact, however, is by no means wholly due to fault or deficiency on their part; indeed, education is so much of an organic unity that, if any of the stages or elements of it be defective, the deficiency is felt throughout all the subsequent growth of the entire organism. The secondary education is so unsatisfactory partly because of the condition of that primary education on which the secondary must be built. For, here again, no one acquainted with the subject would think of claiming that the public and private schools which start the process of education are in anything like a satisfactory condition. Probably the average public school of the primary grade is, on the whole, more effective than the average private school of the same grade. But what is the condition of the public schools of the primary grade in this country? To speak the truth plainly, ​they are in many cases too much managed by political powers that have no kind of fitness for the work, and the instruction is too much given by immature girls who have themselves received no thorough education and who, far too frequently, teach only as a makeshift until they can secure release by way of marriage.
How, then, can the best and truly progressive secondary education be built upon a foundation laid by such hands under such circumstances? Substantially the same things are true, however, of a considerable part of the secondary education itself; only in this case the managing political powers come into contact with certain subjects which strike them with somewhat of the mysterious awe which belongs to all unknown subjects, and with a few teachers who make themselves felt as strong and thoroughly educated persons alone can. But, even in those subjects which are more especially selected as the knowledges and disciplines whose acquaintance must be made in a generous way before the youth can be ready for the freer and higher scientific culture of the university, the few really fit teachers must spend much of their time in teaching the pupil what he should have been taught long ago, but has not learned, and in helping him to unlearn a large part of what he has been taught. How can such a secondary education compare for a moment with that ​given by teachers every one of whom has had a thorough education, and arranged in courses intelligently selected and organically united by the highest learning and skill?
The other section of the secondary education of the country—viz., that which lies within the curriculum of the college, or the highest-class scientific school—is also as truly, if not as largely and obviously, in an unsatisfactory condition. The best fitting-schools, whether academies or highschools, are not infrequently better off, with respect to the character of their teachers, pupils, courses of study, and means for handling their courses, than are the greater part of our so-called colleges. Still, almost all the colleges are constantly making important changes for the better. No doubt the colleges of the first rank are, considering the material from which their pupils must be made, on account of the unsatisfactory condition of the early part of the secondary education, doing excellent work. I think it would not be extravagant to say that the American colleges are now giving to the average pupil a more thorough education than is bestowed upon any but their honor-men by any of the universities of Great Britain. But these colleges, too, are prevented, by certain conditions which lie partly within and partly outside of themselves, from doing the best work in the way of continuing the secondary education. Accordingly, ​the best approach to a true university education which they can make at present is by way of offering certain elective courses as a part of the later years of the college curriculum, and by inducing a few pupils to gather for the purpose of pursuing so-called "post-graduate" courses. But in many cases (at least, with the exception of three or four institutions) these graduate (better so called than "post-graduate") courses are without satisfactory beginning or ending.
It is obvious, then, that the progressive reorganization of our secondary education—a subject full of many difficult practical problems—is an indispensable prerequisite or, rather, accompaniment of the development of the university. But since part of this education now lies, and for a long time to come must lie, within the college curriculum, the reorganization of the secondary education is connected with the fate of the college itself.
I will now briefly indicate the lines along which the work of reorganization should proceed. The entire secondary education should, as far as possible, be made into a connected and organic whole; and the aim should be to have it finished at the end of what is now sophomore year in the colleges of the first rank, or at the end of the entire required curriculum of the scientific schools of the first rank. It should be arranged in two great courses, both of which should be, in respect of all their ​studies—what, how much, and what order—carefully prescribed. Both of these great courses should include all the four kinds of knowledges and disciplines which are considered as indispensable parts of a liberal education, and as necessary preparation for the range and freedom of university studies. But these knowledges and disciplines should be taught in different proportions by the two courses. The course which leans toward, or places the emphasis upon, language and the humanities should comprise no less of mathematics, and even more of the physical and natural sciences, than it now contains. It should comprise more, not less, of the classical languages, of both Latin and Greek, and of the literature and antiquities which belong to these languages. But these languages should be taught very differently from either that petty but strict way or that pretentious but loose way which have too much predominated hitherto.
The other one of the two great courses in this bifurcated secondary education should place the emphasis upon mathematics and the physical and natural sciences. As a condition of entering the higher scientific school there should be required no less of mathematics and the natural sciences than is now required, but there should also be required much more knowledge of literature and of at least one of the classical languages. The thorough study ​of at least one of the classical languages should be an indispensable prerequisite of beginning the university education, because the study of language and literature is an indispensable requirement of beginning such education; and no other languages than Latin and Greek offer anything like the same advantages for the study of language as the medium of the spirit, and for the study of the spirit that moves in such written language as has escaped the envy of time.
It should not be objected to this plan that it will necessarily postpone too long the time at which the secondary education may be finished. For, given men of the highest cultivation to arrange and to teach the studies of the earlier portion of the secondary cultivation, and there will be no difficulty whatever in bringing youth, at the average age of seventeen, to the point where the college or scientific school now receives them. This is none too early for a boy to be as far advanced and as well trained as our students now are at the close of freshman year in the institutions of the highest rank. At least two years within college, and at least three years in the scientific school, will be required for a long time to come in order worthily to complete the secondary education. The aim and method of these years should be precisely the same as the aim and method of the preceding part of the secondary education; the studies, also, should be largely the same.
​Into both of these great courses, whose primary aim is to teach the pupil to know himself and the world by enforcing "the general training and invigoration of the mind," there must enter at some time the other two of the four kinds of knowledge and discipline which compose a liberal education. These are, the knowledge of the individual human mind, and the knowledge of the development of the race in history. The former should include the subjects of logic, psychology, and ethics; the latter should comprise an outline sketch of general history and a more special study of one or more epochs or nations, in order that the pupil may have some real experience of the spirit and method of genuine historical study. Both courses of the secondary grade should include these subjects, though possibly in different proportions. With the right arrangement and better teaching of the entire secondary education, there would be no insuperable difficulty in accomplishing at the average age of nineteen or twenty all that I have indicated as necessary in preparation for the university education. Indeed, the pupil thus trained should be quite as well fitted for that freedom in research and learning which is the way to the highest scientific culture as the average graduate, at present, of our best scientific schools and colleges.
During all these years of secondary training no pretence should be encouraged in the pupil that he ​is accumulating new and rare knowledge. Both teacher and pupil should understand that the latter is under the former as his pœdagogus, to lead him to the higher freedom which is coming. Any attempt prematurely to introduce the methods of the university education, or to lower the standard of the education preparatory to it, will be prejudicial to the development of the true ideal of the university. For example, to lower the standard of minimum requirement for admission to college will have the effect of degrading the high-schools and academies which now fit youth for college, and of either diminishing the whole amount of the secondary education or crowding more of it into the college curriculum. It will doubtless, also, increase the inefficiency and carelessness of both pupils and teachers in reaching even this lowered standard. The similar attempt at Oxford resulted so that, in 1868, Mr. O. Ogle wrote to the vice-chancellor: "The standard has been sensibly lowered, and the proportion of plucks has sensibly increased." Moreover, to convert the college into an imitation of the university—especially in its earlier years, when its pupils and instruction are not, and cannot be of the university order—will secure only the temporary satisfaction which the bestowal of titles sometimes brings; it will postpone rather than hasten the realization of a worthy ideal.
The second difficult practical problem which ​must be solved in order to the development of the American university is the fate of the American college. How this problem must be solved has already in part been indicated. Such of the education now required by the college as can justify its claims to be required at all in preparation for the advanced and free scientific culture of the university must be retained as a prescribed part of the secondary education. Such of the college curriculum as is now modelled after the university idea must be withdrawn from this curriculum, remodelled, and united with the so-called "post-graduate" courses; and the whole thus formed must be enlarged and raised to the standard of this idea. It will at once be objected that this plan will divide and alter the present constitution of the American college. I reply, precisely so; this is what must come to pass in the development of the university. But letit be observed that the destined passing away of the present constitution of the American college in no respect detracts from its past services or alters the propriety of adhering closely to its best elements in their present combination until the better arrangement of both our secondary and our higher education can be secured. Nor is a change of the present constitution of the college equivalent to an abandonment of the idea of college education.
There can be no doubt that the curriculum of ​the American college is to-day in a condition of exceedingly unstable equilibrium. Such a condition is by no means wholly due to intelligent objections to this curriculum; but neither is it due to wholly irrational objections. The amount and kind of studies now required by this institution can by no means be clearly justified. The permission to elect, with respect to the amount and kind of studies to which it applies, is plainly given in many cases as a matter of accident or of temporary convenience rather than as a conclusion based on reason and experience. The result is that the present position of the curriculum of the American college is anomalous; and the higher the grade of the college whose curriculum we examine, the more anomalous is its character. Such a condition cannot be regarded as anything better than the best temporary expedient,—a creditable makeshift devised in the effort to advance, but not to advance too fast or in the wrong direction. Inevitably, those institutions which have admitted most of the university principle into their college courses have obtained the largest mixture of the secondary and the truly higher education.
At the same time that a variety of elective courses has been introduced into the college curriculum of our institutions of the first rank, the same institutions have been making the effort to develop a true university education outside of and farther up than ​the college curriculum. In other words, they have instituted graduate courses open only to those who have the requisite amount of secondary education. The development of these graduate courses has encountered several almost insuperable obstacles. The most hard and obstinate of these obstacles are the following: the prevalent low esteem of the highest truly scientific culture; the excessive estimate of what is called "practical" in education—of bread-and-butter studies (Brodstudien); the poor condition of the secondary education, and so the impossibility of offering the best to even the graduates of most of our colleges; the impatience of our American youth and of their guardians, that is quite opposed to that quiet continuous growth which the noblest learning and mental discipline must undergo, etc.
It appears that those colleges which have found themselves in condition to enlarge greatly the university part of the college curriculum are, as a rule, the ones which have also done most to provide graduate instruction. But thus far even these institutions have been obliged to leave the two halves, as it were, of a possible university instruction, separated by the graduation from all study of most of their pupils at the close of the college senior year. These institutions must as rapidly and completely as possible unite the two thus far separate halves into a unity of the university ​kind; for it is to these institutions that the country should look for the development of the genuine university.
The methods by which the accomplishment of this combination of the post- and the ante-graduate elements of the university shall be brought about cannot, of course, be described speculatively in detail; but some hints concerning them, and concerning their probable working, are clearly in place here. I wish, in the first place, then, to call attention again to the inseparable connection which exists between the development of the secondary education, both within and without the college curriculum, and the management of that curriculum so as to develop the university education. And now let us suppose that the earlier part of the secondary education has been rearranged and thoroughly well taught; it will thus become perfectly feasible to put into the last two years of this secondary education—the two years corresponding to the freshman and sophomore in our colleges of the first rank—all the required work in physics and natural science, in history and literature, in logic, psychology, and ethics, which constitutes the staple of the instruction at present given in the junior and senior years of the college curriculum. Let the first five or six years of the secondary education be well arranged and well taught, upon the basis of a sound primary education, and let the last two or three ​years of this education comprise subjects now reasonably required in our college curriculum, and let these last years be organically connected with the preceding five or six years, and then it will be perfectly feasible to prepare the average American youth at nineteen or twenty for beginning a true university education. Indeed, let the secondary education be properly reformed and duly elevated, and then the youth who has well accomplished it will be better fitted to enter upon a university education than is, at present, the average youth of twenty-two who has just graduated from a, first-class American college. And the youth of twenty, thus well educated in the secondary stage, will be more likely to desire to have a university education. If he sees before him the offer of three or four more years of training and research, in subjects and under teachers that he may select with perfect freedom, he will probably wish to accept that offer. If he or his guardians have wealth or a competency, he and they will certainly be more ready to spend the money as well as the time upon his higher education, when 1t becomes clearer in this country what the best scientific culture means for the individual and for society. If he and his friends be poor, he will be more likely to be willing to struggle hard and to deny himself, somewhat as large numbers of German students do, in order to enjoy this highest ​scientific culture. The choicest and most promising of these youths thus engaged in a university education may also be expected to do creditable original work, and thus enrich the scientific knowledge and literature of the country; and to institute valuable courses of instruction, and thus enrich the teaching of the university. And, in my judgment, it will be far worthier and more profitable for the country to raise at first a few, and then a larger and larger number, by the steps of a thorough, enforced secondary education, to the level of a genuine university culture than to bring the name of university culture to the level of those who are really only low down in the secondary stage of education.
This department of more general philosophical and scientific studies, to which the educated youth of twenty is invited, should be placed parallel with the courses in the professional schools in order to form the whole circuit of university education. Such relations should be instituted and maintained between it and the more strictly professional schools of the university as that each shall assist and enrich the other. In this way, on the basis of a secondary education attained at the close of what corresponds to the present sophomore year, the young man in the advanced academical courses should have the privilege, not only of selecting such of these courses as are most nearly akin to ​his future professional life, but also of beginning the professional courses themselves. The young man in the professional school should also have the opportunity of enlarging the scope of his professional studies by free access to all the more strictly academical, the philosophical and scientific, courses.
But the question must be answered: What of the youth who has chosen to gratify his supposed aptitude for the knowledges and disciplines that deal with external nature, and who has therefore chosen the other one of the two courses into which the secondary education was supposed to become bifurcated? Is he to meet in the university courses on an equality his fellow-student who has gone by the other path and passed through the college curriculum? Yes; but only in case he and his teachers have complied with certain conditions. In other words, the secondary education now given by the scientific courses in the highschools and academies, and by the succeeding courses in the scientific schools of the first rank, like those connected with Yale and Harvard universities, must enlarge and strengthen and amend its curriculum in order to fit its graduates for a true university education. It must enlarge and strengthen itself by requiring of its pupils much more of literary, linguistic, historical, and philosophical study, without diminishing at all its ​requirements in mathematics and in the physical and natural sciences. It must amend the spirit of its instruction by putting away all contempt for classical and historical and philosophical learning, and all that pride which leads men to refuse the name of "science" to any knowledge but their own. Here, again, it appears that the problem of the development of the university in this country is largely the problem of securing a satisfactory secondary education.
Finally, it is plain that the development of the university in this country involves a marked and permanent differentiation into two classes of the higher educational institutions now in existence. The vast majority of the "colleges," so called, in this country should be content to remain colleges—that is, places which make no pretence to carry men beyond such secondary education as is preparatory to a genuine university education. To improve the secondary education which they impart, and to make it somewhat worthy of the idea connected in the minds of our people with the word "collegiate," may well satisfy their highest ambition. On the other hand, there can be no doubt that the great majority of the institutions now called "universities" should renounce both the name and the pretence of the thing. Only those few institutions that have already acquired large resources of famous men and established ​courses and equipment for the highest instruction, and that can hope to draw from their own and from other colleges a sufficient constituency of pupils already trained in a thorough secondary education, should strive to develop themselves into universities. Large means for scientific research—libraries, museums, observatories, etc.—are indispensable for this development. A complement of professional schools, with their faculties, is also, if not indispensable, at least highly important. I venture to assert that not more than a half-dozen (?) universities should be developed in the entire country during the next generation, and that no new institutions to bear that name should, on any grounds whatever, be founded.
It is within lines such as I have drawn above, and by keeping in view the right high ideal while also grasping with a firm hand the hard practical conditions and limitations of the ideal, that the American university should be developed. All the details no man need undertake to arrange beforehand with authority. But every effort may guard against certain errors. And on this point let us recall the significant saying of Lotze: "There are no errors which take such firm hold of men's minds as those in which inexactness of thought and lofty feeling combine to produce a condition of enthusiastic exaltation."