The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1883-12-27
THE INDIANA COLLEGES.

These are DePauw (Asbury), Butler, Notre
Dame and Huntsville. There are also ten
coIleges-W Wabash, Hanover, Franklin, Earl
ham, Moore's Hill, Ridgevlle, ST. Meinrad,
Union Christian, Bedford, and Concordia.
All of these have preparatory classical and
four years. Several of these schools also
have commercial, philosophical and theo-
logical courses. In most of them French,
German and music are taught, and several
have departments of art and aesthetics. Rose
Polytechnic Institute, of Terre Haute, stands
alone as subordinating, like the Josiah Mason
College, of Birmingham, England, ''mere
literary education and instruction" to scien-
tific and technical training. There are also
half dozen private normal and business
schools, as at Valparaiso, Danville and
1000 students. Besides the three State, the
dozen sectarian, and the half dozen private
institutions, all of which confer diplomas
and claim to give higher instruction." In
diana has four regular medical colleges,
and as many irregular" There is also a
college of law in Indianapolis. The State,
then, has upwards of thirty institutions,
most of which are chartered which confer
diplomas land grant the title of professor" to,
over three hundred presidents and instruct
ors. These schools are of all grades and
ures, as the normal and business colleges;
Others are supported by church aid and
private endowment, among them being some
of our best schools; others have the strong
arm of the State to support them; while
one, the Rose Polytechnic, had its origin in
the bounty of a single citizen. About half
of these schools rank as colleges proper, and
their names are known and their diplomas
recognized outside of their own neighbor-
hood and State. These schools-conferring
annually over six hundred diplomas, having
over three hundred professors and eight
thousand students-are scattered over the
State, to meet local necessities. To concen-
trate them as in the great English schools
would be fatal. Except in the higher
classes, the students are young, and should
not be assembled in large numbers or far
removed from home influences. Concen-
trated at the CAPT tai, or in two or three large
cities, not half SO many students could at
tend. and the work could not be as we'll DONE
In claims and catalogues our colleges are
nearly all equally. brave. The courses of
study of many of them would do credit to
great and powerful university. Probably
the most signal defect is the attempt TO do
too much in the years allotted and with the
low grade of students and instructors found
in many of them. Moreover our colleges
are now in the transition period from the
old to the new learning and methods. Many
of them are trying to incorporate both-the
old presidents and pr ofessors holding to the
straight and narrow path of mental science,
ancient language and mathematics, in which
they and their collegiate fathers walked,
while the risky and mbitious young science
professors, but recently graduated from the
eastern scientific and technical schools, are
leading the sophomore and junior classes
into the broad and pleasant fields of natural
science, teaching botany with plants, zool-
ogy from animals geology in the fields,
chemistry and physics in the labo ra tory.
The same struggle that has been going on in
England, led by Arnold and Huxley re-
L. oh H., bao tol-
fcrcely in our great Eastern schools is
echoed constantly in Indiana faculty rooms
in college papers and essays, and also in
the addresses and proceedings of the Indiana
College Association. Last year the young
science men had the floor and were in the
majority. Professor II. W. Wiley, most
brilliant and cratic of western college men,
in an incisiye essay on the disci plinary val
lie OF the study of the natural sciences, de-
fined education as the coordination OF
cerebro- molecular movement" and learning
as ''an accumulation of cerebro- olecular
cicatrces" Colleges he said, do not
discriminate between learning and educa-
ton. They iii boy with learning for four
years and then turn him loose to waste his
life in getting an education" Professor
Wiley condemned our system of examina-
ton as a stagnant pond on whose green and
Shiny waters flourished the lily "cram."
Professor D. S. Jordan followed, deploring
the lack of fitness of science teachers for
their work, and joined with Professor Wiley
and Professor John Coulter in vigorous
onslaught upon the methods in science
which ignore the laboratory and make text
books and examinations dominant The
programme for the present meeting was ar