New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1885-03-22
THE HARVARD EXPERIMENT.
AND ESPECIALLY THE NEW PROPOSALS

sireet cure of this failure President Ehot Is pus"
Ing wholly Quixotic scheme Tor making 'no -
demic department university. AZ inc oo'' "
eanzing the college proper. u -,
Tho nroner university embraces the coliege vi
academic department, the Divinity school, 'ne La"
School. the Medical School, the Sclentinc 0ohoo
and some other courses of special study 10 perioo'
Harvard as a great university, each OF 'hese uopa
msnts sbould be made as large and as good as post
hle The college above all needs TO be improved
on its own lines with aims peculiar to ITSELF tho9o
aims Of reneral culture which are OF universal iii
,ortance either as foundation for the PROFESSIONS
mr. as that form of training which best hts an oi
q woman) for cultivated life.
The IDEAL forlany special student woulo DO w '"ho
the college training some good part Oh i' his''
and then take the special study. In the Casa vi WV
great professions there be no doubt ABOUT tis'
Rnt in the case of scientific study for practical out
6t il may BIO impossible to do this, and the scion
titic schools are planned with view TO THIS 30
that students who must do aud whose aim is SCI
enoe only. can como directly to Them and let the
course in science take the place OF the conege
course The we'll planned and well maintained uni
verstv will not fail to have side by side, its college
and its scientific course Tits college and its
scientific school,
At Yale. for example, the college, with It's four
classes has $50 students and there is by the soe VI
the college the Sheffield scientific School Win zto
students Harvard has IN the college proper 90"
students and there is by the side OF the college, 'ne
Lawrence Scientific School, which ought to have al
this moment 400 students, to be as much success
as the Sheffield School at Yale. But the Lawrence
School is a failure Last year with 70 professors
assistant professors. instructors, ana assistants,
had first year class of D, second year class Oh q
a third wear class 4, and fourth year class of z
rolaa Il
more special students, making but 20 In all Ihis
wear the school counts % in all; %, where to make
snecess euua to that of Yale there ought to be 400
II ia this almost total failure of the Harvard Scien-
tac School which has to no small extent occasoned
the rather Wild and certainly desperate. proposal 70
LET students who want science only or cneny come
IN upon regular college footing.
To iudse from all the experience that has been
had thus far, the better class of students, whose
aims are those of practical outfit or OF research, VIII
continue to go to schools such as tho Sheiheld at
Yale and the institute of Technology IN Boston, ana
n poorer sort of students viii come into harVaru
college for an inferior course in science INFERIOR IN
two respects that it will have been chosen ana pre-
pared for as easier course than the classical aud
that il will be held down to the level of the boys
who take il. and who pursue 1T. not because they
really want It, but because they want toget through
Harvard by means of it.
There have been experiments already made in the
classical preparatory schools TO have science taught
with q view to a science course In college al har-
ward and Professor Josiah Z. Cooke, in a speech
made in August 1883, at Newport, to the Harvard
Club there reported that these experiments had re-
snlted in utter failure" that the science requi-
sitions had been merely crammed as TO prove all
effort In that direction in these schools worse than
useless There would be result of just this char
acter from a science course, on loose go-as-yon-
please plan. OF any plan whatever, for getting
through Harvard.
The entire plan of Harvard. Inevitably becomes
90 as-you- please plan under the existing regula-
tons which allow the individual student to choose.
and give him large variety TO choose rom 30 that
he can without difficulty make for himself course
which can be either crammed or sighted IN some
way. and can thus get his through Harvard Win
n minimum of performance and a maximum oil pre-
tension If Harvard had even held It's own as a
university in the matter of science, and were
carrying four FIVE hundred men In the classes OF
its scientific school, there might be some hope OF q
good result from creating a purely scientihc
course through the college. But with nat failure
in the existing scientific school. and with the
great letting down of the standard OF intellectual
discipline from desire to turn college OF brlgh
bows into a university of men. the only possible
result from the new plans must he extensive anc
irremedable injury to the college.
There is not of the larger seats Of learning II
the country. as Yale, Cornell, Michigan which doe
not have the advantage of Harvard in the age OF t
students, their knowledge of what they want an'
their seriousness of purpose as students definitely
aiming at something and ready to work for IT,
results from the simple fact that so very large pro
portion of the Harvard students are from wealth!
families, or at least SONS of professional men, VIII
send their boys through Harvard as matter o
course and who send them younger than th
average at other colleges. President Eliot rides III
merest hobby of theory, and is not guided by facts
when he imagines that college students at Harvard
can become university men by letting them go a
they please. The better class OF Harvard student
cannot indeed be beaten for good minds and goo
manners. and all that makes the true gentleman
but in none of our great colleges is there NOR
chance of injury to very large class OF student
from the absence of definite guidance and pressure
There iyno college where the youth Of the students
1heir alsy circumstances and their want of al
already settled purpose in life. leaves them moro
need of the guidance and the pressure which Pres
dent Eliot would remove, under the delusloh tina
he is making a university, when he is in tact spoi
ing college.
There is far more even than this to be said OF tn
srocks ahead at Harvard from the failure OF hell
ful Guidance and helpful pressure OF influences c
the best sort Harvard still carries on its seal u
original profession made by the college, that it wa
for Christ aud the Church and there is a divlnIt
school, but it has become as fiat failure as the sc
entifc school At Yale, with but moderate success
the number of students in divinity is just tent
the whole number Of students, and equals ov'
one sixth the number Of academic students. A
Harvard to match this there should be 1856 ST.
dents in divinity. and there are but one-s1xth Q
that number. The Harvard students IN divinit
equal bat one thirty part of the academic ST.
dents. and they but One-sixty- first part OF Il
whole number Of Harvard students Yale is havin
six times the success which Harvard 10 having