Wheeling Sunday register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1882-1934, 1885-07-05
An Interesting Paper by President
McCosh, of Princeton College,
Read Yesterday at Rosedale Park
Woodstock, Conn.
What American Universities Are and
What They Should Be.
Studies, Degrees and Management
of Higher Institutions.

hOODSIOShI NOun.i JUL IL 0AAS"A.h -
the paper read at Rosedsle Park, this city,
to-day, by President James McCash, D. D.,
L. L. D., of Princeton College:
There are very loose ideas entertained
in America, and may sdd in other coun-
tries, as to what is the difference between
a college and a university, and what is the
relation of one to the other. A modest in
stitution like Princeton is contented with
the title Of college, whereas she has sisters,
who, with one.third the number of students
and one-fourth the number of instructors,
call themselves universities. / will not
name them, as their grand title proclaims
their fame.
1t is not so difficult to determine what a
college is. Ii is an institution set apart to
give instruction, not just to children-that
is school-but young people about to enter
on their lite work. The phrase is sometimes
applied in metaphorical sense to business
colleges and tradesmen's colleges; but
scholars claim that, from long usage, it
should be confined to institutions giving
instruction in the higher or learned branches
and authorized by the State to give degree
OF some kind.
1t is not so easy to keep
A University Within Due Bounds,
In the Dark Ages-but which l rather call
the Twilight Ages between the ancient and
modern days-they had Seven Liberal Arts,
which they divided into trivium and quad
riyium. The trivium embraced grammar,
dialectic and rhetoric, in which youths were
introduced to the use OF language, and were
taught to think and express themselves.
These were the Introductory studies (giving
US the word triviaD, but rising TO the
uuadrivium, in which were geometry,
arithmetic, music and sstrology, or the as.
tronomy of the day, which gave mystical
nearing to the movement Of the stars.
These branches were taught by ecclesias-
tics in connection with monastaries and
cathedrals, in a narrow spirit and technical
form. Yet the instruction, like the Win
ter, kept alive the seed which had been drop
ned az the fall of the Roman Empire, till q
Spring arrived when they burst out. In
the eighth century institutions were founded
to give instructions in these studies.
Were Called Universities,
while the branches taught were called stu
dunn generate. We are sstonishsd to hear
of the stimulus thus giyen-t TO youths in all
grades OF societySs In the fifteenth century
it is said that at Bologna there we're fully
10000 scholars, at Paris 25, 900, and at Ok
ford 10000 IAN exsggeration," syys Hal
lam, (which seems TO show that the mum.
Der was very great" The universities had
different faculties giving instruction IN
different departDents-the faculty OF theol'
ogy the faculty OF arts, the faculty Of philos
ophy, the faculty OF medicine. These di'
visions have continued down to our day. At
the renaissance in learning, and the refor-
nation in religion, the branches taught were
widened; ancient Greek, variety of Ian
guages and literature, and the new sciences
were introduced, and this enlargement has
been going on ever since, and there Is
strong demand that it be continued.
We see what is the difference between
College and n University.
A college is teaching place; university
is something higher. 1t embraces number
and variety of departments 1t may be q
number of colleges-Oxford has twenty-five
combined in unity Of government and
aim, which is generally to promote higher
learning. have 6rst to say few things
about college.
A college ia fitted to do immessurable
good, thoug Oh it should not rise into uni
versity. OF the two, if we are obliged to
choose between, college well equipped and
devotipg itself to it's work, is of vastly greater
use than q scattered university which
spreads over wide surface, and, protesting
to teach everything, teaches nothing effect
lively. The grand aim of our educationists,
and, indeed, Of all who lcve their country,
should be to strengthen and improve the
American colleges and make them fulGll
their high end-that Of imparting definite
instruction, each to 9 body Of promising
young men spread all over the country.
Here | may state that do not feel in
clined to indulge in the dIsparsging Ian.
gusge sometimes applied to our smaller
colleges in the Middle States and in the
West by our naughty Eastern professors,
who forget that their
Colleges Were Babies
before they became men, aud were brought
out of the land of Egypt, and came
through the wilderness. Princeton was
brought up in log cabin. Most Of these
younger colleges are serving good purpose.
| They all do so, Sc far as they give solid
and not superficial, knowledge; so far as
they teach thoroughly the fundamental aud
disciplinary branches Of literature, science
and philosophy, and also impart religious
instruction to give high tone to the mind.
| They draw a number of young men from
their vicinity who could never be allured to
more distant and expensive places. If they
cannot impart wide and varied culture,
they often give a substantial training. II
is a happy circumstance that in almost all
these colleges religion is inculcated, and
they may be the means of compelling our
larger colleges not TO abandon it when they
might be led to DO so BY the pressure Of the
| times. / admit, as TO some of them, that
they seem to serve little other purpose than
10 keep back young men from better col.
leges, where they might get stimulus and
true scholarship. But these will give way
BY the force of that law of our world, the
! struggle for existence, NnlCn uenau4S tnoa
the weak die while the strong survive.
hold, then, that We
May Retain All Our Colleges
that impart real knowledge and culture.
But there may, there should also be uniyer.
sites. Every thinking man knows and
feels that this country hss now reached q
stage at which it should look toward tbe
conforming, enlarging and improving the
universities already existing, and rearing a
few new ones, it may be, on better model
We have now to settle the question what
should be the aim of g university.
1t should combine and
| Regulate the Course of Study
in the several departments or colleges which
make up the university, say art and science
and theology and medicine and architec
ture, or whatever else. 1t is not necessary,
perhaps it is not expedient, that every one
of these should be independent Of the 9th
ers. They might always cooperate in 9
/ Ak.S k-arn nh