The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1891-03-03

colleges anu uIA1R0IS4tI6S
Of the efforts made within the past
few years to resolve this chaos, or at
least to mitigate it's evils, the one that
comes first into mind, is the plan
adopted at Johns Hopkins University.
Here two distinct efforts have been
made: first, the organization of gradu-
ate work on the basis of a complete
college education; secondly, the estab-
lishment of a modified system of under
graduate studies, leading to the bacca-
laureate degree. The work of %instruc-
ton has thus become partly the work
of a true university, and partly that OF
a college. The distinguishing feature
of the scheme Of organization in the
collegiate work, Is the effort it makes,
not so much to give elementary IN
structiOn in q large number of studies,
as to concentrate the attention of the
student upon a single subject and its
cOgnate studies, for the purpose of
preparing him for closely specialized
work, at q later pc 1od, in the unlver-
sity.
While this interesting experiment
has been going on at one of the young
est of our Universities, One of a very
different nature has been tried at the
oldest. In the development of gradu-
ate work at Harvard, and in the en-
phasis given to it there by the recent
establishment of what is called a
graduate school," it seems that the
purpose has been to regard the under
graduate courses as collegiate or
secondary. Three steps have been
taken; first, the increasing of the re-
quirement for admission, in order to
advance the collegiate work to a uni
versity grade; secondly, the organizing
of this advanced collegiate work in
accordance with accepted university
methods; and, thirdly, the superim-
posing of a university organization,
composed exclusively of graduate stu
dents. Still a different solution of the
question has been attempted at Column
bia College. The essential character
istic of that system is a recognition of
the end of the junior year as the point
where the collegiate system should
end, and where the advanced system
should begin: a tendency the very
opposite of that which prevails at Har-
ward.
Neither of these attempts to solve
the educational problem has had any
The other colleges and universities,
w dlllCl LIZ III NCOClL1os Jill" II
general plan of superimpOsing univer-
sity. work upon the completed college
course. In this system, if it may be
called a system, there is one obvious
anomaly. In nearly, or quite all Our
colleges, at the present day, elective
work occupies no small part of the
time during the senior year; in many
of them this is the case during the
Junior year. It follows that a class of
graduate students, taken from a con
siderable number of American colleges,
will be found to have, az a whole, a
very heterogeneous and inadequate
preparation for advanced work. The
result is that, by anything like an in
flexible classification into graduate and
nOn-graduate work, great injustice is
liable to be done. The graduate stu
dent from another college is put to ad-
vanced work before he has laid the
proper preliminary foundation; or he
is put back into undergraduate classes;
or, thirdly, the graduate classes are
obliged to do more elementary work
than that performed by the most ad-
vanced classes of undergraduates.
1t would be foOlhardy to dOgmatize
on a question that has taxed the mental
resources of so many men of educa-
tional ability, but l hope that I shall
not be deemed guilty Of objectionable
presumption in suggesting a method Of
solution. 1t has already been intimated,
that the dividing line between the col
lege and university seems naturally to
fall at the period when required work
ends, and elective work begins. 1t will
be universally admitted, | suppose,
that the distinguishing feature of the
ideal college is a somewhat rigid ad-
herence to certain fixed courses of
study, while that of an ideal univer-
sity is a large freedom, not only in
selecting the courses of study, but also
in the methods of pursuing such
courses. The one has the twOfOld end
in view of developing the mind, and
of affOrding that elementary knowledge
which is a requisite preliminary to the
successful prosecution of advanced
work; the purpose of the other is to
apply the mental discipline that has
been acquired, to such advanced work
as will best fit the student fer practical
affairs.
However tenaciOusly we have in
sisted In keeping up a more or less
artificial barrier atthe point of gradu-
alton, there has been an irresistible
tendency to place the real dividing
line at the beginning of the junior
year. There is much to justify this
course, and the question suggests itself.
whether it is not practicable to direct
our students, with the ultimate pur-
pose of giving all the work before the
end of the sophomore year to the coll
leges, and all the work after the sOphO-
more year to the universities. : OF
course, any new system or modifica-
ton of an old system is likely to be
attended at first with certain embar-
easements. But, regardless of embar-
easements, we must strive for the public
good. Iflarge numbers could be drawn
from the colleges to the universities at