The Republican journal., 1896-07-16
Colby commencement.


The Inaugural Of PRESIDENT Butler.
WArERvuLE. June 3O-The President
of the college delivered the inaugural ad-
dress at the Baptist church this evening.
His subject was, ''The College in relation
to the University The chief emphasis
of the discourse was upon the differentia-
ton that is now taking place between
these two species of institutions Of higher
education, and the new emphasis laid
upon the local college by the development
centers.
The early part of the address was de-
voted to tracing the historic evolution of
the university out of the narrow, monas-
tic schools of the early middle ages 1t
was pointed out how to these schools
great numbers t1ocked, attracted by IA
nous teachers; how these throngs organ
lied themselves, for convenience and for
mutual protection, into national groups.
dwelling in lodging halls; how these halls,
in turn, become endowed colleges-frst,
as mere boarding houses, and afterwards,
as schools; how these colleges became, in
many cases, minor universities within the
great inclusive university.
The speaker then traced the rise of
faculties and graduation Of titles and de-
grees. 1t was shown that the term ssuni-
versity' at present is used in two or three
somewhat different senses. The English
university is a collection of colleges, each
largely independents; the colleges consti-
tuting the English university have not,
| however, the power to confer degrees.
The university is the central government
which unites all the colleges and is also
the authority which alone confers degrees.
Ia America the name university has
been applied: a. to institutions like many
OF the State universities in the Mississippi
valley and the West; these institutions
consist of collections of various schools
or ''Faculties,'' and they are ''universi-
ties in the sense that they are collec-
tons or communities OF various schools,
but these are almost entirely undergrad
uate institutions.
~ The term university is applied
also to institutions of which Yale is a
type. In these the general college course
is re-requisite to the specialized or pro-
fessional courses, which in turn constitute
the graduate, or as we have usually
termed them, post graduate course. Here
we have more complete development of
the university idea, namely that strictly
university work rests upon the general
disciplinary work of the colleges.
(3) The term "universtyN in it's largest
sense is applied to institutions of which
perhaps not more than two examples at
! present exist in America. These may be
described as collections of graduate
schools giving instructions in every kind
Of knowledge and open to all the world.
If universities of this type embrace the
college course, they do it incidentally.
| These are essentially the graduate institu-
tons They assume that their students
have had the discipline of the college
course and they come to the university in
order to perfect themselves in some branch
of knowledge, in order either to practice
that knowledge as experts or to devote
themselves as Investigators to extending
the field of human knowledge
The college, on the other hand, is I'M
derstood to be the school consisting of
one Faculty. usually termed that of
''Science and the Liberal Arts 1t is a
school answering pretty nearly to the
upper half of the German gymnasium,
and its training is supposed to underlie
the specialized work of the university.
! The relation between the college and
the university is clear from this distinc-
| ton, and the relation is becoming more
and more practically recognized. Har-
ward S recent announcement that those
| who would enter her Medical School must
! present the academic diploma, must first
have taken the college course, is an illus
| tration of this fact. The establishment
of graduate schools of pedagogy is of in
terest as bearing upon the same point.
The speaker went on to show that the
complete work which the school must do
for man in preparing him to step out
into the world and do his full share, con-
sists of three elements: ~ education;
(2) instruction: (3) training.
Education in this special use of the
term is to be understood as meaning the
evoking of personality, the rendering the
students faculties alert, the securing of
an intelligent outlook upon life, self
knowledge and self command. OF course
the schools can never completely accom-
| plish this, because as long as man lives
he will make further attainments in these
directions.
| BY knowledge is meant a very different
thing from education. 1t means the COM
plete possession of some special field ex-
plored by the human mind
BY training is meant special technical
fitness for some particular line of activity,
the mastery of the technique of ones
calling.
1t is clear that the importation of knowl-
edge and special technical training is
chiefly the work of the university; while
the more general work, which we have
termed education, belongs rather to the
college and one of it's designs is to pre-.
pare the student to make use of what
ever the university offers.
The speaker then sketched at consider
able length the elements which must en-
ter into the scheme of the college in order
that it may completely do the educational
work, and showed that the undertaking of
the college is highly complex and demands
full organization and complete equipment.
The great development of the two or
three universities in the great centers lays
new and special emphasis upon the local
colleges, for young men and wome must
seek the undergraduates work near home !;
and in proportion as the university be-
comes recognized as the place of prepare
ton for active lie, just in that proportion
will the local colleges acquire new i'm
| portance in presenting its finished prod
| ucts as the raw material of the univer-
sites.
The outcome of the discourse was to
draw attention to the Importance of the
| work in which Colby is engaged, and to