The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1899-02-22
College and University.

College and University.
To the Editor of the Journal and Courier:
When the American university has
been excogitated, it's functions deter
mined and its government fixed, then il
might be in order for the Corporation of
Yale to consider the American college
its history, it's relations to the universe
ty, its relations to education and it's fu-
ture.
What the American college was, every
graduate of twenty years or more
knows. The object the college had in
view was to give an education. A col
lege education did not consist SO much
in items of information conveyed by
college instruction as in the benefit to
the mental faculties impaired by col
lege training. The classics, for in
stance, We're not taught for the purpose
of developing classic scholarship 50
much as for the purpose of cultivating
methods of accurate observation and re-
tention. The student was left alone
with dictionary and grammar. Their
constant use was not diverted by expo
sures of the literary merit of authors,
nor by asking attention to the interest
of the story. Latin and Greek We're not
taught from their own point of view;
that is from the point of view of nice
ness of thought and beauty of express
sion, but from the point of view of pure
mental discipline. AS with the classics,
so with mathematics. The object was
not to develop superior mathematician,
| h11t n ovarnica he mental foan1tias 0f
comparison, investigation and ingenui-
| ty. The faculties of cogitation were
| likewise cultivated by logical exercises
and those of expression by forensic at
tempts. Every part of the curriculum
had its specified share in the system of
mental development At the same time.
and in the process, specimens of the va
rious branches of knowledge were put
before the student, from which he might
select should he elect to devote his life
to learning.
The theory of the scheme was that by
four years of selected exercises the mind
would have reached full vigor for fu-
ture professional or business activity,
and that sufficient choice of branches
of learning for future devotion would
have been offered.The degree Of Bache-
lor of Arts conferred upon graduates
indicated the completion of this term Of
instruction and presented the recipient
to the world at large as an educated
man. There were slight differences in
the education offered by different col
leges, and the education in each college
varied slightly from year to year. But
there was substantial agreement. A
college education was understood and
appreciated. The system was peculiar
to this country. 1t had never been
evolved in any of the countries of the
old world. How it grew and became
fixed in the minds of American instruc-
tors may Be left to those interested in
philosophical speculations. From the
earliest times up to a score of years ago
it was the prevailing notion, and it is
still potent in some of the smaller in
stitutions of New England and the Mid
die States Under this theory of an ed
ucation have been produced the most
distinguished college graduates of the
century. Dwight, Elliot, Gilman
Choate, Depew. Whitney Wetmore and
hundreds of others are witnesses and ev-
licences of the value of an old-fashioned
American education.
About twenty years ago the idea of an
education founded on mental discipline |
began to give way before the demand of |
new studies for places on the curricu-
lum, and before the growing notion that |
subjects should be taught from their |
own point of view and not as subordi- |
nate factors in schemes. Besides it was |
urged that the system had degenerated /
and that as a matter of fact memory |
was the only mental faculty which was
at all exercised; that to learn geometri-
cal propositions, for instance, out of a
text book and to repeat them verbatim
was injurious; that the perpetual thumb .
ing of grammars and dictionaries made
the classics so distasteful that never
thereafter could their beauties be prop
erly enjoyed; that a scheme which tole-
rated such things must be radically
wrong, &C., &c. Exactly how the an
tagonism started is immaterial. 1t be-
gan and has so spread that now the idea
If a specific education has entirely dis
from Harvard and Columbia,
has almost disappeared from Yale, is
even disappearing from very conserva-
i've Princeton; while in the young and
institutions which are
'pringing up all over the West the idea
S not even considered. AS at Harvard
10 at the University Of Chicago, pro-
use choice of subjects is presented to
he student at the outset. When he has ,
pursued certain number of them for
pecified periods and to specified degrees
# excellence, he may present himself
or examination and be dubbed B. A.
The old idea of an education seems =,
doomed unless an effort be made to re- !.
i've it's efficacy and to restore it's value.
s the effort worth making? If worth
making how is it to be made? These
questions are certainly worthy of the c
consideration of the Corporation of Yale s
.ollege, for they are questions interest s
ng to every educated man in the coun- i
ry. e
At Yale College to-day education is '