Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1931-02-28
THE LIBRARY TABLE
BY the Booklouer

College presidents, as we'll as others
interested in higher education, have
been reading DR.. Abraham Flexner's
Universities, American, English, Ger
man." and most of them are not alto
gether happy over what they find in
this new book, which is an expansion
of three lectures given at oxford Uni
versity in 1928 by the former educa-
tional expert of the General Education
Board. The author, after first setting
forth in his opening chapter on The
Idea of a University" his thought of
the scope and functions proper to uni
verSities, examines the institutions of
the three countries. German universe
ties come nearest to satisfying him;
those of Great Britain come next.
American universities lack much OF
measuring up to his standards and are
doing many things which he holds up
to scorn and ridicule.
Some hint of DIR. Flexner's idea of
what university should be and do may
be given by extracts: "A modern uni
verSity would then address itself whole
heartedly and unreservedly to the ad-
vancement of knowledge, the study OF
problems, from whatever source they
may come, and the training of
scholarship belongs to the university.
What else belongs there? Assuredly
neither secondary. technical vocational
nor popular education. OF course, these
are important: of course, society must
create appropriate agencies to deal with
them; but they must not be permitted
to distract the university" In applying
these tests to American universities he
first gives briefly full credit to the
al n
institutions since the establishment Of
the Johns Hopkins University in 1876.
Having made this meager concession, he
concentrates his attention on the most
highly developed and prominent insti-
tutions and he finds much in them to
criticize. He says that most of them
are composed Of three parts: Second
airy schools and colleges for boys and
girls, graduate and professional schools
for advanced students and Service sta
tions for the general public" Accord
ing to his standards, practically every
thing in the first and third of these
parts is inappropriate to the university.
Most of what is taught in the first two
or more years of college he thinks
should be included in good high
school. The author is severely critical
of the vocational courses that form so
large part not simply of the graduate
instruction of universities, but of their
undergraduate courses as well. Espe-
cially scathing is he in condemnation
of correspondence courses in wide va
riety of vocational subjects given by
some of the most prominent of Ameri-
can universities.
Rewriting to DR.. Flexner's statement
of standards, after excluding the tech
nical and the vocational from his uni
versity he says that of the profess
SIGNAL faculties a clear case can, he
believes, be made for law and medi-
cine, but not for UNCONVENTIONAL re-
ligion which involves bias. nor prob
ably for education, journalism, domes-
tic science, or library science. But at
once he gives his case away by adj
hitting that lit is true that most ply
sicians and most lawyers are mere
craftsmen; it is even true that their
training largely occupies itself with
teaching them how to do things. I
should go further. I should add that
an unproductive faculty of law or
medicine is no whit the better for
being attached to a university; it has
no business there it would do as we'll
by society and by its students If 1t
were an independent vocational school,"
Is it not true that very high per-
centage of the work now done, or ever
likely to be done, this side of the mil
lennium in law and medical schools
attached to universities is vocational in
purpose and content, and SO should
be excluded under DR.. Flexner's stand
ards? He, therefore, has left no actual
law or medical schools, but only some
theoretical, non-eXistirg schools, and
the case which. he claims, is so clear
for law and medicine is not clear at ALL
y X
II 1t Is permitted to differ from a
distinguished educational expert the
opinion is Ventured that DR.. Flexner's
fundamental mistake is in putting the
ban on vocational education, as part
of university. Law and medicine
have always been recognized as pro-
LESSONS, and the education and train
ing given for them in universities has
of necessity been largely vocational in
scope. What has helped to make them
professional is the fact that under
best conditions the vocational training
has been given to men with a sound
background of cultural education and
the vocational training has served to
strengthen and deepen that culture.
If one is right in removing DR.. FleX-
ner'S ban from subjects that have long
been considered as professions or as
pire to be such, then it is perhaps
proper to restore theology as a uni
Versity subject, to admit education and
TO be hospitable toward business, jour-
nalism, domestic science and library
science.
DR.. F1exner devotes a generous para
graph of praise of American university
libraries and quotes an English au-
thority on their resources and organiZa-
ton BY way of contrast with the
present, he points out that half CEN
fury ago. roughly speaking, America
was practically without libraries, and
illustrates by citing the earlier expert
ence of Yale: 1T is less than 60 years
since Daniel c. Gilman, destined soon
to be president of Johns Hopkins Uni
versity, resigned the Guardianship of
Yale University, because he could not
the fire in the stove every morning.
No staff of experts, no central heat
ing-a stove lire. in a combustible
building, SO recently as that
The rich old Duke of Leominster, |
living in the medieval pile of Moulton !
Castle, on the Welsh Marches, is the |
subject of Stephen McKenna's novel |
The Cast-Iron Duke" The duke is a |
domestic tyrant who terrorizes every !
one except his granddaughter-in- |
hOyId. ESIHdlS DcCduSc size Is NAH |
American she is not at all afraid of him; !
neither is she pacifist, for she quarrels |
with him constantly. The question over |
which they quarrel most acutely is the |
education of Moyra's two sons. She does |
not consider that the old dukes educa-
tional ideas have been justified by the |
results obtained in the cases of his son |
and his grandson, Moyras father n-law |
and husband, who are rather degenerate |
specimens OF aristocracy.
X X "
The tale of woman's life, told by her |
daughter to her granddaughter, forms |
49, 30 ~, H. Al,o