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the interests and aptitudes of all. It must protect its students against the narrow spirit of commercialism which demands premature specialization and must foster the resourcefulness, initiative, and adaptability which is so essential in a democracy. It must stress citizenship and social participation rather than efficiency of production. The large comprehensive type of institution is preferable to a multitude of small schools, each with its own vocational bias. The elective system is commendable, provided it is properly safeguarded. A six-year course, beginning at the age of 11 or 12 and with a break at 15, is urgently needed. Continuation schools of a modern liberal type should be provided for those who must go to work. Coeducation should continue, but special courses should be provided for the girls. The lack of an external examination system is an advantage rather than otherwise. The accrediting system should be preserved and improved. The content is varied, but some of the subjects are not taught as they should be. This is particularly true of the foreign languages and physical education. There is a great need of a higher type of professionally trained teachers.

The student activities constitute a vital part of our secondary education and are strong influences in promoting an excellent school spirit.

UNIVERSITIES AND COLLEGES.

In order to understand foreign criticisms of our colleges and universities, it is necessary to remember that the universities of Europe correspond only to that portion of our university work which is on the graduate level. Europeans class our undergraduate work as secondary in character. For this reason it is quite usual to find the critics calling attention to the twofold character of our university instruction. Thus Langlois ([51], p. 294) says:

There is a confusion between graduate and undergraduate instruction. The students are often not "étudiants" but "élèves." Everybody knows that the universities of America are still on the "American plan" and that this plan means the existence of professional and scientific schools along with a college or undergraduate department which serves as a feeder, so to speak. ** ** * Is it not to be feared that the teachers of graduate students will bring along with them undergraduate habits, requirements, and tastes in wisdom and research which will be not at all suitable? Will not the graduate work sometimes or even always be weakened by its close contact with the undergraduate? Original investigation supposes not only activity of mind but also Yet leisure is impossible when undergraduate work must also be looked after.

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leisure.

Douarche ([27], p. 490) says:

The American university will not be an institution of the first order until there is a reform of the whole system so that the undergraduate department

can be taken away.

Caullery ([14], p. 29) says:

Everything which has been added to the old college and all that belongs in its train is heterogeneous. The relations of these parts to each other and to the whole have not taken on a character of definite stability.

This double function undoubtedly leads to some confusion at times, especially when graduate and undergraduate students are taught in the same class, but it has one great value. It puts the undergraduate in a stimulating environment and helps to give him ideals and ambition to continue his education. At the same time, there must be careful provisions against allowing the spirit of undergraduate instruction to interfere with the spirit of research and productive

scholarship.

The latter is clearly the chief function of all true universities, but it has been late in appearing in America. Münsterberg ([67], p. 94) says:

The activity of productive scholarship adjusts itself to the financial situa***. All the material conditions push the teachers away from pro

tion

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ductive scholarship as strongly in the large universities as in the little colleges, where the instructor is paid like a car conductor In America the ideal is the distribution of knowledge, and not respect for productive scholarship and the imparting of method. The vital forces are the great teachers rather than the great thinkers. The scholar mingles with men who have not the least ambition to contribute to human knowledge. His productive scholarship is merely tolerated Men whose among the noblest assets of the United States in future centuries, at a time when the names of the railroad and wheat kings will be forgotten, remain negligible quantities in the public opinion of the day.

Miss Burstall ([12], p. 43) says:

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European writers on America have often noticed the comparative scarcity of the highest type of intellectual power among so large and intelligent a population, selected and mixed by immigration and possessing for so long the advantages of a widely diffused education. They ought to produce thinkers, artists, poets, and philosophers, ** creative powers in every intellectual sphere. Can it be the fault of their education that as yet they do not? Are ideals of political equality reducing all to common level?

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Both of the preceding criticisms point toward a lack of encouragement in America for those who are engaged in adding to the sum of human knowledge. It is true that the influence of old college ideals is casting its shadow over the work in research. America does not object to a man's engaging in such work, but it does not encourage him to do so. It is inclined to overlook the value of productive scholarship. There is a feeling that a professor who sits behind closed doors and studies had much better be out teaching classes. This condition of affairs is dangerous, and, as Miss Burstall says, it has probably been at least partly responsible for the lack of creative intelligence in America Some further means of rewarding productive scholarship should be devised; but in order to do so, one must prepare to meet the opposition of one of America's fundamental beliefs. There will be much jealousy of anything which looks like a privileged class set apart from society in general. The doctrine of equality has no place for experts, hence Americans are slow to reward expert service. The solution of the problem will doubtless be some form of compromise whereby those who possess creative intelligence will be rewarded according to their merit while they are at the same time safeguarded against withdrawing from society and forming a narrow circle of their own.

This leads to another important function of the university. It must serve the practical needs of the people. Gray ([38], p. 158) says:

Science has been studied too much in America for its own sake and has not been applied to the perfection of mechanical devices to be used in industry. It has not been hitherto sufficiently realized that the conclusions

of "scientific" science in one generation have become the industrial dynamics of the next, and that a scientist who spends his time and talents in pursuing a line of knowledge for its own sake without giving its results to the world is committing a crime against humanity; a crime as heinous as that of those in days of old who possessed the key of knowledge and refused to unlock to others desirous of entering in.

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** * There are still no settled coordinating relations between the factories and the universities. * * In recommending men for scientific work in factories too much stress appears to have been laid on mere academic qualities and too little regard paid to the question of whether the man chosen is equally fitted to deal tactfully with the managers of the concern to which he is being sent. The relations between the universities and colleges on the one hand and the manufacturing interests on the other * * * still remain in a disturbed and chaotic condition in most States of the Union. These relations require to be systematized in some manner, either with or without the aid of State legislation. * * * Only in this way can the United States equal the other countries of the world in the utilization of scientific knowledge, and in coordinating the results of that knowledge between academic and industrial interests.

Caullery ([14], p. 155) says:

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Some institutions of higher learning in America are in danger of becoming separated from modern life because of the emphasis on speculative science only. They have need of more contact with practical realities. I believe that an organization like that of the modern American university which combines pure and applied science is better in theory than that which is isolated like ours, with faculties of science in one place and with technical schools in another. This avoids the opposition between pure and applied science and at the same time keeps the university in touch with practical life.

Remington ([73], p. 55) says:

The typical American university is not an ivy-covered building with lawns and cloisters where monks have walked and where it is difficult to believe that telephones and railways have been invented, or that anything like the rush and fight of commercial life exists. *** There are no proctors and no dons, but a number of men as busy, as interested, as eager in putting knowledge and ideas into the students as the students are eager, interested, and busy in grabbing the ideas and knowledge for themselves.

American universities seem to have succeeded much better in meeting the practical needs of the people than the type of institution which Remington describes, yet, as Gray and Caullery say, they are still in danger. There is still a tendency to ignore the chasm which exists between the university and the needs of the people. The institutions which are supported by public tax have been compelled to meet the needs of their constituents to some extent, but even with them the good work is only begun. Even they have not yet attained a general reputation of being able to meet local needs. Industrial and commercial concerns are not calling upon the universities for men as much as they should. Even in educational matters, conditions are little better. Relatively few educational boards ever think of asking the university to recommend a school superintendent or a

normal school president. Whatever the causes of this condition may be, the fact remains that the American university is not doing that which it should do. Conditions are gradually improving, however. Some day the reputation of the universities will be so widespread that no one in need of a skilled man for an important position will think of failing to consult those who should be, and doubtless are now, in the best position to guide the right man to the right job. Such an outcome would also do more than anything else to counteract the suspicion which the common man holds against expert service in general. The universities have truly a great opportunity before them.

The peculiarities of American school organization, as discussed in Chapter II, are also reflected in the criticism which deals with the

universities. Compayré ([18], p. 525) says:

America has no national university. This is due to an early provincialism and a belief in local control, together with objections to the uniformity of a national university. Such a university would not injure the attendance at other universities nor absorb them, but could serve as a guide and model for them.

The idea of a central institution which would be a center of inspiration, particularly for the training of professors for the more local colleges, normal schools, and universities, has appealed to many, but the fear of centralized control and of its almost unavoidable tendency toward red tape and bureaucracy has prevented its realization. In the meantime two or three of the privately endowed universities have become so nearly national in scope that it begins to look like our hopes of a national university were never so far from fulfillment. In some ways the present practice may be preferable, but it is open to at least one serious objection. It does not seem fair, or even safe, to leave such an important matter to be supported by private enterprise. When financial emergencies arise like the present one, private resources are not available to meet the increased demands. That necessitates an increase in the tuition rates, which in turn works a hardship on many of the students. If the privately endowed institutions are to continue to replace a national university they should receive Government aid, so that their opportunities may be within the reach of all.

Another result of the lack of centralized control is mentioned by a number of critics. The criticism of Douarche ([27], p. 481) is

typical. He says:

For the most part there is no appearance of system in the schools. Whatever organization there is has been originally only a group of creations which were adapted as well as possible to American needs and aiming to strengthen and ennoble American spirit and culture. The American university is hard to describe, because many institutions which often have nothing in common

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