Mediocrity in Universities

Dominion, Volume 27, Issue 35, 4 November 1933, Page 20

Mediocrity in Universities

W "jHERE can be no doubt,” says the "Glasgow Herald, that since I the war, many persons have been uneasy as to the uses to H which the Universities have been put. and there has been a fear JL iu this country that Americanisation might set in with results which none would be able to contemplate with equanimity. With each succeeding year the cleavage of opinion becomes increasingly marked. There are those who believe that the gates of the Universities should be opened as widely as possible, and that quantity in the student bodv should be preferred to quality. On the other side there is the steadfast conviction that the University is the home of the intellectual elite of the country, and that to flood it with mediocrity is to head for disaster. “ Sufficient time has now elapsed since the inrush of students after the Armistice for a clear view of the situation to emerge. In 191 S it was hard to resist the cry that the Universities should be open to everyone, however poor financially, who could utilise with profit the teaching that was given “But what exactly ‘utilise’ meant did not form the subject of any close examination, and gradually it became manifest that the Universities were becoming vast technical schools for the preparation of students for the professions, and that their essentially cultural nature was becoming submerged in the ‘bread-and-butter’ aspect. . .

“ Whatever be the whole truth of the matter, the fact is that the long lists of graduates published annually have come to inspire a sense, not of intellectual triumph, but of foreboding. Is it the case that something of value is being lost to the community by what appears to be a changed attitude towards the Universities? “Professor McClelland, to judge from his address to the World Federation of Educational Associations, would appear to think so. He states, in unqualified terms that ‘however laudable be the intentions of those who would open the doors of the University as widely as possible with a view to spreading the cultural opportunities which it can best give, we can safely admit only those who have the level of ability and scholarship and the type of interest which will enable them to take, with profit, courses on a standard fitted to the cultural pioneers which it is the University’s first task to educate.’ “The implication is that students are coming in large numbers to the Universities who have not the level of ability and scholarship, and, particularly, are devoid of the ‘type of interest’ which is necessary. There is accordingly an urgent need for a review of the whole situation, since 20 or 30 more years of the present tendencies may do an evil that it will be almost hopeless to endeavour to eradicate.”