Nelson Evening Mail WEDNESDAY, JUNE 12, 1907. AMERICAN UNIVERSITIES.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XLII, Issue XLII, 12 June 1907, Page 2

Nelson Evening Mail WEDNESDAY, JUNE 12, 1907. AMERICAN UNIVERSITIES.

11. THEIR AIMS AND IDEALS. IN Monday's issue we reviewed the particulars given by Prof. Jordan, of the Leland Sandford University of California, regarding the constitution and methods of the universities of the United States. The article would hardly be complete without a corresponding review of the aims and ideals of higher education in America, and to these also Prof. Jordan referred at length in the course of a second lecture at Sydney. ********** The keynoto of the American Univer sity system, said Prof. Jordan, was that of adaptation .to the needs of a people governing themselves. It was essentially the creation of a de mocracy rather than an imitation of the system of some other land not democratic either in the past or in the present. It had all the virtues of a freo people — all the mistakes and limitations such a people could impose upon themselves. Yet, in the long run, wisdom always prevailed, and tho best safeguard against the mistakes of democracy was to let those who were responsible surfer from their own mistakes. When the people found what hurt them, the remedy was in their own hands. ......... In the first place there is a wide difference between English and American University ideals. Speaking of the American universities, *Mr Alfred Moseley, after his visit with his famous Labour Commission, was reported as saying: "What strikes mc most is that your workshops are filled with college-bred men. At Home a 'Varsity man is graduated into frock coat and gloves. He is educated into overalls. The keynote of American education is training for efficiency." "II is the function of the university," says Emerson, "to bring every ray of varied genius to its hospitable halls, by their concentrated effort to set thp heart of the youth in flame." ********* Two very differing ideals of education had existed among Americans and their fathers in England, said Prof. Jordan. In the one the aim had been to select from the mass a few gifted men , and to raise them to a high ideal of scholarship and bookish erudition, leaving the mass uneducated, or, if of gentle breeding, to be contented witfli acquiring the manners of the gentleman. To this end universities had been examining rather than teaching institutions. They set the mark high, and quite apart from questions of utility of efficiency. Their purpose was to test those who strove to reach this mark, and to eeward those who were successful with honours and privileges. It had been the boast of the examining universities that within its walls "nothing useful is taught." In the other theory men were considered as individual men, not as possible social j ornaments. No preararnged goal was I suggested except the individual goal each man might possibly reach. The purpose of education in this theory was to enable each man having talents worth training to perform his part in life with intelligence and efficiency. . The courses were adapted to the individual man, and as each man in the democracy must in some fashion work, the 'Varsity man was as often an en- i Etineer or a farmer as a gentleman or : clergyman. Hence he was graduated i with overalls, if the overall was the I best garment in which to do his .work. In this theory the most precious possession of any community lay in the ' talents of its individuals. The great- i ost possible waste was in letting this < talent lie undeveloped. "A boy is bet- t ter unborn than untaught." "For a • nan to have died who might have been < wise and was not, this," says Carlyle. i "I. call a tragedy." 1 ********* i Hence there arose in all the universi- - ties of America the ideal of construe- 1 tive individualism and the system ->f education for action. Prof. Jordan describes Americans as a "motor na- s tion" whofce successful men thought in i "terms of action." The straight line 1 wars the shortest distance between two C points, and all irrelevant matter in -ducation, all coromony, all ornamentation, were considered as pointless ef- ii fort. The period of youth was in \ men the time of the formation of habits, the crystallisation of character. In that period the student, if "* over, must learn the value of time. It was good for him to have all the work he could do, and to be forced to do 3ach part of it when that part was v due. Hence the American University a maintained high standards, and, still 2 better, enforced them from day to I

day. And the student weut at his I task 'willingly, because his course of r study, being 'fitted to his needs, appeal- 1 ed to him as related to his future work t and to the success ho hoped to achieve. ; A student who was hard at work ■ along lines in which he was personally interested was saved at once from idleness, from vice, and from conceit. ##«*###*♦» In the American theory of University education knowledge is the basis of action, and wisdom is interpreted to mean the knowledge of what one ought to do next, while virtue is in the doing. The universities have open doors for all who can use their advantages. Nowhere else in the world, not even in Scotland, is the path from the farmhouse to the college so well trodden. To this end, said Prof. Jordan, "the universities and the secondary schools stood in close relation — a relation which grew closer each year." The low fees make it possible for the youth of promise to pay his own way as he goes, if ho care to work hard enough. On the other hand, it is part of the American plan to treat rich and poor alike, and the general feeling is that free scholarships and special bursaries aro undesirable, or at best a choice of evils. The element of choice in relation to subjects makes for high scholarship. To deal only with students interested in their work makes better teachers out of the professors. Finally, Prof. Jordan drew a comparison between the aims of culture in older lands and in America. He said that in the English Universities of the past at least the ends sought had been social. Culture placed a man in a scale higher than he would reach otherwise. 'The gentleman and the ! clergyman were needed in society, and these Oxford produced, together with the scholars necessary to keep the old learning alive. The college at Oxford taught, but did not examine. Hence, examining rather than teaching became the function of English universities. To this day, for the most part, the teacher is not the examiner. No matter how broad his view of the subject or how fresh his material, his work is largely lost on the student. For the student must look out for the examination, and the questions are sot along conventional lines by someone else. It is this abyss between teaching and examination which marks the divergence of „ the American from the English universities. It is this fetish of the examination which gives all the evils of the cramming system, and of a degree based on intensity of memory and not 'on the breadth of view orefficiency in action. Tho ideal of the English system has been of personal culture, the development of the gentleman. That of the German universities has been of erudition, that of France and Italy largely the preparation for ready-made careers. The ideal of America is individual efficiency. If that be based on erudition and adorned by culture, so much the better ; but for culture which is ineffective in the conduct of life the American people have very little respect.