ORGANIZATION OF A STATE UNIVERSITY 91 



THE DEMOCRATIC ORGANIZATION OF A STATE 



UNIVERSITY 



By Professor JOSEPH K. HART 



UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON 



DEMOCRACY has been working for more than a century to under- 

 stand its own genesis and genius ; but not enough attention has 

 been paid to the most central element in the development of the complete 

 democracy of the future. "We have talked too much about ideals, but 

 not enough about methods of realizing our ideals. Fallacious methods 

 prevent the attainment of the things we most desire. 



It is felt by many, perhaps by most, that self-government demands 

 particularly strenuous processes of education in the development of the 

 young. This is an ideal : but it has not been felt by many that a demo- 

 cratic social order must see to it that the public education institutions 

 shall be thoroughly democratic in all their parts — in methods, in proc- 

 esses, in atmosphere, in actual results, as well as in ideals; and that 

 this democratizing of our educational institutions is the most funda- 

 mental problem of democracy. 



One type of American teacher has distinctly taken the attitude that 

 the public schools must be absolute monarchies, with the head teacher as 

 monarch and all other members of the school as his subjects, vassals 

 and slaves, in order that these ideals might be compelled in all of them. 

 A great American teacher has said that the school is the modern repre- 

 sentative of the old Roman Empire with its arbitrary demands that the 

 barbarians shall yield to the civilizing influences of education. 



But, as stated above, it would seem that if education in a democracy 

 is to be for democracy it must be democratic in every respect. The 

 school, claiming to be the intellectual institution of the community, 

 should be able to recognize the logic of such a statement and accept it. 



This should certainly be true in the case of the university of a state, 

 at least. Usually a university claims to be the center of intelligence of 

 the state. But, if it is to be recognized as the center of intelligence in 

 the democracy, it should be willing to take the most intelligently demo- 

 cratic point of view that is attainable. 



Under a completely democratic conception of education what will be 

 the nature of the organization of a state university? Such an institu- 

 tion attempts to bring together two rather inharmonious ideals or 

 points of view, and usually one -or the other of these ideals secures an 



