WHAT MAKES A COLLEGE? 153 



Another feature of the history of the small college explains its 

 partial failure to respond promptly and effectively to the new needs of 

 the time. Most colleges were originally not only religious but also 

 denominational institutions, founded primarily to give " proper " edu- 

 cation to men who were going into the ministry of the respective sects. 

 In the early days sectarianism was assiduously inculcated, but as time 

 wore on its outward trappings were discarded. The colleges, for all 

 their shortcomings, had a mighty end in view. They believed in the 

 moral life and they perceived that a liberal culture was a necessity for 

 the leaders of that Christian morality they hoped, through church and 

 school, to make universal. But their conceptions of morality, of the 

 Christian life, and of culture were all often somewhat narrow, and 

 nearly always lacked that element of adaptability to meet new social 

 and moral issues which must now be counted an essential of true, con- 

 structive, productive, morality. It is not for us to blame them for this. 

 We have rather to seek an explanation of the fact, and to point out how 

 it crippled their efficiency and finally helped to bring them to the bar 

 of critical judgment. 



A certain narrowness of horizon cooperated with a deplorable lack 

 of financial resources. Their limited horizon kept the colleges from 

 seeing just how seriously lack of funds impaired efficiency, and con- 

 versely their limited resources narrowed their horizon. Both the 

 theory and the practise of education were narrow because the colleges 

 did not conceive an aim at the same time broadly fundamental and 

 intimately and directly related to the specific needs of our national life. 

 Moreover, they did not early enough begin vigorous efforts to get re- 

 sources adequate to the demands of a broad culture. Their aim was 

 intense often to the point of fanaticism, but it lacked breadth and 

 adaptability to the actual facts of human nature and of social life. 

 The restricted horizon of the colleges was, of course, to no small extent, 

 due to the nature of the general moral and social environment of the 

 society in which they were located. Like the society about them, and 

 from which their students came, they proceeded on the assumption that 

 morality is merely a matter of goodness. In spite of their " mental dis- 

 cipline " and " cultural studies " they came dangerously near to divorc- 

 ing morality from intellect. In effect many colleges still take prac- 

 tically this position. They have not yet arrived at a social-efficiency or 

 social-productivity theory of morality. Primarily the persistent, tra- 

 ditional view reflects the strict, non-adaptive tenets of old-time ortho- 

 doxy, in which the key note to the highest morality is surrender of the 

 will and obedience to authority. Such a view glorified discipleship. It 

 allowed reason and self -direction to go so far; then it demanded that 

 loyalty to personal authority step in. Something of the inherent selfish- 

 ness of medieval orthodoxy ate through our educational system. Rules 



VOL. LXXIX. — 11. 



