The Days of a Man D868 



yielded to real contact with objects and ideas. In 

 White's words, the traditional college of the day was 



as stagnant as a Spanish convent, and as self-satisfied as a 

 Bourbon duchy . . . [its^ methods outworn and the students 

 as a rule confined to one simple, single course, in which the 

 great majority of them took no interest. 



Another novel feature, already suggested, was the 

 presence of men from sister institutions as non- 

 resident professors. Agassiz and Lowell, both from 

 tionin Harvard, visibly represented cooperation in edu- 

 cation, though before White's time universities were 

 prone to regard themselves as competitors. And 

 Agassiz once told me that a Harvard overseer re- 

 proached him for his labors at Cornell, saying that 

 he and Lowell were "traitors to Harvard" in thus 

 helping to build up a rival institution. Fortunately 

 those two big men did not thus narrowly interpret 

 academic duty. Nor did White himself; and he 

 urged graduates of early days to "stand by the 

 state universities, for in them lies the educational 

 hope of the republic." 



Coeducation, then gaining a scant foothold, chiefly 

 j n the West, also entered into his plans, as I have 

 already made clear. For he firmly believed that 

 men and women could develop together intellectually 

 to their mutual advantage men thereby growing 

 more refined and sensitive, women more sane and 

 self-contained. In like manner engineers and literary 

 students, he thought, would also help each other, 

 the former gaining by contact with spiritual ideals, 

 the latter through acquaintance with immutable 

 fact. 

 C 82 3 



