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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXX. No. 771 



THE OLD COLLEGE AND THE NEW 



The early American colleges suffered 

 from no such torrent of criticism. For a 

 time, indeed, some of them were blamed 

 because they raised money for religious in- 

 struction by means of lotteries. But 

 against the seriousness of their scholarship 

 and the strictness of their discipline no 

 voice was raised. The Latin, the New 

 Testament Greek, the Semitic languages 

 and the essay writings, sermon making, 

 public speaking and debating, which prac- 

 tically filled the curriculum, were precisely 

 the subjects required for their purpose. 

 They were professional schools of divinity, 

 and seventy-five per cent, of the graduates 

 eventually became clergymen. Even to 

 those who became lawyers and physicians, 

 most of these subjects did not come amiss. 

 The law was written in Latin and briefs 

 and writs were prepared in Latin. Even 

 the works on medicine were printed in the 

 same tongue. The general appropriate- 

 ness of the requirements was so evident 

 that the student could not help being held 

 fast, and could not help being carried 

 along by the purposeful spirit of the place. 

 Other learned institutions did not exist, 

 and after a little more study, and some 

 practical experience, the graduate was 

 ready for his duties as preacher, lawyer or 

 doctor. 



Many changes, of which two may be men- 

 tioned, have altered the whole situation. 

 In the first place, with the development of 

 our knowledge along medical lines, and the 

 greater demands made upon the lawyer 

 and the clergyman, the college can no 

 longer affect to be in any sense a profes- 

 sional school. It furnishes as much train- 

 ing in the same subjects as ever, in fact it 

 furnishes more, but all that it does is so 

 much smaller a fraction of the total pro- 

 fessional course, that the purposeful state 



of mind of the professional student has en- 

 tirely left its walls. 



In the second place, the influx of another 

 body of students will soon have reduced to 

 a minority the proportion of its graduates 

 destined to enter one of the learned pro- 

 fessions. Only three or four per cent, of 

 the graduates of Yale (formerly the official 

 divinity school of the neighboring colonies) 

 now enter the church, while forty per cent, 

 become business men. Yet the American 

 college has never attempted to be a pro- 

 fessional school of business. Thus, by its 

 failure to retain its old character as a pro- 

 fessional school, the college has lost one of 

 the main sources of its hold upon the in- 

 terests of the student body. The colleges 

 could not follow the development of all the 

 professions, so they made no attempt to 

 follow any. With the help of the elective 

 system, they became bargain counters, or 

 rather, since there was not always even a 

 salesman specially deputed to give advice, 

 the more advanced ones became mere auto- 

 matic cafes. 



Simultaneously with all this, the college 

 has given up its attempt to form the char- 

 acter of its students by the enforcement of 

 strict regulations. The student is no longer 

 guarded against all temptation to form bad 

 habits. He is no longer furnished with ex- 

 ercises and customs calculated to produce 

 good habits. 



Thus the college has relinquished its once 

 effective plans for training professional 

 men and for turning out men of character. 

 The structures which performed these func- 

 tions have fallen into disuse. The college 

 as an educational institution is biologically 

 a mere rudiment of a formerly vital and 

 useful organ in the body politic. As one 

 of its critics has said, "It is a sort of edu- 

 cational vermiform appendix." 



Given an appendix, appendicitis is sooner 

 or later bound to appear. We are now at 



