III
The History of “Commons”
Part I
Between the Continental and the English universities no difference has been more frequently remarked than their respective attitudes toward the life and morals of their students. In France, Germany, and Italy (at least after the Middle Ages) the specialist’s view has prevailed: the business of the university is to teach, and it sticks strictly to business. Once the youth has left the lecture-room, the authorities have no more concern with him until he enters it again. In England, on the other hand, the college not only educates but stands in loco parentis to those entrusted to its care. The student must live in quarters provided for him—and by the same token must be in his rooms betimes every night—he must eat at the common table; he must attend the daily chapel; he must demean himself seemly in public; he must even wear (or make a pretence of wearing) a prescribed costume. The parental principles of the public school, in short, are carried up into the university.
These principles were faithfully followed by the Englishmen who founded the first college in what they termed, and not without reason, their New England.
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