that scheme embraces, and can never again have the prominence once assigned to it. This secularization, however it might seem to compromise the design of the founders of the College, was inevitable,—a wise and needful concession to the exigencies of the altered time. Nor is there, in a larger view, any real contravention here of the purpose of the founders. The secularization of the College is no violation of its motto, "Christo et Ecclesiæ." For, as I interpret those sacred ideas, the cause of Christ and the Church is advanced by whatever liberalizes and enriches and enlarges the mind. All study, scientifically pursued, is at bottom a study of theology; for all scientific study is the study of Law; and "of Law nothing less can be acknowledged than that her seat is in the bosom of God."
But something more than secularization of the course of study is required to satisfy the idea of a university. What is a university? Dr. Newman answers this question with the ancient designation of a Studium Generale,—a school of universal learning. "Such a university," he says, "is in its essence a place for the communication and circulation of thought by means of personal intercourse over a wide tract of country."[1] Accepting this definition, can we say that Harvard College, as at present constituted, is a University? Must we not rather describe it as a place where boys are made to recite lessons from text-books, and to write compulsory exercises, and are marked according to their proficiency and fidelity in these performances, with a view to a somewhat protracted exhibition of themselves at the close of their college course, which, according to a pleasant academic fiction, is termed their "Commencement"? This description applies only, it is true, to what is called the Undergraduate Department. But that department stands for the College, constitutes the College, in the public estimation. The professional schools which have gathered about it are scarcely regarded as a part of the College. They are incidental appendages, of which, indeed, one has its seat in another city. The College proper is simply a more advanced school for boys, not differing essentially in principle and theory from the public schools in all our towns. In this, as in those, the principle is coercion. Hold your subject fast with one hand, and pour knowledge into him with the other. The professors are task-masters and police-officers, the President the chief of the College police.
Now, considering the great advance of our higher town schools, which carry their pupils as far as the College carried them fifty years ago, and which might, if necessary, have classes still more advanced of such as are destined for the university, I venture to suggest that the time has come when this whole system of coercion might, with safety and profit, be done away. Abolish, I would say, your whole system of marks, and college rank, and compulsory tasks. I anticipate an objection drawn from the real or supposed danger of abandoning to their own devices and optional employment boys of the average age of college students. In answer, I say, advance that average by fixing a limit of admissible age. Advance the qualifications for admission; make them equal to the studies of the Freshman year, and reduce the college career from four years to three; or else make the Freshman year a year of probation, and its closing examination the condition of full matriculation. Only give the young men, when once a sufficient foundation has been laid, and the rudiments acquired, the freedom of a true University,—freedom to select their own studies and their own teachers from such material, and such personnel, as the place supplies. It is to be expected that a portion will abuse this liberty, and waste their years. They do it at their peril. At the peril, among other disadvantages, of losing their degree, which should be conditioned on satisfactory proof that the student has not wholly misspent his time.
- ↑ The Office and Work of Universities, by John Henry Newman.
