The topic is doubly suggestive when we stop to inquire as to what makes a university or any other institution of learning—what it is that really gives it its reputation, its character, its influence. What is it, anyway? Its towering brick walls? Its libraries and its laboratories? Its athletic prowess? Its beautiful campus? Why, no, of course not. Not any one of these nor all of them combined, complete and extended and excellent as they may be, or as useful as they all are, ever yet made or ever can make a great university. A real university, or any other institution of learning, is made up of the men and the women who form its student and its teaching bodies. The character of the institution, its very life blood, is drawn from them. Their points of view, their motives, their scholarships, their visions, their aspirations, make it what it is in every instance.
You recall that ex-President Garfield's description of a university included only two factors as essential—the teacher and the student. The external equipment—buildings, libraries, laboratories—what not—is merely a tool in their hands. Please do not misunderstand me. I am not inveighing against these things; they are necessary. What I am insisting upon is that not things but teachers make a university. And so my topic, "The University and the Teacher," launches us at once into the midst of a great big thought. So big, indeed, it is, that it goes without saying that it cannot be adequately handled in the brief space of a single address. Only certain phases of the large topic can be touched upon at all, and they treated but briefly.
But, after all, the function of a speaker, certainly upon such an occasion as this, is not merely to give information. It is not to speak with finality upon any subject. Is it not, rather, to direct the thoughts of the listeners along worthy lines? For any good that shall result from the meeting together of speaker and audience will be the direct outcome of their thoughts and not of his words. So, after having thus spoken briefly of the university as a whole—of its place in the state, its great influence and that of its teaching body—I invite you to think with me as I touch the subject here and there briefly discussing these three sub-topics: 1. The Kind of Teachers the University should Employ; 2. The University Teacher in His Classroom; 3. The University's Attitude Toward the Preparation of Teachers. Our first discussion, then, will be of
The Kind of Teachers the University Should Employ
A few moments ago I said that the one great function of a State University was to provide the State with a competent leadership. That involves, however, a subsidiary function of such great importance, especially as we regard the teaching force, that an added word is needed both to prevent misunderstanding and to make clear the line of discussion of this sub-topic. The development of a competent leadership is the all-embracing function of such an institution, but that can not be done save as the institution is, at the same time, thru some or all of its teachers, keeping fully abreast, or well in the lead, of the discovery of new knowledge and of new applications of knowledge in the various fields of human endeavor. And this is true because men can not be leaders in any field of action unless they possess the fullest and latest items of knowledge obtainable in that particular field, and again because real leadership can not be developed save thru the use, as educative material, of the fullest and latest.
What kind of teachers should the university employ? Clearly, teachers who can do these two things: men of open and enquiring minds, men of imagination, men who are hungry and thirsty for knowledge, men of research—men of the laboratory and the library. But that is but one side; we must also have men of vision, men of great breadth of view, men of broad human sympathies, men who can take this knowledge, old and new, and with it, as educative material, help to shape opinions, and mold characters, and fashion destinies, thus transforming crude, unstable, and immature youth into men and women of virtue, and knowledge, and courage, and sanity, and poise, into whose trust, therefore, can be placed the guiding of a great, free, developing people—men of the classroom, teachers and inspirers of youth.
The question may well be asked if I mean two groups of teachers, a research group and a teaching group, neither one acting within the field of the other. Not necessarily and certainly not absolutely. To quite an extent the two functions should overlap since each supplements the other. The man of research should also be a teacher in order both to keep his human sympathies alive and as a spur to still further search. And every teacher should be, to some extent, a man of research so that thru his own joy in discovery he will be able to kindle a like fire in the minds of others, thus keeping the spirit of discovery alive and active in the land, and also that he may invite his students to drink at a living stream instead of a stagnant pool. The teacher who is not also a student, and continually working at it, is usually but a poor teacher. But while all this is true, it is probably true also that no person is equally successful in both fields. Some men are primarily teachers—are in their element in the classroom engaged with the problems of the student but only indifferently successful in the laboratory, while others, at home in the laboratory, are somewhat out of place and ill-at-ease in the classroom. I shall not attempt to say which of the two functions is the more important or the more useful. Both are needed and, as said before, both are needed, to some extent, in each. But, in the main, where characteristics are marked, the shoemaker should be allowed to stick to his last. It is a very wise procedure that is more and more being followed at the present time, in American universities, of recognizing such differences and making provision for research professorships that include no teaching duties whatever. The percentage of these should be small, of course.
What kind of a teacher should the university employ, then? The teacher who is eager to push the boundaries of human knowledge a little beyond the point yet reached and who also greatly desires to take knowledge as an instrument and with it develop boys and girls and equip them for leadership in the great world of action. So far as possible the two kinds of service should be performed by the same person, but yet that is immaterial—the material thing being that both kinds be performed.
What kind of teachers should the university employ? Why, teachers who not only desire to do these two things, but who also know how to do them. If one is to do research work, he should know how to do it, economically and efficiently. His preparation should have included a certain amount of reflection upon the reasons for research and of training in the manner of conducting the same. Likewise, if he is to be a teacher, he should be well grounded in the theory and art of teaching. If he is going to shape opinions, mold character, give points of view, develop human minds, then it goes without saying that his preparation should have included a very thoro study of the human mind in its various relationships, activities, and stages of development. If a teacher is expected to equip young men and women for the duties of life as leaders in the great social, economic, and political activities, he must also possess great stores of knowledge, and likewise know how to impart that knowledge so that it will become equally the possession of others.