But one error must be avoided. Whilst the various types of Secondary School must fashion their curricula according to the nature of the services for which they prepare, we must not forget that the school has other duties to perform than the mere preparation for the social services by which a man hereafter earns his living. It must in every case endeavour to organise and establish those systems of means necessary for the after-discharge of the civic duties of life and instrumental for the right use of leisure.
Practically we need three types of Higher School—one in which modern languages form the basal subjects of the curriculum; one in which the physical sciences are the main systems organised and established; one in which the classical languages form the main staple of education.
CHAPTER XIII
THE AIM OF THE UNIVERSITY
"All public institutions of learning are called into existence by social needs, and first of all by technical practical necessities. Theoretical interests may lead to the founding of private associations such as the Greek philosophers' schools; public schools owe their origin to the social need for professional training. Thus during the Middle Ages the first schools were called into being by the need of professional training for ecclesiastics, the first learned profession, and a calling whose importance seemed to demand such training. Essentially the same necessity called into being the Universities of the Parisian type, with their artistic and theological faculties. The two other types of professional schools, the law school and the medical school, which were first developed in Italy, then united with the former. The Universities therefore originated as a union of 'technical' schools for ecclesiastics, jurists, and physicians, to which division the faculty of Arts was related as a general preparatory school, until during the nineteenth century it also assumed something of the character of a professional institution for the training of teachers for the Secondary School."[41]
Thus the early aim of the University was, as it still continues to be, to provide the training for the after-supply of those services which the State requires at the hands of her theologians, her jurists, and her physicians. In Germany, and to some extent even in our own country, the Arts faculty of the University is ceasing to perform the function of a General Preparatory School to the professional schools, and is becoming an independent school, having for its aim the preparation of teachers for the Intermediate and Secondary Schools of the country. In Scotland, indeed, it serves at the present time as a Preparatory School mainly to the theological faculty. As the Secondary Schools of the country become more efficient, better differentiated, and better organised, the need of a Preparatory School within our Universities will gradually become less, and the University will be able to devote more of her energies to the training of students preparing for some one or other of the above-named professions. With this change the philosophical studies of the Arts faculty will become increasingly important, and the method of teaching the linguistic and scientific studies receive a larger share of attention than they do at present.
But the other and perhaps the more important function of the University is to carry on and to extend the work of scientific and literary research for its own sake. This is the dominant note of the German and American Universities of to-day. The emphasis is laid not so much upon their function as schools for the supply of certain professional services, but upon them as great national laboratories for the extension of knowledge and the betterment of practice. In Great Britain, and especially in Scotland, this conception of the function of the University has not received the same prominence as, e.g., in Germany, where the intimate union of scientific investigation and professional instruction gives the German Universities their peculiar character. Indeed, in the latter country the tendency at the present time is rather to over-emphasise the function of the Universities in furthering scientific and literary research to the neglect of the other and no less important aim. Two dangers must be avoided. In the first place, whenever the chief emphasis is laid upon the Universities as mainly schools for professional training, the teaching tends to become narrow and dogmatic. The teacher ceasing to be an investigator, gradually loses touch with the spirit of the age, and as a consequence he fails adequately to perform the duty of efficiently training his students for their after life-work. In the second place, when the emphasis is laid strongly upon the function of the University as an institution for the carrying on of scientific and literary research there is the danger of again lapsing into the old fallacy that knowledge for knowledge' sake is an end in itself, that the object of education is to acquire and organise systems of means which function in the attainment of no practical end, and that the acquisition of knowledge is valuable for the culture of the individual mind apart from any social purpose which the knowledge subserves.
The University must therefore ever keep in view the two aims, of advancing knowledge not for its own sake but in order that future action may be rendered more efficient, and of adequately training for professional services.