THE CHAUTAUQUA UNIVERSITY.
WHAT ARE ITS CLAIMS?
BY PROF. R. S. HOLMES, A.M.
We shall be careful in what we say to make no claim for the correspondence system of teaching, as against any other. We claim for it simply a place as a co-laborer in the work of education. Lest any one should be misled by any utterances we may have made, or may hereafter make, and think that here was cast up a royal road over which one could pass with flying feet to the goal of educational culture, and enter it, to find only a narrow path, rough, stony, and filled with difficulties, we wish to plainly state what we claim for this system of instruction. Lest any one should conceive that the need for university and college has passed, and that results can be obtained by a home correspondence-university course, as good or better than can be obtained from actual college residence, we wish to plainly state what we do not claim. It may place our positive claims in a stronger light, if we set them forth against what we do not claim, as a background. Accordingly, our first statements will be negatives, as follows:
1. We do not claim that the correspondence system of teaching is the superior of oral teaching;
2. Nor that it is destined to supersede oral teaching;
3. Nor that it has wrought or will work any revolution in educational methods;
4. Nor that it can compete with oral teaching, on anything like equal terms;