Education and life

by James H. Baker

The “Report on Legal Education,” 1893, issued by the United States Bureau of Education, says: “Admission to the bar in all Continental (European) countries is obtained through the universities which are professional schools for the four learned professions—theology, medicine, law, and philosophy. In England and America the colleges and universities are chiefly schools for general culture; only a few offer provision for thorough professional studies. While in England and America the erroneous idea is still predominant that a collegiate education need not necessarily precede professional study, in Continental Europe it is made a conditio sine qua non. No one more needs than the lawyer the power of general education to grasp all the facts relating to a subject, to weigh their value, discard the unessential, and give prominence to the determining factors; no one more needs the power to avoid fallacies and to argue intelligently scientific points which may be involved in litigation. No one more than the physician needs an acquaintance with psychology and philosophy, with the various sciences and the modern languages; no one more needs the power of judgment in view of seemingly contradictory facts and symptoms; no one more needs the ethical quality of the noble and honorable gentleman. Let the American universities maintain the standards which in theory they all are ready to advocate.”

FOOTNOTES:

[2] Read before the National Association of City Superintendents, at Jacksonville, Florida, in 1896.

[3] This committee made its report in 1899. The committee recommend that any study, included in a given list regarded as suitable for the secondary-school period, and pursued under approved conditions one year of four periods a week, be regarded as worthy to count toward admission to college; they recognize that not all secondary schools are equipped to offer all the subjects, and that the colleges will make their own selections for admission; they recognize the principle of large liberty to the student in secondary schools, but do not believe in unlimited election, and they emphasize the importance of certain constants in all secondary schools and in all requirements for admission to college; they recommend that these constants be recognized in the following proportion: Four units in foreign languages (no language accepted in less than two units), two units in mathematics, two in English, one in history, and one in science.

The thirteenth annual convention (1900) of the Association of Colleges and Preparatory Schools of the Middle States and Maryland passed resolutions urging the establishment of a joint college-admission examination board to bring about an agreement upon a uniform statement as to each subject required by two or more colleges for admission, to hold examinations, and to issue certificates to be accepted by the Middle-State Colleges.

At the Charleston meeting of the N. E. A. (1900) the following resolution was passed: “Resolved, That the Department of Secondary Education and the Department of Higher Education of the National Educational Association commend the Report of the Special Committee on College-Entrance Requirements, as affording a basis for the practical solution of the problem of college admission, and recommend the Report to the attention of the colleges of the country.”

[4] During the four years (1896-1900) since this investigation was made, there has been great progress throughout the country. The standard universities now require at least a high-school education for admission to professional schools, and offer four years in medicine and three years in law.

UNIVERSITY IDEALS.[5]

To an extent a university must represent the philosophy of a people at a given epoch, and their political, social, and industrial tendencies. It symbolizes the stage of civilization and spiritual insight. The ethical need of the time led to the study of philosophy in Greece; the innate regard of the Roman people for justice and the problems attending the development of the Empire emphasized the study of law in Rome; Christianity and the influence of the Greek philosophy made theology the ideal of the Middle Ages; the development of the inductive method places emphasis on physical science to-day; the industrial spirit of America gives a practical turn to our higher education. It is no mere accident that the English university is conservative and aristocratic and aims at general culture, that the French faculties are practical, or that the German universities are scientific and democratic. The differences in spirit and method are determined by factors that belong to the history and character of the different peoples.

The colleges of New England were founded on the traditions of Oxford and Cambridge, and embodied their ideal and theological aims and conservative method, although they naturally were more liberal and democratic than the parent institutions. The history of the early American colleges has been varied, but the more successful ones have certainly become catholic and progressive. As the country grew and men pushed westward, leaving tradition behind and developing more freely the spirit of our advancing civilization, the conception of a university, in touch with all the people, and scientific and free, arose. Thus we have the state university. At the same time the leading religious denominations have vied with each other in founding in the new states colleges or universities that are more or less denominational in spirit and aim.