Colleges in America

by John Marshall Barker

The Chicago University and some others have a University Council, composed of the chief administrative officials of the university. They direct all administrative matters. The University Senate is composed of the heads of the departments of instruction. It is their duty to control all educational affairs. The Harvard Corporation consists of the President, five Fellows, and the Treasurer, with the right to fill their own vacancies. Their acts are "alterable" by the Board of Overseers, to whom they are responsible. This board consists of thirty-two members, elected by the Alumni.

The Faculty is a body of instructors. The universities may have as many faculties as there are departments of instruction. In the American college proper there is but one faculty, composed of all the instructors. It varies in number and efficiency according to the number of students and financial resources of the college. The proportionate number of professors to the students follows the custom of the best English and German universities, which usually is one professor for every twenty or thirty students. The Dean is an administrative officer of a department in a university, and is concerned with the internal discipline and executive affairs.

The Presidents of the American colleges are usually clergymen. They are chosen with reference to their pre-eminent ability as scholars and administrators. The President has oversight of the plan of instruction, the maintenance of discipline, and is the representative head of the college before the public. Considerable importance is attached to the office of the President, since the success of the college in a great measure depends on his individual talent and character.

The American college professors, as a class, may be characterized as having a living scholarship and a genuine speculative spirit, combined with tact and firmness in teaching. They are enthusiastically devoted to their work. There is a growing disposition to break away from mechanical and plodding routine, and adopt an intellectual, energizing style of questions in class work, that elicit enthusiasm and aid the student. Lecturing is but little used. The teaching is more of an active, earnest conversation on a special subject between the teacher and the pupil. The instructor seeks to lead, but not to carry, the student through the study. There is also less inclination to dogmatize, and the student's mind is trained to habits of original and philosophical investigation.

The students in our American colleges have been well estimated by Professor Von Holst in these words: "I have not only visited, but lived in a number of countries, and the results of my observations of their higher educated youth is that, though by no means as to knowledge, yet as to the earnestness, steadiness and enthusiasm in the pursuit of knowledge, the American students stand first. And nature has not been in a stingy mood when weighing out their allotment of brains! Give them but the opportunities, and you will soon see whether they need to shun comparison with the scholars of any other nation."

College government is an important question. The college, as a distinct and separate community, has rules and regulations based on well-established principles, which aim to conserve the general good of the whole body of students. The college honor can not be sustained unless there is a recognition of authority and responsibility.

The college legislation and government rests principally with the faculty, overseers and trustees, who aim to be liberal, yet firm. College sentiment among students is often capricious and subject to sudden revolutions. Some of them have strong passions, immature judgments, and impetuous and weak wills, and authority must be lodged with those who will sacredly uphold law and exercise a firm, rigorous discipline.

In the early stages of college life in this country the regulations were quite severe. In many cases the college authorities did not hesitate to inflict upon the students corporal punishment for certain offenses. College Presidents would sometimes personally attend to the flogging of students, resorting to this punishment with great solemnity. Mr. George C. Bush tells us what occurred at Harvard College in 1674: "On that occasion the overseers of the college, the President and Fellows, the students who chose to attend having been called together in the library, the sentence was read in their presence and the offender required to kneel. The President then offered prayer, after which 'the prison keeper at Cambridge,' at a given signal from him 'attended to the performance of his part of the work.' The President then closed the solemn exercise with prayer."

Possibly this relic of severe college government found its example across the water, where it is related that in a bygone age a Fellow at Oxford, "who had been proved guilty of an over-susceptibility to the charms of beauty, was condemned, as a penance, to preach eight sermons in the Church of Saint Peter-in-the-East." In the days of President Dunster, of Harvard, "no possible conduct escaped his eye. Class deportment, plan of studies, personal habits, daily life, private devotions, social intercourse, and civil privileges, were all directed."

The student should feel that, in disobeying the rightful authority of the college, he abridges the rights and privileges of every student. The college sentiment should be so strong against unworthy conduct that a student would as soon shrink from doing a mean action, and having it known, as any citizen outside the college community. When it is discovered that a student has mean and unworthy motives and wilful evil tendencies, he should be summarily dismissed.