To make intellectual expression and not receptivity the keynote of the college does not mean to turn it into an intellectual engineering school or to make it severely utilitarian. It should remain unspecialized, the field for working out a background for the contemporary social world. The paradox is that only by this practical exercise can any real cultural or scholarly power be attained. As long as the student can speak of “taking courses” the receptive and slightly medicinal character of college learning will be emphasized. Moreover, as the schools both above and below the college adjust themselves to the new conceptions of learning, the archaic forms of college will cause it to lag in the race. The reason for their persistence is, of course, that whereas the technical demands of industry and the keen emulation in the professions have sharpened the higher schools and forced a revision of ideals and methods, the practical application of the cultural studies of the college has not seemed so urgent. The turning of these cultural studies into power is to be the exact measure of our growing conviction that ideas and knowledge about social relations and human institutions are to count as urgently in our struggle with the future as any mathematical or mechanical formulas did in the development of our present.
Transcriber’s Notes
[Page 48]: “cottom looms” changed to “cotton looms”
[Page 92]: “Profesor Judd’s” changed to “Professor Judd’s”
[Page 99]: “imperfect acomplishment” changed to “imperfect accomplishment”
[Page 164]: “classics and mathemathics” changed to “classics and mathematics”
[Page 190]: “particualarly to those” changed to “particularly to those”
[Page 230]: “The large university to-day represent” changed to “The large university to-day represents”