The writer of the above is now one of the leading professors in another college. His name and reputation are among the best in the land. He writes concerning his present position: "We have here two hundred and fifty students, all told. The utmost courtesy prevails, both in the recitation-room and in the streets. During the five years that we have been in existence as a college I do not remember that a single rude act has been committed toward any professor. I attribute this to a variety of circumstances. We began with a small body of students, who gave tone to the subsequent ones. We have no dormitories. The college is in a city too large to be controlled by students. Nothing could be pleasanter than the intercourse between town and college. Not a gate has been carried off, no loud shouting is heard. If there are night-revels, nobody ever hears of them. We have no prizes, no honors, no marking system. We hold rigid examinations, and watch the tendency to negligence if it shows itself."
One circumstance may lead us to take a more hopeful view of the situation. The colleges—and consequently the classes—are growing larger. At Yale and Harvard, for instance, the classes exceed two hundred on entrance. It is clear that so large a body cannot cohere very firmly. The sense of homogeneousness is lost. Furthermore, the class is divided into sections and sub-sections. The occasions on which the student can see his entire class together are becoming comparatively few. The so-called elective studies will also help to keep down the class spirit. In many colleges the curriculum is no longer an inflexible routine. On reaching a certain standing the student, although not entirely free to select his studies, has at least an option. He may take German instead of Greek, French in place of Latin, advanced mathematics or the natural sciences in place of both. Whatever estimate we may set upon the intrinsic value of such options, we can scarcely doubt their efficacy in the matter of discipline. The class which branches out on different lines of study has already ceased to be a class. The results of the system of free selection established at the Cornell University are very instructive. We find here three or four courses of study, now running parallel, now overlapping one another, and outside of them the elective students who follow partial courses or specialties. The university has scrupulously refrained from the official use of the terms Senior, Junior, Sophomore and Freshman, and arranges the students' names in the index in alphabetical order. The sections in certain departments, especially in the modern languages and history, are made up of students of all four years. Even the courses themselves are not inflexible. The policy of accepting bonâ fide equivalents has been adopted, and has given satisfaction to both teachers and pupils. There are probably not twenty students in the university at this moment who have recited side by side on exactly the same subjects and in the same order for three years. Hence the absence of any strong class feeling. Although those who have attended the university the same number of years may try hard at times to convince themselves and others that they are a class in the ordinary sense, they meet with little success. Individual freedom of opinion and conduct is the rule, and such a thing as class coercion is an impossibility. At one time it was argued by the adversaries of the university that this laxity must result in lowering the standard of scholarship. But recent events lead us to the opposite conclusion. The Saratoga regatta last summer proved that the Cornell students are not wanting in muscle, and the inter-collegiate contest of this winter shows still more conclusively that they are not wanting in brains. Cornell entered in four of the six contests, and won four prizes—one second and three firsts. Two of these first prizes, be it observed, far outrank the others as tests of scholarship—namely, those in Greek and in mathematics. No shallow theory of luck will explain this sudden and remarkable success. The older colleges will do well to inquire into causes, and to ask themselves if their young rival is not possessed of a new power—if sturdiness of character and independence of thought are not more efficient than mere routine. After all, is it surprising that the institution which is most liberal should attract to itself the most progressive minds?
JAMES MORGAN HART.
Footnote 1: [(return)]
North American Review, Oct., 1875.
Footnote 2: [(return)]
Heidelberg comes between Vienna and Leipsic, but Heidelberg was then a much more important town than at present.
Footnote 3: [(return)]
German Universities. Translated by W.L. Gage. Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott & Co., 1874. Steffens little imagined at the time that he was destined to become a German professor.
Footnote 4: [(return)]
The words of the decree of the Imperial Diet, 1654. See Von Raumer, Geschichte. der Pedagogik, iv. 45.
[SONNET.]
I saw a garden-bed on which there grew,
Low down amid gay grass, a violet,