This involves freedom of methods to be employed
by the instructors on the one hand, and on the other, freedom of courses
to be selected by the students.
But this freedom is based on laws,--two of which cannot be too
distinctly or too often enunciated. A law which should govern the
admission of pupils is this, that before they win this privilege they
must have been matured by the long, preparatory discipline of superior
teachers, and by the systematic, laborious, and persistent pursuit of
fundamental knowledge; and a second law, which should govern the work of
professors, is this, that with unselfish devotion to the discovery and
advancement of truth and righteousness, they renounce all other
preferment, so that, like the greatest of all teachers, they may promote
the good of mankind.
I see no advantage in our attempting to maintain the traditional
four-year class-system of the American colleges. It has never existed in
the University of Virginia; it is modified, though not nominally given
up at Harvard; it is not an important characteristic of Michigan and
Cornell; it is not known in the English, French or German universities.
It is a collegiate rather than a university method. If parents or
students desire us to mark out prescribed courses, either classical or
scientific, lasting four years, it will be easy to do so.
Pages:
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81