On the contrary the genius of the Anglo-Saxon race leans
towards self-help; it has been the mission of the race in the past to
develop self-government in religion and politics, it remains to crown
this work with the application of the voluntary system to liberal
education.
In indulging this piece of speculation I have had a practical purpose
before me. If what I have described be a reasonable forecast for the
University of the Future, does it not follow that University Extension,
as the germ of it, presents a field for the very highest academic
ambition? To my mind it appears that existing types of university have
reached a point where further development in the same direction would
mean decline. In English universities the ideal is 'scholarship.'
Scholarship is a good thing, and we produce it. But the system which
turns out a few good scholars every year passes over the heads of the
great mass of university students without having awakened them to any
intellectual life; the universities are scholarship-factories producing
good articles but with a terrible waste of raw material. The other main
type of university enthrones 'research' as its summum bonum. Possibly
research is as good a purpose as a man can set before him, but it is not
the sole aim in life.
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