Educational reform: essays and addresses
Eliot, Charles William, 1834-1926
^ iK^^TL^nUMtns S<J^. ^^-<^i*^ v3 7 dVa •« '^■1 GdL. ^ g-synf r'TfA^/^Z^ ■^^^ LIBRARY THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SANTA BARBARA PRESENTED BY ALMA WILLIAMS UCSB Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2007 with funding from IVIicrosoft Corporation http://www.archive.org/details/educationalreforOOelioiala EDUCATIONAL REFORM EDUCATIONAL REFORM ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES BY CHARLES WILLIAM ELIOT, LL. D. PRESIDENT OF HARVARD UNIVERSITY NEW YORK Zl)c Century Co. 1898 Copyright, 1898, by The Century Co. The De Vinne Press. LIBRARY fiWTERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SAJJiXA BARBAIU PREFACE THE papers contained in this volume have been selected from a much larger number on the ground that they set forth with clearness and suf- ficient amplitude the various educational reforms I have been trying to promote during the past thirty years. They are arranged chronologically. Most of them were lectures or addresses delivered at pub- lic meetings, some having been read from manu- script, and others having been prepared after the original delivery by revising shorthand reports. The speeches will be easily recognized by their style. No changes have been made in these papers, ex- cept a few insignificant corrections affecting the form but not the sense. When such phrases occur as "ten years ago" or "during the past twenty years," the time is always to be understood as reck- oned from the date of the paper. Inasmuch as I have been urging similar princi- ples or measures of reform at various stages of education, there is necessarily some repetition of doctrines and arguments in the series of addresses. Indeed, some repetition was inevitable, since almost all the reforms advocated in the later papers are distinctly though slightly outlined in the first ad- dress in the collection — an address delivered in vii Preface 1869. So slow is the progress of educational reform. So easy is it to discern educational improvements ; so hard to get them carried out in practice. On one subject treated in that first address (pp. 9 and 10), namely, the expediency of putting college examinations into the hands of persons who are not college teachers, I no longer hold the views there expressed; but in general the papers in this vol- ume express my present opinions and beliefs. 0. W. E. Cambridge, April 18, 1898. VIU CONTENTS PAGE I Inaugural Address as President of Harvard College 1 II Address at the Inauguration op Daniel C. GiLMAN 41 III Teachers' Tenure of Office .... 49 rv On the Education of Ministers ... 61 V What is a Liberal Education? ... 89 VI Liberty in Education 125 VII Can School Programmes be Shortened and Enriched? 151 VIII An Average Massachusetts Grammar School 179 IX The Gap between Common Schools and Col- leges 197 X The Aims of the Higher Education . . 223 XI Shortening and Enriching the Grammar- ScHOOL Course 253 XII Undesirable and Desirable Uniformity in Schools 273 XIII The Grammar School of the Future . 303 XIV The Unity of Educational Reform . . 315 XV Medical Education of the Future . . 343 XVI A Wider Range of Electives in College Ad- mission Requirements 375 XVII An Urban University 395 XVIII The Function of Education in Democratic Society 401 IX INAUGURAL ADDRESS AS PRESIDENT OF HARVARD COLLEGE October 19, 1869 INAUGURAL ADDRESS AS PRESIDENT OF HARVARD COLLEGE THE endless controversies whether language, philosophy, mathematics, or science supplies the best mental training, whether general educa- tion should be chiefly literary or chiefly scientific, have no practical lesson for us to-day. This Uni- versity recognizes no real antagonism between lit- erature and science, and consents to no such nar- row alternatives as mathematics or classics, science or metaphysics. We would have them all, and at their best. To observe keenly, to reason soundly, and to imagine vividly are operations as essential as that of clear and forcible expression; and to develop one of these faculties, it is not necessary to repress and dwarf the others. A university is not closely concerned with the applications of knowledge, until its general education branches into professional. Poetry and philosophy and sci- ence do indeed conspire to promote the material welfare of mankind; but science no more than poetry finds its best warrant in its utility. Truth Inaugural Address and right are above utility in all realms of thought and action. It were a bitter mockery to suggest that any subject whatever should be taught less than it now is in American colleges. The only conceiv- able aim of a college government in our day is to broaden, deepen, and invigorate American teach- ing in all branches of learning. It will be genera- tions before the best of American institutions of education will get growth enough to bear pruning. The descendants of the Pilgrim Fathers are stiU very thankful for the parched corn of learning. Recent discussions have added pitifully little to the world's stock of wisdom about the staple of education. Who blows to-day such a ringing trumpet-call to the study of language as Luther blew ? Hardly a significant word has been added in two centuries to Milton's description of the un- profitable way to study languages. Would any young American learn how to profit by travel, that foolish beginning but excellent sequel to edu- cation, he can find no apter advice than Bacon's. The practice of England and America is literally centuries behind the precept of the best thinkers upon education. A striking illustration may be found in the prevailing neglect of the systematic study of the English language. How lamentably true to-day are these words of Locke : " If any one among us have a facility or purity more than or- dinary in his mother-tongue, it is owing to chance, or his genius, or anything rather than to his edu- cation or any care of his teacher." y^s President of Harvard College The best result of the discussion which has raged so long about the relative educational value of the main branches of learning is the conviction that there is room for them all in a sound scheme, provided that right methods of teaching be em- ployed. It is not because of the limitation of their faculties that boys of eighteen come to col- lege, having mastered nothing but a few score pages of Latin and Greek, and the bare elements of mathematics. Not nature, but an unintelligent system of instruction from the primary school through the college, is responsible for the fact that many college graduates have so inadequate a con- ception of what is meant by scientific observation, reasoning, and proof. It is possible for the young to get actual experience of all the principal methods of thought. There is a method of thought in language, and a method in mathematics, and another of natural and physical science, and an- other of faith. With wise direction, even a child would drink at all these springs. The actual problem to be solved is not what to teach, but how to teach. The revolutions accomplished in other fields of labor have a lesson for teachers. New England could not cut her hay with scythes, or the West her wheat with sickles. When mil- lions are to be fed where formerly there were but scores, the single fish-line must be replaced by seines and trawls, the human shoulders by steam- elevators, and the wooden-axled ox-cart on a cor- duroy road by the smooth-running freight-train. In education, there is a great hungry multitude to 3 Inaugural Address be fed. The great well at Orvieto, up whose spiral paths files of donkeys painfully brought the sweet water in kegs, was an admirable construc- tion in its day; but now we tap Fresh Pond in our chambers. The Orvieto well might remind some persons of educational methods not yet ex- tinct. With good methods, we may confidently hope to give young men of twenty to twenty-five an accurate general knowledge of all the main subjects of human interest, besides a minute and thorough knowledge of the one subject which each may select as his principal occupation in life. To think this impossible is to despair of mankind ; for unless a general acquaintance with many branches of knowledge, good so far as it goes, be attainable by great numbers of men, there can be no such thing as an intelligent public opinion ; and in the modern world the intelligence of public opinion is the one indispensable condition of social progress. What has been said of needed reformation in methods of teaching the subjects which have al- ready been nominally admitted to the American curriculum applies not only to the university, but to the preparatory schools of every grade down to the primary. The American college is obliged to supplement the American school. Whatever ele- mentary instruction the schools fail to give, the college must supply. The improvement of the schools has of late years permitted the college to advance the grade of its teaching, and adapt the methods of its later years to men instead of boys. This improvement of the college reacts upon the 4 As President of Harvard College schools to their advantage; and this action and reaction will be continuous. A university is not built in the air, but on social and literary foun- dations which preceding generations have be- queathed. If the whole structure needs rebuilding, it must be rebuilt from the foundation. Hence, sudden reconstruction is impossible in our high places of education. Such inducements as the Col- lege can offer for enriching and enlarging the course of study pursued in preparatory schools, the Faculty has recently decided to give. The re- quirements in Latin and Greek grammar are to be set at a thorough knowledge of forms and general principles; the lists of classical authors accepted as equivalents for the regular standards are to be enlarged; an acquaintance with physical geogra- phy is to be required; the study of elementary mechanics is to be recommended, and prizes are to be offered for reading aloud, and for the critical analysis of passages from English authors. At the same time the University will take to heart the counsel which it gives to others. In every department of learning the University would search out by trial and reflection the best methods of instruction. The University believes in the thorough study of language. It contends for all languages — Oriental, Greek, Latin, Eo- mance, German, and especially for the mother- tongue; seeing in them all one institution, one history, one means of discipline, one department of learning. In teaching languages, it is for this Inaugural Address American generation to invent, or to accept from abroad, better tools than the old ; to devise, or to transplant from Europe, prompter and more com- prehensive methods than the prevailing; and to command more intelligent labor, in order to gather rapidly and surely the best fruit of that culture and have time for other harvests. The University recognizes the natural and phy- sical sciences as indispensable branches of educa- tion, and has long acted upon this opinion ; but it would have science taught in a rational way, ob- jects and instruments in hand — not from books merely, not through the memory chiefly, but by the seeing eye and the informing fingers. Some of the scientific scoffers at gerund grinding and nonsense verses might well look at home ; the pre- vailing methods of teaching science, the world over, are, on the whole, less intelligent than the methods of teaching language. The University would have scientific studies in school and college and profes- sional school develop and discipline those powers of the mind by which science has been created and is daily nourished — the powers of observation, the inductive faculty, the sober imagination, the sin- cere and proportionate judgment. A student in the elements gets no such training by studying even a good text-book, though he really master it, nor yet by sitting at the feet of the most admirable lecturer. If there be any subject which seems fixed and settled in its educational aspects, it is the mathe- matics ; yet there is no department of the Univer- 6 As President of Harvard College sity which has been, during the last fifteen years, in such a state of vigorous experiment upon meth- ods and appliances of teaching as the mathemati- cal department. It would be well if the primary schools had as much faith in the possibility of improving their way of teaching multiplication. The important place which history, and mental, moral, and political philosophy, should hold in any broad scheme of education is recognized of all; but none know so well how crude are the prevailing methods of teaching these subjects as those who teach them best. They cannot be taught from books alone, but must be vivified and illustrated by teachers of active, comprehensive, and judicial mind. To learn by rote a list of dates is not to study history. Mr. Emerson says that history is biography. In a deep sense this is true. Certainly, the best way to impart the facts of history to the young is through the quick interest they take in the lives of the men and women who fill great his- torical scenes or epitomize epochs. From the cen- ters so established, their interest may be spread over great areas. For the young especially, it is better to enter with intense sympathy into the great moments of history, than to stretch a thin attention through its weary centuries. Philosophical subjects should never be taught with authority. They are not established sciences; they are full of disputed matters, open questions, and bottomless speculations. It is not the func- tion of the teacher to settle philosophical and political controversies for the pupil, or even to Inaugural Address recommend to him any one set of opinions as bet- ter than another. Exposition, not imposition, of opinions is the professor's part. The student should be made acquainted with all sides of these controversies, with the salient points of each sys- tem ; he should be shown what is still in force of institutions or philosophies mainly outgrown, and what is new in those now in vogue. The very word "education" is a standing protest against dogmatic teaching. The notion that education con- sists in the authoritative inculcation of what the teacher deems true may be logical and appropriate in a convent, or a seminary for priests, but it is intolerable in universities and public schools, from primary to professional. The worthy fruit of aca- demic culture is an open mind, trained to careful thinking, instructed in the methods of philosophic investigation, acquainted in a general way with the accumulated thought of past generations, and penetrated with humility. It is thus that the uni- versity in our day serves Christ and the church. The increasing weight, range, and thoroughness of the examination for admission to college may strike some observers with dismay. The increase of real requisitions is hardly perceptible from year to year ; but on looking back ten or twenty years, the changes are marked, and all in one direction. The dignity and importance of this examination have been steadily rising, and this rise measures the improvement of the preparatory schools. When the gradual improvement of American 8 As President of Harvard College schools has lifted them to a level with the German gymnasia, we may expect to see the American col- lege bearing a nearer resemblance to the German faculties of philosophy than it now does. The actual admission examination may best be com- pared with the first examination of the University of France. This examination, which comes at the end of a French boy's school life, is for the degree of Bachelor of Arts or of Sciences. The degree is given to young men who come fresh from school and have never been under university teachers ; a large part of the recipients never enter the univer- sity. The young men who come to our examina- tion for admission to college are older than the average of French Bachelors of Arts. The exami- nation tests not only the capacity of the candi- dates, but also the quality of their school instruc- tion ; it is a great event in their lives, though not, as in France, marked by any degree. The exami- nation is conducted by college professors and tutors who have never had any relations whatever with those examined. It would be a great gain if all subsequent college examinations could be as impartially conducted by competent examiners brought from without the college and paid for their services. When the teacher examines his class, there is no effective examination of the teacher. If the examinations for the scientific, theological, medical, and dental degrees were conducted by independent boards of examiners, appointed by professional bodies of dignity and influence, the significance of these degrees would be greatly en- 9 Inaugural Address hanced. The same might be said of the degree of Bachelor of Laws, were it not that this degree is, at present, earned by attendance alone, and not by attendance and examination. The American practice of allowing the teaching body to examine for degrees has been partly dictated by the scarcity of men outside the faculties who are at once thor- oughly acquainted with the subjects of examina- tion, and sufficiently versed in teaching to know what may fairly be expected of both students and instructors. This difficulty could now be overcome. The chief reason, however, for the existence of this practice is that the faculties were the only bodies that could confer degrees intelligently, when de- grees were obtained by passing through a pre- scribed course of study without serious checks, and completing a certain term of residence with- out disgrace. The change in the manner of earn- ing the University degrees ought, by right, to have brought into being an examining body distinct from the teaching body. So far as the College proper is concerned, the Board of Overseers have, during the past year, taken a step which tends in this direction. The rigorous examination for admission has one good effect throughout the college course: it pre- vents a waste of instruction upon incompetent persons. A school with a low standard for admis- sion and a high standard of graduation, like West Point, is obliged to dismiss a large proportion of its students by the way. Hence much individual distress, and a great waste of resources, both pub- ic As President of Harvard College lie and private. But, on the other hand, it must not be supposed that every student who enters Harvard College necessarily graduates. Strict an- nual examinations are to be passed. More than a fourth of those who enter the College fail to take their degree. Only a few years ago, all students who gradu- ated at this College passed through one uniform curriculum. Every man studied the same sub- jects in the same proportions, without regard to his natural bent or preference. The individual student had no choice of either subjects or teach- ers. This system is still the prevailing system among American colleges, and finds vigorous de- fenders. It has the merit of simplicity. So had the school methods of our grandfathers — one primer, one catechism, one rod for all children. On the whole, a single common course of studies, tolera- bly well selected to meet the average needs, seems to most Americans a very proper and natural thing, even for grown men. As a people, we do not apply to mental activi- ties the principle of division of labor ; and we have but a halting faith in special training for high professional employments. The vulgar conceit that a Yankee can turn his hand to anything we insensibly carry into high places, where it is pre- posterous and criminal. We are accustomed to seeing men leap from farm or shop to court-room or pulpit, and we half believe that common men can safely use the seven-league boots of genius. II Inaugural Address What amount of knowledge and experience do we habitually demand of our lawgivers? What spe- cial training do we ordinarily think necessary for our diplomatists ? — although in great emergencies the nation has known where to turn. Only after years of the bitterest experience did we come to believe the professional training of a soldier to be of value in war. This lack of faith in the prophecy of a natural bent, and in the value of a discipline concentrated upon a single object, amounts to a national danger. In education, the individual traits of different minds have not been sufficiently attended to. Through aU the period of boyhood the school stud- ies should be representative ; all the main fields of knowledge should be entered upon. But the young man of nineteen or twenty ought to know what he likes best and is most fit for. If his previous train- ing has been sufficiently wide, he will know by that time whether he is most apt at language or phi- losophy or natural science or mathematics. If he feels no loves, he will at least have his hates. At that age the teacher may wisely abandon the school-dame's practice of giving a copy of nothing but zeros to the child who alleges that he cannot make that figm'e. When the revelation of his own peculiar taste and capacity comes to a young man, let him reverently give it welcome, thank God, and take courage. Thereafter he knows his way to happy, enthusiastic work, and, Grod willing, to usefulness and success. The civilization of a people may be inferred from the variety of its 12 /4s President of Harvard College tools. There are thousands of years between the stone hatchet and the machine-shop. As tools multiply, each is more ingeniously adapted to its own exclusive purpose. So with the men that make the State. For the individual, concentra- tion, and the highest development of his own pe- culiar faculty, is the only prudence. But for the State, it is variety, not uniformity, of intellectual product, which is needful. These principles are the justification of the sys- tem of elective studies which has been gradually developed in this College during the past forty years. At present the Freshman year is the only one in which there is a fixed course prescribed for all. In the other three years, more than half the time allotted to study is filled with subjects chosen by each student from lists which comprise six studies in the Sophomore year, nine in the Junior year, and eleven in the Senior year. The range of elective studies is large, though there are some striking deficiencies. The liberty of choice of sub- ject is wide, but yet has very rigid limits. There is a certain framework which must be filled ; and about half the material of the filling is prescribed. The choice offered to the student does not lie be- tween liberal studies and professional or utilita- rian studies. All the studies which are open to him are liberal and disciplinary, not narrow or special. Under this system the College does not demand, it is true, one invariable set of studies of every can- didate for the first degree in Arts ; but its requisi- tions for this degree are nevertheless high and 13 Inaugural Address inflexible, being nothing less than four years de- voted to liberal culture. It has been alleged that the elective system must weaken the bond which unites members of the same class. This is true; but in view of another much more efficient cause of the diminution of class intimacy, the point is not very significant. The increased size of the college classes inevitably works a great change in this respect. One hun- dred and fifty young men cannot be so intimate with each other as fifty used to be. This increase is progressive. Taken in connection with the ris- ing average age of the students, it would compel the adoption of methods of instruction different from the old, if there were no better motive for such change. The elective system fosters scholar- ship, because it gives free play to natural prefer- ences and inborn aptitudes, makes possible enthu- siasm for a chosen work, relieves the professor and the ardent disciple of the presence of a body of students who are compelled to an unwelcome task, and enlarges instruction by substituting many and various lessons given to small, lively classes, for a few lessons many times repeated to different sections of a numerous class. The College there- fore proposes to persevere in its efforts to establish, improve, and extend the elective system. Its ad- ministrative difficulties, which seem formidable at first, vanish before a brief experience. There has been much discussion about the com- parative merits of lectures and recitations. Both 14 As President of Harvard College are useful — lectures, for inspiration, guidance, and the comprehensive methodizing which only one who has a view of the whole field can rightly con- trive; recitations, for securing and testifying a thorough mastery on the part of the pupil of the treatise or author in hand, for conversational com- ment and amplification, for emulation and compe- tition. Recitations alone readily degenerate into dusty repetitions, and lectures alone are too often a useless expenditure of force. The lecturer pumps laboriously into sieves. The water may be whole- some, but it runs through. A mind must work to grow. Just as far, however, as the student can be relied on to master and appreciate his author with- out the aid of frequent questioning and repetitions, so far is it possible to dispense with recitations. Accordingly, in the later College years there is a decided tendency to diminish the number of reci- tations, the faithfulness of the student being tested by periodical examinations. This tendency is in a right direction, if prudently controlled. The discussion about lectures and recitations has brought out some strong opinions about text-books and their use. Impatience with text-books and manuals is very natural in both teachers and taught. These books are indeed, for the most part, very imperfect, and stand in constant need of correction by the well-informed teacher. Stere- otyping, in its present undeveloped condition, is in part to blame for their most exasperating de- fects. To make the metal plates keep pace with the progress of learning is costly. The manifest 15 Inaugural Address deficiencies of text-books must not, however, drive us into a too sweeping condemnation of their use. It is a rare teacher who is superior to all manuals in his subject. Scientific manuals are, as a rule, much worse than those upon language, literature, or philosophy ; yet the main improvement in medi- cal education in this country during the last twenty years has been the addition of systematic recitations from text-books to the lectures which were formerly the principal means of theoretical instruction. The training of a medical student, inadequate as it is, offers the best example we have of the methods and fruits of an education mainly scientific. The transformation which the average student of a good medical school under- goes in three years is strong testimony to the effi- ciency of the training he receives. There are certain common misapprehensions about colleges in general, and this College in par- ticular, to which I wish to devote a few moments' attention. And, first, in spite of the familiar pic- ture of the moral dangers which environ the stu- dent, there is no place so safe as a good college during the critical passage from boyhood to man- hood. The security of the college commonwealth is largely due to its exuberant activity. Its public opinion, though easily led astray, is still high in the main. Its scholarly tastes and habits, its eager friendships and quick hatreds, its keen debates, its frank discussions of character and of deep political and religious questions, all are i6 y4s President of Harvard College safeguards against sloth, vulgarity, and depravity. Its society and, not less, its solitudes are full of teaching. Shams, conceit, and fictitious distinc- tions get no mercy. There is nothing but ridicule for bombast and sentimentality. Eepression of genuine sentiment and emotion is indeed, in this College, carried too far. Eeserve is more respec- table than any undiscerning communicativeness; but neither Yankee shamefacedness nor English stolidity is admirable. This point especially touches you, young men, who are still undergrad- uates. When you feel a true admiration for a teacher, a glow of enthusiasm for work, a thrill of pleasure at some excellent saying, give it ex- pression. Do not be ashamed of these emotions. Cherish the natural sentiment of personal devotion to the teacher who calls out your better powers. It is a great delight to serve an intellectual master. We Americans are but too apt to lose this happi- ness. German and French students get it. If ever in after years you come to smile at the youth- ful reverence you paid, believe me, it will be with tears in your eyes. Many excellent persons see great offense in any system of college rank ; but why should we expect more of young men than we do of their elders I How many men and women perform their daily tasks from the highest motives alone — for the glory of God and the relief of man^s estate ? Most people work for bare bread, a few for cake. The college rank-list reinforces higher motives. In the campaign for character, no auxiliaries are to be 17 Inaugural Address refused. Next to despising the enemy, it is danger- ous to reject allies. To devise a suitable method of estimating the fidelity and attainments of col- lege students is, however, a problem which has long been under discussion, and has not yet re- ceived a satisfactory solution. The worst of rank as a stimulus is the self -reference it implies in the aspirants. The less a young man thinks about the cultivation of his mind, about his own mental progress, — about himself, in short, — the better. The petty discipline of colleges attracts altogether too much attention from both friends and foes. It is to be remembered that the rules concerning decorum, however necessary to maintain the high standard of manners and conduct which character- izes this College, are nevertheless justly described as petty. What is technically called a quiet term cannot be accepted as the acme of university suc- cess. This success is not to be measured by the frequency or rarity of college punishments. The criteria of success or failure in a high place of learning are not the boyish escapades of an insig- nificant minority, nor the exceptional cases of ruin- ous vice. Each year must be judged by the added opportunities of instruction, by the prevailing en- thusiasm in learning, and by the gathered wealth of culture and character. The best way to put boyishness to shame is to foster scholarship and manliness. The manners of a community cannot be improved by main force any more than its mor- als. The Statutes of the University need some amendment and reduction in the chapters on i8 y^5 President of Harvard College crimes and misdemeanors. But let us render to our fathers the justice we shall need from our sons. What is too minute or precise for our use was doubtless wise and proper in its day. It was to in- culcate a reverent bearing and due consideration for things sacred that the regulations prescribed a black dress on Sunday. Black is not the only de- corous wear in these days ; but we must not seem, in ceasing from this particular mode of good man- ners, to think less of the gentle breeding of which only the outward signs, and not the substance, have been changed. Hakvakd College has always attracted and still attracts students in all conditions of life. From the city trader or professional man, who may be careless how much his son spends at Cambridge, to the farmer or mechanic, who finds it a hard sac- rifice to give his boy his time early enough to enable him to prepare for college, all sorts and conditions of men have wished and still wish to send their sons hither. There are always scores of young men in this University who earn or borrow every dollar they spend here. Every year many young men enter this College without any resources whatever. If they prove themselves men of capacity and character, they never go away for lack of money. More than twenty thousand dol- lars a year is now devoted to aiding students of narrow means to compass their education, besides all the remitted fees and the numerous private benefactions. These latter are unfailing. Taken 19 Inaugural Address in connection with the proceeds of the funds ap- plicable to the aid of poor students, they enable the Corporation to say that no good student need ever stay away from Cambridge or leave college simply because he is poor. There is one uniform condition, however, on which help is given: the recipient must be of promising ability and the best character. The community does not owe superior education to all children, but only to the elite — to those who, having the capacity, prove by hard work that they have also the necessary persever- ance and endurance. The process of preparing to enter college under the difficulties which poverty entails is just such a test of worthiness as is needed. At this moment there is no college in the country more eligible for a poor student than Harvard on the mere ground of economy. The scholarship funds are mainly the fruit of the last fifteen years. The future will take care of itself ; for it is to be expected that the men who in this generation have had the benefit of these funds, and who succeed in after life, will pay manyfold to their successors in need the debt which they owe, not to the College, but to benefactors whom they cannot even thank, save in heaven. No wonder that scholarships are founded. What greater privilege than this of giv- ing young men of promise the coveted means of intellectual growth and freedom? The angels of heaven might envy mortals so fine a luxury. The happiness which the winning of a scholarship gives is not the recipient's alone : it flashes back to the home whence he came, and gladdens anxious hearts 20 As President of Harvard College there. The good which it does is not his alone, but descends, multiplying at every step, through gener- ations. Thanks to the beneficent mysteries of hereditary transmission, no capital earns such inter- est as personal culture. The poorest and the richest students are equally welcome here, provided that with their poverty or their wealth they bring capa- city, ambition, and purity. The poverty of scholars is of inestimable worth in this money-getting na- tion. It maintains the true standards of virtue and honor. The poor friars, not the bishops, saved the church. The poor scholars and preachers of duty defend the modern community against its own material prosperity. Luxury and learning are ill bedfellows. Nevertheless, this College owes much of its distinctive character to those who, bringing hither from refined homes good breeding, gentle tastes, and a manly delicacy, add to them openness and activity of mind, intellectual interests, and a sense of public duty. It is as high a privilege for a rich man's son as for a poor man's to resort to these academic halls, and so to take his proper place among cultivated and intellectual men. To lose altogether the presence of those who in early life have enjoyed the domestic and social advan- tages of wealth would be as great a blow to the Col- lege as to lose the sons of the poor. The interests of the College and the country are identical in this regard. The country suffers when the rich are ignorant and unrefined. Inherited wealth is an unmitigated curse when divorced from culture. Harvard College is sometimes reproached with 2* 21 Inaugural Address being aristocratic. If by aristocracy be meant a stupid and pretentious caste, founded on wealth, and birth, and an affectation of European manners, no charge could be more preposterous : the College is intensely American in affection, and intensely democratic in temper. But there is an aristocracy to which the sons of Harvard have belonged, and, let us hope, will ever aspire to belong — the aris- tocracy which excels in manly sports, carries off the honors and prizes of the learned professions, and bears itself with distinction in all fields of in- tellectual labor and combat ; the aristocracy which in peace stands firmest for the public honor and renown, and in war rides first into the murderous thickets. The attitude of the University in the prevailing discussions touching the education and fit em- ployments of women demands brief explanation. America is the natural arena for these debates; for here the female sex has a better past and a better present than elsewhere. Americans, as a rule, hate disabilities of all sorts, whether religious, political, or social. Equality between the sexes, without privilege or oppression on either side, is the happy custom of American homes. While this great discussion is gomg on, it is the duty of the University to maintain a cautious and ex- pectant policy. The Corporation will not receive women as students into the College proper, nor into any school whose discipline requires residence near the school. The difficulties involved in a 22 As President of Harvard College common residence of hundreds of young men and women of immature character and marriageable age are very grave. The necessary police regula- tions are exceedingly burdensome. The Corpora- tion are not influenced to this decision, however, by any crude notions about the innate capacities of women. The world knows next to nothing about the natural mental capacities of the female sex. Only after generations of civil freedom and social equality will it be possible to obtain the data necessary for an adequate discussion of woman's natural tendencies, tastes, and capabili- ties. Again, the Corporation do not find it neces- sary to entertain a confident opinion upon the fitness or unfitness of women for professional pursuits. It is not the business of the University to decide this mooted point. In this country the University does not undertake to protect the com- munity against incompetent lawyers, ministers, or doctors. The community must protect itself by refusing to employ such. Practical, not theoreti- cal, considerations determine the policy of the University. Upon a matter concerning which prejudices are deep, and opinion inflammable, and experience scanty, only one course is prudent or justifiable when such great interests are at stake — that of cautious and well-considered experiment. The practical problem is to devise a safe, promis- ing, and instructive experiment. Such an experi- ment the Corporation have meant to try in open- ing the newly established University Courses of Instruction to competent women. In these courses 23 Inaugural Address the University offers to young women who have been to good schools as many years as they wish of liberal culture in studies which have no direct professional value, to be sure, but which enrich and enlarge both intellect and character. The University hopes thus to contribute to the intellec- tual emancipation of women. It hopes to prepare some women better than they would otherwise have been prepared for the profession of teaching, the one learned profession to which women have already acquired a clear title. It hopes that the proffer of this higher instruction will have some reflex influence upon schools for girls — to dis- courage superficiality, and to promote substantial education. The governing bodies of the University are the Faculties, the Board of Overseers, and the Cor- poration. The University as a place of study and instruction is, at any moment, what the Faculties make it. The professors, lecturers, and tutors of the University are the living sources of learning and enthusiasm. They personally repre- sent the possibilities of instruction. They are united in several distinct bodies, the academic and professional Faculties, each of which practically determines its own processes and rules. The dis- cussion of methods of instruction is the principal business of these bodies. As a fact, progress comes mainly from the Faculties. This has been conspicuously the case with the Academic and Medical Faculties during the last fifteen or twenty 24 As President of Harvard College years. The undergraduates used to have a notion that the time of the Academic Faculty was mainly devoted to petty discipline. Nothing could be further from the truth. The Academic Faculty is the most active, vigilant, and devoted body con- nected with the University. It indeed is con- stantly obliged to discuss minute details, which might appear trivial to an inexperienced observer. 