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COLLEGES IN AMERICA.

BY

JOHN MARSHALL BARKER, PH. D.

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY

REV. SYLVESTER F. SCOVEL, LL. D.,

PRESIDENT OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WOOSTER.

[Illustration]

THE CLEVELAND PRINTING & PUBLISHING CO.,
CLEVELAND, OHIO.
1894.




COPYRIGHT, 1894,
THE CLEVELAND PRINTING & PUBLISHING CO.




TO ONE OF THE
GREATEST LIVING SCHOLARS AND EDUCATORS,
REV. WILLIAM F. WARREN, LL. D.,
PRESIDENT OF BOSTON UNIVERSITY.




NOTE.


The author of this volume aims to give the reader a brief survey of
the growth, functions, and work of the American Colleges. It has been
a pleasure to visit many of the colleges and gather facts, receive
impressions and carry away many pleasant recollections regarding them.

The following authorities have been helpful in the preparation of the
work: "A History of Education," by F. V. N. Painter; "The Rise and
Early Constitution of Universities," by S. S. Laurie; "Education in
the United States," by Richard G. Boone; "Essays on Educational
Reformers," by Robert H. Quick; "Education," by Herbert Spencer;
"Universities in Germany," by J. M. Hart; Huxley's "Technical
Education;" Froude's "Essay on Education,"; "The American College and
the American Public," by President Noah Porter; "Prayer for Colleges,"
by Professor W. S. Tyler; "American Colleges: their Life and Work,"
and "Within College Walls," by President Chas. F. Thwing;
"Universities on the Continent," and "Culture and Anarchy," by Matthew
Arnold; "Educational Essays," by Bishop Edward Thomson; "Christianity
in the United States," by Daniel Dorchester; "College Life," by
Stephen Olin; "The Intellectual Life," by P. G. Hamerton; "Essays on a
Liberal Education," by F. W. Farrar; "History of Higher Education" in
the several States, prepared by the Bureau of Education; "Reports of
the Commissioner of Education for 1890-'91;" and the periodical
literature bearing on the subject.




CONTENTS.

       I. The Rise of Universities in the Old World,               13

      II. The Planting of Colleges in the New World,               36

     III. Characteristics of the American College,                 69

      IV. The Functions of the American College,                  104
          _a._ A Symmetrical Development.
          _b._ The Advancement of Knowledge.
          _c._ Preparation for Service.

       V. Student Life in College,                                156

      VI. The Personal Factors in a College Education,            178

     VII. The Practical Value of an Education,                    196

    VIII. Our Indebtedness to Colleges,                           229




INTRODUCTION.


I cannot be unwilling to avail myself of any opportunity to turn the
attention of the Christian public to the Christian College. It is a
noble public and an equally noble object. I can conceive of no
worthier or more Christian thing than the caretaking of one generation
that the next one which must necessarily lie so long under its
influence and for which it is therefore so thoroughly responsible,
should receive a Christian education.

To put Christ at the center and make Him felt to the circumference (as
Bungener said in speaking of Calvin's school policy), is exceedingly
difficult. But it is exceedingly important. It is, indeed, vital and
pivotal.

The dangers about it are great and ever greater. They come from the
general worldliness of all things and everybody in this age of
unprecedentedly rapid and splendid material development. They are
increased by the growth of speculative infidelity whether of the
philosophical or scientific phase. They spring out of everything which
lowers the Bible from that supreme and sovereign consideration by
which alone it can hold the place in education which the Old Testament
economy gave it, and which all the books of all the other
book-religions of the world most unquestioningly possess. They are
born of all that false theorizing about the limits of government and
the liberty of conscience which issues in the demands for utter
secularization of every institution of the State, while at the same
time the necessities of popular government are demonstrating that
education must be by the State. They are intensified by the divided
opinion of the church universal, of which the Catholic and Greek
sections hold that education must be religious and under the care of
the Church; while the State-Church Protestant section holds that it
may be religious under certain conditions, and the extreme
secularistic protestant wing holds that it cannot be religious because
conducted by the State, and a rather diminishing protestant section in
free-church nations holds that the higher education should be
Christian, while the secondary and primary may safely be left to the
secular State.

These dangers are not only imminent but actual. The whole effort to
support a Christian education in the public schools is sometimes
called a "bootless wrangle." One section is thrown over towards
secularism, pure and simple, in recoiling from Church-education
exclusive and reactionary. The leading of the little child, the
favorite indication of the millennium's arrival, is frustrated amid
the clamor of the free thinkers and the uncertainty of the Church and
the necessities of the State. We are slowly but surely, if we go on
in this way, taking our children out of Christ's arms and our youth
from beside His footsteps. And that is at once the most fearful sin
against Him, and the most terrible injustice to them, we could
possibly commit. Who can do anything to stay this destructive
tendency? "God bless him," I would say in Livingstone's spirit,
"whoever he may be," that will help to heal this open wound of the
world.

I think Mr. Barker's little book will help. It supplies much
information carefully collected from scattered sources, given in brief
and explicit statements. Its range of themes is wide and upon them all
some standard thoughts are given. It is addressed to all readers and
should find them among parents (whom it should make patrons), among
those who have hearts to pray and those who have hands to help. It
will prove to be of rare interest to all whose duty it is to teach,
and it has much wise counsel for those who are to study.

The treatment of the function of the College for the cultivation of
the moral and spiritual nature (Chapter IV) deserves special
attention. Its declarations are firm, its ideals high and its selected
opinions apt and forcible. It ought to end the reign of any
institution in which religion is not put at the center and kept as
efficient as human instrumentalities can make it. The demand for
professors of pronounced Christian character and convictions is timely
and is fearlessly made.

The discussion of the currents and counter-currents of influences in
college life cannot but be useful, with a possibly increased emphasis
against the secret societies and a caution against organizations of
undergraduates for active partisan work in politics. The time for
these fruits is "not yet."

Admirably the author shows that we have the best College material in
the world and that it behaves itself best. And there can be no lack of
agreement as to the arousing arguments and the closing chapters
concerning the usefulness of colleges to the individual and the
community. May it serve to kindle and to extend when kindled the
wholesome enthusiasm its respected author manifests both by word and
work.

    SYLVESTER F. SCOVEL.

    The University of Wooster,
      July 9, 1894.




COLLEGES IN AMERICA.




I.

THE RISE OF UNIVERSITIES IN THE OLD WORLD.


The American college system is deeply rooted in the past. It will be
better understood if we trace briefly its historic connection with the
ancient and European seats of learning. Higher education has been
promoted among all great nations. Flourishing colleges were founded
among ancient people. In the kingdoms of Judah and Israel, schools of
the Prophets were located at Bethel, Gibeah, Gilgal, Jericho and
Naioth. The Academy of Athens, the Museum of Alexandria, the Athenaeum
of Rome were once centers of intellectual activity and spread their
influence over the civilized world.

The Greek race especially commands our attention for its activity in
matters relating to higher education. The Academy of Plato flourished
for nine hundred years. The schools of Athens are noted for their
great and permanent influence in awakening thought and shedding the
light of their teaching among the nations of the world. "So charged,"
says Cardinal Newman, "is the moral atmosphere of the East with Greek
civilization, that down to this day those tribes are said to show to
most advantage which can claim relation of place and kin with Greek
colonies established two thousand years ago." The influences of the
scholastic halls of Plato and Aristotle span the centuries with their
light and power.

Here truths were taught that have found universal acceptance. Down to
the second century, Athens was a favorite resort for students. The
college at Alexandria, where so many of the Fathers of the Church
were educated, was founded and carefully organized by Ptolemy two
centuries before the Christian era. For six hundred years it exerted a
great influence on the youth who gathered from all parts of the
civilized world to receive instruction from its eminent professors.

Roman colleges likewise exerted a wholesome influence in their day.
They began during the life-time of Quintilian, in the second century,
and it continued to be the deliberate policy of Augustus, Vespasian
and Hadrian to multiply and extend the influence of endowed schools in
Rome and provincial towns. Their object, says Merivale, was to
"restore the tone of society and infuse into the national mind
healthier sentiments." These Romano-Hellenic schools were so tenacious
of life that they continued to flourish down to the fifth century.
Owing to the decline of personal morality and the low conceptions of
the ends of human life, and other general influences which led to the
downfall of the empire, these schools finally degenerated and could no
longer survive.

"Some great new spiritual force," says Professor Laurie, "was needed
to reform society and the education of the young. That force was at
hand in Christianity; and if it very early assumed a negative, if not
a prohibitory, attitude to the old learning, it may be conceded that
this was an inevitable step in the development of a new ethical idea."

The Christian system of education gradually superseded the pagan
system. Christianity fortified the sense of personality and introduced
the idea of a broader and deeper sentiment of human brotherhood, which
helped to diffuse the spirit of education among the people and awaken
in the human mind a sense of its native dignity and power.

There were in the first century such men as Clemens, Ignatius and
Polycarp, who employed their talent to build up Christianity and
encourage the education of the people. In the second century, "the
number of the learned men increased considerably, the majority of whom
were philosophers attached to the elective system." It was at the
close of this century (181 A. D.) that the first Christian
catechetical school was established at Alexandria, in accord with
Christian requirements. Such schools soon became numerous and
efficient, and were under the superintendence of the Bishops. The
priests, as well as the laity, were educated in them. At the end of
the fourth century they had entirely superseded the schools of the
_grammaticus_, when ancient culture became practically extinct.

The monastic schools arose in the fifth century to supplant the
Romano-Hellenic schools. Chief among the founders in the West was
Benedict, who in 428 A. D. founded a monastery on Monte Cassino, near
Naples. "He had educational as well as religious aims from the first,
and it is to the monks of this rapidly extending order, or to the
influence which their 'rule' exercised on other conventual orders,
such as the Columban, that we owe the diffusion of schools in the
early part of the Middle Ages and the preservation of ancient
learning. The Benedictine monks not only taught in their own
monasteries, but were everywhere in demand as heads of Episcopal or
Cathedral schools."[A]

[A] Laurie.

The monastic schools multiplied rapidly throughout Europe and took the
lead in education and gained more influence than the episcopal
schools. These schools, sheltered by the church, existed from the
fourth to the twelfth century for the benefit of the ecclesiastical
body. The majority of them did not admit lay instruction until the
middle of the ninth century. Education during this period, with few
exceptional centers, was crude and unenlightened. The power of the
mediaeval machinery was such that these schools gave to the clergy only
the mere rudiments of learning. The conception of education at first
did not embrace the culture of the whole man. It was commonly thought
that the religious life opposed the life of the world, and that the
temporal life should be one of abnegation and asceticism. It was the
belief that human reason could not be trusted to have independent
activity, and so dogma was substituted for its free movement. The mind
was cribbed and confined by rules, for fear that speculations in
philosophy and free investigations would disturb and rationalize
theology. Thought was so fettered that philosophy, literature and
science were almost forgotten. Everything was done to subserve the
faith and suppress heresy. The Latin and Greek classics were denounced
as the offspring of the pagan world. It required several centuries for
the Christian world to conceive that there was no antagonism between
reason and authority, and between Greek and Roman culture and the
Christian religion. These schools, however, did a valuable service to
the cause of education by transcribing manuscripts and becoming
repositories of ancient learning.

The intellectual chaos began to end about the tenth century. The
re-establishment of civilization and the revival of learning was still
more manifest during the eleventh century, and soon university life
became possible. The time was evidently ripe for Europe to awake from
its intellectual sleep and begin a new educational development. The
general causes which contributed to give fresh impulse to higher
education at this time were the growing tendency to organization, the
Saracen influence and the desire for higher learning in the more
important centers. "The universities were founded," says Professor
Laurie, "by a concurrence of able men who had something they wished to
teach, and of youth who desired to learn. * * * It was the eternal
need of the human spirit in its relation to the unseen that originated
the University of Paris. We may say then that it was the improvement
of the professions of medicine, law and theology which led to the
inception and organization of the first great schools."

The people felt the need of providing and obtaining instruction beyond
the monastic and episcopal schools. By the natural development of
these, a number of high-grade schools were established which
afterwards gave rise to the universities. They came into existence
without charter from either ecclesiastical or civil power, and were
not controlled or directed by either. The importance of these
institutions was soon discovered by both Pope and Emperor, who
cultivated friendly relations with these free, voluntary and
self-supporting centers of learning and gave them special privileges
and encouragement.

Among the first European schools was that of Salerno, in Italy, which
was known as a school of medicine as early as the ninth century. The
University of Bologna arose at the close of the twelfth century. In
1211 the University of Paris became a legal corporation. Oxford began
as a secondary school, and passed to the rank of a university in 1140,
and Cambridge was established in the year 1200. Professor Laurie says
that "in the course of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries there grew
up in Europe ten universities; while in the fourteenth century we find
eighteen added; and in the fifteenth century twenty-nine arose,
including St. Andrew's (1411), Glasgow (1454), Aberdeen (1477). The
great intellectual activity of the fourteenth century, which led to
the rise of so many universities, coincides with the first revival of
letters, or rather was one manifestation of the revival." The main
center of this great intellectual movement was the University of
Paris, the mother of universities, which gained pre-eminence in the
great studies of theology and philosophy. It was chartered by Philip
Augustus in the thirteenth century, and was fostered by France,
Picardy, Normandy and England. These united and organized the Faculty
of Arts, which became its chief glory. It taught the three arts, Latin
grammar, rhetoric and dialectics, known as the _trivium_. The
_quadrivium_, embracing arithmetic, geometry, astronomy and music, was
likewise taught. The Faculty of Theology was created in 1257, that of
Law in 1271, and that of Medicine in 1274.

Matthew Arnold says that "the University of Paris was the main center
of mediaeval science, and the authoritative school of mediaeval
teaching. It received names expressing the most enthusiastic devotion,
the _Fountain of Knowledge_, the _Tree of Life_, the _Candlestick of
the House of the Lord_. * * * Here came Roger Bacon, Saint Thomas
Aquinas and Dante; here studied the founder of the first university of
the empire, Charles the Fourth, Emperor of Germany and King of
Bohemia, founder of the University of Prague."

The intellectual lead which belonged to France in the twelfth and
thirteenth centuries passed to Italy in the fourteenth century. Some
of the universities in Italy ranked among the best in Europe. They
were chiefly distinguished for their studies in law and medicine. In
the early part of the thirteenth century, the University of Bologna
was famous throughout the world, having at one time 12,000 students
from all parts of Europe. These universities continued to exert a
powerful influence until Catholicism triumphed over the abortive
attempts at religious reform, and there settled down over the
brilliant Italy of the Renaissance an unprogressive and
anti-intellectual influence from which she has never fully recovered.

"The importance of the university in the thirteenth and fourteenth
centuries," says Matthew Arnold, "was extraordinary. Men's minds were
possessed with a wonderful zeal for