YALE ALUMNI WEEKLY
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EDUCATIONAL LIBERTY.
Thoughts Suggested by Prof. Perrin’s
Speech—How Harvard Grows.
In writing to one of Yale’s alumni
on the Pacific coast, of the Class of
Seventy-One, the editor of the ALUMNI
WEEKLY called his special attention to
the speech at Brooklyn by Prof. Perrin
in which Yale was so keenly and clearly
analyzed. The following letter, re-
ceived in reply, was not offered for
publication, but seems eminently fitted
for it:
Dear Sir: I am very much obliged to
you for your favor of the 17th inst.,
inclosing me a copy of the YALE
ALUMNI WEEKLY, of that date, and
calling my attention to the speech of
Prof. Bernadotte Perrin, at the dinner
of the Brooklyn Association, toth
inst. Professor Perrin’s analysis of the
constitution and spirit of the under-
graduate body, at Yale, is very interest-
ing. Undoubtedly, a certain cohesion
and strong class feeling are engendered
by the system of fixed studies pursued,
during the first two years. Without
a question, this cohesion and class feel-
ing have their strong points and their
good sides, in all matters relating to
aggregate action, mass-discipline, etc.,
etc., and they probably lie at the bottom
of much of that grit and determination,
that esprit de corps, that has made the
“Yale Spirit” so famous upon athletic
and other fields.
Yet, it must be remembered that the
constant tendency of all modern educa-
tion is towards broader expansion
along the lines of individual liberty. It
is the genius of the age. By assidu-
ously cultivating and ministering to it,
there is no doubt that President Eliot
has vastly popularized Harvard, and
given to her an expansion and growth
never before known in her history.
For, just in proportion as she has be-
come more universal, as she has more
and more realized the term “Univer-
sity’ (universitas), so has she been able
to satisfy a greater number and variety
of mental ambitions and to widen the
circle of her intellectual influence. In-
stead of attempting to dictate to the
youth of the land what it must study,
she has endeavored to discover what it
wanted to study, and has thrown open
to it all the highways and the byways
of learning. Many persons think that
Harvard’s success is due to her age.
But this is a mistake. It is not due to
her age, but to her youth. Hundreds
are flocking within her walls, not be-
cause of the praeclarum et venerabile
nomen, but because she is taking the
most advanced positions way out upon
the frontiers of educational thought
and of educational liberty.
The rapid growth, within the last
few years, of young intellectual giants
like Cornell, the University of Chicago,
and a dozen others that might be men-
tioned, abundantly proves that an
American wuniversity, at least, is not
founded and can not live on the venera-
tion of ancestors. | :
Of course, what I am writing is not
intended to institute comparisons pre-
judicial to Yale.
and far too firmly fixed in the affections
of her alumni to fear any comparisons
from any source whatsoever. It is her
very strength itself that makes it easy
for her to acknowledge and to profit by
the good points of all her sister univer-
sities. But, of one thing you may rest
assured, the broader and the more
liberal Yale becomes, in mapping out
her courses of study and in dealing
with her undergraduates, the greater
and stronger will she become and the
more in touch with the civilization that
is and that is to be. The day of fetters.
and straight-jackets for the mind is
rapidly vanishing. Mental aspirations,
to-day, demand that the entire universe
of knowledge shall be open and accessi-
ble. They will not tolerate anywhere
any drawing of the veil. The univer-
sity of the future must be broad and
must have the largest views, the widest
aims. There must be no enforced wor-
ship, whether intellectual or religious.
In fact, compulsory worship is a con-
tradiction in terms, and, therefore, an
impossibility. All worship is and must
be the spontaneous adoration of the
free, not the cringing homage of the
slave. The students must be taught
that mental elevation and culture are
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great privileges to be eagerly sought,
not tasks and burdens to be dreaded
and shunned. He must be taught to
‘ look upon knowledge as a loving dis-
ciple, not as a scourged galley-slave.
I am one of those who believe in
tempting and enticing young men to
learn; one of those who think that
learning can be made delightful, be-
cause it is delightful. I do not be-
lieve in compulsory knowledge. I
even doubt if there be such a thing.
I never, in my whole life, learned any-
thing that I did not want to learn.
The only reason I ever mastered it was
' because it was pleasanter to do so than
to remain ignorant of it.
TWO COMPULSORY ESSENTIALS.
There are only two things that should
ever be compulsory at an American
University, and they are,
(1) That its students should, always
and everywhere, behave like gentle-
men, and,
(2) That they should keep up to a
fair standard of scholarship.
And by this last, I do not mean that
they should be required to maintain a
mere technical excellence, supposed to
be determined by an arbitrary scale of
marks, but that they should be expected
to show a proper zeal for intellectual
development along the appointed or the
chosen paths of the curriculum. For
I know full well that it is not the man
who is getting the highest marks in a
recitation that is deriving the most
benefit from it: Often, the reverse is
the case.
The human mind is a very complex
and subtle organism. It cannot be
limited or coerced beyond a certain
point. Things that seem very im-
portant and worthy of all mental effort
to me, may seem comparatively trivial
and unworthy of acquisition to my next
door neighbor. And from his point of
view and his special aims in life, he may
be correct.
There is no absolute standard of
scholarship. It is all relative. No man
knows or can know everything. No
two men know or can know the same
things equally well. The great thing to
impress upon a student is that knowl-
edge is power; that the more knowledge
he has, the greater his power; that all
knowledge is good; that none is to be
despised; that, just in proportion as he
requires it, he lifts himself up to that
higher plane where achievement be-
comes a pleasure and life a success.
The mandate of the old theology was:
“Do this, or you will be damned.” The
mandate of the new theology is: “Do
this, and you will win the love of
Heaven and the approbation of your
own conscience.” May-we not hope
for a similar reform in the mandates of
study? Let us eliminate the damna-
tion of non-performance and, in its
place, substitute the surpassing pleasure
of performance. For learning is pleas-
ant. It needs but the contagion of en-
thusiasm to make it so.
Let our teachers study with their
hearts as well as with their heads. If
they have not this divine spirit of the
propaganda, then let them go out into
outer darkness and the desert and fast
and pray until it comes to them. And,
if it come to them not, then let them
eschew teaching and put far away from
them the thought of it. Peradventure,
they would make a success of sawing
wood. And it is far better to lop
sticks than minds. The great teacher is
the one who can give to his pupils the
thirst for learning, for all learning, who
can make them feel the exhilaration that
comes from its possession and its mas-
tery. The greatest university is the one
that possesses the greatest number of
such teachers.
Pardon me for troubling you with
these few crude reflections, hurriedly
jotted down, and suggested by your
kind favor of the 17th instant.
Thanking you for your courtesy, and
with best regards.
Very truly yours,
GORDON BLANDING.
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Gillespie, 1900; Captain, L. L. Beard,
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