YALE ALUMNI WEEKLY _
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corrected, threatens the future of the
teaching profession with an over-abund-
ant influx of inferior men.
BENEFICIARY AID.
The true policy in the matter of
expenses and beneficiary aid would ap-
pear to be as follows:
st. In building new dormitories and
other appliances connected with the daily
life of the students, we should strive to
use the kind of intelligent economy
which any but the richest man would
use in building a house for himself.
We should construct them on the stand-
ard set by our homes rather than by our
clubs. In this way we snould create a
general level of average expense in the
college life which would attract rather
than repel the boy who has to make
his own way. We should indeed wel-
come beautiful buildings, given to the
university as memorials of affection; but
we should strive to have them so de-
signed that their beauty may be a means
of enjoyment to the whole community.
2d. Tuition should be remitted with
the utmost freedom to those who main-
tain a respectable standing in college.
Such tuition should be either earned by
service or-.regarded as a loan—a loan
without interest; if you please, or at any
rate at a purely nominal interest charge,
and payable at the option of the holder,
PROF. GEORGE PARK FISHER, D.D., LL.D.
but in its essence a loan—a thing to be
paid ultimately, unless disease or death
intervene. By establishing a system of
sich repayment we could give aid far
more universally than we now do, could
perhaps lower the tuition fees in general,
and could avoid a system of fraud which
is at present practiced somewhat exten-
sively on our colleges.
3d. All scholarship aid beyond the
tuition fees, whether for undergraduates
or for graduates, should be distinctly
in the nature of a prize for really dis-
tinguished work, or a payment for ser-
vices rendered. I am aware that there
are great practical obstacles which op-
pose the carrying out of this view, and
I do not feel sure how quickly Yale will
be in a position to put it into effect;
but that it is a desirable ideal and goal
there appears to be no doubt whatever.
Remuneration rather than pauperization
— be the principle underlying such
aid.
Ath. Above all things—and this is a
matter where we need the cooperation
of persons outside as well as inside the
university—the utmost study should be
bestowed on the possibility of utilizing
the powers of the students in such a
way that they can be of service to the
college community and ‘the world at
large, and thus earn the aid which is
given them. The problem is a most
difficult one; too difficult even to be
analyzed in the brief time before us
to-day. But the amount of progress
made already, in the few experiments
which have been seriously tried, leads
me to believe in an almost unbounded
opportunity for ultimate development of
this idea. shiek Sie
Our third group of problems is con-
nected with the development and_pre-
servation of common student interests
and student life outside of the immediate
work of the class room. :
RELIGIOUS OBSERVANCES, _
Of all these interests, the most funda-
mental are those connected with religious
observances and religious feeling. Yale
is, and has been from the first, a Chris-
tian college. All her institutions
show this throughout their structure.
~ methods.
This was the dominant purpose in Yale’s
foundation; and the work and thought
of the children have conformed to the
wish of the fathers. What changes time
may bring in the outward observances,
or how soon it may bring them, I know
not. The question of compulsory
attendance on religious exercises is one
which is seriously discussed by the
faculty, the students and the graduates;
nor can we predict the outcome of such
discussion. But this I know: that it is
approached by all, young as well as old,
in a spirit of wise conservatism and
reverence for past usage, and that no
change will be made unless it shall
surely and clearly appear to those in
authority that we are but modifying the
letter of a tradition for the sake of
preserving its spirit.
TRADITIONS. -
Even in matters of far less fundamen-
tal importance we may, I think, wisely
preserve this same spirit of conservatism.
An ancient university has a great ad-
vantage in the existence of a body of
time-honored usages and _ traditions.
Some of these it inevitably outgrows as
time goes on. But a large majority
serve a most useful purpose in binding
the students together by bonds none the
less real because so intangible. Such
college customs and-traditions we should
maintain to the utmost. Even where
they seem artificial or meaningless we
should be careful how we let them go.
It is not inconsistent with the spirit of
progress to value them highly. Edmund
Burke was one of the most liberal and
progressive men of his century; yet
Burke was the man who set the truest
value on those forms of the English
constitution which, as he _ himself
avowed, were rooted in prejudice. The
constitution of Yale to-day, with its
strange combination of liberty and privi-
lege, or prescriptive custom and pro-
gressive individualism, has not a few
points of resemblance to Burke’s Eng-
land. I can avow myself a conservative
in the sense that Burke was a conserva-
tive; with him, I should hesitate to cast
away the coat of prejudice and leave
nothing but the naked reason.
- ATHLETICS.
Another group of cohesive forces
which strengthens the inflwence of a uni-
versity upon its members is connected
with college athletics. The value of
athletic sports when practiced in the
right spirit is only equalled by their
perniciousness when practiced in the
wrong spirit. They deserve cordial and
enthusiastic support. The time or
thought spent upon them, great as it
may seem, is justified by their educa-
tional influence. But side by side with
this support and part of it, we must
have wunsparing condemnation of the
whole spirit of professionalism. I do
not refer to those grosser and more
obvious forms of professionalism which
college sentiment has already learned to
condemn. Nor do I chiefly refer to the
betting by which intercollegiate contests
are accompanied, though this is a real
_and great evil, and does much to bring
other evils in its train. I refer to some-
thing far more widespread, which still
remains. a menace to American college
athletics,—the whole system of regard-
ing athletic achievement as a sort of
advertisement of one’s prowess, and of
valuing success for its own sake rather
than for the sake of the honor which
comes in achieving it by honorable
I rejoice in Yale’s victories,
I mourn in her defeats; but I mourn
‘still more whenever I see-a Yale man
who regards athletics as a sort of com-
petitive means for pushing the university
ahead of some rival. This is profes-
sionalism of the most subtle and there-
fore most dangerous sort. I know that
the condition of athletic discipline in a
college makes a difference in its attrac-
tiveness to a large and desirable class of
young men, and rightly so. Whether
a victory or a series of victories makes
such a difference, and increases the
numbers that attend the university, I do
not know and I do not care to know.
The man who allows his mind to dwell
on stich a question, if he is not tempted
to violate the ethics of amateur sport,
is at any. rate playing with temptation
in a dangerous and reprehensible way.
I am glad to believe that our colleges,
and our nation as a whole, are becoming
better able to understand the love of
sport for its own sake. The growth of
this spirit through three generations has
relieved English universities of some of
the problems which to-day confront us
in. America. To the growth of this
spirit we must ourselves trust for their
solution here. I am ready heartily to
cooperate in any attempts that other
colleges may make to lay down clear
rules for the practice of intercollegiate
athletics, because the absence of such
cooperation would be misunderstood and
would give cause for suspicion where
none ought to exist. But I cannot con-
REV. JOSEPH H. TWICHELL, YALE 759.
ceal the fact that the majority of such
rules can only touch the surface of the
difficuty; and that so far as they distract
attention from the moral element in the
case which is beyond all reach of rules,
they may prove a positive hindrance to
progress. If we can enter into athletics.
for the love of honor, in the broadest
sense of the word, unmixed with the
love of gain in any sense, we may now
and then lose a few students, but we
shall grow better year after year in all
that makes for sound university life.
UNIVERSITY ORGANIZATION.
Last in order of discussion, though
perhaps first in the imminence with
which they press upon us for solution,
are some of the problems of university
organization, on whose proper treatment
depends that economy of effort and utili-
zation of financial resources which is
necessary for the efficient working of the
institution as it stands and for its
growth in the immediate future.
It is hardly necessary to say to this
audience that Yale’s organization differs.
somewhat fundamentally from that of
most other American universities. It is
a group of colleges, whose property is
held in the name of a single corporation,
but whose management is, by, tradition
and in some slight degree by legal
authority, located in the hands of
separate faculties. In this respect, Yale
is not without points of resemblance to
Oxford or Cambridge. I shall not try
to discuss whether this system is on the
whole a good one. It is here, and we
cannot for the present change it. Like
all other systems, it has its advantages
and its disadvantages. The advantages
are those which are possessed by local
government everywhere,—an independ-
ence of initiative; a loyal spirit among
the members of the several faculties
which is the natural result of such inde-
pendence; a sort of natural grouping
of the students under which a common
set of rules can be made for each de-
partment, and the evils of too great free-
dom may be avoided. The independence
of initiative has manifested itself in the
development of new methods of instruc-
tion, like those of the Sheffield Scientific
School in the past, or the Department of
Music in the present. The loyalty has
been exemplified over and over again in
the readiness to work for salaries even
more conspicuously inadequate than
those which have been paid at other
universities, by men who seek their re-
ward in the possibilities of future great-
ness. This history of disinterested
effort for future rather than present
reward has repeated itself in each depart-
ment of instruction. The effect of
the grouping of the students in separate
departments has shown itself in the
preservation of that esprit de corps
which Yale has succeeded in maintain-
ing, I believe, to a greater degree than
any other university of the same magni-
tude.
DRAWBACKS TO YALE’S SYSTEM.
On the other hand, the system has the
disadvantages which everywhere pertain
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to a scheme of independent local gov-—
ernment. There is sometimes a difficulty
in carrying the whole university sharply
forward into any definite line of policy,
however strongly it may be demanded.
There is yet more frequently a lack of.
coordination in courses; the work of
each of the separate parts or schools
having been originally devised with
reference to the needs of members of
that school, rather than to those of the
university as a whole. And finally,
there is a certain amount of duplication
of appliances, which involve some actual
loss of economy and makes the impres-
‘sion on the public of causing even more
loss than really exists. Especially
severe does this loss seem to some of
the most: zealous members of the pro-
fessional schools, who believe that by
combining the work of their opening
years with that of the later years of the
Academic Department or Sheffield
. Scientific School, they can serve the
University and the cause of learning
with far more fullness and freedom than
at present.
Reform under these circumstances can
only be the result of unconstrained dis-
cussion and intelligent negotiation. The
best possibilities lie not in the exercise
of authority but of diplomacy. The
effort to impose a prearranged policy is
likely to prove futile. We cannot insist
on an external appearance of harmony
without losing more than we gain. To
say that the Scientific School ought to
have a four years’ course because the
Academic Department has one, or to in-
sist that the Academic Department
should withdraw from the teaching of
natural science because the Scientific
School has made such full provision for
it, serves only to retard the movement
toward. cooperation. The president
who would succeed in establishing real
harmony must occupy himself first with
providing the means to lead men to a
mutual understanding, rather than with
predicting the results . which should
follow.
FREE DISCUSSION NECESSARY.
Foremost among the means which we
must use is free and unreserved discus-
sion of principles. Even within the
departments, such discussion has been by
no means so universal as it might have
been. In more than one of them there
has been a tendency, both in matters of
administration and of educational policy,
to rest content with a compromise be-
tween conflicting interests, rather than
a reconciliation of.conflicting views. A
typical result of this policy is seen in
the present course of study in the Aca-
demic Department, where the so-called |
elective system is really not a system at
all, but the haphazard result of a com-
petition between the advocates of differ-
ent lines of instruction—a thing which
all unite in desiring to reform. With a
reasonable degree of diplomacy and
patience, the task of reform in cases
like this should not prove a hard one.
Still less adequate has been the inter-
change of ideas between the different
GOVERNOR G. E. LOUNSBURY, YALE 63.
departments. Under the old system the
several faculties have had no organized
means of discussing subjects of common
interest, or even of learning one an-
other’s views. The establishment of a
university council for such interchange
of thought is an imperative necessity.
What will ultimately prove the best
form and constitution for such a council
can only be a matter of conjecture. For
the present, at any rate, such a body is
likely to be for the most part delibera-
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