FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144  
145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157   158   159   160   161   162   163   164   165   166   167   168   169   >>   >|  
ated to excite emulation and inspire the ambition of youths. Nor is it by any means certain that the American people would desire to create the atmosphere of an old-world university if they could. The atmosphere of Oxford produces, as none other could, certain qualities; but are they the qualities which, if England were starting to make her universities anew, she would set in the forefront of her endeavour?[169:1] Are they really the qualities most desirable even in an Englishman to-day? Are they approximately the qualities most likely to equip a man to play the noblest part in the life of modern America? The majority of American educators would answer unhesitatingly in the negative. There are things attaching to Oxford and Cambridge which they would dearly love to be able to transplant to their own country, but which, they recognise, nothing but the passage of the centuries can give. Those things are unattainable; and, frankly, if they could only be attained by transplanting with them many other attributes of English university life, they would rather forego them altogether. What Englishmen most value in their universities is not any book-learning which is to be acquired thereat, so much as the manners and rules for the conduct of life which are supposed to be imparted in a university course,--manners and rules which are of an essentially aristocratic tendency. Without wishing to push a point too far, it is worth noting that that aristocratic tendency is purely Norman, quite out of harmony with the spirit of the Anglo-Saxon. It would never occur to an Anglo-Saxon, pure and simple, to make his university anything else than an institution for scholastic training, in which every individual should be taught as much, and as equally, as possible. The last thing that would occur to him would be to make it a weapon of aristocracy or an institution for perpetuating class distinctions. The aim and effect of the English universities in the past has been chiefly to keep the upper classes uppermost. That there are too many "universities" in America no one--least of all an educated American--denies; but with the vast distances and immense population of the country there is room for, perhaps, more than Matthew Arnold eighteen years ago could have foreseen, and not a few of those establishments which in his day he would doubtless have unhesitatingly classed among those which could not be taken seriously, have more than justified
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144  
145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157   158   159   160   161   162   163   164   165   166   167   168   169   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
university
 

universities

 

qualities

 
American
 

America

 

things

 

country

 

unhesitatingly

 

manners

 

institution


tendency

 
aristocratic
 

English

 
Oxford
 
atmosphere
 

equally

 

individual

 

taught

 

weapon

 

aristocracy


effect

 

distinctions

 

perpetuating

 

training

 

spirit

 
harmony
 

youths

 

ambition

 

scholastic

 

simple


chiefly

 

excite

 
foreseen
 

Matthew

 

Arnold

 

eighteen

 

establishments

 

justified

 

classed

 

doubtless


emulation
 
inspire
 

uppermost

 

classes

 

immense

 
population
 

distances

 
educated
 
denies
 

Norman