University of Idaho - Gem of the Mountains Yearbook (Moscow, ID)

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GEM OF THE MOUNTAINS Et DEFINITENESS OF AIM IN EDUCA- TIONAL WORK Concerning the founding of the First American College there is a passage in a New England narrative written in 1641, which is very frequently quoted: “After God had carried us safe to New England, and we had builded our houses, provided neces- saries for our livelihood, rear’d convenient places for God's worship, and settled the civil Government, one of the next things we longed for, and looked after was to advance learning and perpetuate it to Posterity, dreading to leave an illiterate Ministry to the Churches, when our present Ministers shall lie in the dust.” The early Puritans who founded Harvard College knew exactly what they wanted and how to secure it. They needed a Min- istry not lacking in letters and they wished also “to advance learning and perpetuate it to posterity,” and to this end they founded a college, adopted a curriculum and prepared a set of rules for the government of the students. They knew exactly what they wanted and how to secure it. They limited collegiate activities to one field, preparation for the ministry, and the col- lege they founded did prepare the student for a definite service. Their vision was limited but their aim was definite. Also the ser- vice to be rendered was a social service. New England needed a ministry trained in the schools “when the present ministers shall lie in the dust.” In the years that followed the foundation of Harvard, and particularly in the period from 1820 to 1860, we drifted away from a single college course with a definite purpose to a multiplicity of courses, some of which had no definite aim, and from the social view point to an individualistic theory of edu- cation. The lack of definiteness of aim in collegiate courses, and particularly in the college of Letters and Sciences has been ob- scured by the prominence in educational literature of the culture theory of collegiate instruction. It was believed that “A College course promotes the culture of the individual student and should be endowed, maintained and perpetuated for this reason.” What then is culture? President Hadley says that culture is the op- THIRTEEN

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PRESIDENT MacLEAN

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THE NINETEEN ELEVEN posite of absorption in the obvious. “The cultivated man or wom- an, is the one who in the various fields of life, material and social, literary and political, values in proper proportion things which are unseen, or at least imperfectly seen, by the less trained vision.” President Eliot in “The New Definition of the Culti- vated Man” emphasizes the following four attributes of the cul- tivated man or woman: character, accuracy and elegance of expression, a share in the world’s store of knowledge, and con- structive imagination.” President Butler in “Five evidences of an education” says: “The five characteristics, then, I offer as evidences of an education are—correctness and precision in the use of the mother-tongue, refined and gentle manners, which are the expression of fixed habits of thought and action; the power and habit of reflection, the power of growth, and efficiency, or the power to do.” Definition of culture can be multiplied without limit. Prac- tically every educator has framed for himself, or for publication, an idea of culture which forms the central tenet in his educa- tional creed. The results, of course, are as varied as the minds that produce them. No one will question for a moment the value and stimulating quality of these definitions, but after all is said and done, the term culture will continue to be a term which each man will define for himself. The term is vague, indefinite and avoids classification. It does not indicate a def- inite goal, end, or aim, but rather a multiplicity of desiderata whose sum cannot be stated. The use of this term has helped to conceal the fact that much of our educational work and par- ticularly the four year courses in the college of Letters and Sciences lack definiteness of aim and purpose. Schoolmen were unanimous in rendering service to the word, and were not con- scious of the chaos of ideas and images that lay behind the word. There are more forms of culture than Gods in the Pantheon, and each of us without admitting it has been worshipping at a separate shrine. We were not conscious of our differences in faith because all the Gods bore the same label. There is another reason why culture fails to describe the goal of collegiate education. A school is a social institution, public education is a social process, and the result ought to be a social result. Culture, however, is primarily associated with the education of the individual, and is usually applied to an individ- ual result. I cannot find a suggestion of civic duty or social ser- FOURTEEN