Westminster College - Blue Jay Yearbook (Fulton, MO)

Page 18 text:

5 The Advantages of the Small College. ' HE title ofthis article seems to contemplate a contrast between the larger and the smaller colleges, but one does not have A to survey the field very long to discover that there are no large colleges, and that which is really intended is a brief I contrast between the advantages offered to college students , by colleges pure and simple and those offered by colleges P, lil, W which are a part-generally a very small part-of a'Univer- X 1 il ' sity. Moreover, we note that where it is possible-and it is 7, 4 possible only with Universities located in cities having rapid ii' ' '11 transit-the University government separates its college by a number of miles from its departments of professional study, a fact that may be accepted as proof that this separation has decided advantages. In such institutions. and it may be added that the writer took his undergraduate course in two and a professional course in a third-the college student seldom, if ever, meets the students ofthe professional and technical schools. A second fact we may note is that in one, of these institutions, the huge catalogue of which givesthe names .of about three thousand students, the number of collegefstudents is only 156. A brief examination of the catalogues of the universities-real uni- versities-will convince the reader that the college is the department of least importance, receives the least part of the income from their vast endowments. hand really bears about the same relation to the university that the preparatory department of a college bears to the college, and is maintained for the same reason. The college, at least in the West where preparatory education is wholly in the hands of the state, must have a preparatory school because the great ma- jority of its students cannot find high schools that will prepare them to enter the Freshman class, hence it is not unusual to find a student who is a Sophmore in History and Literature, a Freshman in- Mathematics, a Sub-Freshman in Latin and a beginner in Greek or French or German. So at the Universities, it is not uncommon to find students in the professional schools whose qualifications for entrance, are so deficient that they are required to devote one or more hours to college work. This is the chief reason that the great universities maintain col- leges. It does not require a mathematician to infer that the 3000 students of the university above referred to, are not drawn from its own little college having an enrollment of 156. Universities in large cities having rapid transit are gradually separating their undergraduates from the students of the professional and technical schools, and it is generally admitted that it is done because association with the professional students exerts an unfavorable influence on the young college students. Were it A io

Page 17 text:

JOHN FLEMING COXVAN, D. D. The Faculty. Mmmlcrn Lfulguzuges Hebrew EDGAR HOGE BIARQUESS. L. H. D. Latin ,-5 ,f .N XYILLIS Immxlfs KIERR, A. M mlm My RICE' LL, D, Pllilosoplly, P1'i1'lCiI3!11 of Ilismry, English I4iY.C1'fl'Elll'C ACZICICIIIY

Page 19 text:

not for the temptations of the great city into whose bewildering labyrinths the college eyes cannot follow the student, the separated college of the great city university would be as wholesome a place for the young as the H small college in the small town. Another difference in favor of the small college may be found in the instruc- tion. In many institutions there is a tendency toward committing the less im- portant work to younger, inexperienced, and cheaper men. Too often this is the policy of the college toward its preparatory school, and of the University toward its college. Especially is this the case when the enrollment in a university col- lege is large, making the classes unwieldy, either each student must be seldom called upon to recite, or the class must be divided into sections, some of them taught by assistants. In the small college, the student is examined at every rec- itation, and in small colleges that have a reputation to maintain each student daily comes into Contact with experienced teachers, for even the preparatory classes are in charge of the college professors. The care of the students' habits, so impossible that it is seldom attempted where many hundreds of students are congregated, is a matter of grave concern to the Faculty of the small college and also to the citizen, whose business prosperity is to no inconsiderable degree inter- woven with the welfare of the institution. Let us add to this, that all the so-called small colleges are denominational, not in the sense that they inculcate the pe- culiar doctrines of any sect, but in the broad sense of christianity, a divine Savior, and inspired Bible, its Faculty composed of avowed Christians, its brief chapel service daily pointing I-Ieavenward, its teaching of science never attempting to shake a reverent faith. Would that as much could be said for the Faculties of great universities. ' A But, it may be objected in this day of commercialism, the men who teach in small colleges are not so well-paid as the Faculties of Universitiesg therefore they must be of small calibre. That depends on what kind of men have the appoint- ing power. No one would expect a purely partisan governor to appoint theubest or the brightest men to positions paying best. Is there any doubt in the minds of intelligent men that some educational institutions have gradually been so di- verted from the great purpose for which they were founded that the very founders, could they rise from their graves, would be deemed too small and narrow for positions in institutions that bear their names? The writer often wondered why no attempt had ever been made to establish in America something like the English Universities-say Oxford, a collection of small colleges, each having its own Faculty, its own students, its own discipline, 90 to 200 students in its own classes, but all students being required to pass ex- aminations before a committee representing all the colleges, all students having the advantages of the university museums, debating societies, lectures and li- braries, inspired by university traditions, stimulated in athletics and scholarship by rivalry with sister collegesg the collective colleges having their police regu- lations and officers to enforce them. And this wonder ceased when he read that not ten per cent. of. our college students ever attend a college a hundred miles Il