Universities, American, English, German

Contents

PAGE

PREFACE Vil Part I: Tue Ipea or a Mopern UNIveERsITY 5 Part II: American UnIveRSITIES . . . 39 Paper PNGRISEH CL NIVERSITIESS cay et) CO 22T

Part Vii GERMAN (UNIVERSITIES 10099) s / 308 ab us oe wee y,

Preface

HIS volume is an expansion of three lectures on Universities given at Oxford in May 1928 on the invitation of the Rhodes Trust. The invitation stipulates that the lecturer reside at Oxford during the entire term in which the lectures are given — a provision that may be unreservedly commended, first, because: the lecturer is thus enabled to feel something of Oxford’s charm, secondly, because quite unconsciously he gains rather more than he is likely to impart. This is true of one Rhodes lecturer, at least.

From the autumn of 1928 to the summer of 1929, I visited the universities of Germany and England for the purpose of obtaining a fresh view of their situation, problems, and efforts. The whole of the next year, 1929-1930, was devoted to gathering additional data and to rewriting. In May 1930 the Oxford University Press printed and bound the original proof sheets in page form, and I was thus enabled to submit the text to about thirty men, professors and administrators in America and Europe, who read it with care and commented on it freely and helpfully. During the summer of 1930 I revised the book. I state these facts in order that the reader may know that, though the ultimate responsibility is wholly mine, I have spared no effort to obtain the facts and to submit my views in advance to competent criticism. I am quite sure that the result will completely satisfy no one: but I shall have achieved my purpose if I have opened for dis-

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PREFACE cussion a few fundamental questions respecting the function of the university in modern life.

The reader will observe that my discussion of existing universities is unsymmetrical. I have not tried to pour universities into one mould, to view them from a single point of view, or to ask the same questions about all of them. Rather, having in mind the “idea of a modern university,” I have approached the universities of America, England, and Germany from the standpoint of their individual characteristics. I have asked myself: where, with this ideal before us, do they now satisfy? Where do they now fall short? Of their history I have mentioned only the salient points essential to an understanding of the answers to these questions. And J have given rather more space to the latter question than to the former, because I feel sure that, if errors and abuses are once corrected, the ideal will almost of its own force assert itself — differently, in different countries, of course, but to the same ultimate purpose. At first sight it may seem that I have devoted a disproportionately large amount of space to American universities. Such is, I think, not the case. American universities require more space because they do so many more things; and I could not possibly expect my readers — foreign or American — to understand them, if I did not quote and discuss a sufficient number of concrete instances.

I am under so many obligations that it is impossible for me to specify any one in particular. I should have indeed to go back more than forty years, for the present volume represents not merely the work of the last few years but the net result of an experience with universities in this country and abroad that began when my eldest brother sent me to the Johns Hopkins in 1884. From that day to this, I have been for-

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PREFACE tunate enough to have been enabled in one way or another to keep in almost constant contact with university life. Quite obviously, a book of this kind is not original; but just as obviously the author himself cannot know whom to thank, or, if he has erred, whom — beside himself — to blame.

I may not, however, omit to thank by name the Rhodes Trustees, Philip Kerr, Esq., now the Marquess of Lothian, Secretary of the Rhodes Trust, Sir Francis J. Wylie, the Oxford Secretary of the Trust, and the Warden and Fellows of All Souls College, of which I was made a member during my residence in Oxford, for courtesy, kindness, and hospitality which I cannot adequately describe. I am also once more bound to express appreciation of the untiring efforts of my Secretary, Mrs. Esther S. Bailey, who has assisted me in the collection of illustrative data, has checked statements of fact, and practically put the volume through the press.

ABRAHAM F'LEXNER

New York, Oct. I, 1930.