1705042871

1705042872 Now if we really have a vital course of study to present I believe that this difficulty can in large measure be overcome. It is possible to make a freshman realize the need of translating his experience from the forms of feeling to those of ideas. He can and he ought to be shown that now, his days of mere tutelage being over, it is time for him to face the problems of his people, to begin to think about those problems for himself, to learn what other man have learned and thought before him, in a word, to get himself ready to take his place among those who are responsible for the guidance of our common life by ideas and principles and purposes. If this could be done, I think we should get from the reality-loving American boy something like an intellectual enthusiasm, something of the spirit that comes when he plays a game that seems to him really worth playing. But I do not believe that this result can be achieved without a radical reversal of the arrangement of the college curriculum. I should like to see every freshman at once plunged into the problems of philosophy, into the difficulties and perplexities about our institutions, into the scientific accounts of the world especially as they bear on human life, into the portrayals of human experience which are given by the masters of literature. If this were done by proper teaching, it seems to me the boy’s college course would at once take on significance for him; he would understand what he is about; and though he would be a sadly puzzled boy at the end of the first year, he would still have before him three good years of study, of investigation, of reflection, and of discipleship, in which to achieve, so far as may be, the task to which he has been set. Let him once feel the problems of the present, and his historical studies will become significant; let him know what other men have discovered and thought about his problems, and he will be ready to deal with them himself. But in any case, the whole college course will be unified and dominated by a single interest, a single purpose—that of so understanding human life as to be ready and equipped for the practice of it. And this would mean for the college, not another seeking of the way of quick returns, but rather an escape from aimless wanderings in the mere bypaths of knowledge, a resolute climbing on the highroad to a unified grasp upon human experience.

1705042873

1705042874 I have taken so much of your time this morning that an apology seems due for the things I have omitted to mention. I have said nothing of the organization of the college, nothing of the social life of the students, nothing of the relations with the alumni, nothing of the needs and qualifications of the teachers, and, even within the consideration of the course of study, nothing of the value of specialization or of the disciplinary subjects or of the training of language and expression. And I have put these aside deliberately, for the sake of a cause which is greater than any of them—a cause which lies at the very heart of the liberal college. It is the cause of making clear to the American people the mission of the teacher, of convincing them of the value of knowledge:not the specialized knowledge which contributes to immediate practical aims, but the unified understanding which is Insight.

1705042875

1705042876 Notes

1705042877

1705042878 undergraduates, a student at a college or university who has not taken his first degree.

1705042879

1705042880 Samson, an Israelite distinguished for his great strength.

1705042881

1705042882 rules of thumb, any rude process of measuring judgment and practical experience against scientific knowledge.

1705042883

1705042884 nullify, annul or render void; to make without force.

1705042885

1705042886 sheer, pure.

1705042887

1705042888 zeal, eager attention and active interest.

1705042889

1705042890 avowedly, admitted openly.

1705042891

1705042892 contradictoriness, denial.

1705042893

1705042894 F. H. Bradley, English philosopher （1846-1924）.

1705042895

1705042896 scoff, to show scorn or contempt.

1705042897

1705042898 Nero （37-68）, the Roman emperor, who, to please his mistress, set fire to the city of Rome. While the fire was raging, he played on his fiddle.

1705042899

1705042900 ideational, a type of mind which conceives or entertains ideas.

1705042901

1705042902 validity, soundness.

1705042903

1705042904 fallacies, unsound methods of thought.

1705042905

1705042906 league, an alliance for mutual interests.

1705042907

1705042908 befog, to make unclear.

1705042909

1705042910 ipse dixit, he himself said it.

1705042911

1705042912 wholly, entirely.

1705042913

1705042914 hesitancy, uncertainty.

1705042915

1705042916 Sanskrit, the ancient Aryan language of the Hindus.

1705042917

1705042918 agnosticism, the doctrine which denies that man possesses any knowledge of the ultimate nature of things.

1705042919

1705042920 intellectual bankruptcy, the breakdown of the intellect.

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