AMALGAMATION OR SEPARATION

In any contemplation of present-day education, it is well to begin with the assumption--certainly not a mistaken one--that present educational methods are far from perfect. Consequently, any suggestion for improving them deserves consideration, and most especially when it comes from one like President Morgan who has actually experimented with education at Antioch College. President Morgan proposes a six or eight-year course, in which the cultural and professional elements would be blended, instead of the sharp division between these two elements now existing at almost all universities.

If an unbroken stretch of eight years would not prove too appalling for the ordinary student, there might be many advantages. The present system, which completes a four-year, academic unit, before beginning with professional training suits very well the needs of those who do not intend to enter a profession, and of those who do not know which profession they will follow. But the eight-year plan includes a preliminary general foundation equally necessary for every profession; and moreover allows plenty of time in which to select some particular one. In this way it has at least all of the advantages of the existing plan as far as the professions are concerned.

There are, however, a considerable number of men who do not want a professional training or even a pre-professional education, but who are perfectly satisfied with four years of more or less indiscriminate browsing about in courses which happen to appeal to them. Any program which seeks to standardize academic education is opposed to its true spirit, which permits the utmost freedom and individuality, even though brilliant scholarship or profound knowledge do not always result.

And is it true that the "sharp cleavage between the periods of cultural and professional training causes a professional student to lose all his cultural habits while he concentrates on preparation for the serious business of life"? It is hard to define "cultural habits", but presumably, they are the life-long habits which the College is now supposed to create. If the professional student loses these habits during his severe training, the college has not succeeded; and the remedy for this is not an amalgamation of college and graduate school, but an improvement in college methods.

The eight-year course might be relied upon to give a better balance to the professional educations than now exists; naturally, if eight years are available, to be planned as a unit, a better arrangement, a more far-seeing distribution can be chosen. But while, as at present, most men can devote only four years to college, and even professional students are not always decided about their careers, the two-unit system must remain the more flexible, the more adaptable to everyone's requirements.