Goodhart Scores U.S. Education Before Graduate School Alumni

Arthur L. Goodhart, Master of University College of Oxford, told a gathering of grad school alumni yesterday that American undergraduates, compared with continental undergraduates, were "intellectually immature and underdeveloped."

He attributed this to two factors: first, the low standards in American high schools, caused by the belief that "education can be acquired without discipline"; second, the gramophone-record type of education," which made knowledge a substitute for thought. Goodhart saw this trend in recent quiz contests, of which he claimed, "The more useless the information, the more admiration its possessor inspires."

The gathering, of what Dean Bundy termed "lawyers and other civilized men," heard two addresses and an announcement of a record class donation to the Law School at yesterday's annual luncheon for the alumni of all the University graduate schools.

Archibald R. Graustein '05 reported that the Law School Class of 1907 had given $59,127 to the School, exceeding the previous high established by the Class of 1906.

Goodhart spoke on the subject of higher education as exemplified by the Harvard Law School. "It is meaningless to speak of education in the abstract," he said. "There must be some particular object."

In Europe, he said, the primary aim of education was the understanding of ideas. In America, the emphasis is put more on understanding of "fellow men." For this reason, he continued, "two million American parents with no particular interest in scholarship send their students to college every year."

The Law School method emphasized ideas instead of facts, and Goodhart criticized its lack of application to General Education. "There is nothing so esoteric in the study of law as to make it inapplicable," he added.

In conclusion, Goodhart stated the principles of the Law School which he felt should be more widely applied: that higher education should only be open to the most intelligent; that "knowledge and education are not synonymous terms"; and that the primary function of a University was to make students think for themselves.

The second speaker, Dexter Perkins '09, reviewed highlights in the career of Charles Evans Hughes, who he said "embodied the spirit of law."

Perkins illustrated Hughes' legal career with such examples as his work in the Scottsboro Case and Minnesota Rate Cases. These, he stated, showed how the former Chief Justice "went beyond the legal forms and looked at the facts."