"All public institutions of learning are called into existence by social needs, and first of all by technical practical necessities. Theoretical interests may lead to the founding of private associations such as the Greek philosophers' schools; public schools owe their origin to the social need for professional training. Thus during the Middle Ages the first schools were called into being by the need of professional training for ecclesiastics, the first learned profession, and a calling whose importance seemed to demand such training. Essentially the same necessity called into being the Universities of the Parisian type, with their artistic and theological faculties. The two other types of professional schools, the law school and the medical school, which were first developed in Italy, then united with the former. The Universities therefore originated as a union of 'technical' schools for ecclesiastics, jurists, and physicians, to which division the faculty of Arts was related as a general preparatory school, until during the nineteenth century it also assumed something of the character of a professional institution for the training of teachers for the Secondary School." Thus the early aim of the University was, as it still continues to be, to provide the training for the after-supply of those services which the State requires at the hands of her theologians, her jurists, and her physicians. In Germany, and to some extent even in our own country, the Arts faculty of the University is ceasing to perform But the other and perhaps the more important function of the University is to carry on and to extend the work of scientific and literary research for its own sake. This is the dominant note of the German and American Universities of to-day. The emphasis is laid not so much upon their function as schools for the supply of certain professional services, but upon them as great national laboratories for the extension of knowledge and the betterment of practice. In Great Britain, and especially in Scotland, this conception of the function of the University has not received the same prominence as, e.g., in Germany, where the intimate union of scientific investigation and professional instruction gives the German Universities their peculiar character. Indeed, in the latter country the tendency at the present time is rather to over-emphasise the function of the Universities in furthering scientific and literary research to the neglect of the other and no less important aim. Two dangers must be avoided. In the first place, whenever the chief emphasis is laid upon the Universities as mainly schools for professional training, the teaching tends to become narrow and dogmatic. The teacher ceasing to be an investigator, The University must therefore ever keep in view the two aims, of advancing knowledge not for its own sake but in order that future action may be rendered more efficient, and of adequately training for professional services. But to the older professions for which the University prepares there have been added during the past century other vocations or professions which need and demand an education no less important and no less thorough than the education for the well established recognised professions. The need for the higher training of the future leaders of industry and the future captains of commerce has been provided by the organisation and establishment of technological schools and colleges. The establishment and organisation of the "Technical University" has been more thorough in Germany than in this country. There we find established newer institutions, of which the Charlottenburg College is the best known and most important, for the higher education of those intended in after-life to perform the more important industrial services of the community. These institutions both in their organisation and instruction are constantly approximating in type to the older Universities. The recently established Universities in the North of England attempt, with what success it is too early yet to declare, to combine both aims of One other question of some importance remains for brief consideration. In our own country, but more especially in Germany, there is a tendency at the present time to effect a complete separation between the work of the University and the work of the Technical College. This separation has arisen partly through the operation of external historical conditions, but it has also arisen partly through the tendency in certain academic circles to look down upon technical knowledge and ability as something inferior. The exclusiveness and the torpor of the older Universities in many cases has been a further cause tending to the creation of the Technical College separated from the University. Such a separation, however, is good neither for the University nor for the Technical College. The former in carrying out the aim of scientific research and of the extension of knowledge requires ever the vivifying touch of actual concrete experience, and this it can only obtain by keeping in close contact with those whose chief function is the application of scientific knowledge to practice. The latter in carrying out its more practical aims requires, if it is to be saved from the narrowness of mere specialisation and from degenerating into empirical methods, the constant co-operation of those whose outlook is not narrowed down to the immediate practical end, but takes in the subject as a whole, and whose chief function is the better systematisation of knowledge. Hence, while the aim of the University is different from that of the Technical College, they are so intimately correlated that neither can reach its fullest development without the aid and co-operation of the other. The Technical Colleges should be the professional schools attached to the scientific side of the Universities. In Scotland this separation has not advanced to such a stage as is the case in Germany. In any further reorganisation of university and higher education it is earnestly to be hoped that the Day Technical College will find its rightful place as an integral part of the University, and that the latter may realise that her function is to further and extend the bounds of knowledge in order that practice in every sphere of life may be rendered more efficient. |