Page:Essays on the Higher Education.djvu/46

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
30
THE HIGHER EDUCATION

mans are outstripping us in the race for commercial superiority in the far East." These advantages of a liberal and university education, widely diffused, are not to be directly aimed at, for, like happiness, they are likely thus to be lost. They are to be secured as the indirect but sure result, so far as the university is concerned, of the attainment of its direct aim in the highest scientific culture of the greatest number possible, and especially of all those placed in positions where they are trusted and followed by the people.

Choice by the pupil as to what he will study, and as to where and of whom and how far he will study it, belongs of right to the university idea. The university itself, however, must decide how much of secondary education the pupil shall have in order to admission to its freedom, and also how much of the highest scientific culture he must attain to win the mark of its approval as his alma mater. Beyond these restrictions, the more generous the freedom permitted and encouraged the more worthy the compliance of the university with its own ideal. In so far as professional studies constitute an integral part of the instruction of the university, since the degree conferred upon the student of them is a guarantee of a certain amount of scientific culture of a particular kind, such studies may be prescribed. Yet even in these cases the same end and method must be adhered