Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 46:184 (Oct 1889)
Article: The Future In College Work
Author: Jacob D. Cox

BSac 46:184 (Oct 1889) p. 577

The Future In College Work

Hon. Jacob D. Cox

Some of the richest colleges in the country have, in recent years, made almost revolutionary changes in the character and purpose of the college curriculum. These changes imply so great an enlargement of the college faculty and of the consequent annual expenditure of money, that competition with them in this respect is impossible. The old distinction between colleges was chiefly in the number of undergraduate students. The present one is, in the main, that of money, for each has seemed to make haste, according to the endowment and income it may command, to follow the example set by the richest. But nearly all American colleges are small in endowment and in the number of the faculty; and the question, how the principle of the survival of the fittest will work in this matter, is a practical and vital one in education.

This statement sufficiently shows that the distinction which I shall make between the larger and smaller colleges is based upon the size of the corps of professors and teachers, and not upon the number of undergraduate students. Indirectly, as I have intimated, it is based upon wealth, for all the institutions of learning which could afford it, have seemed eager to copy the pattern first set by Harvard, and to increase the number of elective studies or courses of study as fast and as far as their means will

BSac 46:184 (Oct 1889) p. 578

permit. Perhaps not more than eight or ten colleges in the United States have the income necessary to go very far in this rivalry, and the rest of the three or four hundred must be ranked with the less wealthy institutions, which must inquire whether they will accept the role of inferior schools, and confess that they offer a less valuable education and a less useful fitting for the responsibilities of life and for the scholar’s career than their richer rivals.

If the truth requires the confession to be made, it must be honestly and frankly done. There should be no concealment or subterfuge. We should say to a young man or woman, This or that rich college offers you a more perfect preparation for your future work than we can give you, and you ought to go there if it be possible for you. In short, the students of the country would and should congregate in a very few great colleges, so that the great should become greater and the small smaller, if it be true that the average undergraduate will be most greatly benefited by the advantages there offered. It is because I believe that this is not true, that I have chosen the topic for my article. I sincerely believe that in the balancing of advantages and disadvantages, the small colleges will be found to hold their own, and need have no fear of the results of a generous competi...