This is the first of a pair of articles that Eliot wrote for Atlantic Magazine in 1869. I found it very enlightening on a lot of his theory on "fixing" colleges, and cleared up some of the questions and misconceptions I have. I'm just going to copy in the whole first paragraph to start:
What can I do with my boy? I can afford, and am glad, to give him the best training to be had. I should be proud to have him turn out a preacher or a learned man; but I don’t think he has the making of that in him. I want to give him a practical education; one that will prepare him, better than I was prepared, to follow my business or any other active calling. The classical schools and the colleges do not offer what I want. Where can I put him? Here is a real need and a very serious problem. The difficulty presses more heavily upon the thoughtful American than upon the European. He is absolutely free to choose a way of life for himself and his children; no government leading-strings or social prescriptions guide or limit him in his choice. But freedom is responsibility.
Eliot's basic issue, it sounds like, is that there's no such thing as what we'd call a technical school today. He compares what he's looking for to the German Realschule, which is generally secondary, not post-secondary education. Basically, there needs to be somewhere for people to go to get a specific education in a field they want to work in professionally.
He makes an interesting point here:
“We must begin our survey with the institutions of highest grade, because from the parentspoint of view the higher school necessarily determines in large measure the nature of thelower school, just as the shape, weight, and bearings of a superstructure determine the formand quality of its foundations. The foundation-plan is the last to leave a careful architects office.”
Normally, we think of the foundation being made first, but it makes sense that you'd design it after the rest of the structure, even if you have to pour it before you build.
One thing I think was interesting, as he analyzes various colleges and universities, is that a lot of them admit relatively young. Quite a few regularly admitted 16 year olds, and some even went as low as 14. I wonder what it would be like to go to college at 14. I think I'd have gone for it, if I could. That's about the age level most of my professors seemed to think we were at anyway.
Most of this article is him looking at the rough curriculums of different schools around the country. This one, for Yale, is pretty representative (it's a somewhat repetitive article):
“The two departments of chemistry and engineering were entirely distinct. A student might take the degree in either department without knowing anything of the studies pursued in the other. As there was no examination for admission, and only a narrow, one-sided, two years course of study in either department, it is not surprising that the degree of Bachelor of Philosophy soon came to be slightly considered; it really stood for very little culture.”
“The fact is, that the whole tone and spirit of a good college ought to be different in kind from that of a good polytechnic or scientific school. In the college, the desire for the broadest culture, for the best formation and information of the mind, the enthusiastic study of subjects for the love of them without any ulterior objects, the love of learning and research for their own sake, should be the dominant ideas. In the polytechnic school should be found a mental training inferior to none in breadth and vigor, a thirst for knowledge, a genuine enthusiasm in scientific research, and a true love of nature; but underneath all these things is a temper or leading motive unlike that of a college.”
“The student in a polytechnic school has a practical end constantly in view; he is training his faculties with the express object of making himself a better manufacturer, engineer, or teacher; he is studying the processes of nature, in order afterwards to turn them to human uses and his own profit; if he is eager to penetrate the mysteries of electricity, it is largely because he wants to understand telegraphs; if he learns French and German, it is chiefly because he would not have the best technical literature of his generation sealed for him; if he imbues his mind with the profound and exquisite conceptions of the calculus, it is in order the better to comprehend mechanics. This practical end should never be lost sight of by student or teacher in a polytechnic school, and it should very seldom be thought of or alluded to in a college. Just as far as the spirit proper to a polytechnic school pervades a college, just so far that college falls below its true ideal. The practical spirit and the literary or scholastic spirit are both good, but they are incompatible. If commingled, they are both spoiled.”
“Secondly, to make a good engineer, chemist, or architect, the only sure way is to make first, or at least simultaneously, an observant, reflecting, and sensible man, whose mind is not only well stored, but well trained also to see, compare, reason, and decide.”
He goes on in this general vein for a while, and I think it gets to the problems I've talked about with the current US college system.
For 90% of people, college is trade school. You go to get a shiny piece of paper that will let you get a better job. That's totally fine. Most technical schools and community college are even honest about it. The problem is once you get to the four year level. Something I noticed over and over in the article is how little time students spent in their major (or elective as Eliot calls it). It's often only one year, with the other three being the "gen eds." I can't speak for anyone else, but I would've loved to have jammed out my major in a year. I went back and looked over my transcript, and there were so many courses with almost the same name (that I know covered almost identical content) that we had to take every semester. Combined with the low standards in gen eds (I took a comp sci course that covered less than a semester long high school elective), it's no wonder people complain about how padded their degrees are, and what a waste of time and money it is.
Eliot is right that threading the needled between an almost "finishing school" type traditional college (knowledge for knowledge sake) and a simple vocational program is difficult. If anything it feels like we might have gotten even further than we were 150 years ago. I think it could have a lot of value, but you've got to make the "base" courses actually relevant, instead of auto-pass lecture hall bullshit so they can rush you into (not really any more rigorous, just more pretentious) major classes.
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