Americans -- England -- Oxford; Education -- United States; Education, Higher -- England -- Oxford; University of Oxford
The tendency toward division in the dining-halls and the dormitories
is evident also in athletics; but here it is very far from
unconscious. The division by classes long ago ceased to be an adequate
means of developing material for the 'varsity teams, and when the
English rowing coach, Mr. R. C. Lehmann, was in charge of the Harvard
oarsmen, he outlined a plan for developing separate crews not unlike
the college crews of England. This system has since been effected with
excellent results. Separate boating clubs have been established, each
of which has races among its own crews and races with the crews of its
rivals. Only one thing has prevented the complete success of the
system. The division into clubs is factitious, representing no real
rivalry such as exists among English colleges. To supply this rivalry,
it is only necessary that each boat club shall represent a hall. The
same division would of course be equally of benefit in all branches of
sport. The various teams within the university would then represent a
real social rivalry, such as has long ceased to exist. This could
scarcely fail to produce the effect that has been so remarkable at
the English universities. As in England, a multiplication of contests
would on the one hand develop far better university material, and on
the other hand it would lessen rather than exaggerate the excessive
importance of intercollegiate contests.
II
THE ADMINISTRATIVE PROBLEM
The administrative evil of the American university, as typified in
Harvard, Mr. Bolles described even more vividly than the social evil.
The bare fact of the problem he stated as follows: "In 1840 the
college contained 250 students; in 1850, 300; in 1860, 450; in 1870,
600; in 1880, 800; in 1890, 1300; in 1894, 1600." He then pointed out
that the only means the authorities have found for meeting this
increasing demand on the administrative office is, not to divide the
students into separate small bodies each under a single administrator,
but to divide the duties of administration among several officers.
Thus each of the added officers is required to perform his duty toward
the entire student body. It is apparently assumed that he can
discharge one duty toward two or three thousand students as
intelligently as in former years he could discharge two or three
duties toward two or three hundred. By this arrangement the most
valuable factor in administration is eliminated--personal knowledge
and personal contact between the administrator and his charges. It is
said that the members of the administrative board of the
college--professors whose time is of extreme value to the university
and to the world, and who receive no pay as administrators--sit three
hours a night three nights in the week deciding the cases that come
before them, not from personal knowledge of the undergraduates
concerned, but from oral and documentary reports. "It is only by a
fiction that the Recorder [or the Dean, or the member of the
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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