| |
| |
Caption: Book - History of the University (Nevins)
This is a reduced-resolution page image for fast online browsing.
EXTRACTED TEXT FROM PAGE:
ACADEMIC BOLDNESS 351 jnents and functions slowly, and refuses experiments which would impair its prestige; it has been decades in winning a secure place in many fields, and it does not believe that a great departmental work can be built up except on the firmest basis. I Columbia University, offered support by the business men of New York in establishing a school of business, waited for over a decade because of her belief that the field of such a school was imperfectly outlined, the curriculum too vaguely defined, the uncertainties of its reaction on the older courses still too numerous. Illinois rushed precipitately into the establishment of a school of commerce, content to develop her own methods and establish her own following, and accepting without question the necessity, forced upon her by her environment, of making the school an undergraduate rather than an advanced one like Dartmouth's, or a graduate one like Harvard's. The State University lays itself open to mistakes, temporarily damaging to itself and perhaps injurious also to small bodies of students involved in these experiments. But so much practical foresight goes into all the ventures of the sort at Illinois that mistakes will be small and very rare; while the youthful communities of the Middle West need just this emphasis on opportunity and expediency||The law school, the music school, the graduate school, were all for a time avowedly weak. The University admitted that they were not yet upon their feet, kept them open for those who had no better place to go and who could not therefore legitimately complain, and in time so interested the State that they were made at first respectable and then vigorous. Such a policy wag necessary in order to teach the State that law, music, and graduate work could profitably be offered at Urbanaj without such leadership
| |
