Repository: UIHistories Project: Book - History of the University (Powell) [PAGE 17]

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Introduction

xvii

heart are made the object of scientific study; then we shall see an immensely larger number of subjects, made the object of strictly scientific study and development, so that in every line of human life the largest possible enrichment will be secured* We see now an institution in which a large part of the work done is elementary in character; that will all be relegated to the high schools and junior colleges. Young men and women will come up to the University primarily for the purpose of preparing themselves for some distinct profession or calling, for the practice of which a study of the sciences underlying the art will be useful or necessary. The number of professions for which the university will prepare will steadily tend to increase, because the human race will be basing everything more and more upon science; and when the business of a profession rests upon the solid formulations and accumulations of human science it becomes a proper subject for university cultivation. The university will in the next fifty years become still more a great center of light and life and leadership for the whole community in an ever-increasing number of directions. We shall press forward to new achievements in science and art. We shall become free in a new and different sense from what we are now; for the truth, the pursuit of which is one of the great primary ends of the university, will make us free. We shall not be afraid to speak our minds; we shall win that academic freedom which now exists nowhere in the world; for as yet men are not willing to accept its full consequences. The dangers of Bolshevikism in our undeveloped human society are still too great in our imagination at any rate to permit the largest degree of liberty; but that time will be brought perceptibly nearer by the results of this great war, and our universities should help in this development, and Illinois should lead the way. We shall be much more willing to accord to strength and power full leadership because they will be exerted in the interests of all and not in the interests of a few. The university will be an entirely different institution in that great society which we are gradually weaving on the great loom of time, in which no man or woman, willing to work, shall suffer because work can not be found; when no one will be compelled to work for a wage which will not sustain a decent human life; when to industry and thrift will come the opportunity to share in all the blessings of an advanced civilization instead of in only a few