Two Points of View

Within the heart of the modern university today there is a constant adjustment between two points of view in university education which I can illustrate by using as examples the ideas of two men. The Spanish philosopher Otogo Y Gassett and the English writer Bruce Truscott, author of "Red Brick University" and other books.

"The cultural disciplines and the professional studies will be offered in a rationalised form based on the best pedagogy—systematic, synthetic, and complete—and not in the form which science would prefer, if it were left to itself: special problems, "samples" of science, and experimentation.

The selection of professors will depend not, on their rank as investigators but on their talent for synthesis and their gift for teaching.

In contrast to that point of view Truscott holds that the first purpose of a university must be to advance knowledge; that the most effective teachers are those who themselves are active in research and that all teaching should be based on the intention of opening the student's mind rather than filling it with facts already ascertained. The spirit of fre enquiry should be pervasive.

Although these points of view are sharply contrasted we find in practice that there is room in the university for the man who is a skilled and effective teacher but has no aptitude for research, and for the man who is especially fitted for advanced knowledge. It is for the administration to see that a balance is kept which will express the philosophy of the whole group of scholars.