BROADER BASIS

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 72, 27 March 1933, Page 5

BROADER BASIS

CULTURE SOUGHT

UNIVERSITY EDUCATION

SYSTEM IN AMERICA

The means taken by the universities in America and Britain to provide a general cultivation' for a graduate, as well as and at the same time as a knowledge in examination subjects, was inquired into by the registrar of the Auckland University College (Mr. M. ■B. O'Shea), while he was abroad for the purpose of studying university mat.ters in those two countries. Mr, O'Shea has recently returned,,and he discussed the problem in his report presented to the council of the college at its.meeting'last week.

While in England, Mr. O'Shea said, "he met most of the Auckland students ■who were overseas for post-graduate study, and in every ease he found that . they deplored the lack of a general cultivation, feeling the absence of it very much in their attempt to appreciate the ' culture of the Old World on going overseas from. New Zealand. "The matter," said Mr. O'Shea, "revolves round the basic difference between education in U.S.A. and in England. /We i can consider that education in New Zealand follows the lines of English educa,tion comparatively closely. Education in England is marked by a definite continuity of study of certain .'academic core subjects with, on arrival at university, specialisation in a single subject or group > o° related subject^ from this core. Iv U.S.A. ■ there is, generally epe'akirig^ no such continuity." ' ENGLISH AND AMERICAN SYSTEMS. He quoted figures to show clearly that Europe selected by severe examination only the best minds for university ■ training, while the ideal in U.S;A. had been to bring the university to the mass, with consequent considerable lowering of standard. . "Concomitant with the ideal of university education for the many we find the belief *in U.S.A.' that a university education should cover a wide range of «übjeets—ttais at a low standard— father than comprise only a speeialisa-1-tiOn to a very high standard as in England. My own ebnelusion is that the • universities in U.S.A. have made a .virtue of necessity, owing to their having thrown open their university doors as wide as possible in pursuance of their ideal of the greatest good for the greatest number. ,

"One result of this is that the universities in U.S.A. take great pains in the introduction of the 'freshman 5 to university life, there being many 'orientation courses,'covering a wide range of subjects under a general' course." AH the orientation courses were similar in scope. He instanced the Chicago "four division" plan. There a general course of one year was afforded in each of the four fields —-the humanities^ the social sciences, the physical sciences, the biological sciences. The last three divisions comprised a survey course sufficient ''to give a student taking no science for degree a bird's-eye view of all these fields and their relation to each other and to the present usages of society. The humanities^ course was a general cultivation of ..' the. students' taste in literature, painting, sculpture, architecture, music, giving him the basis of .these and opening for him all these doors. ■ ' - . ;'"'■ v MIDWAY PLAN. ; ' "The fault, which-I..find in the Chicago plan," added; Mr. .o,'Shea, "is that tlje abo^^ork-shoul.cl)1 not be a matter for examination. ■■■" It is a general . cultivation; which should be a -matter personal to the student himself. . "This, ■ when added to our system, would give a system midway between the generalised American one and the specialised, comparatively narrow English honours degree. If there were no j examining in .respect of this matter, a college could institute anything it desired upon these lines without the necessity of endeavouring to obtain the sanction of the New' Zealand University. Out of the four divisions any given student in New. Zealand is, as a rule, 1 talcing at least one for degree, leaving three, one of which he might take each year as a side-line to his degree work. The time involved should not be great, especially as our finances would not permit of an elaborate system of lectures in this regard. •