The Governing Boards In the working theory of the modern civilized community, --that is to say in the current common-sense apprehension of what is right and good, as it works out in the long run, -- the university is a corporation of learning, disinterested and dispassionate. To its keeping is entrusted the community's joint interest in esoteric knowledge. It is given over to the single-minded pursuit of science and scholarship, without afterthought and without a view to interests subsidiary or extraneous to the higher learning. It is, indeed, the one great institution of modern times that works to no ulterior end and is controlled by no consideration of expediency beyond its own work.
Typically, normally, in point of popular theory, the university is moved by no consideration other than "the increase and diffusion of knowledge among men." This is so because this profitless quest of knowledge has come to be the highest and ulterior aim of modern culture.
Such has been the case, increasingly, for some generations past; but it is not until quite recently that such a statement would hold true unequivocally and with an unqualified generality.
That the case stands so today is due to the failure of theoretical interests of a different kind; directly and immediately it is due to the fact that in the immediate present the cult of knowledge has, by default, taken over that primacy among human interests which an eschatologically thrifty religious sentiment once held in the esteem of Christendom. So long as the fear of God still continued to move the generality of civilized men in sufficient measure, their theoretical knowledge was organized for "the glory of God and the good of man," -- the latter phrase being taken in the eschatological sense; and so long the resulting scheme of learning was laid out and cultivated with an eye to the main chance in a hereafter given over, in the main and for its major effect, to pains and penalties. With the latterday dissipation of this fear of God, the scheme of knowledge handed down out of a devout past and further amplified in the (theoretically) Godless present, has, by atrophy of disuse, lost its ulterior view to such spiritual expediency, and has come to stand over as an output of intellectual enterprise working under the impulsion and guidance of an idle curiosity simply. All this may not be much to the credit of civilized mankind, but dispassionate reflection will not leave the fact in doubt. And the outcome for the university, considered as an institution of this modern culture, is such as this conjuncture of circumstances will require.
But while such is the dispassionate working theory, the long-term drift of modern common sense as touches the work of the university, it is also a matter of course that this ideally single-minded course of action has never been realized in any concrete case. While it holds true, by and large, that modern Christendom has outlived the fear of God, -- that is to say of "the Pope, the Turk, and the Devil," -- it does not therefore follow that men take a less instant interest in the affairs of life, or carry on the traffic of their lives with a less alert eye to the main chance, than they once did under the habitual shadow of that barbarian fear. The difference is, for the purpose in hand, that the same solicitous attention that once converged on such an avoidance of ulterior consequences now centres on questions of present ways and means. Worldly wisdom has not fallen into decay or abeyance, but it has become a wisdom of ways and means that lead to nothing beyond further ways and means.
Expediency and practical considerations have come to mean considerations of a pecuniary kind; good, on the whole, for pecuniary purposes only; that is to say, gain and expenditure for the sake of further gain and expenditure, with nothing that will stand scrutiny as a final term to this traffic in ways and means, -- except only this cult of the idle curiosity to which the seats of learning are, in theory, dedicate. But unremitting habituation to the competitive pursuit of ways and means has determined that "practical" interests of this complexion rule workday life in the modern community throughout, and they are therefore so intimately and ubiquitously bound up with current habits of thought, and have so strong and immediate a hold on current workday sentiment, that, hitherto, in no case have the seats of learning been able to pursue their quest of knowledge with anything like that single-mindedness which academic men are moved to profess in their moments of academic elation.
Some one vital interest of this practical sort, some variant of the quest of gain, is always at hand and strenuously effective in the community's life, and therefore dominates their everyday habits of thought for the time being. This tone-giving dominance of such a workday interest may be transient or relatively enduring; it may be more or less urgently important and consequential under the circumstances in which the community is placed, or the clamour of its spokesmen and beneficiaries may be more or less ubiquitous and pertinacious; but in any case it will have its effect in the counsels of the "Educators," and so it will infect the university as well as the lower levels of the educational system. So that, while the higher learning still remains as the enduring purpose and substantial interest of the university establishment, the dominant practical interests of the day will, transiently but effectually, govern the detail lines of academic policy, the range of instruction offered, and the character of the personnel; and more particularly and immediately will the character of the governing boards and the academic administration so be determined by the current run of popular sentiment touching the community's practical needs and aims;since these ruling bodies stand, in one way or another, under the critical surveillance of a lay constituency.
