Page:Essays on the Higher Education.djvu/64

 in mathematics and in the physical and natural sciences. It must amend the spirit of its instruction by putting away all contempt for classical and historical and philosophical learning, and all that pride which leads men to refuse the name of "science" to any knowledge but their own. Here, again, it appears that the problem of the development of the university in this country is largely the problem of securing a satisfactory secondary education.

Finally, it is plain that the development of the university in this country involves a marked and permanent differentiation into two classes of the higher educational institutions now in existence. The vast majority of the "colleges," so called, in this country should be content to remain colleges—that is, places which make no pretence to carry men beyond such secondary education as is preparatory to a genuine university education. To improve the secondary education which they impart, and to make it somewhat worthy of the idea connected in the minds of our people with the word "collegiate," may well satisfy their highest ambition. On the other hand, there can be no doubt that the great majority of the institutions now called "universities" should renounce both the name and the pretence of the thing. Only those few institutions that have already acquired large resources of famous men and established