Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 43.djvu/468

 452 goes out from the school should still, at least, have been introduced to these methods of studying Nature, in order to obtain a proper faculty of observation.

This enumeration of what belongs to a good preparation has been carried out to a considerable length, not because so many subjects have to be brought forward, but because in the present stage of the discussion of the relation of the university to the preparatory schools, the question of the measure of preparation that should be required for university instruction occupies the first place. In order to avoid mistakes, it may be added that to one who would limit himself to the study of his specialty, much of what has been named above may appear superfluous. But if the purpose was merely to secure a professional training, the universities would be superfluous. Then we might establish, as in France, separate ecoles, or as in England, special colleges, or as in the Roman Catholic Church, isolated convents. If we regard the university, as is our pride, to be more than an auxiliary to the professional schools, we must also demand an effective interworking of the faculties, a general scientific course by the side of the professional course. If this, to our great regret, does not exist to the extent it ought and might, the blame for it lies in that want of preparation which I have tried to sketch, and the remedy for which I expect to follow a more exact exposition of the actual conditions.

So long as this help is not found there will be nothing left but to take up in the universities much more elementary or, at least, preparatory teaching, which burdens and degrades the instruction, and which, though sufficient in a very few cases, fails to supply the defects of preparation. The university professor has the less time for such teaching, because the university is not merely an institution for learning, but also for investigation. It is that likewise in a double sense: first, because our nation is accustomed to see scientific investigators in the university professors; and, secondly, because the state and science expect us to train at least a certain portion of the students to be investigators. In this sense we call the attendants as well as the institutions of the university academical.

The ancient name of the academy, which has received from Plato the meaning of a scliool working for the highest objects of mental exertion, has been applied since the times of the Medici to designate, as against the professional schools and the teaching schools, unions of prominent thinkers and investigators for co-operative work. From them have proceeded the academies of sciences. A more recent age has produced besides these all possible sorts of academies which do not concern us here. The continuous investigation of scientific problems is the appointed chief