The Problem of the University

Extract

Love of learning, or learning itself? Culture, or the acquisition of specialized knowledge? This is the great problem which faces every university in the modern age. Some, indeed, claim to have solved it to their own satisfaction. Others are still grappling with it.

The problem has been created by the passage of time and the opening up of fresh fields of thought and knowledge. Applying equally to both the old and the new worlds, it is of universal importance, inasmuch that on the solution of it depends the future, not merely of our educational systems, but of our civilization itself.

The university was essentially an invention of the Middle Ages, existing for one definite purpose. First and foremost it was a cultural institution; the acquisition of mere knowledge, as such, was of secondary and almost negligible importance.