MODIFICATION OF THE CURRICULUM
Remarks of President Hopkins at the Annual Dinner ofthe Boston Alumni Association on March 7
In CONSIDERATION of the life of the privately endowed college, two assurances seem indispensable to me, if it is to realize its maximum possibilities for usefulness in the modern-day world. One of these has to do with internal organization: the other with external support.
In the first place, prompt and radical modification of the curriculum must be made to adapt this to the magnitude, the complexity, and the tempo of problems of modern life. Second, the alumni and friends of the College must recognize the implications of a theory of education in search of truth, as compared with education under the domination of propaganda for the establishment and support of incomplete philosophies and of special cults.
In reference to internal policy, I would have the College recognize more definitely than any college has yet done the overwhelming need of a knowledge of contemporary problems before attention is given to anything else. Specifically, I would argue that the curricula of our colleges should be rebuilt around the social sciences and that undergraduates should be required to learn the fundamental principles of government, economics, and social relations, with the historical data illustrative of these.
Such a modification of curricula would involve no ultimate disadvantage to the arts and the sciences and related subjects. Rather, it would make for conditions under which the interests of these could be safeguarded, their future status could be insured, and their development could be stimulated as they are not and cannot be in the world of specialized interests and professionalized preoccupations which is the world in which we live.
There is enough evidence to make argument superfluous that men may have great knowledge within restricted limits without breadth o£ erudition and that rare scholarship in specific fields may be accompanied by a childlike conception of what actuates the mind of man collectively. With the prophet of old, the College should say to every man enrolled within its undergraduate body, "With all thy getting, get understanding."
INCIDENTALLY and as an aside, if it were exclusively within my power to do so, I should prescribe that elementary knowledge of the social sciences should be given in all preparatory and secondary schools. Without widespread knowledge concerning these matters it is not impossible that the time may come when the world of education will have to reflect ruefully on the queiy as to what it profits a man to have great scientific knowledge or to have board culture in a world which will permit the development of these solely for the utilitarian purpose of maintaining a social or a governmental status quo.
In education, as in theories of sovereignty, nationalism, and other like matters, we define our objectives according to preconceived opinions and traditional concepts, setting forth towards these with blinders on which conceal from us the growing mass of opinions and concepts which may deny any hope of realizing our purpose.
Such is our major internal problem. Assuming, however, that inevitably greater emphasis should be placed upon the social sciences which would make them of concern to the College as a prerequisite of all else, do we understand and accept the implications of such a development? Do we realize that even as never before we must be willing to defend the theory and the practice of free thought, free discussion, and free speech? In no other way except this can study of the social sciences really be education and avoid becoming propaganda. We need to give consideration now, therefore, to our mental picture of what Dartmouth should be. Is this in conformity with the Anglo-Saxon tradition—the picture of a free institution, untrammeled by popular passion in its search for knowledge of what is best among the things which might be? Or, on the contrary, do we believe that the search for knowledge should be definitely restricted and that intellectual curiosity and discussion should be repressed? The latter is not simply a rhetorical question. There are those who so believe in regard to our American colleges. Elsewhere, repression of criticism, false emphasis, and managed propaganda are the methods under which millions of students are being educated among a majority of the peoples of the earth today.
I acknowledge that I do not come by natural inclination to a willingness to extend the privileges of freedom to the proponents of systems which stand for suppression of all freedom except for themselves. Nevertheless, even in the cases of these, I believe the principle to be more important than the cost. Moreover, I believe that the fallacies of such systems will reveal themselves more evidently in the light of open discussion than in the obscurity of whispered argument.
It does not follow, however, that in our tolerance of the opinions of others, those of us who believe in American ideals should leave the field entirely to others and should remain inarticulate or passive in support of our own ideals. Not in ignoring the fact that the enemy exists, and not in suppression of knowledge about that for which he contends, lies vindication of our own convictions. Educational experience, educational method, and educational skill are being organized and mobilized with high effectiveness in country after country in Europe for regimenting thought and action in support of the respective philosophies and governmental policies of the different states. Among these peoples the human mind is being molded in the youngest children, while most pliable, to acceptance of all opinion prescribed by the state and denial of all opinion apart from this. As for the adults, they are held subject by espionage, secret police, and ruthless retribution for the slightest lack of enthusiastic support. The establishment and maintenance of such methods of control are indispensable to dictatorships, whether they be ruthless or benevolent, and they are as clearly operative today in dictatorships as they have always been from the beginning of time.
NEVERTHELESS, it likewise appears from consideration of conditions in these different countries that the constructive effects of consolidation and of a dominant will to do specific things have created a new strength, a new enthusiasm and a new self-confidence among these peoples. These qualities are based upon conditions which have made the peoples willing to undergo selfdiscipline for the development of fortitude, to commit themselves in loyalty to a common cause, and to undertake cooperative efforts in their behalves. Unless we are willing in some like degree to commit ourselves to self-discipline and are willing to seek fortitude and moral stamina, we must inevitably suffer in comparison with peoples who, whether mistakenly or not, are working together in a great unifying effort toward specific ends.
So far as I am personally concerned, it is inconceivable to me that any intelligent man should be willing to exchange his status as an American citizen for the intellectual and spiritual stultifications which prevail among those peoples who have delegated either voluntarily or under coercion their lives, liberties, and possibilities of happiness to the state. There are among us grievous fallacies in the generally accepted social theories of what constitutes democracy, and there are vital defects in our practice of government. The correction of these, however, is in the development of processes which will enlarge intelligence and develop understanding not only of what is, but of what might be. Salvation does not lie in exchange of our liberties for political, intellectual, or spiritual serfdom. It lies in acceptance of a conception which asserts that liberty under law is the most enviable possession to which man may inspire, but that the amount of liberty to which an individual or a group is entitled is measured by the extent to which responsibility will be accepted to hold its liberty as a trust.
Herein lies the obligation of the American college to develop understanding of these things,—an obligation which is becoming more definitely recognized day by day. If and when this obligation is met, then can we refute in our time the indictment which Schiller made of his when he said, "The century has given birth to a mighty epoch, but the important moment finds an impotent generation."
Thus we come to the ideal that is the mental picture of what the College should be. To realize that ideal and to make iconvincing to youth requires vision, conviction, and courage on the part of alumni bodies, if the indispensable support is to be available which shall give power to the educational program of the College.
Specifically, may Dartmouth count upon your understanding for and support of such a policy? Is this not the picture you would paint of what the College should be?
