GEM OF TilE MOUNTAINS
DEFINITENESS OF AIM IN EDUCATIONAL WORK Concerning the founding of the First American College there is a passage in a New England narrative written in 16-J.l, which is very frequently quoted: "After God lnd carried us safe to New England, and we had builded our houses, provided necessaries for our livelihood, rear'd convenient places for God's worship, and settled the civil Government. one of the next things we longed for, and looked after was to advance learning and perpetuate it to Posterity, dreading to leave an illiterate J\Iinistry to the Churches, when our present Ministers shall lie in the dust." The early Puritans who founded Harvard College knew exactly what they wanted and how to secure it. They needed a Ministry not lacking in letters and they wished also '路to advance learning and perpetuate it to posterity." and to this end they founded a college, adopted a curriculum and prepared a set of rules for the government of the students. They knew exactly what they wanted and how to secu re it. They limited collegiate activities to one field, preparation for the ministry. and the college they founded did prepare the student for a definite service. Their vision was limited but their aim was definite. Also the service to be rendered was a socia I service. New England needed a ministry trained in the schools "when the present ministers shall lie in the dust." In the years that followed the foundation of Harvard, and particularly in the period from 1820 to 1860, we drifted away from a single college conrse with a definite purpose to a multiplicity of courses, some of which had no definite aim. and from the social view point to an individualistic theory of education. The lack of definiteness of aim in collegiate courses, and particularly in the college of Letters and Sciences has been obscured by the prominence in educational literature of the culture theory of collegiate instruction. It was believed that ''A College course promotes the culture of the individual student and should be endowed, maintained and perpetuated for this reason.'' ' '' hat then is culture? President Hadley says that culture is the opTHIRTEEN