Looking Forward THIS IS AN AGE wherein the wise man is suspicious of himself, and only the ass is cock-sure. For the back-drop has fallen out of the stage of the world, and the scenery is inside out. Things are not only seldom what they seemthey are almost certain not to be. 344 346 THE PROGRESS of the sciences is responsible for this. Life is no longer simple, it is highly complex-mainly, because we know it to be so. For this reason, both physically and intellectually speaking, old solutions must be scrutinized and re-tested, and the results re-stated in terms which every one can understand. All of life, spirit and nature must be surveyed once more. Civilization must be examined critically. Man must understand himself and his world anew, so that he can again be happy living in it. IN A SENSE, this is the aim of journals such as this one. For the problems which beset all men some time, a journal such as this feels keenly every day. How is one man or any small group of men to understand all the varied and complex difficulties which modern life offers for solution? TO OUR MIND, the answer for some time has seemed clear. Such a man or group of men should seek advice, not from any one specific authority; not from any set of editors or journalists. But from certain definitely recognized leaders and specialists, each fully informed in his own field. Each willing not only to be consulted but to write over his own signature, concerning his own special knowledge. IN A FORTHCOMING ISSUE, we shall announce the names of the men whom the Outlook and Independent has sought, and who will therefore constitute for us not only our list of witnesses to the progress of existence during the coming year, but its interpreters, as well. Francis Profus Bellamy I Outlook and Independent → Utopia College: A Prospectus ◄◄ IN AN America numbering its colleges and universities by the hundreds and its college students by the hundreds of thousands, there can be only one real and sufficient rea son for the organization of yet another college: a conscientious effort to construct an institution which will in some way offer a done in an institution frankly trying to do its best, throughout its curriculum, for a body of intelligent youth. By ADDISON HIBBARD The future of the Nation, from one point of view, lies with the colleges, for there most of our leaders will be trained. That educators recognize their responsibility is apparent from the number of experiments now being considered and from the abundant criticism coming from within the colleges themselves. Dr. Hibbard, author of "Our Truant Professors” in a recent number of the Outlook and Independent, is Dean of the College Utopia lay down a few simple of Liberal Arts in the University of North Carolina. His article sets forth his own conception of the ideal college sounder and a more worthy education to the youth of the country. With the millions of capital invested in higher education, with the thousands of professors trained in the traditions of the past, with an alumni body intent that its own sons should have an education not too different from what it enjoyed thirty years ago, with conservative trustees, conservative faculties and conservative student bodies, it is too much to expect any nowexistent educational institution to do much more than repair its roof. What is needed is a new structure. In the conviction that education lies in the possession of power within one's self rather than in the possession of a degree, the College of Utopia will attempt just one objective: to give her students an opportunity to develop themselves. Education, Utopia believes, is nothing more than offering to student a chance to grow from within, though too often it is presented as something superimposed from without. a Vested interests of faculties, traditional manners of teaching these things demand a new approach to education and make impossible a thorough reorganization of present college teaching. Departments have grown up simply because it was found convenient to teach a single block of history or a single branch of science-not because in actual life learning and truth present Of late years our better colleges and . In an effort to co-ordinate some of the most promising of these recent experiments and to formulate certain convictions of their own, the founders of principles which will dictate curricula and methods. Education must be for the individual. As such its primary concern must be with individual differences rather than with similarities. Pre-eminently, then, this demands individual instruction rather than large group instruction and precludes those formal and dogmatic "objectives" so often set forth in statements by liberal arts faculties. The chief distinction of an educated man is his ability to act intelligently under new and unusual circumstances and to this end the student should be given a wide acquaintance with the past experiences of mankind and a real understanding of the conditions determining and motivating life in modern civilization. To emphasize this quality of individuality and independence, important phases of the work at Utopia will be left to the student for independent study and report. HE end of education is intelligence. The colleges of the country often. make much of their desire to develop "character" and "leadership" and "Christian gentlemen." Utopia recognizes these qualities as distinctly valuable, but not believing that they can be directly taught in the classroom prefers to consider them as corollaries to the intelligent life and natural by-products of association with intelligent people seeking truth. Utopia believes, furthermore, that this intelligence is not a matter of the mind alone since any really liberal education must develop the imagination and the esthetic sense as well as the purely mental qualities. We are more concerned with promoting the art of living than the capacity to earn a living. |RUE LEARNING presents itself in or It is too ganic unity rather than intense diversification. Education cannot be measured by semester hours. It is more than a trading-stamp system of "credits" whereby the student, after diligently collecting a required number, is granted a diploma in exchange for his total number of "units." much to hope that even intelligent students can dovetail such fragments into a coherent whole. Because of our faith in this organic quality of education, teaching at Utopia will not generally be broken up into departments such as English or botany or chemistry. It will rather be our effort to seek principles in whatsoever field they may be found and to correlate these truths irrespective of departmental divisions and of the specialist in learning. Only specialists do specialized things; man thinking is more important than man dividing. In an effort to recognize this essential unity, study at Utopia will center around four "subjects." Science, as that phase of learning most rapidly developing in the Twentieth Century and most vitally influencing modern civilization, demands more attention than ordinarily given it in undergraduate instruction. With this conviction in mind, special emphasis at Utopia will be placed on scientific learning and scientific methods for the verification of truth, and on those principles of the social and natural sciences which affect every-day living in the Twentieth Century. This does not mean that major emphasis at Utopia will be placed on a scientific education, but it does mean that each student will be thrown more definitely into scientific study and method than is possible through the one or two courses commonly required. In the belief, then, that the educational structure must be erected from the bottom up, and that a new learning for students grounded in these principles is needed, this prospectus is offered. The government of Utopia will be in the hands of a Board of Trustees consisting of fourteen members: three edu cators (not pedagogues) of National reputation, three creative workers in the field of fine arts, three men of recognized business capacity and five leading scientists. This board will elect as the first president a man under forty years of age who shall be the sole administrative head of the college. Directly under the trustees, the president will serve as the responsible authority in all matters of administration. The period for which a president may serve will be limited to five years at the expiration of which time he shall withdraw in favor of a successor elected from the faculty by joint agreement among the faculty and the trustees. The retiring president shall be ineligible for re-election for two years during which time he will be expected to serve on the faculty of the college and to give instruction to students. This provision is made to assure close familiarity with students and teaching problems on the part of the administration. Such distinction as is made among various members of the faculty will be on the basis of salary rather than of title. All men will hold the rank of professor since all instruction, whether for first-year students or third-year students is to be recognized as of equal impor UTOPIA IA will grant no degrees and award no diplomas. It is hoped that with the quality of work done in the college a student who leaves Utopia after residence of three or four years will bear in his own character and intelligence a mark of distinction superior to that guaranteed by degree or diploma. "Units" and "credits" will not be recognized. Such promotion from one part of work to another as need be made is to be based on proficiency rather than "semester hours" of work done. The nine months' college year will be a unit within itself undivided into terms or semesters, since the plan contemplates promotion from one phase of work to another at such time as a given piece of work shall have been satisfactorily completed. That the summer period may be genuinely used for recreation and reading, no classes will be held during the months of July, Au gust, and September. Since it is expected that students requesting admission to Utopia will ultimately outnumber the maximum enrollment of five hundred, it is planned to start a waiting list when this shall be necessary. Students will understand that their place on the roll of the college once given up must be assigned to some one on this list. Discipline at Utopia will be entirely in the hands of the president of the college. No honor system will be attempted and faculty members will not be expected to serve as proctors. Since formal course requirements (as usually understood) are put aside, examinations will be superfluous and most of the usual disciplinary problems will disappear. When it develops, however, that any student is for any reason not utilizing the advantages placed before him, the president shall investigate the case and shall alone determine whether expulsion is necessary. A student once expelled (no suspension penalties will be im posed) will never be eligible for return to this college. The president wil simply notify the next student on the waiting list. in TUDENTS are admitted to Utopia any of three ways. First, any student who has been graduated from a school which graduates as many as two hundred students a year will be admit ted upon his presenting evidence that he stood in the top ten per cent of his class. Second, students from other preparatory or high schools will be admitted in the event that they take the "content" and psychological examination at Utopia and pass both of these with an average over ninety per cent. Third, students who have had little or no formal academic preparation will be admitted provided they are over twentyone years of age and show a mental capacity to benefit by the work at Utopia through passing our psycholog ical tests with a standing above ninetyfive. The only uniform requirement which all students must meet is that each before being accepted as a matricular must present convincing evidence the he has supported himself by his own labor for at least twelve months before he applies at Utopia. Students transferring from other institutions will be received only if they meet the above requirements and are willing to start at the bottom of the Utopian curriculum. Women and men will be accepted in as nearly equal numbers as the entrance requirements permit. It is the aim of the college to have no more than three hundred or less than two hundred students of either sex at one time. Since Utopia College is neither an eleemosynary nor a commercial institu..tion, all students will be required to pay a fair share of the actual cost, excepting interest on building investments and property, of their education. The founders believe that this principle of paying for what one receives is a wholesome one. The cost of instruction and living will be prorated each term and students will be required to pay either in cash at the end of the term or to sign notes (interest at six per cent) which must be paid ten years from the date of leaving Utopia. Normally the actual cost. of such education to the student will not exceed $1,200 a year. No student will be allowed to support himself in any way while at college; the nature of the work at Utopia will be such as to demand concentrated attention on studies and cultural development. In order that worthy students of ability may benefit by the work at this college, it is hoped that a generous number of scholarships, covering half of the annual expenses, will be offered by interested people. In no event will scholarships covering all expenses be granted, since the founders believe that even needy students should pay at least half of their expenses by long-term notes, if necessary. Courtesy Kennedy & Co. The course of study at Utopia will not atempt all fields of human knowledge. In the conviction that perhaps the chief evil of the education now offered in our colleges of liberal arts is the lack of unity or of a definitely conceived purpose, Utopia, rightly or wrongly, will attempt to offer its students only such courses as directly bear on its immediate purpose. To the founders of this college it appears that three questions most persistently perplex mankind, most uniformly seek solution and most directly relate to his well-being: From what past does mankind come, what is his duty and purpose in being, and what, throughout his centuries of existence has his experience led him to think the end of existence, the good life? That these questions cannot be answered dogmatically we recognize; but at the same The first of these, Man and the Past, will be studied by students first entering Utopia with the purpose of securing a clear picture of the past record of man through the ages to the present. The material for this study will be such evidence as is brought through history, geology, anthropology and the ancient and modern literatures. Much of the material, of course, will be no different from that utilized in other colleges. But Utopia's approach will be original. The second unit of study, Man and Nature, is designed to show the order obtaining in the universe, the scientific methods of investigation, as well as to relate the findings of the various physical and natural sciences as to the origin, growth and development of man and his place in nature. The evidence for this programme will be such as is ordinarily presented through the departments of astronomy, biology, physics, chemistry and psychology. Man and Society, the third broad division of study, will present the place of man in his relation to society. The work here should afford the student a clear understanding of his responsibility to his fellow men, his place as an individual functioning in a complex social régime and the demands placed on him by his position in the political and governmental programme of democratic. America. The material for this work will be drawn from a coordinating of the findings of economics, sociology, geography, politics and government and ethics. For the last programme of the Utopia student is reserved the more speculative subject-Man and the World of Thought. The study in this field will afford a resumé of the past philosophies and world religions and a pointing out of what agreements may be found common to the various teachings. Customs and morals under different civilizations will be taken up and an effort made to present something like a synthesis of the spiritual heritage of man. There will be no attempt to formulate convictions for the student: he will rather be left quite to himself to relate these findings into some workable basis for his own guidance. It is felt that after such training as the student will have had in his earlier study of history and the natural and social sciences, he will be peculiarly fitted for this speculative phase. Inasmuch as this approach to education is unconventional, the founders of Utopia will insist, that, once the faculty is engaged, at least two years be utilized, before the college opens, to bring the specialists of the faculty together and allow them to co-ordinate material which has ordinarily been presented through departments. Various syllabi will be drawn up and laboratories, planned to present ideas and principles rather than departmentalized knowledge, will be designed and equipped. In addition to the four fields of study suggested above, each student must show: 1. a reading knowledge of two languages or a complete speaking and literary knowledge of one; 2. proficien |