220

Universities in Danger. The Coherence of Knowledge

in the Sciences themselves, or make people aware of methodology; or throw light on
the boundaries that divide what we know from what we do not know.297
General Education
Traditional measures, on the other hand, which we have planned and partly tried in
Germany for a decade, appear to be ineffective. The intention was to establish a sepa-
rate course of general education side by side with the specialist course of instruction;
this would be done either through a course of study devoted solely to the purposes of
general education,298 through compulsory lectures in general subjects or through the
establishment of chairs or even faculties of general education. The mistake here is that
this must come about as a part of the study of Science itself, not apart from it. It is pre-
cisely this setting one beside the other that is disastrous. It means only that new de-
partments grow up to serve what in essence is not a departmental matter at all, so that
what is universal becomes a new specialism.2" Such education becomes an incidental
affair like a religion confined to Sundays.
It is possible to learn under compulsion, but real education can only be acquired
in freedom. Students ought not to be cramped by timetables which take up all their
time, nor by examinations aimed only at factual knowledge learned by rote. Rather
should they be free to attend lectures in all the faculties according to their personal
desires, to follow professors who have something worth while to say if they are at-
tracted by them - just as, perhaps, many a Student of natural Sciences in the last Cen-
tury frequented the classes of Ritschi,300 the classical philologist, to »learn method«.
Such freedom of action should avert the disadvantages of creating distrust among the
pure specialists and giving preferment to place-seeking machine-minds301 in marking
examination papers. In the examinations themselves, the measure of a man's educa-
tion - reflected in the way he presents his knowledge, his grasp of essentials and his
power of judgment - should have some share in determining the result, but neither
should the extent of his factual knowledge be the yardstick, nor should separate tests
of his general education be held.
Great Teachers
The decisive influence will rest with those personalities who, as university teachers in
all subjects, determine the spirit of the university. It is a matter of the intellectual aris-
tocracy, for a type of aristocracy302 is essential in a right functioning democracy. Pro-
fessors should be selected solely on their achievement and the degree in which their
education has become real in them. And they should be chosen by experts, that is, the
intellectual aristocracy actually existing in every university.303 To avoid a caste System,
there must be Standards clearly laid down for all to see - published works and their rep-