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Kansas University Weekly.
We must here close the account; we have not said all that might have been said on this subject, for some strong points have not been touched upon. But enough has been said to establish the thesis, that in some directions the scientific work at a typical western university is equal to that done in the east.
Language Work in the University.
The language departments of the University are rapidly approaching a completeness of equipment that they have hitherto lacked because of the small size of the Library. While to learn a language does not require many books, to use it in the study of literature according to modern methods and so as to secure the best results requires an ample equipment; there is practically no limit to the number of books that can be used to advantage in any department. And after the standard editions and the new books are provided, and all things are in order for the prosecution of regular class work, there is another need yet to be provided for in order to make possible that scientific and historical study of languages and literatures which is usually associated with post graduate work. Works of the sort here needed are often rare and out of print, to be had only as chance brings them up for sale, no matter how large may be the fund available for their purchase. The older colleges whose libraries have been accumulating for perhaps a century or more, have herein a distinct advantage over the younger institutions, that they have acquired by a natural process many works now almost or entirely impossible to obtain; and if they have at the same time accumulated an immense quantity of mere rubbish, as is usually the case, this in no sense destroys the usefulness or the value of the treasures.
The department libraries of the young University of Kansas contain no rubbish, except what may become such as publication advances, and within the last five years it has acquired many treasures, and has begun to accomplish something in the direction of special graduate
training. But the provision for the undergraduate, thanks to a library fund not large but admirably expended, is become comfortably adequate, and in this respect older institutions no longer have the great advantage over us that they formerly possessed.
Perhaps the special feature that distinguishes modern University training in language and literature from that of a former day and that which still obtains in some of our older institutions is its practicalness. It is not so many years since the prospective student was everywhere received much like a piece of metal at a manufactory, thrust into a machine, and received at the other end in such a form that he might be supposed interchangeable with any of his fellows. Today, with the exception of certain broad general requirements, such for example as that a student in the department of Arts shall not ignore Latin and that he shall devote a certain minimum of time to the general subject of language and literature, he is in the University of Kansas expected to shape his course in accordance with his own tastes in so far as those tastes have influenced him in shaping his choice of a life work; and the question is no longer how much he lacks of having gone through a certain prescribed course, but what will help him most in the business or profession he proposes to follow.
One result of this increased freedom of choice is the greater prominence given to the study of modern languages as compared with their status in some older institutions. There have been and perhaps there are still institutions where almost no practical training either required or optional was given in English expression, but only a short course of recitations upon a text-book,and where a minimum of the study of French and German was required, while there was required two full years of work in the the classics, in addition to the option of two additional years. That there is less need for practical training in the mother-speech in those parts of the country where the best known universities are located certainly does not follow