第 51 节
作者:
青涩春天 更新:2021-02-27 02:38 字数:9321
centralized control exercised through a system of accountancy in
the modern large business concerns。 The larger American schools
are primarily undergraduate establishments; with negligible
exceptions; and under these current American conditions; of
excessive numbers; such a centralized and bureaucratic
administration appears to be indispensable for the adequate
control of immature and reluctant students; at the same time;
such an organization conduces to an excessive size。 The immediate
and visible effect of such a large and centralized administrative
machinery is; on the whole; detrimental to scholarship; even in
the undergraduate work; though it need not be so in all respects
and unequivocally; so far as regards that routine training that
is embodied in the undergraduate curriculum。 But it is at least a
necessary evil in any school that is of so considerable a size as
to preclude substantially all close or cordial personal relations
between the teachers and each of these immature pupils under
their charge; as; again; is commonly the case with these American
undergraduate establishments。 Such a system of authoritative
control; standardization; gradation; accountancy; classification;
credits and penalties; will necessarily be drawn on stricter
lines the more the school takes on the character of a house of
correction or a penal settlement; in which the irresponsible
inmates are to be held to a round of distasteful tasks and
restrained from (conventionally) excessive irregularities of
conduct。 At the same time this recourse to such coercive control
and standardization of tasks has unavoidably given the schools
something of the character of a penal settlement。
As intimated above; the ideal of efficiency by force of which
a large…scale centralized organization commends itself in these
premises is that pattern of shrewd management whereby a large
business concern makes money。 The underlying business…like
presumption accordingly appears to be that learning is a
merchantable commodity; to be Produced on a piece…rate plan;
rated; bought and sold by standard units; measured; counted and
reduced to staple equivalence by impersonal; mechanical tests。 In
all its bearings the work is hereby reduced to a mechanistic;
statistical consistency; with numerical standards and units;
which conduces to perfunctory and mediocre wOrk throughout; and
acts to deter both students and teachers from a free pursuit of
knowledge; as contrasted with the pursuit of academic credits。 So
far as this mechanistic system goes freely into effect it leads
to a substitution of salesmanlike proficiency a balancing of
bargains in staple credits in the place of scientific capacity
and addiction to study。
The salesmanlike abilities and the men of affairs that so are
drawn into the academic personnel are; presumably; somewhat under
grade in their kind; since the pecuniary inducement offered by
the schools is rather low as compared with the remuneration for
office work of a similar character in the common run of business
occupations; and since businesslike employees of this kind may
fairly be presumed to go unreservedly to the highest bidder。 Yet
these more unscholarly members of the staff will necessarily be
assigned the more responsible and discretionary positions in the
academic organization; since under such a scheme of
standardization; accountancy and control; the school becomes
primarily a bureaucratic organization; and the first and
unremitting duties of the staff are those of official management
and accountancy。 The further qualifications requisite in the
members of the academic staff will be such as make for
vendibility; volubility; tactful effrontery; conspicuous
conformity to the popular taste in all matters of opinion; usage
and conventions。
The need of such a businesslike organization asserts itself
in somewhat the same degree in which the academic policy is
guided by considerations of magnitude and statistical renown; and
this in turn is somewhat closely correlated with the extent of
discretionary power exercised by the captain of erudition placed
in control。 At the same time; by provocation of the facilities
which it offers for making an impressive demonstration; such
bureaucratic organization will lead the university management to
bend its energies with somewhat more singleness to the parade of
magnitude and statistical gains。 It also; and in the same
connection; provokes to a persistent and detailed surveillance
and direction of the work and manner of life of the academic
staff; and so it acts to shut off initiative of any kind in the
work done。(1*)
Intimately bound up with this bureaucratic officialism and
accountancy; and working consistently to a similar outcome; is
the predilection for 〃practical efficiency〃 that is to say; for
pecuniary success prevalent in the American community。(2*)
This predilection is a matter of settled habit; due; no doubt; to
the fact that preoccupation with business interests characterizes
this community in an exceptional degree; and that pecuniary
habits of thought consequently rule popular thinking in a
peculiarly uncritical and prescriptive fashion。 This pecuniary
animus falls in with and reinforces the movement for academic
accountancy; and combines with it to further a so…called
〃practical〃 bias in all the work of the schools。
It appears; then; that the intrusion of business principles
in the universities goes to weaken and retard the pursuit of
learning; and therefore to defeat the ends for which a university
is maintained。 This result follows; primarily; from the
substitution of impersonal; mechanical relations; standards and
tests; in the place of personal conference; guidance and
association between teachers and students; as also from the
imposition of a mechanically standardized routine upon the
members of the staff; whereby any disinterested preoccupation
with scholarly or scientific inquiry is thrown into the
background and falls into abeyance。 Few if any who are competent
to speak in these premises will question that such has been the
outcome。 To offset against this work of mutilation and
retardation there are certain gains in expedition; and in the
volume of traffic that can be carried by any given equipment and
corps of employees。 Particularly will there be a gain in the
statistical showing; both as regards the volume of instruction
offered; and probably also as regards the enrolment; since
accountancy creates statistics and its absence does not。
Such increased enrolment as may be due to businesslike
management and methods is an increase of undergraduate enrolment。
The net effect as regards the graduate enrolment apart from
any vocational instruction that may euphemistically be scheduled
as 〃graduate〃 is in all probability rather a decrease than an
increase。 Through indoctrination with utilitarian (pecuniary)
ideals of earning and spending; as well as by engendering
spendthrift and sportsmanlike habits; such a businesslike
management diverts the undergraduate students from going in for
the disinterested pursuit of knowledge; and so from entering on
what is properly university work; as witness the relatively
slight proportion of graduate students outside of the
professional schools who come up from the excessively large
undergraduate departments of the more expansive universities; as
contrasted with the number of those who come into university work
from the smaller and less businesslike colleges。
The ulterior consequences that follow from such businesslike
standardization and bureaucratic efficiency are evident in the
current state of the public schools; especially as seen in the
larger towns; where the principles of business management have
had time and scope to work out in a fair degree of consistency。
The resulting abomination of desolation is sufficiently
notorious。 And there appears to be no reason why a similarly
stale routine of futility should not overtake the universities;
and give similarly foolish results; as fast as the system of
standardization; accountancy and piece…work goes consistently
into effect; except only for the continued enforced employment
of a modicum of impracticable scholars and scientists on the
academic staff; whose unbusinesslike scholarly proclivities and
inability to keep the miner's…inch of scholastic credit always