THE AMERICAN
JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY
Volume I September, 1895 Number 2
THE AMERICAN UNIVERSITY.[1]
The signs are multiplying that the ideal of the American university is beginning to take shape. While the creative week which is destined to mould it into perfect realization has by no means run its appointed length and is perhaps even not very far spent, yet the first day's formative "Let there be light!" has sounded. Primordial chaotic indefiniteness has yielded to incipient order and fruit-bearing concentration. Whatever the American university may and should share with the historic institutions of other lands, enough of its destiny and function is even now indicated to bring out in clear relief the lines along which its own peculiar possessions and possibilities must and will develop. It stands to reason that the American university cannot be a slavish replica of however perfect a European model. According to an old legend, even God's revealing voice shaking Sinai's cloud-crowned peaks to the very foundations and waking the whole universe to responsive and awe-struck attention, clothed its one fundamental truth in as many dialects as found sound on human lips. Science, indeed, knows no geographical and no national boundaries. Its curiosity and message are for all climates and times. Yet, no two nations approach its altar by the same paths. Historical conditions which even the master of giant genius may not undo, for they have become a part of himself and of his people, introduce also into its world dominion
- ↑ The "Convocation address" at The University of Chicago, July 1, 1895.
