Chapter 90 Section 3 Newman + Humboldt's educational model
The president of the University of California, Berkeley once made such a joke at the graduation ceremony: "Everyone, do you know how our Berkeley graduates used to call Stanford graduates? My boss (My Boss)!" What he meant was The bosses in the company are often people from Stanford, and the people who work are from Berkeley.Then he said: "This phenomenon didn't stop until Eric Schmidt (Google's CEO) came out." Of course, everyone knows that Schmidt is a special case, but the phenomenon he said in the first half of the sentence is common. .Why can Stanford University produce so many outstanding graduates, especially leaders in industry?On the one hand, this is because Stanford has the unique advantages of guarding Silicon Valley, and on the other hand, it is related to its educational methods.
Stanford is very different from the famous universities in the eastern United States, not only in research, but also in undergraduate and graduate education.The prestigious schools in the eastern United States are relatively traditional. In the words of Han Yu in the Tang Dynasty of China, they are preaching, teaching and dispelling doubts.They have strict requirements on both professors and students, and the professors focus on teaching, so the teaching level is very high.For example, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the basic course of calculus for undergraduates has always been taught by the best mathematics professors, which cannot be done at Stanford.Therefore, many students and parents know that they can "learn" more knowledge in famous schools in the east.Stanford, on the other hand, is more inclined to let professors and students develop freely.It is loose on the outside and tight on the inside for both professors and students, and has a much greater degree of freedom. For some students, it may be like a fish in water, but for students who have no motivation, it may be a waste of time.From the perspective of the spread of knowledge alone, Stanford still cannot catch up with the famous schools in the east.Many Stanford professors themselves admit this, and even think that there is a certain gap compared with its neighbor Berkeley.
There are many traditional and geographical reasons for the formation of this difference.Famous universities in the eastern United States, represented by the Ivy League universities such as Harvard, Yale and Princeton, have followed and implemented the European, especially the British early (not modern) traditional "higher education" principles for a long time.The so-called higher education means that universities cultivate high-quality, educated and educated (undergraduate) talents for the society, which is actually the socialization of private aristocratic education.These universities are not vocational education institutions in essence, but places for cultivating gentlemen.This coincides with the educational philosophy of China's Confucius period - the purpose of education is not to impart practical skills and conduct vocational training, but to teach etiquette, self-cultivation and virtue.Until the end of the nineteenth century, education in universities such as Harvard was still dominated by Latin, a bit like ancient China's emphasis on "six arts".In the nineteenth century, due to the emergence of the Oxford Movement in England and the birth of the Humboldt System in Germany, the level of universities in Europe had a qualitative leap.However, there is nothing useful to learn in American universities, so many young people have to go to Europe to study.Fortunately, when Stanford University was born, these two changes in Europe had been completed, and the concept of university education began to change in the United States.
Speaking of modern higher education, two people must be mentioned, the Prussian-German diplomat and educator Humboldt and the British pastor and educator John Newman.
Humboldt was a diplomat of Prussian Germany, but he established a complete Prussian education system that served the industrial society.There is a university in Germany named after him.In this system, vocational education and skills education have become the central tasks of universities, so that what college students learn in school is really useful knowledge, and they will serve the society as soon as they leave the campus.Another characteristic of the Humboldt system is the emphasis on the importance of research to the university, which transformed the university from an educational institution into a comprehensive institution of education and research.In powerful Prussia, a system could easily be promoted from the top down.Thanks to Humboldt's higher education system, Prussia quickly realized industrialization from a small agricultural country in Europe, and became the most powerful country in Europe in the nineteenth century.Germany's higher education has basically followed the system established by Humboldt 150 years ago, ensuring its leading position in the world's industrial and commercial circles.The Humboldt system later had a profound impact on higher education in many countries, including the United States, Russia (the former Soviet Union), and China. (After the founding of the People’s Republic of China, the adjustment of the colleges and universities that separated the science and engineering majors was carried out immediately, and the original comprehensive universities such as Tsinghua University and Peking University were dismantled into liberal arts and science universities, engineering universities, political science and law schools, and medical schools, etc. It came from the Fort system. It is a pity that they did not learn from home and "forgot" to establish a graduate school in the university, so that graduate education has lagged behind.)
The famous American educator Daniel Gilman (Daniel Gilman) and others drew lessons from the strengths of the Humboldt system and transformed many universities in the United States from modern private schools into institutions of higher vocational education and research.Gilman grew up in the eastern United States, but served briefly as president of UC Berkeley on the west coast of the United States.The brief time in California taught Gilman the importance of vocational education in college.Because the California government tried to turn Berkeley into an agricultural university, Gilman's ideal was difficult to realize.At this time, Johns Hopkins University had just been established and hired him as its first president. The stage for Gilman to realize his ideal appeared smoothly.Gilman lived up to expectations, established the first graduate school in the United States at Johns Hopkins University in accordance with the German vocational education model, and turned the school into the first research university in the United States.During his twenty-five-year career as president of Johns Hopkins University, Gilman not only turned the school into a first-class university, but also popularized the concept of research universities in the United States.A few years later, its student Andrew White (Andrew White) also turned Cornell from a small rural college into a world-class research university. (Gilman later served as the president of Carnegie Institute, which established Carnegie Mellon University's world-class position in engineering today.)
educator gilman
The opportunity for the birth of Stanford University was very good. It was the period when American universities were transforming into research universities.In order to find a good president for Stanford University, Leland Stanford visited famous schools in the eastern United States.He met President Andrew White at Cornell University.White won the teacher's true biography, and he talked very speculatively with Stanford, so Stanford hoped that White would accept the post of president of Stanford University.White could not accept the invitation for some reason, and recommended to Stanford his young student, the president of Indiana University David Jordan (David Jordan), who was later the first president of Stanford University.Under the leadership of Jordan, Stanford has avoided the detours that Harvard University and Yale University have gone through for two hundred years from the beginning, and has directly become a research university.
Stanford has always had a tradition of emphasizing research and doctoral education.This is true not only in science and engineering, but also in economics and social science disciplines.Stanford's Hoover Institution is a well-known international relations and policy research center in the United States, and the current Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was originally a scholar there.Stanford University established the Stanford Research Institute (Stanford Research Institute) at the beginning of the last century, and later separated from Stanford University, which is now SRI International, a well-known information technology and defense technology research center in the United States.
Everything has advantages and disadvantages. A professor’s time is limited. The more time he spends on research, the more time he spends on running a company, and the less time he spends on teaching undergraduates.This is why Stanford's undergraduate teaching level cannot catch up with Princeton, nor can it compare with its neighbor Berkeley.But even so, I personally think that an undergraduate can learn more at Stanford than he can at Princeton or Berkeley.This involves the understanding of the concept of the university.
I am not an expert in university education research, and my views may be somewhat one-sided.Regarding the idea of a university, I personally agree with John Newman, the bishop of Oxford and the founder of the Oxford Movement.Newman is a bit like the seeker in Go. In his view, universities are places for spreading universal knowledge rather than trivial skills.Newman said in his famous speech "Ideas of University" (Ideas of University) "Gentlemen, if I have to go to a university that is managed by a teacher and can graduate with enough credits and a university that has no professors and exams. I will not hesitate to choose one of the universities that let young people live together and learn from each other for three or four years...Why? I think this way: when many smart, curious, compassionate When young people with a heart and a keen eye come together, they can learn from each other even if no one is teaching them. They exchange with each other, learn new ideas and perspectives, see new things, and acquire unique behavioral judgments."
I don't know if Oxford still follows Newman's philosophy today.In the United States, many research universities still follow the philosophy of this university while emphasizing vocational training.Harvard Business School (HBS), famous for its vocational education, has actually developed Newman's idea to the extreme.In the most difficult business school in the world, there are never exams.Students learn from each other as much as they gain from their professors.Everyone lives together, usually eats and lives together, and is organized by the school to play together around the world during holidays. The students there are all young, accomplished and ambitious.In a relaxed environment, they can freely acquire professional skills and social knowledge, especially experience in dealing with people.It is no exaggeration to say that those who cannot play with their classmates at Harvard Business School are paying tuition for nothing.Of course, Stanford is not as exaggerated as Harvard Business School in this regard, but it gives undergraduates a similar environment for free development with internal tightness and external looseness.
Newman's educational method requires educated people to have a high degree of self-awareness.As the saying goes, if you are close to vermilion, you will be red, and if you are close to ink, you will be black.If most of the students in a university are problem students and the school does not control them, the university must be in a mess.Therefore, it is difficult for many state universities to implement Newman's concept due to the uneven source of students.Like Harvard Business School, Stanford University has very high entry thresholds. Its annual enrollment is only one-fifth of that of Berkeley. Students who come here hope to achieve success in their careers in the future. The initiative of learning is nothing to worry about.Most undergraduates at Stanford have strong learning ability and can quickly master professional knowledge, so that they have time and energy to learn basic knowledge based on society, which is what Newman called Universal Knowledge.
A second key factor in the success of Newman's educational approach is the diversity of the University's students and cultures.If a university wants its students to master Universal Knowledge, it must allow them to learn in this area, and it must also allow them to learn from each other.You may have such an experience that students who study computers often get together to discuss topics related to computers or technology, and students who study finance often discuss their views on the economy.If a university is composed of the same type of young people, the result of learning from each other's strengths is just to supplement professional knowledge, not Universal Knowledge.Although excellent universities such as Massachusetts Institute of Technology, CalTech and Carnegie Mellon University are no worse than Stanford in terms of engineering, they are too single in terms of majors, courses and student sources.A high school graduate who goes to MIT is clearly there to study science and technology, and so are the students around them.These young people continue to communicate together, and each other is getting more and more sophisticated in technology, with wider internal boundaries and narrower extensions.I've talked to some PhD students at MIT about the pros and cons of various browsers, and they don't talk to you about Microsoft's IE or Mozilla's Firefox, but a tiny browser under Emacs, the word processor more commonly used by Unix users The function of the web page is not only difficult to use, but even less than one ten thousandth of the Internet users in the world use it.What they are talking to you about is who has achieved the best technically.These people can be good scientists and engineers in the future, but it is difficult to start a business.
Stanford University is different. Its student sources are very diverse and diverse.They have everything from liberal arts, engineering, medicine, business to law.Many people don't limit themselves to one major when they come to Stanford.It is conceivable that when a computer doctor talks about a browser with a resident doctor, he must communicate with him in the most popular language instead of commenting on various technologies.At the same time, he can get a doctor's needs for the browser, such as ease of use, security and so on.Students at Stanford University come from many countries and regions around the world.Although half of the graduate schools in American universities are foreigners, many undergraduates are American, state or even native.It is not difficult to imagine that children who grew up in the same area talk about so many topics. It is impossible to imagine the size and diversity of the world without contact with various people.
Many students at Stanford are not only academically outstanding students, but also have a variety of specialties.A friend of mine invested in Goldman Sachs and is a very successful investor. He is also a graduate of Stanford University. When he was young, he was an ATP professional tennis player and was once ranked in the top 20 in the world.For example, in sports, Stanford University has produced many Olympic champions and world champions.Stanford University's swimming team used to be half of the U.S. Olympic swimming team. It has produced a large number of famous swimmers such as Evans, who won four Olympic gold medals.Since 1912, Stanford University has won at least one gold medal in each Olympic Games, with a maximum of seventeen.Stanford University also produced tennis superstar John McEnroe.Stanford University's football and basketball teams are top-notch in the United States.These athletes didn't just get into Stanford on the basis of their athletic performance; most of them also excelled academically.These Olympic champions live in the same building as everyone and attend classes together.
Stanford University does not have a music school, only a small music department.But it's a frequent venue for pianist Stern and cellist Yo-Yo Ma.Stanford University has the largest collection of Rodin sculpture in the world, including his most famous work, The Thinker. (Note: Each of Rodin's sculptures generally has more than one but less than ten authentic works, and the original mold is destroyed after these authentic works are poured. His thinker has several authentic works in France and the United States, and each other There is no difference between them.) The campus environment that is most beneficial to young students is the kind of social environment that is closest to the real life in the future.At Stanford, the composition of personnel is not much different from that of the real society. Every young person is surrounded by leaders in various industries. Learning from each other for a few years in this environment will broaden the scope.For most students, the social knowledge learned in the Stanford years is more helpful to their life than the classroom knowledge.What Larry Page emphasized when he returned to Stanford University to introduce his successful experience after the success of Google was that entrepreneurs should become all-rounders (in his original words, Be an expert in all aspects.) from cultivating all-rounders Stanford University is second to none.
Other universities are willing to learn from Stanford's experience, but it is difficult to succeed.Not to mention that it is difficult for many state universities to compare with Stanford because of the uneven level of students, and it is also difficult for other famous private schools to have both the advantages of Newman education and Humboldt education like Stanford for various reasons.The Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the California Institute of Technology (CalTech) are too singular. Their students start vocational training prematurely, and they are more or less "dumb".Even "comprehensive" universities such as Harvard and Yale have difficulty creating Stanford's miracle. Due to historical reasons, they are very weak in engineering vocational education.Harvard University has always wanted to make up for the deficiencies in engineering. It used its reputation to hire many famous professors, but it still only established an ivory tower-like small-scale engineering school with little influence.At one point it tried unsuccessfully to merge with MIT because the latter was unwilling.
educator gilman
The opportunity for the birth of Stanford University was very good. It was the period when American universities were transforming into research universities.In order to find a good president for Stanford University, Leland Stanford visited famous schools in the eastern United States.He met President Andrew White at Cornell University.White won the teacher's true biography, and he talked very speculatively with Stanford, so Stanford hoped that White would accept the post of president of Stanford University.White could not accept the invitation for some reason, and recommended to Stanford his young student, the president of Indiana University David Jordan (David Jordan), who was later the first president of Stanford University.Under the leadership of Jordan, Stanford has avoided the detours that Harvard University and Yale University have gone through for two hundred years from the beginning, and has directly become a research university.
Stanford has always had a tradition of emphasizing research and doctoral education.This is true not only in science and engineering, but also in economics and social science disciplines.Stanford's Hoover Institution is a well-known international relations and policy research center in the United States, and the current Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was originally a scholar there.Stanford University established the Stanford Research Institute (Stanford Research Institute) at the beginning of the last century, and later separated from Stanford University, which is now SRI International, a well-known information technology and defense technology research center in the United States.
Everything has advantages and disadvantages. A professor’s time is limited. The more time he spends on research, the more time he spends on running a company, and the less time he spends on teaching undergraduates.This is why Stanford's undergraduate teaching level cannot catch up with Princeton, nor can it compare with its neighbor Berkeley.But even so, I personally think that an undergraduate can learn more at Stanford than he can at Princeton or Berkeley.This involves the understanding of the concept of the university.
I am not an expert in university education research, and my views may be somewhat one-sided.Regarding the idea of a university, I personally agree with John Newman, the bishop of Oxford and the founder of the Oxford Movement.Newman is a bit like the seeker in Go. In his view, universities are places for spreading universal knowledge rather than trivial skills.Newman said in his famous speech "Ideas of University" (Ideas of University) "Gentlemen, if I have to go to a university that is managed by a teacher and can graduate with enough credits and a university that has no professors and exams. I will not hesitate to choose one of the universities that let young people live together and learn from each other for three or four years...Why? I think this way: when many smart, curious, compassionate When young people with a heart and a keen eye come together, they can learn from each other even if no one is teaching them. They exchange with each other, learn new ideas and perspectives, see new things, and acquire unique behavioral judgments."
I don't know if Oxford still follows Newman's philosophy today.In the United States, many research universities still follow the philosophy of this university while emphasizing vocational training.Harvard Business School (HBS), famous for its vocational education, has actually developed Newman's idea to the extreme.In the most difficult business school in the world, there are never exams.Students learn from each other as much as they gain from their professors.Everyone lives together, usually eats and lives together, and is organized by the school to play together around the world during holidays. The students there are all young, accomplished and ambitious.In a relaxed environment, they can freely acquire professional skills and social knowledge, especially experience in dealing with people.It is no exaggeration to say that those who cannot play with their classmates at Harvard Business School are paying tuition for nothing.Of course, Stanford is not as exaggerated as Harvard Business School in this regard, but it gives undergraduates a similar environment for free development with internal tightness and external looseness.
Newman's educational method requires educated people to have a high degree of self-awareness.As the saying goes, if you are close to vermilion, you will be red, and if you are close to ink, you will be black.If most of the students in a university are problem students and the school does not control them, the university must be in a mess.Therefore, it is difficult for many state universities to implement Newman's concept due to the uneven source of students.Like Harvard Business School, Stanford University has very high entry thresholds. Its annual enrollment is only one-fifth of that of Berkeley. Students who come here hope to achieve success in their careers in the future. The initiative of learning is nothing to worry about.Most undergraduates at Stanford have strong learning ability and can quickly master professional knowledge, so that they have time and energy to learn basic knowledge based on society, which is what Newman called Universal Knowledge.
A second key factor in the success of Newman's educational approach is the diversity of the University's students and cultures.If a university wants its students to master Universal Knowledge, it must allow them to learn in this area, and it must also allow them to learn from each other.You may have such an experience that students who study computers often get together to discuss topics related to computers or technology, and students who study finance often discuss their views on the economy.If a university is composed of the same type of young people, the result of learning from each other's strengths is just to supplement professional knowledge, not Universal Knowledge.Although excellent universities such as Massachusetts Institute of Technology, CalTech and Carnegie Mellon University are no worse than Stanford in terms of engineering, they are too single in terms of majors, courses and student sources.A high school graduate who goes to MIT is clearly there to study science and technology, and so are the students around them.These young people continue to communicate together, and each other is getting more and more sophisticated in technology, with wider internal boundaries and narrower extensions.I've talked to some PhD students at MIT about the pros and cons of various browsers, and they don't talk to you about Microsoft's IE or Mozilla's Firefox, but a tiny browser under Emacs, the word processor more commonly used by Unix users The function of the web page is not only difficult to use, but even less than one ten thousandth of the Internet users in the world use it.What they are talking to you about is who has achieved the best technically.These people can be good scientists and engineers in the future, but it is difficult to start a business.
Stanford University is different. Its student sources are very diverse and diverse.They have everything from liberal arts, engineering, medicine, business to law.Many people don't limit themselves to one major when they come to Stanford.It is conceivable that when a computer doctor talks about a browser with a resident doctor, he must communicate with him in the most popular language instead of commenting on various technologies.At the same time, he can get a doctor's needs for the browser, such as ease of use, security and so on.Students at Stanford University come from many countries and regions around the world.Although half of the graduate schools in American universities are foreigners, many undergraduates are American, state or even native.It is not difficult to imagine that children who grew up in the same area talk about so many topics. It is impossible to imagine the size and diversity of the world without contact with various people.
Many students at Stanford are not only academically outstanding students, but also have a variety of specialties.A friend of mine invested in Goldman Sachs and is a very successful investor. He is also a graduate of Stanford University. When he was young, he was an ATP professional tennis player and was once ranked in the top 20 in the world.For example, in sports, Stanford University has produced many Olympic champions and world champions.Stanford University's swimming team used to be half of the U.S. Olympic swimming team. It has produced a large number of famous swimmers such as Evans, who won four Olympic gold medals.Since 1912, Stanford University has won at least one gold medal in each Olympic Games, with a maximum of seventeen.Stanford University also produced tennis superstar John McEnroe.Stanford University's football and basketball teams are top-notch in the United States.These athletes didn't just get into Stanford on the basis of their athletic performance; most of them also excelled academically.These Olympic champions live in the same building as everyone and attend classes together.
Stanford University does not have a music school, only a small music department.But it's a frequent venue for pianist Stern and cellist Yo-Yo Ma.Stanford University has the largest collection of Rodin sculpture in the world, including his most famous work, The Thinker. (Note: Each of Rodin's sculptures generally has more than one but less than ten authentic works, and the original mold is destroyed after these authentic works are poured. His thinker has several authentic works in France and the United States, and each other There is no difference between them.) The campus environment that is most beneficial to young students is the kind of social environment that is closest to the real life in the future.At Stanford, the composition of personnel is not much different from that of the real society. Every young person is surrounded by leaders in various industries. Learning from each other for a few years in this environment will broaden the scope.For most students, the social knowledge learned in the Stanford years is more helpful to their life than the classroom knowledge.What Larry Page emphasized when he returned to Stanford University to introduce his successful experience after the success of Google was that entrepreneurs should become all-rounders (in his original words, Be an expert in all aspects.) from cultivating all-rounders Stanford University is second to none.
Other universities are willing to learn from Stanford's experience, but it is difficult to succeed.Not to mention that it is difficult for many state universities to compare with Stanford because of the uneven level of students, and it is also difficult for other famous private schools to have both the advantages of Newman education and Humboldt education like Stanford for various reasons.The Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the California Institute of Technology (CalTech) are too singular. Their students start vocational training prematurely, and they are more or less "dumb".Even "comprehensive" universities such as Harvard and Yale have difficulty creating Stanford's miracle. Due to historical reasons, they are very weak in engineering vocational education.Harvard University has always wanted to make up for the deficiencies in engineering. It used its reputation to hire many famous professors, but it still only established an ivory tower-like small-scale engineering school with little influence.At one point it tried unsuccessfully to merge with MIT because the latter was unwilling.