William
Hooper's
Critique of Instruction at the
University of North
Carolina, December 19, 1833
Hooper, William, 1792-1876
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The distribution of instruction & the conduct of business in the University of this State is attended with evils which cannot be denied
& which ought no longer to be concealed or endured, if a remedy is
practicable.
While ample provision is made for the tuition of the two upper classes, and the
professors can hardly find recitations enough in those two classes to give
themselves appropriate employment, the two younger classes are consigned almost
totally to the instruction of the tutors. Yet do these two inferior classes
compose a considerable majority of the youth of the
University.
While the Senior & Junior classes generally contain only from fifteen to
twenty, the Sophomore & Freshman will contain often thirty &
thirty five, each. Of the youth who enter, we may say half never reach the
Junior year, certainly half never graduate. Is it then reasonable or right that
so large a proportion of the academical youth of our Country should be under
such incompetent instruction for two years out of four of their collegiate
course? For who are the Tutors to whom their instruction is committed? Almost
always recent graduates, taken just from the ranks of the Students, without
authority of character, & of scholarship scarcely a whit superior to the
classes they are destined to instruct. For the salaries given
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can induce none to accept the tutorship but such as
are in immediate want of funds & then only for a year or six months. As
soon as they hear of a vacancy elsewhere, they leave the
College, all
the benefit of their acquired knowledge & experience & authority
is lost to us, & the business is again shifted into the hands of
novices.
Nor is the effect upon discipline less disastrous than
upon scholarship. Such tutors have no weight of character. Feeling their
impotence they scarcely venture to interfere with the students, but let them
have pretty much their own way, & get along as easily to themselves as
they can. Indeed it is not much to be expected that such novices —
equals today & superiors tomorrow — should command respect
& enforce good order.
What has been the result of this state of things? We may fearlessly say, almost a
total prostration of good scholarship and a considerable relaxation of
discipline. The examinations bear testimony to the lamentable effects of
tutorial instruction. It is in vain to attempt to repair the damage after they
mount up into the superior classes. Inveterate habits of idleness &
loose scholarship have been contracted. Rude, tumultuous manners &
boisterous behavior at the door of the recitation room which we are compelled to
witness too often, bear sad proof of the want of respect & authority of
such tutors as we are now obliged to put up with.
The Professor of Languages, to whose Department
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two
thirds of the studies of the inferior classes belong, has for many years seen
& sorely deplored the state of things, & feels that he cannot be
responsible for scholarship while it continues. Every man at all qualified to
judge, knows, that a professor can do little to promote scholarship if those who
train them for his hands are incompetent. If the
Trustees consider the Classical part
of education valuable, as they have shown that they do by assigning it so large
a portion of the academical course, both preparatory & collegiate, let
them make respectable provision for it, & not stigmatize it by
consigning it to the hands of novices.
Unless this is done parents had better keep their sons in the academies during
the first two years of the college course & not send them to the University till they are qualified to enter the Junior Class. For is
it worth while, is it expedient, that such expense should be incurred as is
involved in a University education, if better instruction can be had at their
own homes? But if parents do choose to incur the
expense, & to hazard their sons' morals at College, ought they to be
imposed on with the belief that the University will of course impart more able
& thorough knowledge, when in fact, for two whole years their sons are
under teaching inferior to what they have left behind them at their own homes?
Let us tell them in good faith, you had better keep your sons at home for they
will be better taught there, with far less expense to you & less
jeopardy of their virtue at that tender age.
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According to the present arrangement of professorships the whole instruction of 3
professors & the partial instruction of a 4th will
be given to the Senior Class; the Junior Class will have the advantage of being
instructed by three Professors, while the Sophomores & Freshman will not
have any share of this large furniture of means but be thrown upon the mercy of
any accidental tutor who may be willing to accept the pittance we give. That is,
of 100 & more University youth, about 65 or 70 are starved with
a meager taste of knowledge, while the favoured minority are stuffed even to
surfeiting.
The above complaints might be made with as much propriety by the mathematical
Professor, but as his studies occupy only about a third of the two first years
while the classical Professor's occupy nearly two thirds, he does not feel the
evil as heavily. But the new professorship will in some measure remedy the
mathematical part because the Professor will be enabled to turn more of his
attention to the inferior classes, while the classical Department will be left
as defenseless as ever, unless the Trustees should be roused by this representation
to employ tutors of higher qualifications. It is my sincere & deliberate
opinion, that two tutors for $600 would be worth more than the 3 to
whom we now give $400 both for tuition & government.