Universities and Academic Systems in Modern Societies | European Journal of Sociology / Archives Européennes de Sociologie | Cambridge Core (original) (raw)

Extract

Universities engage in teaching and research. They prepare students to become men of action in practical politics, the civil service, the practice of law, medicine, surgery etc. Others studying at universities want to become scholars and scientists whose style of work is far removed from the on-the-spot decisionmaking which is so important among the former category. The professions and disciplines taught and developed at universities require a great variety of manpower and organization of entirely different kinds. Universities nevertheless insist on comprising all of them, in the name of an idea stemming from a time when one person was really able to master all the arts and sciences. They, furthermore, attempt to perform all these complex tasks within the framework of corporate self-government reminiscent of medieval guilds. Indeed there have been serious doubts about the efficiency of the university since the 18th century. Reformers of the “Enlightenment” advocated the abolition of the universities as useless remnants of past tradition and establish in their stead specialized schools for the training of professional people and academies for the advancement of science and learning. This program was actually put into effect by the Revolution and the subsequent reorganization of higher education by Napoleon in France. The present day organization of higher education in the Soviet Union still reflects the belief in the efficiency of specialized professional schools as well as specialized academic research institutions.

References

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(37) Ibid. p. 118 about the reaction in the spirit of Wertfreiheit of the first Congress of German Historians in 1893 to the imperial decree of 1889, directing education to the task of combating revolutionary political doctrines.

(38) E.g. the social sciences; about their limited development, only somewhat modified after the first world war, cf. Flexner, , Universities, op. cit. pp. 328, 332–333.Google Scholar

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(63) For descriptions of the Soviet academic system, cf. DeWitt, Nicholas, Soviet Professional Manpower (Washington, National Science Foundation, 1955)Google Scholar; Korol, Alexander G., Soviet Education for Science and Technology (New York, John Wiley, 1957)Google Scholar; Yelyutin, Vyacheslav, Higher Education in the U.S.S.R. (New York, International Arts and Sciences Press, 1959).Google Scholar

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