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