The same principle determines our University ideal. The primary test for a degree is "residence"—that is, an adequate share in a general life. Colleges may require attendance at lectures, but the University does not. It demands that a candidate for a degree should have some knowledge—not very much, it is true—but it never asks where or how he got it; it only asks if he has "kept his terms."
At the end of the process there are some failures, of course; but those who represent the system’s success, and they are the great majority, though they may not have any large amount of knowledge, have acquired the instinct to act wisely in almost any emergency with which they may be confronted. Very often they could not give any theoretical ground for acting as they do, for their wisdom is largely sub-conscious or instinctive; but the action is right all the same.
In England we are at the present time witnessing the collision of two educational types, of which I have outlined the older and more traditional. But this collision is itself of such exceeding interest that, at the risk of some repetition, I would venture to sketch out the two opposing types and attempt to indicate the mode of their interaction.
The aim of education may be defined as the attempt to train men and women to understand the world they live in, so that they may be able to assist or resist the tendencies of their time in the light of ideals and standards resting on the widest possible foundation of knowledge and experience.