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said in class, trying to lighten thestudents' burden of earnestness.

Given a student body like ours,one can't really object to vocationally-tied "professional education." A"pure" liberal arts college would failmiserably in Flint if it had to de-pend on local clientele. It would beunattractive to, and misunderstoodby, potential students. Flint's mix-ture of teacher education, business ad-ministration and liberal arts may wellbe the proper mix for shaking upsimple life orientations and for intro-ducing—at least to a few—the com-plexity and strain toward idealswhich are the badge and burden ofintellectuals. Of course, it is neces-sary to object when, with a studentbody whose objectives are already lim-ited, professional programs exhibitoverconcern with minimum require-ments for "certification" or employ-ment. This makes vocational educa-tion even weaker than it need be,

and hinders the necessary fight totransform the seriousness of the work-ing class student into intellectual ex-citement and enthusiasm.

For all this, Flint College turns outteachers and junior executives whoare more broadly educated and moreinteresting than those produced byvarious schools of education or busi-ness in many large universities. It issimply too soon to say how well wewill do in that other, larger task ofhigher education—the development ofa creative minority capable of iden-tifying and overcoming the challengeof our time.

NOTE: I am indebted to the members ofa sociology class in the fall of 1960 whointerviewed a random sample survey ofeighty-six Flint College students: A Bren-des, A. Brooks, B. Brown, E. Butler, J.Fisher, T. Gendron, M. Leavy, R. Martin,P. McKinney, J. Morrissey, G. Moss, M.Redmond, S. Scott, J. Thurman and I.Wilson.

3. San Jose: PortraitOf a Second Rate College

An Observer

Over nineteen thou-sand students registered at San JoseState College this fall, two thousandmore than a year ago. This rate ofincrease is common among Californiacolleges, where the shock of the pop-ulation explosion has been felt yearafter year. In 1975, when an estimated660,000 students will be enrolled inCalifornia's public institutions of high-

er learning, the state still plans to of-fer each student not only a place tosit and a book to read, but the bestpublic education in the nation. Thisextraordinary optimism is based upona Master Plan for Higher Education,adopted in 1960.

The Master planners had to recon-cile rising enrollments with limited in-come. They had to accommodate the

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Plan to existing institutions—the Uni-versity of California, the CaliforniaState Colleges and the junior colleges.They solved the problem by eliminat-ing "wasteful" duplication, makingclear delineations of function andchanneling students into institutionssuited to their presumed abilities.They opened up the junior collegesto all high school graduates, reservedthe State Colleges for the upper thirdand the University for the upper tenth.The planners began with an excellentstate university and a group of mostlysecond-rate colleges. It was easy to de-cide to maintain the excellence of theuniversity, but they made this excel-lence exclusive. In the delineation ofof function between the schools, re-search and scholarship were assignedto the University and teaching to theState Colleges; thus the Plan placedbounds on a vital part of the intel-lectual life of the Colleges.

There are seventeen State Collegesin California; they enroll over 100,000students, twice as many as the Uni-versity. Will this large and growingnumber of students receive a second-rate education in these Colleges? Inthe opinion of this writer, the MasterPlan guarantees that they will, becauseit assigns the Colleges a second-rateoperating budget and largely ignoresthe problems of their second-rate past.

One of these second-rate colleges isSan Jose State, oldest institution ofhigher learning in California andlargest of the State Colleges. San Joseis located in one of the fastest grow-ing metropolitan areas in the country;within an hour's drive are San Fran-cisco and the universities at Stanfordand Berkeley. The faculty is well qual-

ified and the students are from theupper third of high school graduates.Nevertheless San Jose is mediocre. InCalifornia it is known to students andto the public as a "party school."

San Jose began its career in 1855,when a group of San Francisco citi-zens established Minn's Normal Schoolto train "moral young men and wom-en" as teachers. The founders urgedan ideal of cautious teaching, andtheir conservatism became the school'stradition. When San Francisco provedto be too great a danger to the mor-als of the students, the school, by thencalled the State Normal School, wasmoved to San Jose. In supporting thenew location, the State Superintend-ent of Education offered this argu-ment:

Where should the State NormalSchool be permanently located?...To locate the Normal School inSan Francisco would be droppinga drop of literature into an oceanof mammon. Neither Oakland norBerkeley is the place; in either ofthese towns the Normal Schoolwould be so overshadowed by theState University, with its magnifi-cent endowment and huge propor-tions, that it would be like a sick-ly little plant in the shade of agreat oak. -. Sacramento has theState Capital; Stockton has theState Insane Asylum; Oakland hasthe University ... ; San Franciscohas several institutions that receivestate aid; San Jose has nothing. [B.F. Gilbert, Pioneers For One Hun-dred Years, San Jose State College,1857-1957 (San Jose, 1957, p. 47).]

In 1870 the school was moved tothe town that had nothing. The SanJose Mercury, today the town's onlynewspaper, reassured the townsfolkabout the sort of people the schoolwould bring: "Unlike a college or uni-versity that attracts many fast and mis-chievous young men, not a desirableacquisition to any community, the

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Normal School comprises only themost desirable class of young people."

The school passed through severalchanges but preserved its original char-acter. In 1887 it became San JoseState Normal School; in 1921, SanJose State Teachers College; and in1935, San Jose State College—a typicalhistory. Its president during the tran-sition from Teachers College to StateCollege was Thomas MacQuarrie, whofavored manual training and dis-avowed the notion that a student berequired to have a "cultural educa-tion." From 1927 to 1952 MacQuarrieran the school like a personal satrapy,seeking no counsel from the faculty,while he fostered the kind of prac-tical education he had described inhis inaugural address: "There existsa demand for a college offering edu-cation for immediate use and San Joseis such a college."

In 1952, a new president took con-trol. John T. Wahlquist, a formerDean at the University of Utah, en-couraged liberal education but did notconsider it basic for the State Colleges:"the institutions designed to bringhigher education to the greatest num-ber at the lowest cost ... must con-tinue to emphasize the practical as-pect of education."

Wahlquist accepted the educationalphilosophy traditional to San JoseState and the functions awarded to itby the legislature and enforced by theSuperintendent of Public Instruction—the ultimate head of the State Collegesat that time. However, by 1952, the col-lege was already growing rapidly. Inits growth, it inexorably took on thescope of a university and became lesslike a teacher's training institute. Asa consequence, the ways of autocracybecame increasingly inappropriate andinefficient; but, except for innocuous

faculty advisory committees, Wahlquistcontinued to exercise enormous presi-dential powers.

The Master Plan brought one majorimprovement—a new governing boardfor the State Colleges. Until this change,they had suffered under the manage.ment of the State Superintendent ofInstruction and the random attentionsof the State Board of Education, theDepartment of Finance, the PublicWorks Board, the State PersonnelBoard, the Division of Ar-hitecture,and the Legislature itself. 1 he powerswere now collected and vested in aBoard of Trustees, which would havea Chancellor of the State Colleges as itschief executive officer; nevertheless, theState Legislature and various adminis-trative bodies would continue to exer-cise greater power over them than overthe University. Indeed, the plan codi-fied the traditional distinction betweenthe two systems of higher educationin California.

Except in regard to the new gov-erning board, the Master Plan benefit-ed only the University of California.The University, which had the powerand prestige to coerce the State Collegepresidents into agreement, was interest-ed only in preserving its privilegedclaim on state funds and in guaran-teeing that the state colleges wouldnot improve enough to encroach ontheir prestigious domain. Inevitably,the University monopolized both basicand applied research and was desig-nated as the repository for "uniquelibrary resources needed for graduatetraining and research programs." Re-search libraries were not deemed nec-essary for the State Colleges, whoseparamount function was instruction

and who were to provide facilities ap-

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propriate only to the degrees offered.Yet the Colleges were to carry on"faculty research, using facilities pro-vided for and consistent with the pri-mary function of the state colleges."Obviously, this distinction of functionfrustrates the scholarship of State Col-lege faculties and limits the intellect.ual horizons of the students.

"Function" also affects the distribu-tion of public money. The MasterPlan and the annual budgets are sup-plied with figures to show that thecost of undergraduate teaching is aboutthe same at the State Colleges and theUniversity. Only in graduate instruc-tion are the University figures marked-ly higher. But this only means thatmany of the major expenses which di-rectly benefit the faculty and the un-dergraduate students at the Universityare charged to graduate and researchneeds, the province and ornament ofthe University. The true effect ofspending policies is clearer in a com-parison of total expenditures at SanJose State and the Berkeley campus ofthe University. In 1961-62, Berkeleyhad 23,000 students and spent approxi-mately $50,000,000 for current opera-tions. In the same year, San Jose had15,784 students and spent approximate-ly $13,000,000. The average cost perstudent at Berkeley was $2,175, or twoand a half times the $820 cost per stu-dent at San Jose. The Berkeley libraryoffered 124 books per student, whileSan Jose had only 19. Berkeley spentnearly four million for its libraries;San Jose, $679,391.

The Legislature's generosity to theUniversity is demoralizing for the StateCollege teacher, because the state af-fords it by economizing in the StateColleges. Last year, the State CollegeTrustees requested $500,000 for re-search for 5,000 faculty members at the

seventeen State Colleges; the Legisla-ture gave them nothing. Any economyin the State Colleges could be justifiedby reference to their "function" asdefined in the Master Plan. At SanJose, the quality of the faculty hasbeen maintained by occasional salaryincreases to keep pay about equal tosimilar colleges; California's climatedoes the rest.

The Master Plan is a formidableobstacle to the improvement of theState Colleges. If the primary distinc-tion is that the University offers grad-uate training and the State Collegesdo not, then, at least, the undergradu-ate education the State Colleges offershould be in no way inferior to thatat the University. But the educationwill necessarily be inferior. Everyteacher knows that study and researchform the very basis of intellectual lifeand consequently of college teaching:scholarship and "instruction" cannotsuccessfully be separated. The intentand effect of the planners in separat-ing them is to offer two kinds of un-dergraduate education; expensive atthe University and cheap at the StateColleges.

Because of the University, Californiahas an undeservedly high reputationfor its public support of higher educa-tion. In fact, it spends relatively little.In the years from 1952 to 1958, Cali-fornia ranked thirty-fourth among thestates in the percentage of personal in-come (0.46%) spent on public highereducation. Among states west of theMississippi, only Nevada ranked lower.On the basis of current state expendi-ture and education costs, the Masterplanners predicted that, in 1975, an-nual budgets for higher educationwould be $197 millions more thanprojected available appropriations.The State Colleges will thus be thrown

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into increasing competition with theUniversity for the taxpayer's dollars,and it is unlikely their financial situa-tion will improve. As the Master Plannow operates, it enjoins the State Col-leges to be excellent teaching institu-tions while denying them the means.In good nineteenth-century fashion, itencourages the poor to be rich.

IIIThe function assigned to the State

Colleges by the Master Plan does notseem to conflict with President Wahl-quist's philosophy of Education. Wahl-quist equates education with teachingin the most literal sense. At San Josethere seems little appreciation of theposition that good teaching arises froma creative and vigorous intellectuallife; nor is there much sympathy foror understanding of the intellectual asa type. Instead, teaching is equatedwith training in an efficient nine tofive environment.

President Wahlquist makes his ideaof a college teacher explicit whenhe greets new faculty members eachfall. In his welcoming remarks, hebegins by assuming that the maininterests of his listeners are keepingtheir new jobs and finding a place topark their cars. His advice on how toget tenure and promotion—come toclass on time; let your class out ontime; don't cause trouble in your de-partment; be nice to your studentseven if you have a headache. Tameand tenured professors are easy to con-trol because they have no intellectualenergy. Men who are contented andwho do not question the presentscheme of things will prosper at SanJose.

It might seem odd that good menstay at San Jose under such circum-stances, but many do. The vagaries of

the academic marketplace leave somestranded; others stay from preference.With little pressure to publish, mendo not need to sell their souls to schol-arly fashion in order to keep their jobs.If the faculty produces few works ofmajor scholarship, still it bears little re-sponsibility for the shelves of academicnonsense written by desperate menstriving for promotion. Because SanJose has no status to preserve, it is freefrom the cant which mars a campusconcerned with its relative prestige.There is no need for charlatanry andlittle exists. It would be an equivocalimprovement if San Jose had to acceptthe evils of the prestigious universityin order to gain the status of a first-rate college!

Most of the students, not aware ofthe difference between a good and abad college, get their degree with theleast possible effort. But the "fast, in-tellectually mischievous" young menand women, who in another age wouldhave gone to Berkeley, are deeply dis-satisfied. If they have the grades andmoney, a sizable number, with thestrong encouragement of their profes-sors, leave for Berkeley after two years.It is not wise for an ambitious studentto stay at San Jose. Few graduates re-ceive fellowships or assistantships ingood graduate schools. The college hasproduced a surprisingly small numberof academic or professional men.There is no way of escaping the factthat a degree from San Jose is inferior.

Forty million dollars' worth of statepenal architecture has permanentlymarred what was once a beautiful andpeaceful old campus. New drive-ineducation is available from seven-thirtyin the morning till ten at night, dis-pensed from easy-to-clean concreteshelters. For the State College profes-sor, the great threat is that he may

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turn into a teaching machine and givethe state only what it asks—instructionwithout intellectual excitement.

The president of San Jose has a pro-gram for the students which fits hisconcept of education as training. Whentaking office, he said, "I, for one, wouldnot deny [the student] all the liberaleducation he can assimilate in the timeat his disposal." San Jose students, incommon with most students in pub-licly supported institutions, are morededicated to their social than their in-tellectual life. President Wahlquistseems to accept this view of college life.Last fall he told the new faculty that

... our students live only one life,and the college period should bethe most happy one of all. Ofcourse, [the students] are beset withall the problems that bother us,and I certainly have no desire tobelittle the problems that surroundus all and could not, if I wished

to do so. They are so real and self-evident. But in the days of theiryouth, they are entitled to somehappiness and some optimism onthe part of those who surroundthem. They may be in for somegreat troubles and tribulations;they likely are. But, meantime, let'ssee if we can help them live dayby day with some feelings of se-curity, some faith in our form ofgovernment, some appreciation ofour institutions, and some love fortheir fellowman.

One thousand contented professorssurrounding twenty thousand happystudents might be a thing of rare de-light, but it is not the way to achieveacademic excellence.

President Wahlquist has announcedhis retirement, effective next Septem-ber. It will be interesting to see if thenew president can stimulate the col-lege to overcome the disabilities of SanJose's history and its function underthe Master Plan.