28 / / 29 share accommodation and meals, thereby stimulating intellectual curiosity and thinking, as a means to nurture thoughtful and responsible civil and social leaders, instead of knowledgeable professionals or profiteers who were narrow-minded and self-serving. However, this philosophy of education was met with much resistance. Fortunately, Edward Harkness, a Yale alumnus and an oil tycoon, who proposed to establish a college at Yale similar to Oxbridge but failed to gain full support on Yale’s part, donated instead over 10 million dollars to Harvard in the hope of realising his vision in higher education. And thus, Lowell was able to overcome the obstacles and establish the Harvard House system. In the aforementioned Statutes of Merton College in Oxford, the word ‘House’ was used in its name, in addition to ‘College’. By donning the ‘House’ designation, the new Harvard Houses made a linkage with Oxbridge Colleges. The first two houses were completed in 1930 and named Dunster House and Lowell House. The house system has since become the foundation of the undergraduate experience at Harvard College, with 12 houses dedicated to accommodating undergraduates in their second year and above. First year students are housed in dormitories, commonly known as halls or courts, in or around Harvard Yard. Interestingly, the Housing Day at Harvard, when freshmen find out which House they are assigned to in their sophomore year, is a major event of the university taking place in The Yard each Spring. In 1925, James Rowland Angell, President of Yale University called for the establishment of a residential college system, modelled after Oxbridge, to address the difficulties in cultivating ideal talents, caused by housing shortages and the lack of interpersonal interaction resulting from the increase in student numbers. However, despite the promise of a donation from alumnus Edward Harkness, who also advocated the Oxbridge College system, the university was not able to implement it for a long time. After Harvard received a donation from Harkness to start the House system, Yale pressed on with its initiative and received a donation of nearly 16 million dollars from Harkness to start the project to build residential colleges on campus. Seven colleges were completed in 1933, three more were added by 1940. Presently, there are 14 residential colleges at Yale. Initially, the residential colleges were intended for undergraduate students in their second year and above. From 1962 onwards, all first-year students came to be randomly assigned to the residential colleges. The residential college system has since remained ‘at the heart of the Yale experience’. The houses or residential colleges at Harvard and Yale, modelled after the Oxbridge College system, emphasise the importance of professors and students sharing accommodation and meals in order to build an inclusive learning community and provide mutual support to each other. This was with a view to achieving the effect of steadily and progressively cultivating students’ character. There are important differences with Oxbridge, however, in that the Houses or Colleges at Harvard and Yale are not independent entities, nor are they a place where specialised disciplines are taught. Resident or non-resident academic staff, postgraduate or senior students of the house or the residential college are responsible for providing guidance to students on various aspects of campus life and personal development, as well as general academic counselling. This includes helping with learning difficulties, choice of majors and elective subjects, and academic career planning. Nonetheless, the content of academic counselling is not necessarily related to the academic subject content of a given concentration or major. Oxbridge Colleges provide subject-specific academic education that run parallel to degree-awarding faculties, and have no general education programmes. While Harvard and Yale have majors at the undergraduate level, the general education requirement beyond the area of specialisation covers a wide range of basic academic areas. Harvard achieves this via its general education courses and Yale via its distributional requirements. This, together with the considerable space for other electives allows students to choose a major in the third and fourth years after studying a wide range of subjects in the first two years. Yale, for instance, states that its undergraduate education ‘aims to cultivate a broadly informed, highly disciplined intellect,’ enabling a student to ‘think critically and creatively in a variety of ways’, far more than to focus on the transfer of established knowledge in the major disciplines. In this context, where students are encouraged to pursue their academic interests freely, the diverse academic environment of Harvard and Yale’s residential colleges and their open, non-specialised academic nurturing are undoubtedly more appropriate than the subject-specific academic guidance at Oxbridge. In contrast to Harvard and Yale, Princeton University, which evolved from the Col lege of New Jersey founded in 1746, is one of the top research universities but retains more of the liberal arts tradition of the liberal arts colleges. The university’s educational aims place particular emphasis on being ‘in service of humanity’. The informal motto of the university, which is carved into a stone medallion on its campus, declares the commitment of ‘Princeton in the nation’s service and the service of humanity’. Princeton places liberal arts education at the heart of the university’s mission, broadening students’ horizons and shaping their character and values. Students are encouraged to explore ideas and methods in the humanities, arts, sciences, engineering and social sciences, to hone their reading and writing skills and to think holistically. These are considered the cornerstones of a successful career, so that graduates can assume responsibility as leaders in society, to serve their country and humanity, and to pursue a meaningful life that puts common good first. To achieve these educational goals more effectively, Princeton has established six residential colleges since the 1980s, each of which combines communal dining, living with community, and academic guidance. The university believes that the social bonds and cohesiveness of residential colleges are essential to engendering in students in the fundamental values of honesty, integrity and fairness. The Dean and the Director of Studies at Princeton’s residential colleges are responsible for overseeing the academic progress of the students, placing greater emphasis on the integration of academics and personal development than Harvard or Yale. These residential colleges now constitute one of Princeton’s most important features. All first-year students are assigned to residential colleges and may choose alternative accommoda t i on f rom t he t h i rd yea r onwa rds . Princeton’s undergraduate liberal arts education explicitly emphasises nurturing the character of its students through residential colleges as the foundation of their moral and professional development. The 20th century saw the complete westernisation of Chinese higher education. In 1923, Hu Shi delivered a speech entitled ‘A Brief History of the Shuyuan System’, in which he lamented that the decision to substitute the traditional Chinese shuyuans in the late Qing Dynasty with Western-style education system was unfortunate, for it had discontinued the tradition of shuyuan, which had been a wellspring of research and free thinking for Chinese scholars for over a thousand years. His premise was the comparison between the traditional Chinese academies and the then fashionable Dalton system of education. While one may argue with his interpretation of the traditional shuyuans, his speech clearly indicated the fact that traditional shuyuans as an education system had become obsolete in 20th-century China. Private liberal arts colleges sprang up in Hong Kong in the 1950s. One of them was the New Asia College. At the beginning, it had very few faculty members and students. Teachers shared accommodation and meals with students in a rented flat and shared their knowledge with them in a communal setting. At its founding the college established a set of 24 rules modelled after those of the Song and Ming shuyuans, the leading five articles being: ‘1. It is imperative to pursue knowledge 劍橋市地圖1899 Map of the city of Cambridge 1899 ╚锟⛿㶇䑑剹ꯗ侷芎溸⯽┿♂气 College Education in China and the West in Historical Perspective 睙┞ꌄ | PART I
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