112 A Baccalaureate Discourse
for himself alone ; he must live for others, be serviceable to
his neighbor, enlighten him, protect him and be his bene-
factor.
* * *
We are aware that there exists a certain feeling of un-
easiness, of discontent rather, among university leaders of
English-speaking America. They complain of the unpre-
paredness of the boys and girls enrolling in their faculties
and of the exaggerated specialization of the students. I have
heard the president of a New England university blankly
acknowledge these two evils at a centennial celebration.
Others believe that modern universities comprise too many
professional schools or so-called faculties and that three or
four of them—really fundamental ones—should suffice. This
has been clearly written by a very clever president of one of
your largest and wealthiest universities. Personally, I en-
dorse the essential in these opinions.
In Quebec, our old system of education has shielded us
from some of these reputed evils. A boy who wishes to be-
come a clergyman, a physician, or a lawyer must, at the age
of twelve, enter one of our thirty-two classical colleges—
thirty-two for a population of 2,500,000—where he will fol-
low an eight-year course of French and English (the two
official languages of the country), Latin and Greek, history,
geography, mathematics and sciences, philosophy and re-
ligion. The aim of this lengthy course is to train the mind
of the young man and to give him a general culture, thor-
oughly disinterested, without specialization in any particular
subject, quite unlike the English curriculum of high schools
and arts course where optional subjects are customary. As a
matter of fact, we consider such options premature and
prejudicial to general training. Note two years of philosophi-