American Academy of Political and Social Science

Higher Education in Comparative Perspective

Author(s): George Z. F. Bereday
Source: Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. 404, American
Higher Education: Prospects and Choices (Nov., 1972), pp. 21-30
Published by: Sage Publications, Inc. in association with the American Academy of Political and Social
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 Higher Education in ComparativePerspective
By GEORGEZ. F. BEREDAY

ABSTRACT:Higher education in global overview falls into

two models. Most countries follow the elitist pattern of re-
cruitment, and their efforts on behalf of modernity are tem-
pered by nineteenth-century style. Their reforms reenact
familiar historical precedents. Four countries: the United
States, Canada, the USSR, and Japan, have moved to mass
higher education. Europe, too, has recently begun making sig-
nificant steps in that direction. These countries are a target
of parallel reform aspirations: demands for expanded enroll-
ment, for more equitable social class distribution, and for up-
grading of non-university institutions to university ranks.
Their universities are under pressure to participate in political
life and local government, to streamline the structure of gov-
ernance, and to admit a measure of public control. The West-
ern European countries are in a somewhat special situation
because their enrollments in postcompulsory education are a
quarter of an age group less, and their reforms tend to be
structural rather than, as in the others, curricular. Among
mass-higher-educationcountries, the USSR and Japan are in
many respects closer to Europe than to North America. They
favor a guided method of reform from above, while those of
North Americagrow and change in a grass roots fashion. The
arrival of the mass of students makes authoritarian control
difficult to maintain.

George Z. F. Bereday is Professor of Comparative Education and Director of the

Center for Education in Industrial Nations at Teachers College, Columbia University.
He was Exchange Professor at Moscow University in 1961, Fulbright Professor at Tokyo
University in 1962, and Wolfson Lecturer at Oxford in 1971. He is, among others,
author of ComparativeMethod in Education,Modernizationand Diversity in Soviet
Education,and AmericanEducationthroughJapaneseEyes. In 1970-71 he served as
Consultantto the Organizationfor EconomicCooperationand Developmentin Paris in
theirstudies on innovationsin highereducation.
This article is adaptedfrom the forthcomingbook tentatively entitled: Towardsthe
Universityfor the Masses: North America,USSR, Japan, Europe (Jossey-Bass).
21
22 THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY
H IGHER education in global over-
view can be separated into two
models. In modernizing countries, the
panorama of universities and higher
schools resemblesthe nineteenth-century
European prototypes. Even in fast-
developing China, Turkey, or Puerto
Rico, tertiary institutions touch the lives
of less than 10 percent of the age group,
and their style is that of elitist, intensely
specialized, theory-minded,academic in-
stitutions.
The story of the northern industrial
belt of countries is a different matter.
Time-honoredcriteria for arrangingand
evaluating university life fit less and
less well the new academic realities. In
the United States and Canada, in the
USSR, and in Japan, a new common
higher-educationprofile is emerging. A
quarter or more of the age group has
found a place in higher education.
These countries have doubled their stu-
dent population in the last decade. The
countries of North-West Europe are a
somewhat special case. They have
tripled their student enrollment in ten
years, but they still bring up the rear.
The proportion of the age group accom-
modated in higher education in Euro-
pean countries ranges from 10 to 25
percent. Also, even in countries of
higher growth, such as Sweden and
France, nineteenth-century traditions of
academic conservatism are strong. Eu-
rope is a hybrid model, and its evolution
is a sensitive index of the changes in-
vading or impending in the rapidly
homogenizing mass higher education
club.
Within this club the structure and
style of the universities of Japan and
the USSR are still closer to Europe than
to North America, and university enroll-
ment can hardly be said to exceed that
of France or Sweden. But taking post-
compulsory years as a whole, these four
countries enroll beyond the age of six-
teen from 50 to 75 percent of the age
groups-a differenceof a quarter of the
age group when compared with Euro-
pean countries. Recent OECD (Organi-
zation for Economic Cooperation and
Development) studies have established
that changes in population statistics,
rate of innovations, or rate of economic
growth have less to do with university
expansion than the growth of secondary
school enrollments. One may forecast,
therefore, that in the near future these
four countries will come closer in levels
of enrollmentsand evolve similar models
of mass higher education.
The climate of opinion among aca-
demic faculties of Europe makes one, on
the whole, less sanguine that the gap
between the ancestress of the universi-
ties and her more dynamic offshoots
across the seas will be speedily bridged.
But that is a differencein degree, not in
kind. All industrial countries are af-
fected by similar phenomena, and the
range of responses they are permitted
precludes denying, and allows only for
acquiescing in, or at best delaying, the
impending changes.
COMMONREFORMTRENDS IN
INDUSTRIALCOUNTRIES
The first new factor these countries
face is the intensity with which young
people in the deciles of the intelligence
curve traditionally deemed unsuitable
for university education are now de-
manding it. As it becomes apparent
that the old notions of ability are so-
cially "loaded," and that widening the
range of talents diversifies standards
without necessarily lowering them, one
of the fiercest battles is joined on the
issue of the liberalization of university
admission. This battle is the fiercest in
the USSR, Japan, and Europe. Euro-
pean universities, in particular, are
aghast at the impressive percentages of
the relevant age group that pass through
 HIGHER EDUCATION IN COMPARATIVE
the university gates in the United States,
and will no doubt soon do so in Japan,
Canada, and the USSR. These coun-
tries envisage university education for
a third of their youth. In Europe, the
prospect of one-sixth raises blood pres-
sures to apoplectic levels, both among
the advocates and the opponents of re-
form. Liberta d'accesso, the freedom of
access recently granted in Italy, appeals
to the government and the political
parties, but hardly to all, or even most,
of the alumni and professors. Nonethe-
less, Europeanhigher education has been
expanding faster than that in the mass-
higher-education countries. In the
USSR and Japan, in which three-quar-
ters of the age group are graduated
from secondary schools but only one-
quarter is permitted to continue in the
universities, the tensions generated by
this bottleneck have been formidable.
How many to admit is one part of the
question; whom to choose among all
those who clamor for entry is the second
part. In all countries, even in the
USSR, more than half the university
places go to the children of the well-to-
do, who are rarely more than 20 percent
of the population. This well-known
sociological fact has recently received
much publicity, followed, alas, as usual
by too little action. Entrance to uni-
versities is so restricted that some of
the social drive for wider entrance was
bound to be diverted into condemnation
of hereditary university education. So-
cial justice in educational selection, how-
ever, is no easy matter. The fact that
the children of the well-to-do score
highly on almost any entrance test
makes it difficult to dislodge them.
Very few so far have suggested admis-
sion by lottery, as recently tried by a
few colleges in America. But the odium
against les Heritiers, the socially privi-
leged students who are said to succeed
intellectually because the tests them-
PERSPECTIVE 23
selves are biased in their favor, is in-
creasing. The emerging question in
higher education everywhereis what pri-
ority to assign to the bright sons of the
poor. It would not be far off the mark
to look at the whole question of innova-
tion in mass higher education today
from the viewpoint of the admission
gate.
Academic recognition
The next new factor is the Horatio
Alger ideal which now affects and at-
tracts not only individuals, but also
institutions. In the old days, the prob-
lem was simply how to get into a uni-
versity. Now there is the added prob-
lem of how to become a university.
From Stirling in Scotland to Regensburg
in Germany, several new universities
have been created, and this sudden post-
war wave came about on the initiative
or with the approval of the existing uni-
versities. But the upward ambition of
existing non-universityinstitutions is an-
other matter. They can no longer be
kept in their places by simple sneers at
their ridiculous pretensions. The twi-
light zone of minor colleges and institu-
tions training teachers or technicians is
demanding academic recognition,partial
at first, but ultimately complete. In
the older dual systems of education, the
teaching body of these institutions came
from a lesser world, holding vocational
diplomas, or at best, clutching the hard-
earned evening school baccalaureate or
Abitur. Now they are likely to be
alumni of their own institutions, or
college men chafing under a sense of
inferiority. From a National College of
Horology in England, to a Pidagogische
Hochschule in Germany, their theme
song is the same. They rail against the
Philologen who deny them equality.
Various ways are being tried, some-
times to satisfy such ambitions, and
sometimes to thwart them. Der zweite
24 THE ANNALS OF THE
Weg, the second route to the university,
seems to hold out promise of inclusion;
binary systems promise equivalence in-
stead. It is easy to guess how soon
those who opt for the latter will demand
the former. After World War II, Japan
all at once found itself with over two
hundred teacher training colleges and
minor institutions suddenly converted
into universities under pressure from the
American occupation authorities. It is
easy to imagine how the seventeen im-
perial universities must have felt when
confronted with this apparition. The
old-established universities everywhere
and especially in Europe where they are
most "old-established" are sooner or
later due for a similar shock. It is only
necessary to talk, for example, to the
teaching staff of British polytechnics to
gauge the angry aspirationsand frustra-
tions of the sub-university postsecond-
ary system. These sectors of post-
secondary education are on the march,
and the reverberations are felt in aca-
demic halls everywhere.
Next, widening the gates of higher
education and adding new gates has had
its effect on the ancient academic struc-
tures themselves. University govern-
ment has had to adjust itself to new
men and new institutions. The main
thrust and the greatest shock is internal,
in the attempt to deprive chair-holders
of their power. Like the guilds from
which they have sprung, the universities
are not democracies,but republics. The
professors are said to behave, like so
many doges of Venice, as absolute and
conservative rulers. But a true republic
of princes, pure self-government of
teachers, survives only in very few insti-
tutions. Only places such as Oxford
continue to be governed by hebdomadal
councils of professors and heads of col-
leges, elected to the vice-chancellorship
in rotation. Elsewhere, the universities
have had to surrender some of their
AMERICAN ACADEMY
prerogatives to the state, to the church,
to the cities, or to other financing orga-
nizations. But this is no longer enough.
The right of professors to be consulted
on all university decisions is so vast and
their powers of veto so extensively used
that they, who should be, and sometimes
are, the most liberal of men, have
come under suspicion. Plans to convert
the university structure based on chairs
into one based on departments have
seemed to be the answer in several coun-
tries. The United States, as originator
of the system, and Japan and Canada,
as the first to adopt it, have emerged as
the common model.
Such conversion has not exempted
even these countries from criticism. All
universities, whether run by chairs or
by departments,are bitterly taunted for
going through a period of decline.
Many say that the political atmosphere
within the universities today is un-
healthy. Where there is no inertia,
intrigue has taken its place. Decision-
making has degenerated into die-hard
stands and power politics. Subtle
games of social or intellectual snobbery
have often operated to contain one
group while protecting another. Most
recently, alliances by age have elevated
the latent rebellion of youth against
adults to the status of an open social
phenomenon. Two new war cries, jun-
ior staff power and student power, have
been widely recognized. They may
very soon become a reality.
Yet another tremor that is shaking
the mass-university system may well
bring down the ivory tower in ruins.
Outside the university walls, public
opinion has been taking a new stand on
its partnership in determining univer-
sity affairs. Most public leaders today
are university graduates, but their loy-
alty as alumni seems outweighed by
their irritation with the decay of their
alma mater. The enlarged scope of uni-
 HIGHER EDUCATION
versity education calls for more financial
support from the public purse. The cry
of "no taxation without representation"
is heard everywhere from laymen stand-
ing outside the university gates. Now
that the British universities have had
to agree to having their books audited
by the government, even that unique
bastion of university independence
seems to be abandoning the principle of
public support with no strings attached.
University strongholdshave always been
buffeted by the winds of political and
social doctrine. The whole principle of
lofty isolation must now yield to a con-
cept of partnership between the univer-
sity and the public. This cannot fail to
speed up change, though often causing
it to lack in long-range vision. In a
sense Lernfreiheit, freedom to study as
one pleases, may undermine Lehrfrei-
heit, the freedom of the teaching body
to stand fast in the midst of change.
Attacks on academic tenure are increas-
ing. The first reform of this kind has
already made its appearance in the
USSR in the form of quinquennial
review and reappointment.
EUROPE AND THE MASS-HIGHER-
EDUCATION COUNTRIES CONTRASTED
Although each country gives its own
particular flavor to reforms, Europe
shares with the mass education coun-
tries the fourfold shock treatment it is
experiencing. As in Europe, the Amer-
ican multiuniversity must contend with
the outside pressure for mass admis-
sions. Like the old English universities,
the august Japanese imperial universi-
ties must now learn to live on terms of
equality with a host of teacher training
schools elevated to academic rank.
Universities in the USSR and Canada,
as in other countries, must reckon with
internal pressures from students and
young intellectuals. All industrial coun-
tries must mobilize to defend themselves
IN COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE 25
against outside interference by the pa-
triots, the rich, the party dogmatists, or
the nationalists.
But two lines of reform with which
the mass universities in the United
States, Canada, the USSR, and Japan
have had to contend seem to have less
importance in Europe. First, fights
about university structure have some-
how overshadowed the campaign for
curricular changes. Even the striking
innovations in the otherwise conserva-
tive Italian university curricula, the
liberta dei studii, amount to free choice
among existing subjects in one faculty
rather than the addition of new sub-
jects. The pioneering innovation of
elective subjects at Harvard, sponsored
by President Charles Eliot, has fur-
nished a lesson only half of which is
heeded. The European universities are
reluctant to allow tailor-made curricula
even in established subjects such as law
or philosophy. They seem to be under
little pressure to add to their degree
subjects even less outlandish courses
than bull breeding or bowling. There
is also little pressure to experiment with
new teaching methods. No Paul Good-
man or Marshall McLuhan has clouded
the scene. The old traditions of what
is and what is not appropriate within
university walls still persist. Curricular
reforms in Europe have been hotly de-
bated, and there have been many bold
and creative attempts to introduce
them; but evenwhere they have been
introduced, they have had less signifi-
cance than structural changes.
The only major way in which new
subjects are being brought into the
university scene is when they are
championed by institutions with special
interests, which have already been de-
scribed as seeking university status.
Their bid for recognition is often the
sole instrument of curricular reform in
Europe. But even so, the subjects they
26 THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY
champion, such as business training,
nursing, or social welfare work, have a
long way to go before they are consid-
ered, let alone accepted, by the univer-
sities. Other curricular questions are
for the most part ignored. No issues
are raised such as polytechnization in
the Soviet universities, general educa-
tion courses in Japanese universities,
or the place of summer study in Amer-
ican universities. Case study methods
versus lectures in American law schools,
twin major instead of single major in
Soviet pedagogical institutes, junior col-
lege versus university courses for women
in Japan: these are some of the debated
indications of curricular awareness out-
side Europe. In Europe, relatively little
is done to cater to such interests. Sev-
eral new universities in France and in
other countries now champion seminars
in preference to lecures, which still
dominate elsewhere. A four-year in-
stead of a three-year course at Keele
inaugurated interdisciplinary require-
ments for students of both sciences and
humanities, and curricularexperimenta-
tion is taking place in other new Eng-
lish universities. The Italian and Span-
ish reforms of higher education include
curricular elements that are worth
watching with attention. But the tone
of these movements is subdued. Com-
pared with the battles over access or
structure, they are insignificant.
Second, and again in contrast to the
mass education countries, there is a dif-
ference in the discussions in European
universities about the comparative im-
portance to be attached to research,
teaching, and public service. While
Europeanprofessorshave been criticized
for doing too little research in the uni-
versities, in the United States, in vivid
contrast, the criticism of the compulsive
tyranny of faculty research and of the
affluent research-minded absentee pro-
fessor has reached formidable propor-
tions. The abandonment of under-
graduate teaching to tutors, themselves
usually mere postgraduate students, has
been deplored. Grantsmanship and
promotion to full rank on the principle
of "publish or perish" are pointed out
as devices to lure good teachers away
from teaching. The American univer-
sity is perceptibly being impelled to be-
come not a community of research
scholars, but a postsecondary teaching
school. Anyone who Ilas watched even
such an innocuous transformation as
that of the Boston Latin School into a
public high school can sense the coming
change.
The collegium survives in American
universities mostly in the bull sessions
held in common rooms or students'
dormitories. Elsewhere, it is crowded
into postgraduateschools where doctoral
students and their advisers still attempt
to recreate the Socratic discourse. Re-
search is increasingy looking for a safe
harborwithin researchinstitutes. There
may come a time when these institutes
will be crowded out of the universities
altogether. Places like the Institute of
Advanced Studies at Princeton, the
RAND Corporation in Washington, or
the "Think Tank" at Stanford have no
students, thus turning into a trend the
mere precedents established by All Souls
College and Nuffield College in Oxford.
The College de France, a forum of
learned men without students, has few
counterparts in France, but in the So-
viet Union a whole series of academies
and institutes have multiplied that
live-and train aspirants-entirely out-
side the universities. In Japan, the Re-
search Section of the Ministry of Edu-
cation, the Chosaka, and the National
Institute for Educational Research, the
Kokuritsu Kyoiku Kenkiu-jo, by no
means unique in this respect, have a far
better staff and output of publications
than many a university. A visible
watershed has arisen in the United
States between mass universities with
 HIGHER EDUCATION IN COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE 27

their many teaching faculties, but poor ple are constantly repeating these accu-
publication records, and the few highly sations; but they lack force to institute
placed universities at which research changes, even in countries of turbulent
and expertise overshadow teaching. student protest such as Japan. Europe
Fewer problems of this kind have arisen is worse off than the other countries.
in Europe, where the researchobligation The power of the teaching body and
on the teaching staff has never been so students in Europe cannot be compared
strong and where the universities have with the United States, where the opin-
indeed been criticized for neglecting ion of university teachers, especially,
research. has political influence far out of propor-
Similarly, there is no striking expan- tion to their numbers. But as a force
sion in the extramural activities of the for political reform, the universities
European universities and in the allied everywhere are in a relatively weak
fields of community service and political position.
participation. Community service has Enlarged admission, institutional up-
never been a major concern of univer- grading, internal restructuring, and ex-
sities in Europe, in comparison with ternal co-government are areas of in-
some extra-European countries-and novation which might be described as
the USSR-where fully integrated uni- "hard" reforms, while curricularchange
versity correspondence course depart- and the place of teaching, research, and
ments have been established. It is true community service might be called
that the British Open University may "soft" reforms. In Europe, concern
lead to a striking innovation in teaching with hard reforms overshadows soft re-
by television, but it has much to learn forms. In the four major mass-higher-
from the more mature and tested prece- education countries outside Western
dents in Japan. Many British and Europe, it might almost be said that the
other universities today have also estab- reverse is true.
lished extramural departments catering This striking contrast provides a clue
to outsiders,but they lack the scope and to the emerging typology of reforms. It
vigor of their American, or for that may tentatively be said that mass move-
matter Australian, counterparts. The ments in higher education have two
principle of service to the local com- stages. At takeoff point, problems of
munity still finds only very modest university entrance loom largest. The
expressionin Europe. pressure at the admission gate domi-
nates the scene. Since the universities
Nonpolitical nearly always resist the masses, the
As regards political participation, masses must first assault the structure
German universities were once casti- itself. Rivals to the old universities
gated for failing to take a stand against must be created to challenge their
Hitler's takeover. Forty years later the monopoly. Internal hold on decision-
universities of industrial countries still making must be democratized to ensure
take relatively little interest in political a more liberal admission policy. The
life outside the academy. Even in force of outside society must be mobi-
France, la republique des professeurs, lized to compel compliance and to hold
where intellectuals are listened to, and vigil over the continued fair play of the
in Italy, where professors seem to have academic community.
a virtual monopoly of Cabinet posts, Once this state is accomplished, the
the universities are nonpolitical. Dem- masses now within the university turn
onstrations and demands by young peo- their attention to other issues. Concern
28 THE ANNALS OF THE
with what should best be learned, with
the relevance of content, and with the
attractions of form begin to dominate
the university scene. A more forceful
appeal is also made to the teaching
body to render direct service. Their
research function must now be made
subordinate to, or integrated with, their
role as teachers inside the academic
walls and as makers of public opinion
outside.
European higher education reforms
still seem to be in the first stage. It is
only after the university structure has
been adapted to mass needs and the
content of instruction has become more
important than questions of admission,
that the second stage, now exemplified
by the American, Canadian, Japanese,
and Soviet universities, will make its
appearance.
THE DYNAMICS OF THE FUTURE
REFORMS
The precedents established by the
mass education countries point to the
directions that reforms of higher educa-
tion in Europe and all the modernizing
countries are likely to take. They
also enable us to dismiss the question
whether such evolution is desirable; the
immediate answer is that it is inevitable.
This is sufficiently proved by the very
tensions under which innovations now
take place. Not only in Europe, but
everywhere in the world, higher educa-
tion is reforming itself only because it
is under pressure. Occasionally this
pressure may come from outside, as
when the British or the Americans arti-
ficially increased the productionof tech-
nologists to match the unnerving news
of the production of Soviet scientists.
More often the pressure is internal from
people who have learned that a college
education pays. Nothing in the world
history of universities suggests that the
pressure will abate until it has achieved
all its objectives. Higher education sys-
AMERICAN ACADEMY
tems merely have the option of resist-
ing and delaying the change as long as
politically possible, or of taking the
sting out of pressures for reform by an-
ticipating them and by adjusting them-
selves to their demands. In the dis-
united and widely disparate European
academic world, as in the plural milieu
of large industrial countries, no doubt
both policies, of resistance to reforms
and of forestalling them, will be tried
in turn.
All advanced systems develop on simi-
lar lines; but this does not mean that
they arrive at the same destination.
The fact that their position on the con-
tinuum of evolution is different today
may mean that their degree of achieve-
ment will differ tomorrow. From the
present trends in European innovations
and from the precedents of reforms in
other mass education countries, it can
be predicted that the circumstances in
which the evolution in each is likely to
advance will finally result in different
solutions.
Among the countries which have been
approachingthe mass education ideal in
various ways, two distinct modes of
operation have emerged. One, repre-
sented by the United States and Can-
ada, may be described as a grass roots
system; the other, representedby Japan
and the USSR, as a guided system. In
the former, innovation is permitted to
arise out of internal pressure from be-
low. Grass grows where conditions
favor it, albeit occasionally aided by the
gardener. In this system, plurality
dominates. There are a great variety
of institutions and degree subjects.
Such uniformity as there is, is a product
of fashion, or in other words, voluntarily
copied. In this laissez-faire system,
nothing is done until a group of citizens
is formed to do it. Authorities may
assist and quicken growth; they seldom,
if ever, initiate it. This system affords
opportunity for maximum flexibility.
 HIGHER EDUCATION IN
It also affordsopportunity for the maxi-
mum divergence from earlier patterns
of excellence and high standards. The
guided system, in contrast, is charac-
terized by counsel from above. Under
this system, expansion and modification
are undertakennot primarily in response
to pressure from below, but because of
overall considerations of the common
good. Such considerations often mean
that the sometimes reluctant or unin-
structed population must be persuaded
or even compelled. The guided system,
by reflecting the values held by those
who guide it, avoids the gross perver-
sions of the grass roots system, but it
lacks some of the latter's spontaneity
and diversity; it prefers discipline to
flexibility, rigor to vigor.
The countries of mass higher educa-
tion use different methods, but share a
common destination. On the other
hand, the European system, as it moves
towards the mass university, stands a
good chance of developing a hybrid pat-
tern of its own. First of all, Europe
may not move as far towards mass edu-
cation as the others have done. The
culture of the other countries is newer
due to colonization in North America,
revolution in the USSR, and moderniza-
tion in Japan. In newer countries, social
barriers are fewer, and the net of edu-
cational opportunity may be cast wider
and further. The hybridization of the
European pattern may take the form of
a more perfect union between intellec-
tual elitism and mass opportunity. The
California University system of con-
nected junior colleges, colleges, and uni-
versities is one expression of such union
in which universal access is balanced
with rewards for high achievement,
rather along the lines once proposed by
Thomas Jefferson for education in Vir-
ginia. Europe, or parts of it, may well
evolve a university system that will
satisfy ambitions sufficiently to relieve
social tension from below and therefore
COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE 29
be free to retain certain selected
features of the elite system above. In
terms of numbers, while the mass edu-
cation countries now seem to aim at
college education for half of their popu-
lation, Europe may perhaps be able to
establish a structure catering to one-
quarter of the population. In terms of
institutional structure, the Soviet Union
has established a pattern of a limited
number of universities combined with a
vast number of specialized single-
faculty institutions. Perhaps a modifi-
cation of some such pattern will permit
Europe to create a more balanced insti-
tutional network.
Whether Europe arrives at a full mass
system or not, it can blend the features
of the grass roots and the guided sys-
tems. The variety and multiple aspira-
tions of the European nations and the
differences of religious faith and re-
gional culture have long found expres-
sion in the variety of institutions and
their distinct types of mission. At the
same time, the traditional pattern of
higher education in Europe has relied
on central direction, including the pre-
determinationof curricula, and financial
control over buildings and staffing. The
conditions thus exist for a hybrid sys-
tem. In the United States it is fashion-
able to characterize the schools as pos-
sessing diversity within unity. In real-
ity, there is little unity other than
spiritual. Diversity within unity is a
term which may more properly be re-
served for the emerging reformed Euro-
pean universities, if they succeed in
once again balancing old traditions and
modernity.
This brings us to the assessment of
the dynamism of the reformed univer-
sity institutions in the new society.
Will the academic changes now taking
place lead to a new position of stability,
or will the new structure, confronted
with a constantly moving society, never
reach equilibrium? Must not the uni-
30 THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY

versities resign themselves to being thing about it, including the wave of
permanentlymobile? Should university student riots which threatened to bring
standards, practices, and procedures academic life to a standstill, suggests
shift from a fixed and now untenable that the Japanese filmstrip has not been
position to a new point, better adapted moving fast enough to suit Japanese
to contemporary needs, but still fixed? conditions. Thus, Japan is under pres-
Or should higher education simply be sure to move further in the direction
motion, a meeting zone of men and of American flexibility. But oddly
ideas unbound by structure or conven- enough, the United States, too, has been
tion, flexible and indeterminate? under pressure from the young to move
Nobody, of course, knows the an- even faster. The worlds of higher edu-
swers; but sufficiently clear compara- cation in Japan, Canada, and the United
tive patterns are already emerging to States are likely to resemble each other
allow at least some tentative prediction more closely with the passage of time.
of future developments. Impelled by the relentless logic of the
technocratic age, these countries may
Comparisonof reform never be permitted the luxury of a series
of stabilities.
The comparison of the speed of re- Traditional academic habits in Eu-
forms between the mass education coun- rope may have the same stabilizing
tries based on the guided systems and effect that Soviet ideology has had.
those based on the grass roots approach Europe may be able to join the mass
is revealing. In the guided systems, in- higher education club less tempestu-
novation is viewed as a filmstrip; in the ously by going through bursts of in-
grass roots system, as a film. In Japan novation alternating with calmer periods
and the USSR, constant attempts are of consolidation. In the USSR, the last
made to reach a series of static condi- period of consolidation began in the
tions through change. As with the stills mid-1960s after a wave of change had
in a filmstrip, the eye moves from one swept the system during the preceding
static picture to the next. In a sense, decade. But in Europe, the whole of
a filmstrip and a film are the same, but the 1960s was a period during which the
the speed at which the film is shown dikes were being washed away, and
conveys to the eye not a sequence of Europe is poised on the threshold of the
stills, but a sense of movement. The 1970s with a gathered momentumwhich
patterns of life of American, and to must spend itself before academic life
some extent of Canadian, universities, in Europe can resume a calmer course.
in contrast with the USSR and Japan, While the Soviet Union is consoli-
seem more like perpetual motion. dating and Europe exploding, their
It is hard to evaluate the power of North American and Japanese counter-
these differing styles of innovation. parts are evolving incessantly. This
Under the pressure of modernity, the once more suggests a two-step dynamic
Soviet system has been remarkably suc- of reforms. In world overview, coun-
cessful in absorbing shocks and in tries of more elitist higher education can
adapting itself to shifting needs by afford the luxury of alternating reform
adopting a series of static positions. with stabilization. No such remedy is
Japan, on the other hand, does not seem available once mass enrollment in higher
to have been equally successful. Every- education is reached.