Science and Literature : What Divides the Yale Report

The present essay distinguishes, unlike a standard interpretation, the first two parts of the Yale Report as two entities which develop somewhat distintive arguments. In order to substantiate this thesis, the author will compare the second part written by James Kingsley with the controversies over classics education between the Edinburgh Review and Oxford around 1810, and the first part written by Jeremiah Day, with Kant's discussion on the conflict of the faculties around the end of the eighteenth century. The comparisons will reveal that Day insists on the superiority of collegiate education over professional as well as advanced vocational training by emphasizing the central place which the principles of science occupy in the collegiate curriculum. Also clarified will be the point that Kingsley's argument for classics education, despite the cherished theory of mental discipline, proves purely defensive like the case of Oxford against the Edinburgh Review.