146 THE COLLEGE 



educated men that have gone before him, as expressed in a college 

 curriculum. Our decision as to the wisdom of unlimited freedom of 

 electives in both school and college depends on whether subjects of 

 study do, or do not, differ among themselves, apart from their practi- 

 cal value, as intellectual disciplines, that is, in training our mental 

 powers. Everything in education depends on our answer to this 

 question. I confess that it is to me inconceivable that all subjects, 

 irrespective of their subject-matter, even if equally well taught, 

 should give the same, or equal, intellectual results. The mere 

 statement of such a proposition seems to me a reductio ad absurdum. 

 If the proposition be true, why do college-bred students excel stu- 

 dents that have had severe professional training, not only in after- 

 life, but also in the professional school itself? In the ten years from 

 1891 to 1902 the 37 per cent of Bachelors of Arts in the Yale Law 

 School carried off 62 per cent of the honors and 70 per cent of the 

 prizes, and in the Columbia Law School 94 per cent of the 237 men 

 who have attained honor rank in the past ten years have been college 

 graduates. 1 



If we believe that there is a real difference in the intellectual value 

 of studies, it follows as a consequence of this conclusion that certain 

 studies should be taken by everyone if we have in view the develop- 

 ment of intellectual power by the college course; and if we believe 

 in mental discipline, the element of continuity also must be insured 

 by the college, and, of course, by the school, and only so manv elect- 

 ives should be permitted as are consistent with training and continu- 

 ity. There is, I believe, a kind of curriculum that combines all these 

 qualifications -- the " group system ' -introduced in 1876 in the 

 three years' (now four years') undergraduate course of the Johns 

 Hopkins University, amplified into a four years' course and named 

 the " group system " by Bryn Mawr College at its opening in 1885, in- 

 troduced into the college course of the University of Indiana in 1888 

 by President Jordan and Professor von Jagemann, and now adopted 

 in slightly altered form in the West by Illinois, Northwestern, 

 Indiana, Missouri, Wisconsin, California, and by the two most re- 

 cent educational foundations of the West, Leland Stanford Junior and 

 Chicago, and in the East by Williams, Dartmouth, Tufts, New York 

 University, by Pennsylvania (in the strict Bryn Mawr form), and 

 by the four women's colleges of Smith, Wellesley, Mt. Holyoke, 

 and the Woman's College of Baltimore. Yale adopted the ABC 

 system, or modified group system, in 1901. Clark College of Clark 

 University opened in 1902 with the group system in full operation, 

 and the approval thereby given to the group system by its president, 

 the Hon. Carroll D. Wright, the well-known statistician, is very 



1 See President's Report, Yale University, 1902-03, p. 131; and President's 

 Report, Columbia University, 1902, p. 125.' 



