80 EDUCATIONAL THEORY 



of direction and self-direction must be present. That each person 

 may participate in the same civilization is the aim of prescription, 

 of uniformity; that each may participate in the way that is most 

 real for him, that is the care of the elective system and the methods 

 of spontaneity. The two procedures are correlated in thought, and 

 are to be correlated in practice. 



To be a little more specific, let us note the bearing of some such 

 general solution of these problems upon the conduct of instruction 

 in colleges and universities. Such studies of the actual working of 

 the elective system as have thus far been reported, very fragmentary 

 at best, seem to indicate that student choices are made for the most 

 part with serious purpose, but, except under some sort of group sys- 

 tem, with too little coherence and with far too much of hit and miss. 

 If these choices are to be of the sort contemplated in this paper, 

 they must represent as nearly as possible the student's own way of 

 getting into right relations with his world. Many different lines of 

 approach may lead to this desired end. But mere random election 

 of studies is hardly a mode of approach; it is rather a skirting about 

 the edge of things. The question arises whether student choices can 

 be made a real way to the heart of things, and it seems reasonable to 

 conclude that this can be done. It is more likely to be accomplished 

 if the students shall have been brought up under a system of educa- 

 tion in which their spontaneous choices shall have been all along 

 in active and progressive cooperation with the directive leadership 

 of their teachers. The system under which there is a sharp break 

 between secondary school and university - - the former being under 

 close prescription, the latter offering sudden and unqualifiedf reedom 

 is unfavorable to the making of real power of choice in either 

 one of its members. Then, the mere election of incoherent courses 

 in a variety of subjects at the university is vicious and misleading. 

 The group system, by massing the work of any one student on 

 courses relating to different aspects of one subject, yields a better 

 result, for the value of the group is much greater than the sum of the 

 values of its several parts. But the group system, too, is liable to 

 abuse; for even a large group of courses, all of them pretty much 

 the same in kind, all on about the same level, may not carry the 

 student very far into the heart of things. What is to be desired 

 is that as the student adds course to course in any given subject, he 

 shall steadily rise to more adequate conceptions, to the mastery of 

 more searching and rigorous methods. The danger-points in educa- 

 tion are those plateaux where the student spreads out and ceases to 

 rise. The elective system presents peculiar dangers of this sort, and 

 calls accordingly for special precautions. 



Under such administration as has been proposed and under the 

 guidance of philosophic teachers, the student who enters the world 



