THE CASE OF HARVARD COLLEGE 605 



specialized in history and political science preparatory to the study of 

 law. Only 4.5 per cent, seemed to show a lack of proper concentra- 

 tion of energy, and of these one sixth received the A.B. magna cum 

 laude. But circumstances alter cases. We are now told that more than 

 half the students concentrate too much or too little. It is said that 

 only one seventh of the students graduating from the law school cum 

 laude concentrated too little in college, whereas the medical students 

 did not concentrate nearly so much. It is not likely that medical 

 students are inclined to specialize less than law students. The fact is 

 that Harvard College provides the courses in English, history and 

 political science needed by students of law and does not provide the 

 courses in anatomy, physiology and pathology needed by students of 

 medicine. 2 Instead of requiring students preparing for the medical 

 school to take courses which they do not want, the college should 

 offer the courses which they need. 



The free elective system may be a partial failure; but it is doubt- 

 ful whether, apart from the professional school, a better plan has been 

 devised. The group system is better in so far as it is a professional 

 school within the college; it is no better as a factory for the manu- 

 facture of cultivated gentlemen. Sequences and combinations of 

 studies in the college should be planned which give adequate prepara- 

 tion for different kinds of work in life, not only for the orthodox and 

 semi-orthodox professions, but also for business and affairs, and for 

 such special performances as those of the Sanskrit scholar, the psycho- 

 logical expert or the economic entomologist. The courses should be 

 planned by those engaged in these callings, rather than by a college 

 faculty, and they should be elected by the student after proper coun- 

 sel, rather than forced upon him. 



The bov of eighteen or nineteen either should know what he is 

 going to do in life and give at least part of his time to direct prepara- 

 tion, or he should have a working hypothesis. The professions differ 

 in their demands. Medicine and engineering require manual dexterity 

 and much special information; they should be begun in good season. 

 Law and theology are less exacting of special training; a medical or 

 engineering course would not be a bad preparation for the bar or the 

 church, but the converse is not true. A lawyer who becomes a univer- 

 sity president may not unnaturally fancy that the preparation suited 

 to a lawyer would also be fit for the physician or engineer. But when 

 he says : 



Many professors of medicine, on the other hand, feel strongly that a student 

 should enter their schools with at least a rudimentary knowledge of those 



2 President Lowell in reply said that the study of Latin is the best prepara- 

 tion for a scientific career, but that the proper preparation for the profession of 

 law is learning to reason. If the lawyer can be taught to reason, there is 

 certainly a valid argument for that much compulsion in college. 



