612 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



Fortunately no president and no university can confine culture to the 

 college, professional work to the professional school and research work 

 to the graduate school. Each will be found everywhere according to 

 the measure of those who teach and those who learn. 



The courses intended to impart " a little knowledge of everything " 

 should, we are informed, be lecture courses by the leading men in the 

 department supplemented by drills from subordinates. In my opinion 

 this is exactly the wrong use of lecture courses. Books and small classes 

 should be used for elementary instruction. Lectures may be needed for 

 special work not to be found in books and are useful as emotional exer- 

 cises. When used for the latter purpose, the student should not be 

 quizzed or examined on them, but can properly be credited toward his 

 degree for the number of hours he sits in the lecture room. 



Futile and somewhat anti-moral is the plan proposed of trying to 

 improve scholarship by persuading students to compete for class rank. 

 We are told that " the free elective system in college has reduced the 

 spirit of competition in scholarship to a minimum," and that " there is 

 a close analogy between outdoor sports and those indoor studies which 

 are pursued for intellectual development, especially in regard to the 

 question of stimulus by competition." As a matter of fact, men pull 

 together in a boat for the glory of their college ; the man who plays for 

 his own oar or hand is not esteemed there or elsewhere. There is some 

 excuse for the student's opinion that " C " is the gentleman's grade. 

 To try to make dull and profitless work interesting by competition puts 

 the smell before the automobile. 



This does not mean that competition is not a factor of immense 

 importance in life; or that it is out of place in the university. When 

 the best men graduating from the medical school receive the hospital 

 appointments, and the best men in the engineering school find big jobs 

 waiting for them, it is a powerful stimulus to good work. When the 

 first and second wranglers at Cambridge have been assured of fellow- 

 ships which may be worth $50,000, the attainment has been eagerly 

 sought and highly honored. It should be noted, however, that Cam- 

 bridge has this year abandoned the ranking in the mathematical tripos, 

 because it was regarded as on the whole injurious to scholarship. If 

 the men who do the best scholarly work in college are properly rewarded 

 for it during their course, on graduation and in after life, their scholar- 

 ship will be respected even by those who are not scholars. 



A proper way to encourage students to do good work is to credit 

 them for the quality of their work as well as for the number of hours 

 of class work which they attend. The Harvard plan of letting the 

 same number of courses be taken either in three or in four years does 

 not accomplish this. The student may do work of the same amount 

 and quality in a year whether he attends ten or thirty hours of class 



