PREPARATION FOR COLLEGE. 27 



courses ; then, as occasion required, pupils could be readily trans- 

 ferred from one course to tlie other; and even the senior who 

 found his Greek too much for him could drop it and take up the 

 alternatives of science and mathematics, pursuing more than one 

 branch of these at the same time and reciting with more than 

 one class if necessary. The plan is perfectly feasible, just as at 

 Harvard we find members of different classes taking the same 

 courses together. In the English High School we have members 

 of the advanced class studying several branches of mathematics 

 at once, and reciting with different classes. There is no dijOQculty 

 or trouble about it. The member of the advanced class who 

 wishes to review a certain study simply finds a class which is re- 

 citing in that study at an hour when he is disengaged and puts in 

 an appearance to recite with this class. The only objection that 

 I see to this would arise from the conservatism of professional 

 educators as being inconsistent with custom and tradition. The 

 tendency has been to separate the courses rather than unite them, 

 but the conditions have always been quite different. 



I have made special reference to Harvard College rather than 

 to any other, because the new scheme of requirements for admis- 

 sion has been tried there sufficiently long to observe how it 

 works, and these results have been made public. Boys who have 

 succeeded at Harvard under the new regulations would have been 

 equally successful at any other college under the same conditions. 

 I have also cited as special examples graduates of the Boston 

 English High School, because this school has probably sent more 

 boys to college under the new system than any other school, and 

 also because I have had an opportunity, through acquaintance 

 with these young men, of knowing how they have succeeded and 

 what they themselves have thought about their ability to get the 

 most possible benefit from their college course. 



The English High School of Boston is not a fitting school ; its 

 original design was that it should be a finishing school, and this 

 plan has never been changed. Its course of studies covers a 

 period of three years, and is the usual high-school course. To 

 this is added a post-graduate course of one year, during which 

 the student has great freedom in his choice of studies. The three- 

 years' course is -^ell arranged to meet the requirements of those 

 who have no definite intention of pursuing their studies fur- 

 ther, and the fourth year meets the demand of those who de- 

 sire to do special work. A very few of the graduates of this 

 school from choice studied Greek under a tutor during their 

 advanced year in school, and a few more from necessity did the 

 same thing, as they found the alternatives for Greek too difficult 

 for them. This Greek was in most of these cases ''cramnied" 

 for the special purpose of passing the entrance examinations, 



