the advantages of an elective system and also, I maintain, have some 

 freedom as to method of work in the field chosen. 



Have childish restrictions, such as marking for daily attendance, 

 and all the hateful machinery of the factory time-card system, by 

 which some teachers attempt diurnal estimates of the student's mental 

 status, resulted in such a remarkable elevation of the average student, 

 that we should cling blindly to our present system? 



As to examinations, that "necessary evil," I believe it will be ad- 

 mitted that, in subjects like that now under discussion, they should 

 not be conducted as if the student were intending to make a specialty 

 of each branch. They must be fair to the class as a whole. In my own 

 opinion, a combination of written and oral insures the best results. 

 Personal knowledge of the student's laboratory work, and also of the 

 intelligence shown by him in recitations, is of great importance in 

 enabling the instructor to judge of a student's right to his pass certifi- 

 cate. The ideal examiner for a given student is not always the man 

 who has taught him, but may well be a specialist of equal rank in 

 some other university. Such a change, so stimulating to the intellectual 

 independence of the student, and so broadening to the teacher, could 

 only be based on a better agreement than now exists in our country 

 as to the teaching of a given branch in schools of equal grade. As long as 

 faculties issue diplomas, they assume a responsibility toward the world 

 of learning. How they shall discharge this duty is too large a subject 

 for full discussion here, but it is very desirable that the method used 

 shall involve a minimum of worry and strain on the part of the student, 

 and of police duty on the part of the teacher. 



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