DEPARTMENT REPORTS 47 



student comes into personal contact with the instructor. It is to be recol- 

 lected that, in the language-work, lecture-room and laboratory are, so to 

 speak, combined, and in the exercises of the one hour both forms of 

 teaching must enter. Each principle formulated or enunciated must 

 be fixed by actual practice, with the student for prime mover. Within 

 limits, the larger the percentage of personal work in the class, the greater 

 the benefit accruing to the student. The greatest reproach against our 

 public school system is that through its huge, unwieldy classes it ignores 

 and in a measure suppresses the personality of the pupil; and fop imma- 

 ture students the inestimable advantage of the small college over the 

 large one lies in the direct, continued, personal contact of the developing 

 mind with the cultured intellect and heart of the teacher, leading and 

 guiding, it is true, but according to individual bias and capability. In 

 no branch of college work does this personal contact count for more than 

 in the study of expression, and I would earnestly deprecate the loss of so 

 great an advantage through over-crowded sections. The over-crowded 

 section means a lessening of efficiency and lowering of the grade of work 

 done, and this we cannot afford. The American manufacturer has won 

 his preeminence in the industrial world through uniform excellence 

 in quality of output. He knows the exact capacity of his plant and 

 recognizes that over-crowding means either a breakdown or inferior work. 

 When orders come beyond his capacity, he either refuses them or enlarges 

 his plant; for, not to speak of conscience, shrewd business sense hasi 

 taught him that the one thing that does not pay is to injure his reputation 

 by poorer work. I fail to see why a school, public or private, should not 

 be even more rigid than the factory in adhering to so obviously impera- 

 tive a policy. 



The matter of granting credits to high school graduates is assuming 

 great importance, and it would be well for us to formulate some more 

 definite rules concerning it. Our present custom is to give all high school 

 graduates credit for one term of work on our course in English and also 

 in French or German (if these languages have been embraced in the high 

 school course pursued), and to be governed as to subsequent credits by 

 the record the student makes at the College, either in classes or in a more 

 or less informal examination when the student first appears at the College. 

 In the classes it is no infrequent thing for us, finding a student well ad- 

 vanced in the work of his class, to advance him without request on his 

 part; and when a request for advancement comes, it is always carefully 

 considered, the student never being refused an opportunity to prove by ex- 

 amination his fitness for advancement. The examinations are untechnical, 

 and are designed solely and simply to discover whether the student has 

 the general knowledge and actual facility of expression commensurate 

 with the grade of work to which he aspires. I am perfectly sure that in 

 these examinations no student has ever been held back when subsequent 

 developments have not demonstrated the wisdom of the course pursued. I 

 am not so sure, on the other hand, that men have always been benefited 

 by the ndvancement they have received. It should not be forgotten that 

 in our courses the question is, not what a man has been over nor even 

 whether he has received from a given study the usual amount of general 

 culture and training, but always and everywhere what of the subject has 

 he assimilated? what immediate and practical application of his- knowl- 

 edge can he make? The only change of policy that I can at present recom- 



