ELECTIVE STUDIES 



1978 



ELECTORAL COLLEGE 



ELEC'TIVE STUDIES, a term that has 

 come into common use in recent years to 

 indicate courses of study in high schools, col- 

 leges and universities which may be chosen or 

 elected by students. In former times there was 

 a prescribed curriculum that every candidate 

 had to pursue who wished to take a course lead- 

 ing to degrees. But with the development of 

 science during the nineteenth century and the 

 necessity of including in the curriculum new 

 branches of study, it was seen that it would 

 be impossible for a student to take all of them. 

 On the other hand, it came to be recognized 

 that it was not advantageous to compel every 

 student to take all subjects, regardless of his 

 interests, aims, inclinations or capabilities. So 

 at the present time colleges allow considerable 

 freedom in the selection of the branches of 

 learning to which a student may devote his 

 time. 



The University of Virginia, under the in- 

 fluence of Thomas Jefferson, was the first to 

 offer to its students some freedom in choice 

 of subjects. This was early in the nineteenth 

 century, and its example was soon followed by 

 Harvard. At that time modern languges were 

 about the only elective subjects students could 

 choose, but to-day the choice is very extensive. 

 The advantage of the elective system is that 

 it gives a student the opportunity to develop 

 along the lines of his special inclination and 

 aptitudes. 



In order to avoid the danger of a student 

 electing only "easy" subjects, or scattering too 

 greatly, several methods have been adopted. 

 The method generally followed consists in the 

 arrangement of the courses into groups of sub- 

 jects, and requiring students to choose a cer- 

 tain amount of work from each of these groups. 

 Each group is made up of closely-related sub- 

 jects, such as natural sciences in one group, 

 history in another, etc. The arrangement of 

 subject:? into groups differs in the principal 

 colleges, but all of them are framed with one 

 end in view, namely, not to leave out from the 

 course of study those subjects which are re- 

 garded as essential to a liberal education. 



The curriculum adopted to-day in most pro- 

 gressive colleges usually contains the following 

 kinds of courses: (1) prescribed courses that 

 all students must take ; (2) a certain number of 

 elective studies which the student chooses him- 

 self. The number of courses he may elect 

 varies in different schools, but they usually 

 comprise from one-fourth to one-half of his 

 entire course. The student may either choose 



a wide variety of subjects, or he may specialize 

 still further in the subjects he has already 

 chosen. 



ELECTOR, GERMAN IMPERIAL. In the his- 

 tory of the Holy Roman Empire (which see) 

 an elector was a member of the electoral col- 

 lege, consisting of German princes, which chose 

 the king of the Romans. The electors claimed 

 that an election as king of the Romans was 

 equivalent to election as Holy Roman emperor, 

 but the Popes were accustomed to exercise the 

 right of sanctioning the choice of the electors 

 in respect to the greater imperial office. Orig- 

 inally the number of electors was seven, but 

 in 1648 it was increased to eight and in 1692 

 to nine. The college was first definitely author- 

 ized in 1356 by the Golden Bull of Charles V 

 (see GOLDEN BULL). Among the notable elec- 

 tors were Frederick William of Brandenburg, 

 called the Great Elector ; his son, Frederick, the 

 first king of Prussia; and Maximilian, Duke of 

 Bavaria, head of the Catholic League in the 

 Thirty Years' War. 



ELEC'TORAL COLLEGE, a body of men 

 chosen by the people of the United States 

 every fourth year to elect their President and 

 Vice-President. Its existence is due to dis- 

 agreements in the Constitutional Convention, 

 in 1787, as to the safest method of choosing 

 the * Executive. Only two ways seemed pos- 

 sible by direct election through votes of all 

 the people, and by election at the hands of a 

 special body of men. 



The majority of the Convention refused to 

 accept the second possibility, if it meant that 

 the President should be elected by Congress. 

 It would place too much power in the hands 

 of the legislative department, because if tne 

 President were indebted to Congress for his 

 election and dependent upon the favor of that 

 body for reelection, the fact might largely 

 influence his public acts. 



Alexander Hamilton fought the participation 

 of all the people in the election. Hamilton 

 was an aristocrat and had little faith in the 

 intelligence of the masses: "The people, Sir, 

 the people is a great beast!' 1 he declared to the 

 Convention. Possibly the most valid objection 

 to direct election was that means of ready 

 communication did not exist whereby all the 

 people could acquaint themselves with public 

 men and become proper judges of the candi- 

 dates' qualifications. But it was believed that 

 the people could select men locally whose good 

 judgment they trusted, and these men could be 

 trusted to select the President. 



