248 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. VoL.XXVin. No. 712 



number of students having taken work under 

 him during a number of years, some of the 

 50 per cent, medium students have received 

 the highest grade. 



Let us now consider the 25 per cent, inferior 

 students. If most or all of these students 

 fail under a particular teacher, there may be 

 but little objection. But if we find, as we 

 actually do, that even some of the medium 

 students fail, we have the right to conclude 

 that the educational principles of the teacher 

 are unsound. Either his methods of teaching 

 and of maintaining discipline are defective, 

 are not adapted to the medium group of stu- 

 dents, or his conception of what a student 

 ought to accomplish is altogether one-sided. 

 If a student of chemistry wants to pursue 

 advanced courses in chemistry, it may be 

 necessary that he have a better knowledge of 

 elementary chemistry than the seventy-fifth 

 in a series of a hundred can obtain. This is 

 a matter to be decided between the teacher of 

 chemistry and the student. But it is not a 

 ■sufiicient reason for regarding the student's 

 work as a failure. He may have acquired a 

 ■sufficient knowledge of chemistry to take up, 

 say, elementary work in botany. It is the 

 teacher of botany who should decide how much 

 knowledge of chemistry his student ought to 

 possess. But if the teacher of chemistry 

 grades the work of a student of the medium 

 group as a failure and compels the student 

 to take the work over, he does injustice not 

 only to the student, but also to the teacher of 

 botany, he encroaches upon ground where not 

 he, but his colleague of another department, 

 has jurisdiction. It is no more justifiable to 

 grade 25 per cent, or more of the students as 

 failures than to give 25 per cent, or more the 

 highest grade. Still another argument might 

 be offered by a teacher who grades students 

 of the group of the medium 50 per cent, as 

 failures, in justification of his habits. The 

 teacher of English, for example, may say that 

 students are so poorly prepared in English 

 that more than 25 per cent, ought to fail, 

 ought to be made to take the course a second 

 time. But the teacher, in grading thus, 

 usurps a right which legitimately is not his. 



If the students are not sufficiently prepared 

 in some lines, he ought to persuade those who 

 are responsible for the entrance requirements 

 that these requirements must be changed, must 

 be raised in some respects. But if the stu- 

 dents are once admitted to college, the teacher 

 of a particular subject has to accept them and 

 adjust his methods of instruction and grading 

 to the medium group. He has no right to 

 establish arbitrary standards for the classes 

 which he teaches himself. 



We have divided all students taking a par- 

 ticular kind of work into three groups, me- 

 dium students, inferior students and superior 

 students. Should we subdivide these groups! 



Little can be said in favor of subdividing 

 the medium group. That this group is the 

 largest, is, in itself, no reason for subdividing 

 it. A strong argument against subdivision is 

 the fact that this would bring about unjust 

 grading of a large number of students. The 

 curve is highest for mediiun ability. If we 

 divide the area by a vertical line, we must 

 have a large number of students on one side 

 differing by an almost infinitesimal amount of 

 ability from a large number on the other side. 

 If the teacher, nevertheless, has to give them 

 different grades, the probability is that a con- 

 siderable number will receive grades either too 

 high or too low. This probability of injustice 

 must be avoided as much as possible. It can 

 be largely avoided if we make subdivisions 

 only where the curve is comparatively low; 

 and it is best, therefore, to give all the stu- 

 dents within the ceritral area of 50 per cent, 

 the same grade. This conclusion differs 

 slightly from that of Professor Cattell in his 

 discussion of the same problem.' He places 

 only 40 per cent, in the central group. His 

 reason is that otherwise it would not be pos- 

 sible to have each grade represent the same 

 range of different abilities and, at the same 

 time, to comply for the sake of conservatism 

 with the custom of having as many as 10 per 

 cent, students receiving the highest grade. 

 Now, as the table shows, this custom does not 

 exist in the University of Missouri, where cus- 



' " Examinations, Grades and Credits," Popular 

 Science Monthly, February, 1905. 



