December 20, 19] 2] 



SCIENCE 



849 



all this time the commissioners are to be 

 studying methods of high-school teaching, 

 and methods of measuring the efficiency 

 of teaching, preparing practical standards 

 of examination, not merely to test the 

 memory of the scholars, as in ordinary ex- 

 aminations, but to test their mental and 

 bodily powers. Find out not only what 

 the boys know, as a mere act of memory, 

 but what and how they think, and what 

 they can actually do. Test not only the 

 hundred boys, or as many of them as re- 

 main, but also boys in other high schools, 

 by the same standards or by other 

 standards that may be proposed by the 

 high school teachers. Cultivate the same 

 spirit of emulation for success in schol- 

 arship that now exists for success in 

 the athletic field, but give them also 

 enough athletics and other recreation to 

 develop their bodies as well as their minds. 

 Train them also in hygiene, in morals and 

 in manners, to make them not only scholars 

 but gentlemen. 



During these four years the commission- 

 ers are also studying college administra- 

 tion, courses, methods of teaching and effi- 

 ciency, and determining standards of 

 measurement of efficiency. When the 

 boys are through their preparatory course 

 of four years, send them to such colleges 

 as have been selected for them, have them 

 take the courses for which they are fitted, 

 provide tutors for them and watch their 

 progress through the college, testing them 

 by predetermined standards in compari- 

 son with other college students. At the end 

 of the four year college courses, the com- 

 mission is to report on the whole eight 

 years' experiment. It will be found that 

 many mistakes have been made, but prob- 

 ably not so many as would be made in an 

 ordinary eight years' course of high school 

 and college. The success of the experi- 

 ment is not to be judged by the success of 



these selected boys, but by the value of the 

 information obtained and reported on by 

 the commissioners as to the various meth- 

 ods of teaching and of college administra- 

 tion and by the acquirement of standards 

 by which academic efficiency may be meas- 

 ured in the future. 



During the whole of the eight years' ex- 

 periment the boys should be required to 

 keep a diary in which they record what 

 seems to be the most important items con- 

 cerning their education, and they should 

 once a year present to the commissioners a 

 written report of their progress, keeping a 

 copy for their own future use. Four years 

 after they have graduated from college, 

 when their minds are sufficiently mature, 

 they should be asked to write critical re- 

 ports of their educational career as it then 

 appears to them. A study of these reports 

 by the commission, which should be con- 

 tinued in existence for that purpose, would 

 no doubt furnish fruitful ideas for further 

 educational progress. 



Cecil Rhodes did a noble work in estab- 

 lishing the foundation of the Rhodes 

 Scholarships in Oxford. Andrew Carnegie 

 has done a grand work in establishing the 

 Carnegie Institutes for Scientific Research 

 and for the Advancement of Teaching. 

 Equally grand will be the work of him who 

 shall establish a foundation for the appli- 

 cation of the methods of scientific manage- 

 ment to the improvement of academic effi- 

 ciency. 



This proposed plan is merely a sugges- 

 tion. There may be a better plan, but 

 whatever it may be it will take years of 

 hard work and a large sum of money to ac- 

 complish the desired results. It might be 

 undertaken by the Carnegie Foundation 

 for the Advancement of Teaching, by the 

 Russell Sage Foundation, or by the gov- 

 ernment, but the funds of these founda- 

 tions are probably already fully employed, 



