172 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XXII. No. 554. 



prescribed readings in English literature, 

 in Latin and modern languages, is consid- 

 ered auxiliary to the attainment of power 

 signified by the first group. President 

 Hadley says : " I should be in favor at once 

 of putting all examinations on the extent 

 of knowledge in these auxiliary subjects 

 into the hands of a common examination 

 board. Whether it would be wise to go a 

 step further and introduce the certificate 

 system in subjects of this group, is a matter 

 which I should hardly like to prejudge at 

 present. ' ' 



In the third group of studies, history 

 and descriptive sciences, which President 

 Hadley assumes are not a necessary basis 

 for subsequent work, but part of a general 

 scheme of secondary education, recognized 

 by the colleges as a concession to satisfy 

 teachers able to teach them and not to de- 

 grade these subjects, the certificate system 

 would be allowed from the very outset. 



In wrestling with the objections to his 

 combination and complex, if not compro- 

 mise, system, he finds relief in extending 

 'to teachers of proved ability the oppor- 

 tunity to recommend at the risk of their 

 own reputation for provisional admission 

 to our freshman classes pupils to whom the 

 new system seemed to have done injustice. ' 

 Thus President Hadley is not far from the 

 kingdom of the outright accrediting system 

 for which we hope he may become a leader, 

 not only amongst his brethren of the eleven 

 colleges in the New England College En- 

 trance Certificate Board, but throughout 

 the nation. The whole thing might be done 

 if Commissioner Draper and President 

 Butler became his coadjutors. 



, There is time for but a moment 's glance 

 at the evolution of 'the western plan of 

 admitting students to colleges and univer- 

 sities by certificates from duly inspected 

 secondary schools.' 



It might be called the continental or 

 German plan, whence it in part came to 



reinforce preeminently and first in Mich- 

 igan, a state system of public schools 

 crowned by a state university. It, in some 

 form, logically accompanied a state public 

 school system with a teaching state univer- 

 sity, and has been cheerfully' adopted, and 

 to their edification, by the private colleges 

 and universities, so that it covers the entire 

 territory from the Ohio to the Pacific and 

 overflows into southern and eastern states. 

 In its rudimentary form, which the 

 New England College Entrance Certificate 

 Board has adopted, an applying school is 

 placed on an approved list when it can 

 prepare for a college course, and continue 

 to prove its ability to give preparation for 

 college by the record of its students already 

 admitted to college. The admission of the 

 candidate without a collegiate examination 

 in the subjects for which he is certified as 

 prepared by the approved school is proba- 

 tionary. 



Naturally, with the increase of schools 

 and students and with a zeal to maintain 

 standards, there followed the visitation of 

 the approved schools by members of the 

 faculty related to preparatory subjects. 

 Thus informally inspection of schools be- 

 gan, unti]. now there are twelve state or 

 state university inspectors in as many 

 great western states, supplemented by 

 visitors from the faculties including great 

 private institutions. 



In the North Central Association of Sec- 

 ondary Schools and Colleges, there has been 

 for six years a commission on secondary 

 schools and college entrance requirements, 

 at the heart of which is a board of high 

 school inspectors. Uniform standards and 

 entrance blanks have been prepared. For 

 some time by comity schools accredited by 

 one state university have been accredited 

 by another. But now a list of first-class 

 schools meeting the standards of the com- 

 mission is becoming an accredited list 

 throughout the entire northwest. In an- 



