620 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XXII. No. 565. 



real equivalent to Greek. "Whatever lan- 

 guage a boy presents, we insist that his 

 knowledge of it should be precise. We do 

 not let general information take the place 

 of a knowledge of grammar. 



It has been charged by critics of the old 

 system of classical study that Greek has 

 been a college fetich. This certainly has 

 not been the view at Yale. "We required 

 Greek in the past not because we wor- 

 shipped Greek, but because in times past 

 the Greek teachers in the schools were the 

 ones who were best able to insist on certain 

 kinds of training which we thought our 

 students needed. Some schools now have 

 French teachers who can give this same 

 kind of training in French. "We are ready 

 to accept the boys from those schools with 

 French instead of Greek. To do this is not 

 a departure from our old principles, but a 

 continuation of it. The majority of French 

 teachers are as yet unable to meet our re- 

 quirements regarding French. Hence the 

 majority of pupils who try to substitute 

 French for Greek fail. Professor Wright's 

 report shows that it is considered fully as 

 hard to enter Yale without Greek as with 

 it. This proves that the widening of the 

 requirements has not been accompanied by 

 a lowering of the standards. 



It is probable that as more teachers of 

 modern languages become acquainted with 

 the requirements of the Yale examination 

 we shall get a larger number of freshmen 

 who prepare in modern languages instead 

 of Greek. But this will not prove that we 

 have changed our standard. It will prove 

 that the schools have changed theirs. By 

 adapting our choice of subjects to the needs 

 of the schools we can make the schools 

 adapt their method of teaching to our 

 needs. 



In order to do this we shall probably con- 

 tinue to hold separate examinations instead 

 of joining with other colleges. We recog- 

 nize the high degree of skill with which the 



Plarvard examinations have been conduct- 

 ed. We recognize also the value of that 

 cooperation between schools and colleges 

 which is exemplified in the management of 

 the Middle States' Examination Board. 

 Under proper restrictions, we can accept 

 some of the results of these examinations 

 in determining the fitness of the pupil to 

 enter Yale. But there is enough difference 

 of purpose between us and Harvard to 

 make a strong argument for those who 

 wish our separate examinations continued 

 — and the demand for their continuance, 

 by the way, comes even more strongly from 

 the schools than it does from the members 

 of our own faculty. The Harvard paper 

 seeks to test knowledge ; the Yale paper 

 seeks to test accuracy. The Harvard ex- 

 amination tries to find how well a boy has 

 done his work in school ; the Yale examina- 

 tion tries to find how well the boy is going 

 to be able to do his work in college. The 

 Middle States' system is intermediate be- 

 tween the Harvard and the Yale systems 

 in these respects, and it is possible that in 

 the near future we may all come together 

 on this median line. We shall certainly 

 do it whenever the great majority of the 

 secondary school teachers demand it. But 

 the results of the correspondence in the 

 report of the Dean. of Yale College indicate 

 that the demand for separate papers is 

 stronger than the demand for one consoli- 

 dated paper. There is a large number of 

 school teachers who find the accuracy inci- 

 dent to the Yale method of examination a 

 great help in resisting certain evils which 

 the widening of school courses during late 

 years has brought with it. 



SCIENTIFIC BOOKS. 



Outlines of Industrial Chemistry, A Text- 

 book for Students. By Frank Hall Thorp, 

 Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Industrial 

 Chemistry in the Massachusetts Institute 

 of Technology. Second edition. ISTew 

 York, The Macmillan Co. Price $3.50. 



