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SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XXII. No. 572. 



some small number of assistants and ad- 

 vanced students who are frequently re- 

 placed. They really effect a combination of 

 investigation with teaching, under the ex- 

 pectation that the greater part of the vital 

 force of the professor will go to investiga- 

 tion. The triple function of the American 

 professor and the American faculty illus- 

 trates perfectly the community of ideals in 

 the institutions of higher education. Amer- 

 ican colleges and universities are unani- 

 mously of James Mill's opinion that to 

 propagate the truth and to serve mankind 

 are the only worthy objects of ambition, 

 but with them to propagate means to seek, 

 discover and bring forth truth, as well as 

 to diffuse it. To accomplish these — the 

 only worthy objects— requires direct teach- 

 ing, conscientious administration, and eager 

 research — all three. 



IV. 



All the American colleges have now 

 adopted the elective system of studies, 

 though not all to the same degree or extent. 

 In general, a college or university teaches 

 as many of the subjects for which there 

 is a visible demand as the pecuniary re- 

 sources of the institution permit; or, in 

 other words, it maintains as broad an elec- 

 tive system as the number of teachers it is 

 prepared to pay for can provide. There 

 is, however, one other important limitation 

 of the application of the elective system in 

 the American colleges. Most of them re- 

 ceive their pupils from the secondary 

 schools in such a condition that they feel 

 obliged to devote one year, or even more, 

 to studies appropriate to the secondary 

 schools but not pursued there. They com- 

 bine with these belated subjects a few of 

 the most elementary subjects appropriate to 

 colleges, and thus make up a prescribed 

 freshman year, or, in some instances, a pre- 

 scribed course for the freshman and 

 sophomore years. This policy is, of course, 



a temporary one. It has already disap- 

 peared in some of the strongest institutions ; 

 and its complete disappearance in the 

 American colleges and universities is only a 

 question of time, for its evils are consider- 

 able. It reduces undesirably the number 

 of years which the student can devote to 

 the subject or subjects of his choice. It 

 will make, for example, a great difference 

 in the attainments of a young student 

 of economics, or government, or physics, 

 whether he can take a succession of courses, 

 one or two at a time, in his chosen subject 

 during four years, or three years, or only 

 two years. The third or the fourth year 

 given to advanced courses in his chosen sub- 

 ject is vastly more profitable than either of 

 the underlying years. The ambition of 

 departments, and their steady pursuit of 

 their departmental interests, are sure to 

 contribute powerfully to the remedy of this 

 defect in the application of the elective sys- 

 tem. Every department is always trying 

 not only to increase the number of courses 

 it offers, but also to prolong the series of 

 courses which it offers in succession to per- 

 severing students. This departmental ac- 

 tion tends to extend the instruction offered 

 by the university, and to broaden and en- 

 rich the intellectual life of the institution. 

 The advanced students who are attracted 

 to a department which offers a long series 

 of consecutive courses will contribute 

 largely to make the university a place of 

 research as well as of instruction. It is 

 needless to remark that this expansion of 

 advanced teaching is costly; it is worth all 

 its costs. 



Few people seem to understand hov^^ long 

 and slow has been the growth of what is 

 now called 'the elective system' in the 

 American colleges and universities. It is 

 eighty-one years since the University of 

 Virginia was opened, with no general cur- 

 riculum, the students selecting their classes 

 or schools for each year. It is eighty years 



