794 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXTIf. No. 856 



The chief points in these changes appear 

 to have been three: (1) a substitute for 

 Greek has been provided; (2) with the de- 

 velopment of the elective system the sub- 

 jects studied by college students have in 

 most cases become different from those 

 which they have pursued in their school 

 courses, and it is consequently necessary to 

 learn not the degree of their attainment in 

 Latin, Greek and mathematics, but whether 

 they are competent to carry on studies in 

 history, economics, modern languages and 

 science; (3) it has been intended to aid 

 the schools by setting in the several exami- 

 nations a standard for school work to 

 which the schools can hold up their boys. 

 In pursuance of this last idea there has 

 been a tendency to provide examinations 

 in some subjects in which hardly any boys 

 were likely to offer themselves, but which 

 some schools wished to teach, and in which 

 the college was told that such an examina- 

 tion standard would be found valuable. 



In the successive changes made at Har- 

 vard, chiefly in 1871, 1878, 1886 and 1898, 

 can be seen the working of these various 

 motives, and especially can be traced a 

 gradual process by which the substitute 

 admitted for Greek, at first partial, has be- 

 come complete, and has finally been made 

 not much, if at all, more difficult than the 

 Greek requirement. 



The present plan of Harvard entrance 

 requirements was adopted by the faculty 

 in 1898, although the form of statement 

 has since become somewhat changed. It 

 includes a large number of optional sub- 

 jects, many of them having a weight of not 

 more than one "point" in the system. 

 These options are in some (and the most 

 important) cases real, in the sense of being 

 practically available for schools, but in 

 most eases they are illusory, because very 

 few of the schools from which boys come 



are equipped to fit boys in these less usual 

 subjects. The chief technical peculiarity 

 of the Harvard system is that the numerical 

 values attached to the different subjects 

 are not based wholly on the relative time 

 supposed to have been expended on those 

 subjects in the high-school course, but have 

 been adjusted on the theory that work done 

 in the last two years of the high-school 

 course ought to be given a higher rating 

 than the work of younger boys. Accord- 

 ingly, in determining the "ratings" a co- 

 efficient was introduced corresponding to 

 the stage in the school course at which the 

 subject would commonly be studied. 



Under this system of complete examina- 

 tions for all high-school studies, which dif- 

 fers but little in theory from that of the 

 other eastern institutions where examina- 

 tions are required, some good results have 

 been felt in the schools from the establish- 

 ment in certain fields of study of definite 

 standards tested by a college examination ; 

 and in general the system has provided a 

 method, though an imperfect one, of select- 

 ing from the whole body of applicants those 

 who were best fitted to undertake college 

 work. About 75 per cent, of those apply- 

 ing have usually been admitted to the 

 freshman class, as is shown in the table 

 given below. At the same time certain bad 

 results have been more and more clearly 

 perceived, both from the point of view of 

 the college and from the side of the schools. 

 The latter, indeed, have not been slow to 

 present complaints. And these bad results 

 seem to be necessarily consequent upon the 

 system itself. The gradual perfecting of 

 an inherently defective type of machine 

 has naturally brought out more and more 

 clearly the working of its defects. 



1. The system has resulted in loading a 



