May 26, 1911] 



SCIENCE 



795 



large part of the freshman class, usually 

 amounting to one half or more, with en- 

 trance conditions, and thereby making 

 more difficult the task of the weaker mem- 

 bers of every entering class. From the col- 

 lege point of view this difficulty has be- 

 come intolerable, since it prevents the es- 

 tablishment of a proper pace of work for 

 freshmen. 



2. The Harvard system of examinations 

 can ordinarily be prepared for without 

 serious difficulty by any school which de- 

 votes itself mainly or largely to that end, 

 and which boys attend for three or four 

 years before entering college and with the 

 purpose of fitting themselves for Harvard. 

 It is not, however, adjusted to the courses 

 of many excellent schools throughout the 

 country — schools wholly occupied with 

 substantial academic subjects and doing 

 first-rate work in those subjects, and it is 

 likely to exclude any boy who makes up his 

 mind late in his school course that he 

 wishes to go to Harvard. In other words, 

 it is a system which was natural so long as 

 resort to Harvard was wholly from private 

 and endowed schools and a half dozen pub- 

 lic high schools which made a business of 

 fitting for Harvard and other eastern insti- 

 tutions. If Harvard is to offer the melting 

 pot of a common academic life to boys from 

 many parts of the country, it must adapt 

 itself to the best systems of public educa- 

 tion maintained in those widely distant 

 regions. By dictating the whole school 

 course as it does, the present Harvard en- 

 trance system unduly restricts the possi- 

 bility of resort to Harvard College from 

 other schools than that very small number 

 which have for one of their primary objects 

 to be Harvard fitting schools. 



3. As a method of selecting the best from 

 the whole body of applicants for admission 

 to the freshman class, the present system is 



imperfect. It admits to the class a certain 

 number of boys who can do nothing well, 

 but have been crammed to pass every one of 

 the examinations with the lowest pass mark. 

 These boys often get in clear of conditions, 

 but usually come to grief in the first sem- 

 ester. A satisfactory system would exclude 

 them from admission. On the other hand, 

 some have to be rejected who would do well 

 in college if they once got in. 



Harvard College does not crave any con- 

 siderable increase in numbers. What it 

 does desire is the resort of about the same 

 number of young men, but of better stu- 

 dents from a wider range of territory. We 

 should like, not a larger number of fresh- 

 men, but a larger number of applicants 

 from whom we could make our selection of 

 the best. 



As the three evil results already men- 

 tioned are observed from the side of the 

 college, so the two following have been 

 urged, and it is believed with justice, by 

 the schools. 



4. A system of examinations which, like 

 the present one, aims to test every subject 

 studied in a four-year school course makes 

 it necessary for every subject to be con- 

 tinued in the course in some form until the 

 time for the examinations. Under the sys- 

 tem of the German gjrmnasium the sub- 

 jects are practically all carried down to 

 the close of the last year, the stream of the 

 minor subjects being kept slender yet 

 sufficient to maintain the flow. The Amer- 

 ican school system is of a different char- 

 acter, and consequently it is necessary for 

 the American school to review in the last 

 year, or the last two years, those subjects 

 upon which the boy is presently to be ex- 

 amined. This produces a spirit of ' ' cram, ' ' 

 deeply regretted by the school-masters, to- 

 gether with a serious overcrowding of the 

 last year, or two years, of the school course. 



